The Messiah's Trek

The Messiah’s Trek (2nd book of series) continues the quasi-historical novel. It begins a year before Jesus’ conception and ends when he is twelve years old. From events of the story, readers learn about the people, places, history, and customs of ancient Palestine, and Judea.
For many centuries, the Old Testament has told of those who prophesied the coming of the Jew’s most revered Messiah. A Rabbinical student named Nico (Nicodemus in the New Testament) has accepted it as his life’s work to deliver the long-promised Messiah. In The Messiah’s Path, Nico recruited Simeon (see Luke 2:25-35) as his mentor and financial backer.
Nico seeks a woman to conceive the promised Messiah via virgin birth. Using hypnotic techniques, he brings the ‘Angel Gabriel’ to each of three virgins, one after another. Each of them conceives, ignorant of Nico’s ruse, believing her pregnancy a miracle of the Divine.
The first virgin is Simeon’s daughter, Rachael, who is Nico’s chosen bride. She receives the ‘Angel Gabriel’ on her wedding night and then sleeps alone until assured of her pregnancy. Once confirmed, she takes Nico to her bed, and then blames him for her miscarriage. Seeing this as deserving punishment, she shuns him for years.
The second Gabriel virgin, daughter of a large landowner, births an ineligible girl child on schedule during the second heavenly event.
The third Gabriel virgin, Mari Alma, seeks a husband when deemed pregnant. Nico’s contrived raffle produces Josep. He marries Mari Alma, who births Jeshu during the foretold third heavenly appearance, the Star of Bethlehem, as foretold by the Magi.
A decade later, Nico encounters Jeshu and Wild Jon (John the Baptist), living in a cabin near the Sea of Galilee, and befriended by Simon Peter and Andrew, future disciples of Jesus. Around a log fire on a remote beach, Jeshu expounds his envisioned future and his plans to trek where Senior Priest Nicodemus has earlier blazed the path for him to travel.