The Ark and the Dove by Jill Eileen Smith Review

 

The Ark and the Dove by Jill Eileen Smith is the second book I have read by this author. I did sort of have a bit of trouble getting into the book at the beginning, but I did enjoy this story of the time of the flood of Noah's day from the Bible. I admit that one of my problems was I ended up comparing it to two other books I read last year that are set during the time right before and during the flood. And I know that the details are all speculative in all of these stories, even though they are set during the true, biblical story from Genesis. 

The story begins at the time of the marriage between Shem and his wife, who the author gave the name Sedeq. Japheth is already married to Adataneses. Both women's families begin to shun them as they are now in the family of the "crazy" man Noah who keeps preaching about the Creator and an upcoming judgement. Noah and Zara, his wife are desperate to find a wife for Ham, their third son, before they start actually building the ark, so they don't have to deal with even more rejection. After a wife is found the family spends their time preparing for the flood. I love that the author has Noah and his family wondering how everything will work out, working through the details, really showing how all this could have come together and the opposition they probably faced from the sinful, unbelieving people that lived near them.

Almost the entire first half of the book leads up to the start of the flood. About another quarter or so of the book is the time that they spend ON the ark. The author has done a great job showing what life may have been like for these eight humans who were tasked with taking care of the many many animals that were on the ark. She also delved into how their relationships could have been, the strain of being cooped up for over a year, the conflicts that may have arisen, and the fact that their was still sin following them into the ark and the post-flood world. 

The remainder of the book reaches a few hundred years into their lives after leaving the ark, toward the end of Noah and Zara's lives. It was sort of shocking to realize all of the descendants they would have seen filling the earth. The author even mentions in her notes in the back of the book that Noah's son Shem would have lived to the time that Jacob and Esau were born. Personally, I had made a chart of the patriarchs' births and deaths through the time of the flood earlier this year. It really is eye opening to realize that the younger of these generations could have known Adam and Eve. To me, this brings the Bible into clearer reality. Just like bibilcal fiction, such as The Ark and the Dove does for me. Bringing this time period to life, even though obviously the author has to speculate and fictionalize details. 

I found that Jill Eileen Smith's story was well reseached, even though I did question some of her timeline. I am not at all saying I am an expert. It really made me want to do some more digging myself. 

One thing that surprised me was that the story is not told exclusively through Zara's viewpoint. We also see through Noah's eyes and the sons and daughters-in-law. Though Zara does narrate an introduction into each new section of the story. Those parts are in first person, while the rest of the book is written in third person. 

It was a bit disconcerting for the story to suddenly switch from one point of view to another, plus at times it took a bit to realize some time had passed since the last paragraph. Usually when I read books where the viewpoint changes it is with the next chapter. There were sometimes multiple points of view in the same chapter. 

And the other thing that bothered me a bit, was that I didn't really feel we got a sense of how evil the world really was. A world so evil it needed God to finally take action. The Nephilim are shown as being part of the evil, and there are these creatures called Watchers, who we discover are meant to be demons I guess. But these were mostly in the background and I didn't really get the sense of evil. 

Despite these concerns, I really did enjoy this book, but it did lower my rating. 

I received an e-copy of this book through NetGalley and was not required to write a favorable review. These are my own honest thoughts.