Target Israel

Book Review:  Target Israel, Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Harvest House, 2015

Have you ever ordered chocolate pie only to be served coconut cream?  Now, I love both flavors, but if you're prepared to eat chocolate, sometimes it's hard to really appreciate the coconut cream.  That was my experience reading Target Israel.

Perhaps I misread the synopsis, but I expected to learn about the struggles the nation of Israel has faced since the 1948 establishment of the modern nation.  I thought I would see the rise of anti-Semitism as viewed through the lens of Biblical prophecy.  And I hoped to learn what that prophecy predicts for the future of the Jewish people until the return of Christ. 

While the first half of the book walked the reader through the early days of the church as Jews believed in Christ and began to populate the early church while evangelizing the Gentiles of the day.  I also learned a great deal about The Holy Land through the centuries and the peoples who conquered and populated the land.  Mr. LaHaye also carefully laid out the formation of the modern nation of Israel. 

Then, in about the last half, the book turns to end-time prophecy and steps through the rapture, glorious returning and millennial reign of Jesus Christ with His bride.  While this last half was very informative, well-researched and well-written, I confess I found myself skimming a lot of the details as I searched for the Israeli target in these chapters.  However, I didn't find any more information about modern-day Israel until the two appendices at the end. 

Those appendices were great - they list a year - by - year account of Israeli history since 1948.  Then there is an appendix of frequently asked questions - now these are questions are focused more on end times but it contains great information.

I would like to say one word about formatting. I read the ebook but the book was never properly formatted for the digital format. There are several charts that are presented as simple text; I didn't figure out these were charts until I’d passed a couple of them.  One in particular that I was really disappointed to miss was a comparison of The Rapture to The Glorious Appearing.  There was also a map referenced with a blank page number and no sign of the map in the ebook format.  The chapter name and page numbers, which should appear at the bottom of the page, are found all over the page and since the chapter name is bold I had trouble distinguishing when a new chapter or section was starting; I tried reading in both landscape and portrait orientations but the problem existed in both.  These formatting issues really distracted me from the actual content of the book.

Harvest House, the publisher of Target Israel, supplied a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a fair and impartial review.