Dallas Theological Seminary President Mark Yarbrough says there is just enough in Isaiah 14:12-15 to make one wonder what Satan's rebellion might have been like.
"Like any good story, when you're reading it through in Genesis, you know there's a backstory, and you're wondering what's going on there," he tells AFN.
He has teamed up with "Left Behind" and "The Chosen" author Jerry B. Jenkins to tell that story in a historical biblical fiction called "The Battle for Heaven and Earth," a sweeping epic that explores the origin of evil through a rebellion in heaven, angelic warfare, and the battle for Earth's inhabitants.
Together, the author who built one of the most-read fiction franchises in Christian history, and the seminary president who has devoted his career to the text behind the story, are said to bring a combination that is genuinely rare: scale and scholarship, story and theology.
"The text asks us to imagine what was life before sin and what has happened because of it," Yarbrough relays. "That's what we're trying to do."
He and Jenkins have written study guides and lesson plans around the book.
They hope "The Battle for Heaven and Earth" is the first in a series that blends biblically-inspired storytelling with fantasy scope to explore age-old questions about free will and human destiny.
"It invites people into the story to say, 'This is why I am the way I am, and it's why my world has fallen apart,'" Yarbrough notes. "But it also reminds us to see that God was already at work, and there's hope because of who He is in spite of my problem."
The book is currently available for pre-order.
