Apostle

Author: Tom Bissell
Stars: 5
Review by: Mandy Apgar

This is how religious / Biblical scholarship should be - not like Bart Ehrman's disastrous approach to things. The author, sort of raised in faith but now not so, decides to embark on a quest to the supposed burial sites of the apostles and in the process find out what made the men and why they are so important - what their teachings meant at the time, did they really exist, and such like. Along the way he is assisted by the random insane cab driver, locals thinking he is insane, other scholars and writers, and a motley lot of people from all sorts of countries. His approach is scholarly, respectful, and a little smart@#$ at the same time (while not being demeaning towards those of the faith), which works out in a very good balance, especially when one spends half their free time fighting various intestinal bugs and trying to fend off tourists visiting structures he knows fully well aren't real. (It takes him 4 years worth of research to encounter a tourist who is actually familiar with the correct backstory of what she is looking at.) Quite good overall and it left me wanting to read more of the author's work.