Soccer Mom in Galilee

A unique, absorbing journey in time crafted by a USA-bestselling novelist and a New Testament scholar.

Rachel did everything right. But no matter where she was, she had the feeling she was supposed to be someplace else.

When an agnostic suburban soccer mom lies down with a migraine, the last thing she expects is to wake up in a dusty, smelly courtyard in first-century Galilee. Befuddled, shocked, and - as a woman without family traveling alone - in fear for her life, Rachel is grateful to be taken in by two wealthy women on a mission: the financial support of a charismatic rabbi from Nazareth. Jesus is a real up-and-comer, the women insist, with a knack for motivational speaking. You'll love him! But Rachel has never been a "believer." And even if she were, the swarthy, robust, and greasy-haired man to which she is introduced hardly strikes her as deity material. Then again, sometimes she isn't so sure.

Based soundly on both scholarly depictions of Jesus of Nazareth and research into daily life in the first century, we see through Rachel's account a fresh, earthy, and wholly pragmatic portrait of the historical Jesus. We see the rabbi not as the gospel writers chose to present him, but as he might have appeared to the little-known women who bankrolled his travels and to the disciples' wives who seasoned his stew. As Rachel experiences the resiliency and raw courage of these women, unsung and unrecorded by history, she is forced to wonder whether it is her own frenetic, perfectionist life that is the fairy tale.