The prolific and best selling Caldwell collaborates with [Jess Stearn in I, Judas], retelling the Judas Iscariot story from an angle that's unusual if not new. In what might almost be called The Gospel According to St. Judas, the protagonist describes how, loving Jesus more than the other disciples and having more faith in him, he "betrays" him only that Jesus may prove his messiahship and liberate both Israel and humankind. Judas tries to show, moreover, that it was really he who was betrayed…. The authors follow the events of the New Testament drama closely, give it a setting of some historical authenticity, and recreate, with middling success, its major participants, including John the Baptist, Caiaphas, Pilate, Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, the Apostles and of course Jesus. Their Judas isn't particularly convincing, though, and their whole narrative lacks subtlety and fire. It is, however pleasantly entertaining.

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