The Last Templar: How much does historical fiction need to stick to history?

Raymond Khoury's work of historical fiction, The Last Templar, like Dan Brown's The da Vinci Code incorporates historical facts as arguments to support theories within the novel. The fictional characters of the book cannot be held accountable for the facts they present because they are by nature fictional. Yet it would seem that a fictional character who is an academic scholar (specifically one of the antagonists: Vance) should have their general facts straight. On several points in the book I was surprised to find that Vance had simple facts wrong. I don't know whether this is the result of poor research on the part of Khoury or the fact that Khoury didn't feel that his characters needed to stick to facts in certain contexts of the story. 

A very clear example of misinformation is Vance's account of how Hagar was banished.  

"... Abraham's wife, Sarah, couldn't have children, so he took a second wife, his Arab maidservant Hagar, who gave him a son they called Ishmael. Thirteen years later, Sarah manages to have a son, Isaac. Abraham dies, Sarah banishes Hagar and Ishmael, and the Semitic race is split between Arab and Jew." (The Last Templar, Chapter 68, page 327)

First of all, Hagar was an Egyptian (Genesis 16:1). Secondly the biblical account is that Abraham was the one to banish Hagar and Ishmael on Sarah's request, obviously while he was living (Genesis 21:14). These are not significant points upon which key arguments hinge but they are annoying to find these kinds of errors in historical fiction. I wonder if Khoury was using a Islamic account of this event, instead of a Judeo-Christian one. Is this sort of thing common in other historical fiction? I am not always knowledgeable in the culture, history and setting of other historical fiction I read. It could be that authors of historical fiction cut these kinds of corners all the time, and I have been oblivious all this time. 

The Last Templar: Jesus authored his own gospel?

I'm currently reading Raymond Khoury's best seller: The Last Templar. If you haven't read it yet and intend to you may want to not continue reading this blog as I will be giving away part of the plot. 


If you have read Khoury's book you know that the plot hinges around the idea that "Jeshua" (Jesus) wrote his own an autobiographical gospel. In his gospel, he reveals that he is not God but merely a man. Aside from the content of this "gospel", I have often wondered why Jesus didn't in fact write his own gospel, or seem to have written anything. 


I posted a survey (at the bottom of this blog) a week ago not knowing that I would be reading about this very question in Khoury's book. If you look at the options I give for answers a few can be easily thrown out such as "He didn't have time", or "He asked his disciples to keep a journal, but they weren't very faithful in writing in it". 


As well, we can exclude the proposition that "He couldn't read or write very well". In Luke 4:16-17, Jesus reads in Hebrew from a scroll on the Sabbath, so he can obviously read and write. Jesus probably spoke Aramaic as this first language as well as Hebrew from religious schooling and Greek because he lived in the Roman empire. 


"He was too humble to record his own messages" at first resonates with Jesus, because he was "humble". But Jesus was not humble in the sense of shy, in contrast Jesus liked to stir the pot if you will. He would publicly call the Pharisees (the religious right): "you brood of vipers" (Matthew 12:34)! He unabashedly confronted, accused, pronounced judgments and wanted his teachings to be heard. 


Of course if you do not trust four biblical gospels then you must question their accounts of what Jesus was like and did, but that is a subject of another post or should I say posts! (Mark D Robert wrote an entire blog on this topic which was converted into a "blook": blog/book) I will be assuming that the four biblical gospels have reliable information about Jesus of Nazareth.


The remaining options are subject to a little more thought. 

1. His message was purely spiritual
2. He didn't want his message to become a religion
3. He did but they were lost or are only included as fragments
4. He wanted his movement to be grassroots

In The Last Templar, option number 4 would be true in that they were lost. As well option number 3 would be true as well. 

The biblical gospels show many examples of Jesus planning ahead for when he would leave his disciples. He is shown giving them instructions to his disciples about how they are to continue preaching the gospel, especially in a long monologue in John chapters 14-16. 

Jesus did not think it was critical to record written instructions for his disciples when he left them. In contrast he even thought is was better that he left!

"Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away..." John 16:7

Jesus seems to have explicitly chosen not to record written instructions. It wasn't an afterthought when his death seemed imminent or that he didn't consider his own words as important enough to extend beyond his own life - he was too intentional for that. But still: Why?