Scenario: A Carefully Researched Novel; Set in the Late First Century of the Common Era

by Michael Conley

Palestine in the decades following the lost war against the Romans (66-70 C.E.) is ruled from the port town of Caesarea pros Sebaste, the principle location in 'Scenario; Nascent Christianity Emerges." The lives of the Jews are utterly and comprehensively disoriented - socially, religiously and institutionally. A multiplicity of contending sects, cults and schools of thought flourish - founded only in part on traditional Jewish beliefs! Plagiarizing, Marcus Flavius Agrippa (later known as St. Mark) pieces together elements from Isiac, Orphic, Dionysiac, and Apollonian mythology, fabricating the narrative life of a savior - a heroic, masculine godhead. He - himself of Jewish origin - finds himself in a highly competitive Jewish orthodoxy's solutions to mankind's needs, the distinctly violent, fundamentalist Yachad, the much more pacifistic Ebionites, who celebrate the life, not of Jesus, but rather of his 15-year-younger brother, Jacob. Marcus' displace Jacob with his own fabricated godhead. But the novel, seeks to provide a more comprehensive, authentic picture of life in the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean in the first century of the Common Era. At the center of the narrative lies the troubled love story of Primus Antonius Maecenas, the son of the Roman procurator, and Lysia Magdalena, a member of a prosperous indigenous family. Its course is tightly woven into the conflict of creeds and sects. Better acquainted with the realities of that historic moment, the reader acquires a decidedly more lifelike picture of Christianity's origins.

596 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005