The Silent Years

Raised in tiny Nazareth, he would change the world forever. A compelling interweaving of Yeshua's early years-from birth to Beatitudes. The birth of the little boy Yeshua was anything but commonplace. I ought to know. His mother, Maryam, was my little sister. 1st century A.D. My name is Benaiah bar Jabez. I am a Jew, a lawyer, a teacher, and a member of the Pharisaic order. I was born and raised in Nazareth, a village of small account in the province of Galilee. But it's not my story that's important. It's the story of my young nephew, Yeshua. Miryam, the most beautiful girl in Nazareth to me, was fourteen when her firstborn was conceived, and confusion swirled over the circumstances of the boy's conception. But that was just the start of the little-known boy who grew up in the peculiar, backwood culture of this outpost of the Roman Empire and has now emerged as the legendary One some are calling 'Messiah'.... The most beautiful and powerful imaginative reconstruction of the life of the young Jesus, based on the New Testament accounts, that I have ever read...a book that will be read and loved by many.-JEFFREY B. RUSSELL, Prof. Emeritus, Univ. of CA, Santa Barbara; author of Heaven Mislaid, A History of Heaven, and Mephistopheles Green shows a keen appreciation for human development; a sharp eye for the truth of Jesus' first thirty years, as hinted at in the Gospels; a profound appreciation for his essential Jewishness; and a sense of the divine mystery that shaped his and his family's lives from his birth.-PARKER J. PALMER, author of A Hidden Wholeness, Let Your Life Speak, and The Courage to Teach As Jesus made up his parables which communicate graceful truths, Alan Green imaginatively creates the early life of Jesus. In both cases, they create ambiguously complex characters and open-ended stories to engage all of our lives, including the rough edges and uncertainties.-DR. DOUG ADAMS, late Professor of Christianity and the Arts, Pacific School of Religion; Chair of the Doctoral Faculty in 'Art and Religion,' Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley