Shadow Of The Galilean Essay

The “Shadow of the Galilean”, written by Gerd Theissen, is a novel that shows the quest of the historical Jesus in narrative form. This novel does a good job at bringing in the historical study recorded in the gospels with a fictitious character, Andreas, who is from Sepphoris during the first century. Andreas is introduced as he is being interrogated by the Romans. Here it begins to detail some of his life, as it comes out he deals in fruit and grain, was in Jerusalem for Pentecost, and that his father is a Decurion. As the interrogation continues the romans do not believe that he was not demonstrating because he was in the crowd. This leads to his imprisonment, where he was not fed or able to wash. Pilate has a chat with Andreas about being a spy for the Romans on other religions and groups around or making him stay in prison. Andreas is extremely torn on what to do because he feels like he is being blackmailed and does also not want to turn on his own people for the Romans. After a night of consideration, he decides to take Pilate’s offer and agrees to help them gather any information they desire. His first mission was to go to investigate about Essenes because they wanted to know more about their beliefs. On his travels with Timon and …show more content…
Although Andreas never gets to see him in the novel, all the stories told and people that he changed in a positive way shows us how influential Jesus is. At times Jesus was referred to as a philosopher, poet, and even a prophet. The miraculous stories and all the people who followed him and his beliefs allows the reader to understand Theissen wanted to make a point. This ties back into our lives today as we may not see Jesus but we know and understand the power and love he has for us. That is the greater meaning to come out of this fictitious story that entails the history of