A Week In the Life of Ephesus by David A. deSilva

A Week In the Life of Ephesus by David A. deSilva ISBN-13: 9780830824854 Paperback: 208 pages Publisher: IVP Academic Released: June 9th 2020

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
As the city of Ephesus prepares for a religious festival in honor of the emperor Domitian, a Christian landowner feels increasing pressure from the city's leaders to participate. Can he perform his civic duties and remain faithful to his Lord? Or has the time come for a costly choice? In this historical novel, biblical scholar David deSilva brings to life such compelling struggles faced by the early Christians. Their insistence on the absolute lordship of their own singular deity brought them into conflict not only with the myriad religious cults of the day, but with all the crushing power of the empire itself.


My Review:
A Week In the Life of Ephesus is partly fiction and partly nonfiction. It read like a documentary show that's primarily made up of fictional reenactments to illustrate the points. The purpose was to educate readers (in an entertaining way) about the social and cultural background of the Christians that received Revelation so that we can better understand how it would have impacted them. A lot of educational material was worked into the story, but additional information was provided in "sidebars" (which could take up whole pages) that were placed within the story. The book included some pictures of archaeological ruins or artifacts that illustrated information in the non-fiction sidebars or events in the story.

The story followed several viewpoint characters but had two main storylines: an upper-class Christian in Ephesus was being pressured to worship the emperor and other gods in addition to the Christian God and a Christian merchant was offered an opportunity to sell goods to Rome at a large profit but at the cost of others lacking those goods. The author was trying to show the different ways various Christians in Ephesus were dealing with pressures to conform and look out for self interest over following Christ wholeheartedly. Overall, I'd recommend this book to people interested in the insights gained from cultural background information.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.