Cloning Christ: A Challenge of Science and Faith

By Peter Senese, Robert J. Geis, Robert Geis

The theological thrill ride, darting from Israel through Europe to the United States, focuses on Dr. Max Train, a leading genetic scientist from Syracuse, New York. Max was once a devout believer in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0971082642
• ISBN13: 9780971082649
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Orion Pub & Media
• Length: 335 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

A truly Contemporary thriller

What I liked most about Cloning Christ is how real world it is: it addresses a phenomenon-- scientific cloning-- in a way making it a reality the reader must confront. How? In the most ingenious way possible-- by taking Jesus Christ's bodily remnant from his Cross and saying to the reader, What happens if Christ's body is cloned? Is it God? Is it a substitute Christ? And what do you do with this new found reality, the cloned remnants of God the Son?Cloning Christ brings the reader across many leaps of faith as its hero, Max Train, flees unknown assassins from Jerusalem all the way to New York. The Vatican looms as a cursing shadow in Train's struggle to understand his find of Christ's Cross. Within the eternal city prowls a Cardinal, Anselm Mugant, who has arrogated unto himself the role of God's vengance on geneticists who dare to play "Creator" of man. Powerful players in finance and media, gun running, and environmental ownership are this Cardinal's pawns as the Israeli Mossad comes forth in ways clever and subtle to beat back the would be killers of Max Train.There is a great human dimension in the book that the two authors adroitly develop: the heartache, doubt, despair, fear, and final resurrection of Max Train's spirit; the plodding hatred and self-righteousness of a pathological prelate; the calm and deliberate behavior of a Pope and a Jewish Rabbi; the simply remorseless behavior of a hired killer who was once a penitent at the confessional of Anselm Mugant. In the character of this killer, The Scorpion. one sees Nietszche revelling in the oily turmoil of words he alone could bring about. Cloning Christ is a contemporary thriller then, in its making clear what cloning is for humanity, what it could be for a God, and what it actually became for the novel's hero-- Max Train. His only desire in life was finally never to have lost the family so cruelly siezed from him, but which he finally found replaced in full when he made his peace with the Cross and saw his life transformed by a magical woman who actually showed him that God had never stopped loving him.I cannot recommend the book strongly enough.

A perfetc blend

Once in a while authors get a tale just right-- this novel is one such example. In a perfect harmony of a sci-fi thriller and religious passion the writers have gotten the reader into a fast paced novel that brings them face to face with a well-conceived and well-thought out predicament: a genetic scientist finds the Cross of Christ. Will he clone the remnants on that Cross? Step by step, carefully and with rigor, the authors take the story from Mount Olivet, where scientist Max Train is confronted with a possible discovery of Jeus that set him off from all others. Is he in the presence of God incarnate's remains? Assassins commissioned by a clerical power in the Vatican have been watching Train for a while, as well as other geneticists, in preparation to do away with them all in the name of religion and faith-- but their faith is not the faith of the religion of Christ, or any religion. The novel is now joined from Jerusalem on the Joppa Road to Tel Aviv, on a plane to Rome, where Train is shot at, and where he himself turns into a savage to ward off those he cannot understand or fathom. On to Bologna, Lake Como, Zurich as the Vatican's blackmailing prelate Cardinal Mugant issues orders of his compromised followers to kill the fleeing Train before he "commits a sin against Christ again". Paris, Edinburgh-- a brutal encounter for Train and his Mossad aid Sarah, a woman instructed to help Train avoid the treacheries of Mugant's long extending talons--, and then off to New York whither Train escapes by a hair as it seems almost all the world is after Max Train. The media spread lies,the police of different cities have their orders, and now in New York traps are set all through Manhattan-- but Train eludes Mugant's most unbelievable hire, The Scorpion, as the woman Mossad aid is tortured in Colombia. So much more happens in the book, but you get the point: we have a brilliant blend of action and reaction, plan and counterpoise, message and ignore-- all within the pages of this distinctively laid out novel of suspense and turmoil. I re-iterate what I wrote before: authors once in while get a tale just right, and Peter Senese and Robert Geis fit that description here. Now a movie should be made to bring to the screen one of the rare achievements of learning and action conjoined in a novel that only comes around when talent gives rise to true artistic accomplishment. Cloning Christ is one such novel. It gets 5 stars.

