The Scroll Seekers

Book excerpt: This historical novel recounts the second-century adventures of the patriarch Bishop Irenaeus, from the little Roman colony of Lugdunum, as he collects and evaluates all the scrolls that would eventually become the New Testament. An enormous amount of research on the origins of the Bible has accumulated over the last few decades, and the purpose of this book is to bring that material to life through dramatization. The skeptical philosopher Demetrios and the four bodyguards are fictitious. But Irenaeus and his book Against Heresy, the status of the church, the details of Roman life, and all the scrolls collected by our characters are factual.