Holy crap, I was going to jump in here with Lamb and congratulate myself on being so original, and here I am the third poster to recommend it. While no earth-breaking novel, it is definitely a fun read.
Well, there’s the SPQR series by John Maddox Roberts- political mysteries. But so far there are only off hand mentions of that area.
Slightly out of place (about 100 years too late to be truly biblical), As a Driven Leaf is Milton Steinberg’s fictional account of Elisha ben Abuyah, who was a heretic rabbi around 100 CE. Great story dealing with the very contemporary issue of faith vs. intellect.
Dr. Frank Slaughter was a prolific writer who, when he wasn’t writing extremely good medical novels, was writing extremely good Biblical novels. I haven’t read or even thought of him in years, but I’m going to find some of his stuff.
I’m a Taylor-Caldwell fan & even I admit the religious aspects of those two were VERY heavy-handed, and I consider D&GP to be a formative book in my life.
She did an uneven one with Jess Stearn while in a NewAgey reincarnationist
phase called I, JUDAS- of course from Judas Iscariot’s view. Her earlier JC was a Roman Catholic “fully God, fully man”, this JC was more a “metaphysical mind-science” guru.
Alas, of TC’s massive output, I think only CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS is still in print.
Novels I’d recommend-
Anthony Burgess’s MAN OF NAZARETH and THE KINGDOM OF THE WICKED, which were produced from his screenplay work on JESUS OF NAZARETH and A.D.
The novelization of A.D. wasn’t bad actually either.
I gotta recommend LAST TEMPTATION.
I have Frank Slaughter’s THE CROSS AND THE CROWN somewhere & also the Novelization of the 1920s Cecil B Demille KING OF KINGS in which the Risen Christ is called The Phantom or Phantasm. Eek!
OH! Paul L. Maier’s PONTIUS PILATE and THE FIRES OF ROME.
It seems like 90 percent of these are about New Testament times, not Old Testament. I wonder why that is? There are a lot of good stories in the Old Testament.
I really enjoyed King Jesus by Robert Graves (author of I, Claudius). Certianly not for the fundamentalists, he emphasizes a sort of conspiratorial, cultic view of Jesus, Herod, et al.
The Source by James Michener. Although only half of it is set in Biblical times or at least “the olden days” (it starts, oh, maybe 7,000 years ago [?] and continues up until the Inquisition); the other half is in the modern age. It switches back and forth. Good book.
There was a novel called Martha, Martha about the family of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, but it must be long out of print. I remember it being pretty good.
Yecch–Ben-Hur has to be one of the worst novels I’ve ever read. Lew Wallace beats out James Fenimore Cooper for the worst US author of the 19th century, IMHO.
(The movie at least had some great action sequences, if nothing else…)