The Misconceived Conception of a Baby Named Jesus

Awarded First Place in the 2024 Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBA) in the Category of Humor & Satire

"Burkland packs immense humor and irony into his prose..."  The BookLife Prize 

"A fun, pithy sendup of one of the best-known origin stories." -Kirkus Reviews

"...a sharp, shrewd, witty, and occasionally wacky alternate-universe Bible..." -Greg Thompson, writer-producer

"This book merits book-club discussion and argument." -Glenn R. Miller, author

On a warm Galilean night, Mary and Joseph get to know each other (in the biblical sense) in a secluded garden in Nazareth. Nine months later, Mary's pious mother, seeing that her young, unwed daughter is pregnant, enlists the help of a pompous high priest to characterize the pregnancy as divine, of God's seed. When Mary refuses to go along with her mother's scheme, she and Joseph enter a battle with her parents over every aspect of the birth and the fate of their baby.

As word of a miraculous virgin birth spreads through Bethlehem, factions form, and allegiances shift among unscrupulous shepherds, dubious Wise Men, an elderly innkeeper, an earnest but malodorous peasant and an aging cat with a penchant for prophecy-all trying to answer the crucial question: Is the baby named Jesus truly the Son of God or merely a mortal born of earthly parents?