They Called Him Yeshua: the Story of the Young Jesus

Brake and Beach invite the reader to “time travel” into the first century, the world of an ordinary family facing extraordinary challenges, as they grapple with young Jesus’s developing self-awareness and preparation for His divine mission.


“With biblical and historical accuracy, insightful sanctified imagination and brilliant storytelling, Brake and Beach foreshadow what we know with certainty from the New Testament. Get ready for epiphanies aplenty.”

—David Sanford, executive editor of four Bibles published by Zondervan and Tyndale House


“In these pages, you are welcomed inside the home of a young son of Israel who is “growing in wisdom and stature.” Do step inside. Smell the morning bread baking. Feel the daily tension living in small-town Nazareth where the brutal Roman military is stationed. Reect on the love, and the fear, and the faith of a family living amid oppressive pain from multiple sources—politics, the economy, and religion. And see the young boy blossom into the grown man who is the Savior of the world and its Deliverer. “I want to know my Lord more intimately. Don Brake has helped me. Reecting on some of the pages here, I walked today where Jesus walked.”

—Stu Weber, pastor, author, and retired US Army awarded three Bronze Stars as a Green Beret in Vietnam. He is a best-selling author of several Gold Medallion nalist books.


“Brake writes as a scribe, communicating the scenes as they’re happening, yet making readers privy to under currents with powerful ramications. Yes, this is a novel, but it is also devotional, study, and inspiration to draw us nearer to the One they called, Yeshua.”

—Mesu Andrews, Novelist of nine biblical character novels