Is it fact or fiction? That is the question everyone asks when they first encounter Jonathan Cahn’s book The Harbinger. The answer is both, I guess—a little from column a and a little from column b. How about this: The Harbinger
is meant to be fact presented in the form of a novel; in reality it
is an unfortunate mixture of truth and error presented in the form of a
script. Still with me?
What is demonstrably factual is that The Harbinger is a phenomenon. It has held steady for forty weeks on the New York Times
list of bestsellers, selling over 700,000 copies through fifteen
reprints. At the time I write this, Amazon ranks it #2 on their list of
Christian fiction and #7 on their list of Christian theology. The book
had largely escaped my view until the past few weeks when I received a
series of emails from people wondering what it was all about. I finally
caved and read it. Consider this more of an explanation of what it is
than a thorough review.
I will get to the content in a moment, but
first a word about the form. Though described as a novel, the book is
actually far closer to a script (a script that would make an
exceptionally tedious play or film). There is very little action, only
the barest semblance of a plot, and no development at all of the three
characters. Instead, the book is composed of amateurish dialog that
proceeds at a plodding pace. The writing is repetitive to the point that
it could easily have been boiled down to a third or a half of its
current length. The book is a chore to read and, speaking personally,
the end simply could not come too soon. Continue at Tim Challies
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