The Word

A Mr. Stephen Randall gets a call...an Italian archeologist has discovered a stunning ancient manuscript, the Gospel of James which details that Jesus did not die on the cross but survived to continue his ministry. That he did not die is a miracle. Mr. Randall is put in charge of public relations to handle the discovery and learn whether the manuscript is authentic or fake. The author explores the kinds of investigation done to verify such ancient parchments - library studies of the facts in the document or Carbon 14 dating. The detail is amazing. Long before the Da Vinci Code, indeed 30 years before, Irving Wallace packaged a great suspense novel. Buy it.

The test of a believer's faith is to continue to believe even when experience and science tell him not to. In THE WORD by Irving Wallace, the hero Steve Randall, is initially a man of no faith in the Word of God. He is not unhappy with that nor does he feel any the less a man for that. During the course of the novel, he regains his Faith, only to lose it again by the book's end. The reader is much like Mr. Randall. Steve Randall works for a book company, and it is his job to publicize a new version of the Bible purportedly based on the unexpected find of the Lost Scriptures of James the Just, the brother of Jesus. This lost gospel proves beyond doubt that Jesus lived, He walked, He had His ministry, and He was crucified. As Randal reads an advanced copy of this gospel, he rebuilds his lost faith and becomes a true believer in the Word. Now afire with holy zeal, he prepares to publicize and publish this new Bible in the hopes of regalvanizing the billions of Christians world wide. Unfortunately, for his new-found sense of holy mission, he is given incontrovertible evidence that the new gospel is a magnificent fraud, perpetrated by a master hoaxer who has a decades-old feud against the Catholic church. When he attempts to bring this evidence to the attention of his superiors, they stonewall him by assuring him that the proof is itself a hoax, and that the new Bible is the real McCoy. When Randall ignores warnings to lay off, he encounters men trying to kill him and to bury the evidence of this forgery for all eternity. By the book's end, he fails, and the new Bible is published amidst waves of hosannas. Part of the charm of THE WORD lies in Wallace's interweaving a tightly knit plot with flashing-eyes-and-heaving-bosom sex scenes coupled with a surprisingly fascinating series of erudite digressions of Biblical history, mythology, and publishing. I learned a great deal about the historical life and times of Jesus Christ, even if some of this 'knowledge' was itself part of the fraud. Much of the plot revolved around nothing more than a bunch of learned Biblical scholars arguing the merits of theology and faith. By the time I got to the end, I became convinced that the majority of human beings fell into one of two categories: those who are gullible enough to accept the most wicked fraud in history as genuine and those who help to perpetuate that fraud. Perhaps Wallace gives the reader a hint of this two-level division of faith in his introductory series of three quotes which preceed the novel, the last of which reads: 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.'

"The Word" is a labyrinthine rollercoaster of a book, twisting and turning with each crumb of evidence and each new locale - catacombs, Amsterdam, even Devil's Island. Is a newly-unearthed document from The Holy Land authentic or a forgery? To what degree will Men of Faith rest their reputations on this find? To what ends can it be put? Author Irving Wallace does a remarkable job describing a jaded PR man's reaction to what seems an endless torrent of developments until the denouement, delivered via a medium the protagonist is sure to understand ... or does he? A gripping, thought-provoking "must read".

Irving combines a great plot, beginning in acedemia and expanding to international business and politics. New information about Jesus is discovered that could change the world. We are introduced to the world and workings of archeology, book publishing, and religous history, as the story unfolds before the main character, a PR magnet who gets caught up in issues of "faith".

Irving Wallace has a propensity for creating rather large, voluminous novels, and this is no exception. The content is sometimes tedious, but has enough suspense to keep you hanging on and looking for more. This is an exceptionally well disguised fiction that so closely entertwines the realities of the christian religious cultures that it is difficult to separate the real from the unreal. One can't help but have questions about the realities of the christian beleifs after reading this novel. For the uneducated, it could even pose a threat to their faith if they are casual christians. I found the book very refreshing and have been a faithful reader of many of Mr. Wallace's works as a result of reading this book. His works can be very thought provoking.