A Recent Read Number 15

"I desperately wanted to talk to a human being, but knew I would never get the chance. You are kept from any form of fellowship, conversation or human interaction. "

NOTE: This review is written about 5 months after I finished reading the book. This is the last of my back-logged book reviews for now. This review CONTAINS SPOILERS.

23 Minutes In Hell - By Bill Wiese. Before I begin this review, this is another near-death experience book written by a Christian author that skeptics will pass off as an oxygen deprived fantasy. There have been a few reviews and website postings that point out some inconsistencies in the telling and then go on to crack jokes about the book and it's author.

In a nutshell the author a Christian preacher came home one night, went to bed and then had an awful experience. He was in his bed and then at "3:00 AM" he was suddenly falling and finds himself landing in a dark prison cell. The cell walls are solid stone, he then becomes aware of nasty evil creatures that then proceed to torture him physically. At some point he manages to escape from them and "explore" other areas of the dark world he has found himself in.

He describes pits of fire, with people burning in them screaming and trying to escape only to fall down or be pushed back be other nasty looking creatures. His descriptions are in line with everything about "Hell" that is in the Bible in fact later chapters go on Ad nauseum about where the Bible mentions hell, the exact wording and how many times it appears.

The first couple of chapters tell of the author's Hellish adventure, which is similar to other books I've read one being My Decent Into Death: A Second Chance At Life by Howard Storm. The descriptions of Hell are pretty much the same, how they got there is where they differ.

I'm not sure what to think about this book, as I had originally heard nothing but the nay-saying skeptical "reviews" of the book. I tend to question the authors knowledge of the timing. How did he know was "3:00 AM" when he first "fell" into Hell? Was he looking at the clock at that exact minute? He was supposedly sleeping before he found himself in Hell. I can understand his knowing it was 3:23 AM when he came back as people usually check the time when they get back home after being someplace else. Seeing the time when you come back gives some sense of comfort.

I will leave it up to people who read the book what to think about it, and wither or not they believe the author really experienced what he has written about. As I said at the beginning skeptics will take this story with a grain of salt and call it a fantasy. Christians may get scared of some of the things in it and try to increase their faith in God and in Jesus.

23 Minutes In Hell by Bill Wiese 2006 Charisma House (A Strang Company) 170 pages - **