After Denise Spell­berg, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of his­to­ry and Mid­dle East­ern stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, assessed the man­u­script as ​“a very ugly, stu­pid, piece of work” which turned sacred his­to­ry into soft-core pornog­ra­phy and warned that pub­li­ca­tion could pro­voke vio­lence, Bal­lan­tine Books, a divi­sion of Ran­dom House, con­sult­ed with secu­ri­ty experts and then nego­ti­at­ed an agree­ment with Jones to ter­mi­nate their $100,000 two-book contract.