The Biography of a Novel—Part 4

Last week, I shared with you the opinion of a professor of biblical studies at a local Roman Catholic college in St. Paul, Minnesota. He considered my manuscript, entitled The Jesus Interviews, to be inauthentic in its depiction of the people of first-century Palestine.

Just as as editor had given me helpful suggestions, so this professor provided me with a helpful reading list of thirty-six books by biblical scholars who would help me understanding first-century CE Jews and Romans.

Having retired in 2001, and I now began serious research. Never having been moderate, I immediately bought all thirty-six books and began to read them, highlighting as I read, and then, toward the end of the work day, taking copious notes from the highlighting.

During the next sixteen months, I read not only the thirty-six recommended books but also a number of other scholarly tomes referred to by the authors I was reading. The most helpful authors—for me—were Geza Vermes, John P. Meier, and E. P. Sanders.

From that research, I learned a fact that surprised me, given my reading of the Christian Testament: during the first-century, most Jews held the Pharisees in great esteem. That was totally different from what I’d learned in reading the four Christian Gospels.

Given that, I wanted Jonathan to be a Pharisee or a scribe who’d studied with the Pharisees and respected them greatly. This, I thought, would create reader interest. Also I wanted to use Jesus’ Hebrew name of Yeshua since that was more authentic.

Now I had a character: Jonathan, a scribe in Jericho. Next, I needed a plot. How to get him from Jericho to the Galilee? What would prompt him to leave home?

Answering that question led to my discovering many other characters who would play major roles in the novel: Chaviva, Jonathan’s wife; Davi, his daughter; Daniel and Yeshua, people he knew as a youth; Benjamin, a helper during the days of his journeying; John the Baptizer, the man who taught him silence; and most importantly, Hashem, the name Jews used daily for God.

As I began to plot the novel, I considered Jonathan’s personality and demeanor. Sorting my own experiences, I recalled that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I’d gone through a virulent mid-life crisis. Then, in the late ‘90s, I’d experienced a crisis of faith that engaged me in vociferous arguments with Whoever was the Power beyond me—the Whoever I came to call “The Holy Oneness of All Creation of Which I Am a Part.” Accompanying my crisis of faith were many symbolic dreams. 

Thus, it was that I began to weave the story of a man who is going through a crisis of faith that is loosely based on my own. A man having dreams also loosely based on my own. A man trying to discover what or who is at the deep center of his being.

That weaving took from 2002 to 2019 as I wrote and discovered the need for new characters, new settings, new dialogue, new plotting, new suspense, new tension. I threw away many scenes that didn’t move the story forward as well as scenes lacking tension. I discarded paragraphs that reflected too much research and would lead readers away from the main story. Finally, just this past April, I discovered where to begin The Reluctant Spy.

It is done. For better or worse, I’ve done the best I can. I hope the book will touch the lives of its readers.

Peace.

Lithograph from Wikipedia