A New Beginning

Adlai ben Yusuf the son of a humble carpenter, grew up in the village of Nazareth . With his brother Tavi, and cousin Cephas, he enjoyed the usual escapades and miss-adventures of a normal teenage boy.Then suddenly, a simple mistake occurred that would have tragic and far-reaching consequences.Years later, Adlai now a mature man of 32 summers, began to preach a message of hope for all.This is not a religious book, nor is the intent to challenge existing religious practices. I propose only to provide an alternative viewpoint to the missing years of Jesus Christ - that is from age 12 to when he bursts on the scene many years later. This is an important period about which all the mainstream churches are maddeningly, and suspiciously, silent.In writing this fiction, I have allowed that Jesus historically did exist. Most scholars accept the existence of Jesus, but differ on the accuracy of the details of his life within the biblical narratives. I have ignored all so called ‘Christian’ doctrines, as they relate to the time after 70CE, when Jewish followers of Christ broke from the traditional Talmudic teachings, and formed the modern religion of ‘Christianity’.These were tumultuous times in Palestine. The Jews were suffering (so they thought) under Roman rule, but more so were hostile to the ruling Sadducee sect. The common people were groaning under taxes imposed by Rome and their religious leaders.The fictional ‘Jesus’ has been portrayed – as I firmly believe – to be an ordinary person who developed a simple message – to love one another. He went through childhood and into his formative years doing and experiencing all the things that young people do - especially young males.I don’t believe for one moment that he just ‘appeared’ on the Palestinian scene. I don’t believe that after years of mysterious silence he suddenly started preaching his message. I certainly don’t believe he was ‘divinely’ inspired.I do believe he was part of a grand coalition involved in the struggle for power in Palestine. The struggle of the Jewish peoples continuing from the start of the first millennia resulted in the disastrous rebellion of 66CE leading to the destruction of the temple by Titus in 70CE.I’ll leave it to my readers to ascertain whether my story holds more to reason than the traditional viewpoint of Christianity in its many – and confusing - forms.