The Silent Years

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”….