My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This book was recommended to me as a good start for reading up about angels, as it may have been the first to be written on the subject (in the modern era anyway). It starts out well, and it does cover many aspects of angels from their appearance to their function and immortality to their role in death. It also includes biblical references so that you can look up the citations and read them for yourself.
But Graham makes a few assumptions about some passages referring to angels, which I find a bit doubtful. The passages sound to me more like metaphorical language not direct references to angels or Satan, and I confirmed that his assumptions are either not accepted or a point of much debate. He also proselytizes a lot. And I do mean a lot. For some, it could get annoying. For people like me who have problems with retaining the big picture and with learning, it interferes mightily with learning about the subject at hand: angels. One moment, we’re talking about angels, the next about Christ in a way that has nothing to do with angels. As a result, I started skipping paragraphs.
Graham does relate a few stories about angels appearing in people’s lives, but I was hoping for more stories, ones that would illustrate one of Graham’s assertions about angels — that they are here to minister to people (well, he says only to those who accept Christ, which I think is a bit illogical given angels appear in the Old Testament and it was Zoroastrians who taught or knew about them before anyone else).
Having said all that, one chapter did leap out at me and grabbed my wandering attention. It started up the creative engine again for my next novel. And so for that, it was worth reading.