An Inspiring work

Syracuse, New York research geneticist Dr. Max Train deeply believed in God until, a dozen years ago, someone brutally murdered his beloved wife and four-year-old daughter. For Max, their deaths and his legal tribulations afterward left him void of any belief in an All Mighty.While Max is visiting the Jerusalem area, an earthquake hits uncovering a buried cross. Max wonders if he holds the True Cross that Jesus was crucified on. If the answer is yes, could he clone the Christ from the bloodstains and hair remnants on it causing the Second Coming? In the Vatican Cardinal Anselm Mugant learns of the discovery in Israel. He plans to prevent Max from cloning the Christ by hiring an assassin The Scorpion to kill Max.Though there are several subplots such as the "Fifth Crusade" that spins the reader away from this delightful inspirational tale, fans will relish this thriller. The tale is loaded with action yet uses the characters as symbols of mankind similar to a medieval passion play like Everyman. The cast represents the faithful, the disbelievers, the dividers (torn between science and religion) or the selfish. CLONING CHRIST brings the debate of religion vs. science to the forefront in an exciting manner that focuses on the sacredness of life.Harriet Klausner

Thoughtful, Artful, and Valuably Innovative.

The modern day or current fiction body requires a process of active fact-gathering - not just working from memory or sensory observation, but to cultivate the root of past historical context so as to give credible life to a storytelller's work of art. In order for a modern-day fiction story to have viable credability a critical criterion necessary is currency - that a writer get on the story's subject matter in a timely manner so that the intended message of the story will have an opportunity to reach an audience to whom the writer directs his or her words to. In 'Cloning Christ', Peter Senese thrust the reader into a spell-binding, mind obsorbing story of currency as the issues of genetic 'human cloning' drive the criterion of currency, while displaying a unique ability of taken a 2,000 year old occurance - the crucifixition of Jesus, and re-creating Jesus' possible birth through the tormented struggles 'Cloning Christ's' main character, Dr. Max Train, must endure as innovative life is given to wooden boards 2,000 years old. The possible rebirth of Jesus, for many Christ, is innovatively created through the author's artful storytelling that essentially hands the possible True Cross of Jesus to the reader, and then says here's the Cross, what do you want to do with it? Unfortunately, the reader, and for this matter, Dr. Train, never have too long to think about what to do with this ancient discovery since one dark ambush after another seems to be waiting for 'The Cross-Bearer'. The thoughtfully juxtaposed ideals of good vs. evil are carefully carried out in the continued confrontation Dr. Train faces as he carries this Cross out of Jerusalem, and into a chaotic world of unknowns waiting for him at every turn. Senese's story of 'Cloning Christ' is most innovative in that this is not, in my openion, a story that can easily fall in the catagory of 'Christian Fiction' even though there is complete overtures towards Christianity. 'Cloning Christ' is not apocolyptic - there is no Armageddon presented similiar to other well accepted fiction (science) works, unless the reader looks deeply into some of the more thoughtful questions possed in Senese's handling of Jesus' Cross, which he happily hands to you and artfully says 'what do you do next - and, who do you really think it is - Jesus or Christ - that you're holding in your hand? The believeability that a person may one day discover the True Cross of Jesus has credability, regardless of what certain scholars and doctrines claim of Helen's discovery seventeen hundred years ago. And it is the believable criterion of 'currency' that does in fact bring to life the individual readers own Armageddon! Artfully, Thoughtfully, and Valuably Innovatively, Senese hands the reader the past, the present, and the future, and challanges you to look within at your own life and values, though never giving you too much time to stand still because there exists two uniquely created dark forces: the self-rightous m

Universal Truths.

We like stories because they tell us about our world and enable us to learn from the experiences of others, an imaginative capacity that is one of the principal endowments of man. Cloning Christ by Peter Senese disseminates and explains the cultural traditions of religious beliefs that shape our lives by creating an praise-worthy historical thriller evolving around the Cross of Christ. In creating Cloning Christ, the main support characters of this Cross, Dr. Max Train and his guide, the Mossad agent, Sara, the author develops a story that counsels on existential dilemmas of the spirit and soul so to admonish us and point us in new directions, to give us courage to stay a given course, provides us a sense of universal kinsmen, kinswomenship - offers us other eyes through which we might see, other ears which we might hear. It is true that stories attract us by resonating with our anxieties; they allay our anxieties by conveying information or conferring wisdom. By essentially handing to the reader the Cross of Christ, Senese effectively causes great anxiety to the new Cross-bearer while provoking this reader to confront, indirectly at first, and then directly as the story unfolds, the essence of one's faith.If we rely on stories to guide us through life, we want the guide to be reliable and truthful, and to tell it like it really is or could be; however, we also want the guide to be artful and witty, and to lead us along paths with which we are familiar. Cloning Christ is an inescapable contradiction in terms; a nonfiction fiction; a factual fantasy; a truthful deception; a non-beleiver beleiving.Cloning Christ is a fascinating, cleverly written geo-theological thriller in a class by itself.