For the Temple by G.A. Henty

For the Temple Reviews

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  Heidi Beals

  My first Henty book and I really really liked it. Read it with B and some of his friends and I felt like I learned so much. Thought it would be boring and it was not. There were some chapters that I was like come on now. But mostly really good.
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  Honor Phillips

  I have read this book more times than I can remember, and it actually was one of the books that inspired me to go read Josephus’s original writings.
  While taking quite a few historical liberties, Henty gives an excellent and fairly accurate timeline and description of the fall of Jerusalem and the sack and destruction of the temple. In parts, he seems to write almost identical paragraphs as Josephus’s original accounts, which I think is understandable because It’s difficult writing accurately about an event that happened over 1000 years ago. This will always be one of my favorite Henty's.
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  Katja Labonté

  3 stars & 3/10 hearts. This is a bit of a tough book to read. The fall of Israel/the Temple was a terrible, horrible event full of death & destruction. And yet the saddest part is how wicked & foolish the Israelites were. But I do like John, and I can’t help liking Titus... and there is still humour. The book is very thought-provoking, and while I don’t agree with everything, it is clean (although full of the distressing & bloody events of the war) & mostly accurate on the religion side.
  
  A Favourite Quote: “‘Brave men should always be gentle,’ John said, positively.”
  A Favourite Humorous Quote: “Castor himself stood on the parapet, and offered Titus to surrender. Titus promised him his life[.] He then asked Josephus, who was standing beside him, to go forward and assure Castor and his companions that their lives should be spared. Josephus, however, knew the way of his countrymen too well, and declined to endanger his life.”
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  Karla M

  I love Henty Books and this was was not a disappointment. It demonstrated the passion of the Jews for the Temple of Jerusalem mixed in with the human desire for political power. The main character reflected a man who was willing to give up personal comforts and desires such as a marriage with his childhood sweetheart, for a purpose much larger than himself.
• 
  Karalee

  Henty is a master at creating strong moral characters with a fascinating historical fictional story.
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  Dianne

  I have never been disappointed in reading GA Henty’s historical fiction novels. The events are exciting, the connections to real history are interesting and informative, and the protagonist always exemplifies one who strives for integrity in Christlikeness.
  
  I so wish these adventures would have been more informative in shaping the younger years of my children - such admirable characters to look up to as models, contrasted to what is exalted in today’s literature for this age group.
  
  This particular novel was interesting because the battle was lost by the protagonist, in the sense that the Romans obliterated Jerusalem. Yet how respectfully both sides were portrayed, and I truly enjoyed the connection with Titus.
  
  The sense of family, love, personal integrity, and caring well for the women are all aspects that help the reader be reminded of the pursuit of Christlike integrity is actually attainable, even when we make mistakes.
  
  I love Henty novels!
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  Ryburn

  Interesting story.
  Characters were two dimensional- main character never made a mistake.
  Had a third person omniscient perspective which I found to be distracting. The story is about John but randomly we would switch to what his enemies were thinking/doing.
  Vocabulary was high, which I appreciated.
  It’s based off real historical events but I couldn’t always tell what was fiction and what was historical. This was probably the most confusing thing in the book but one instance might top it. The writer is the narrator and at one point he clearly breaks the 4th wall and says that this is what the historical record says but this cannot possibly be true it probably would have happened this way. That one instance really threw me off and I almost couldn’t get back into it.
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  Jackson Campbell

  This was really a great, interesting book! What is really special about it is that as you find yourself connected to the main character and the victories that God is doing for him, you realize that you're reading about a true story (parts are fictitious). I'm going to have to look into more of G.A. Henty's books.
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  Darcy Writing

  An amazing and raw tale. Giving a brilliant mix of history and engaging story. We love the protagonist instantly. With his relatable young thoughts and moods. We admire his love for his people. And his wisdom in the end. I can’t recommend enough.
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  Sean Meade

  I liked this story
  
  I liked this story set against the backdrop of the writings of Josephus. It was helpful to understand that time.
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  Jacqueline Tasik

  Though I found this book hard to read. With some of the characters names and the name of places. The author did a great job with the history of the writer of the past.
  
• 
  Brian

  I almost gave the arch-fiend two stars, but then I read the last chapter and knew this was a fantasy. In Lord of the Rings or The Last Battle or Till We Have Faces or Twelfth Night or Dante, the joy is paid for. In Henty, it's wish-fulfillment in the bad sense. That could never happen to anybody. Ever. And then he escapes alone of all the Jews. And then he gets a band. And then he beats the future Emperor. And then he escape Jerusalem. And then he gets to be a judge in Judea, become a Christian, and even help the Emperor be kind. Ouch.
  
  The book is saved by the history, which is so horrible that I am thoroughly convinced Revelation is in an important sense about this event. Even so, Henty botches the wonderful events for the most part. I enjoy geeking out about dates and battles and strategy and politicians, and the time was well spent in that sense, but throughout the whole story we know from history (not to mention from the book cover) what is going to happen. Doom. Doom. Doom. Hindsight is 20/20, darn it. Just burn the temple already!
  
  Henty also appears to write perpetually in the present tense. No foreshadowing that is unexpectedly fulfilled, and he switches his sympathies. Josephus, whose main work was writing Jewish history, should have gotten more screen time after he switched to the Romans. Henty betrays the character and starts talking history.
  
  I don't hate this book though; I pity it. In fact, maybe hearing it as a story might have been fun in a certain context, but I wouldn't recommend it for a read-aloud. Ah well.
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  Denae Christine

  Just finished this book again. The fiction part of Henty's books are always fun to read, though all very similar to each other. The non-fiction, historical parts are dry to yawn-worthy. I'm not a history nut, and I don't care how many people attacked how many people on the second day of the siege. Surely some of the info is unnecessary or could be conveyed in a less boring, less morbid way?
  Ah, but John of Gamala (sp?) was a good character. Nothing special (in fact, every other Jewish character had the name of John), but still fun to read about. Especially whenever someone found out he was THE John of Gamala. Ha!
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  Crystal Eberle

  Since I teach this time period in history, I was delighted to find this old fashioned children's novelized version of the story of the fall of Jerusalem and the events leading up to it. It's very dense, not what I was expecting for a book that was written for young people. I won't be reading this aloud to my class, but the information will be very useful. I read a history of Holland by the same author years ago. It was entitled "By Pike and by Dike" and it was riveting.
  I expect nothing less from this one.
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  Kori Hartman

  Having just finished Josephus' "Jewish War", I was able to connect every event in this book to the actual event in history. I really liked the way that Henty made each of his characters believable and let the Jew in each one come through. They hated the Romans and believed God would save their country no matter what they did, and Henty let me see all that, while still making the characters easy to sympathize with.
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  Bradley Farless

  Not a bad book at all. It's a story based on a historical document about the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jewish temple. The way it's written made me feel like I was reading the Old Testament, which is both bad and good considering the topic. It kept the action up and was easy to read.
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  Will Harrub

  Fascinating historical setting with the Jews battling the Romans. Henty (as usual) is excellent at placing you as the reader into the historical setting and it was very interesting to see how he detailed the fall of Jerusalem from the perspective of a Jewish boy.
  
  Not the best overall story unfortunately, as there were only a few spots that really kept the pages turning.
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  Veronica

  I enjoyed learning about the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 at the hands of the Romans. In this historical fiction novel, Henty did a good job of weaving in a fictional story into the telling of an historical event.