When I began writing fiction, I had a dream to write a particular kind of suspense novel. It would be similar to the historical suspense in Ken Follett’s book The Pillars of the Earth, and somewhat like the historical action-adventure fiction of Wilbur Smith’s River God, but it would be set in first-century Jerusalem.
I told myself I wanted to be “the Tom Clancy of first-century Jerusalem.”
Why first-century Jerusalem? Because that place and time set the direction for the next twenty centuries of western civilization. Something big happened in Jerusalem in the first century.
Not just one big thing. Not even two big things. Three big things—the Jesus movement, the Jewish revolt, and the birth of rabbinic Judaism.
And they were related.
My gut instincts told me that the Sunday-School version of those three things wasn’t quite right.
As I dived into my research, I found that my instincts were correct. I discovered an amazing and exciting world. I felt sure that many people would care about this world if only they could see it the way I saw it.
My City of God Series
In my first novel, Transgression, I got off to a good start in showing that world. Transgression is a time-travel novel that I originally sold as a standalone novel. The plot was simple—a rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul. The book got good reviews and won a major award.
I’ve followed that up with two more novels in what now I call the City of God series. They’re about life in Jerusalem in the last few years before the Jewish revolt of AD 66. This revolt changed everything in Jerusalem, forever. The Temple was burned. The people were enslaved. Pagans moved into the city and occupied it.
So I have 3 books done in the City of God series, and I’m hard at work on Book 4. I plan to write a total of 7 novels, and then this series will be complete.
My Crown of Thorns Series
I have a different series going on about the life of Jesus of Nazareth. These are set partly in Galilee and partly in Jerusalem, because that’s where the action was. I’ve written 2 novels in this series, which I call Crown of Thorns, and I plan to write 2 more.
In Crown of Thorns, one of my goals is to teach you how to think like a first-century Jew. Why would I want to do that? Because the New Testament was written by first-century Jews. If the New Testament is an important part of your life (it’s an important part of mine), then you’ll find it easier to understand if you can get inside the brain of somebody who lived in the first century.
So Crown of Thorns puts you inside the head of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Of Simon Peter. Of John the son of Zebedee. Of Mary Magdalene. And (this is real audacity) inside the head of Jesus himself. You may say nobody knows what it was like to be Jesus. That’s true, but it’s still worth thinking about. I’ve spent most of my life studying what historians, theologians, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists can teach me about how Jesus thought. And I’ve given it my best shot. Of course, I’ve fallen short. But I’ve learned a lot in the process, and that’s the point.
Other Novels
I’ve also written a couple of novels about the first human mission to Mars, with my friend John Olson. He has a PhD in biochemistry and I have a PhD in physics, so we made a good team. I’m proud of the work we did together on Oxygen and The Fifth Man. They’re a bit off of my main brand, and so is the one novel I wrote on quantum computing, Double Vision. But they were fun projects and I’m glad I did them.