{"id":984,"date":"2010-01-01T21:21:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-02T03:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2010\/01\/01\/book-recommendation-the-flames-of-rome\/"},"modified":"2010-01-01T21:21:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-02T03:21:00","slug":"book-recommendation-the-flames-of-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/01\/book-recommendation-the-flames-of-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Recommendation: The Flames of Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the close of the semester and a quick flight to Florida and back, I picked up a book I expected to keep my attention.  Fresh off a semester in which I studied Roman history a tad, I was interested to see how Paul L. Maier’s The Flames of Rome<\/a><\/em> would tie in with what I had learned.<\/p>\n

Maier is a professor of history at Western Michigan University. He is also a Christian, and in brief correspondence with him some years ago, I was very impressed by his kindness.  Still, I wasn’t sure if he could pull off what few others could: writing a good work of Christian fiction<\/em>.<\/p>\n

First off, this isn’t entirely fiction.  Maier did tons of research from the 1st century and built his story around hundreds of historical facts.  He calls this a “documentary novel,” and he had dozens of pages of endnotes to prove it.  I was impressed by his work.  I believe I only found one point that I questioned.  Naturally he does his best to bring known historical events together which may well not have been together in the history, but he never falsifies data.<\/p>\n

Second, the book is enjoyable.  It is a good story, and I never felt bored.<\/p>\n

Third, the book fills in a lot of details during an important period in New Testament history.  The book covers roughly AD 49-66, so you meet figures like Priscilla and Aquilla, Peter, Paul, Timothy, and Luke.  The storyline, however, centers around the Roman emperors Claudius and Nero.  <\/p>\n

I recommend this book as an easy way to get a better feel for the Roman world in the formative years of the church.  I wish there were more such books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the close of the semester and a quick flight to Florida and back, I picked up a book I expected to keep my attention.  Fresh off a semester in which I studied Roman history a tad, I was interested to see how Paul L. Maier’s The Flames of Rome would tie in with what\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}