Book Review: A Prayer to Our Father

The premise of the book was to document the findings of a study of the Hebrew origins of the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:9-13).  A Christian and a Jew embarking on this journey together, putting aside differences in their faiths, and taking a fresh look at the Lord's Prayer from the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.

Sounds interesting enough right?  Well, as great as a topic that it was, the book fell very short of my expectations.

The first half of the book describes their journey from day one on how they met to how they feel like they've found the actual spot in which Jesus taught the sermon on the mount.  They visited numerous sites that were said to be the spot in which he delivered the sermon on the mount.  They critiqued each one and made their conclusion on which location he actually taught on.

It was obviously a passion of the authors to find the exact location.  However, reading about it for the first half of the book wasn't very engaging for me as a reader.  It read more like a treasure hunt, which did in fact keep me engaged for a while, but it dragged on for way too long.

Once they started to dive into the Hebrew orgins of the Lord's prayer it did pick up a bit.  Obviously, some of the original language gets watered down by the time it is translated to English, so there were a few interesting points that were made.  Similarly, I think their actual study and findings were watered down too much by the time they wrote the book.  They didn't expound very much on their 'discoveries' and a common theme that was lacking throughout the book was depth.

The pages in the book did a poor job of reflecting what must have been a complex and challenging study.  Maybe that's what they set out to write, a book that was easy to read.  However, it left me very disappointed and wanting much more.