The Unnamed Touched by the Galilean: What Might Have Happened to Them?

By B. Jay Cannon

Struggling humans that Scripture only identifies by what happened to them come alive with names and personalities as their lives unfold. A huge, crazed brute; a beautiful woman of the street; a deaf-mute; a leper; and others are social outcasts drawn together by awesome, transforming experiences they share. Each has been touched by the Galilean. Then some are assaulted, and finally one of their number is killed. This brings the local centurion to champion their cause as suspicion grows that the assaults are part of a conspiracy to destroy their fellowship, The Followers of the Way of the Galilean. We walk the hills with them, step into their courtyards, overhear deeply personal love, and cringe under confrontations of lies. Expansive experiences of nature and humanitys realities thrust us into Capernaum of Galilee. It is a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds: Aramaic chatter of fishermen, housewives, and shopkeepers in the marketplace; the rattle of soldiers armor; and angry confrontations of exposed suspects compete with echoes of donkey hooves and the shrill laughter of children. The enticing aroma of baking barley bread in courtyard ovens mingles with the smell of sweet breezes off Lake Gennesaret. At the center of this substance of first-century Galilee, a mystery unfolds. Is there possibly a conspiracy behind the assaults and assassins, and can faith hold out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449774585

B. Jay Cannon

In his travels, B. Jay Cannon has made three trips to Capernaum, Palestine, the locus of this novel. He studied at Bradley, Dubuque and Edinburgh Universities, and McCormick, Chicago Lutheran and Pittsburgh Theological Seminaries. After forty years of ministry, he has sailed, skied and fished, become the family genealogist, an accomplished potter and china painter. His published nonfiction works are I Give Up, God; Celebrate Yourself; and Sailing through the Circumstances. His first novel, Veils and Shadows, was published in 2011. Dr. Cannon and his wife of fifty-eight years, Phyllis, have four children and seven grandchildren. The Cannons reside in Sugar Land, Texas.

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Copyright © 2012 B. Jay Cannon

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This is a work of historical fiction. The events described herein, apart from the New Testament recorded miracles, are mostly fictional. The main characters are based on ten unnamed New Testament individuals. The opinions and theology expressed

in this manuscript is solely that of the author and does not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in his book.

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Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012923218

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7459-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7460-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7458-5 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/13/2012

CONTENTS

People, Connections, and References

Prologue

Part 1

Chapter 1. Rebecca

Chapter 2. Chasin

Chapter 3. Bernice

Chapter 4. Jared

Chapter 5. Ziven

Chapter 6. The New Rabbi

Chapter 7. Manney

Chapter 8. Demetrius

Chapter 9. Oshea and Octavius

Chapter 10. Nadab

Chapter 11. Demetrius’ Story

Chapter 12. Hadarah

Chapter 13. Pashur

Part 2

Chapter 14. The Unwise Attack

Chapter 15. The Search Begins

Chapter 16. Now by Sea and Providence

Chapter 17. Action

Chapter 18. Canvassing for Trouble

Chapter 19. The Trouble Widens

Chapter 20. Reporting In, Next Steps

Chapter 21. Octavius in Charge

Chapter 22. Tracking Down Suspects

Chapter 23. The Investigation Narrows

Chapter 24. Nailing Down Facts

Chapter 25. Evil Takes On a Face

Chapter 26. The Showdown

Chapter 27. Celebration

Postscript

Author’s Note

Also by B. Jay Cannon

Nonfiction

I Give Up, God

second and third printings as

A New Sense of Freedom

Celebrate Yourself

Sailing Through the Circumstances

Novels

Veils and Shadows

For

My study group: Duane and Linda,

Gary and Margaret, Bud and Shirleen,

June, and Phyllis

and

Tom

Lovell

Sandy

Alex

Bless our imaginations,

that we might use them

to reach beyond the histories

of these anonymous persons

recorded in the Scriptures

and find our faith strengthened

and our own lives inspired

as we enjoy this recreational reading.

Amen

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be acceptable to You,

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

—Psalm 19:14

PEOPLE, CONNECTIONS, AND REFERENCES

1 Rebecca (tied up or secured)             John 4:1—30

• the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well

• marries Jared, a farmer whose cousin in Capernaum, acquires Chasin to build them a house

2 Chasin (strong)             Luke 8:26—39

• demon-possessed man, wife Rinnah (shouting for joy)             Matt. 8:8—34

• son John, engaged to Bernice, Justa’s daughter

Mark 5:1—20

Luke 9:12—17

3 Bernice (victory bringer)             Mark 7:24—30

• the Samaritan woman, Justa’s daughter (Justa: "fair, upright)             Matt. 15:21—28

4 Jared (he who descends)             John 4:1—30

• a Samaritan farmer who takes Rebecca in and marries her, becomes a believer after her conversion

5 Ziven (alive)             John 5:1—15

• the invalid at Jerusalem’s Sheep Gate pool

• goes to Capernaum, Yeshua’s home town, to open a shop selling tents and mats for employer Menahem, his mentor

6 Followers of the Way, believers in Yeshua as the Messiah,             Acts 9:2

and followers of his teachings             Acts 19:9, 23

Acts 19:23, 24:22

7 The New Rabbi: Abba ben Anka

8 Manney (God is with us)             Mark 3:1—6

• the man with the withered hand             Matt. 12:9—14

• Amos, Manney’s crewman             Luke 6:6—11

9 Demetrius (refers to the Greek goddess of harvest)

• the deaf-mute Yeshua heals Mark             7:31—37

• establishes the school Nadab attends             Matt. 15:29—31

10 Oshea (helped by God)             Matt. 8:5—13

• the healed servant of the Centurion Octavius             Luke 7:1—10

• Octavius builds the synagogue in Capernaum for the Jews

11 Nadab (generous)             John 6:1—15

• the boy with five loaves and two fish, and the feeding of 5000             Matt. 15:32—39

• attends Demetrius’ Greek school             Mark 8:1—10

13 Hadarah (adorned with beauty)             Mark 14:3—9

• the woman who anointed Yeshua’s feet             Luke 7:36—50

• marries Pashur, a healed leper              Matt. 26:6—16

Pashur (whiteness)             Matt. 8:1—4

• the healed leper             Mark 1:40—45

• marries Hadarah             Luke 5:12—16

19 Perikles, Ektor, Agathon, Orestus, Horos, Pallas, Spiridon, and Nikola: soldiers Octavius uses in his investigation

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PROLOGUE

Ten Years Before Our Story

Begins: About 32 A.D.

Across the lake from Galilee … when Yeshua stepped ashore …

—Luke 8:26

The bright sun warmed a tranquil, characteristically peaceful landscape, as the group of men departed their boats and walked up the hill. Suddenly a massive, naked hulk with wild hair and flailing arms charged down toward them, screaming in a demonic voice, Get away from here! Get away from us!

A guard tried to catch up with him as he ran toward the group, chains swinging from his manacled wrists.

The group stopped behind their leader, a well-built man whose demeanor commanded attention. He seemed unthreatened by the crazy man’s antics and simply held up his hand, palm out. The huge, demon-crazed one skidded to a dead stop in front of him. Muscles rippled on thick, scarred shoulders. Wild eyes and a long, matted beard added to his ferocious, threatening appearance. But the leader of the group exuded a powerful presence and calmly stood before this out-of-control wild man.

An unearthly, gravelly growl came out of the crazy one. What do you have to do with me, Yeshua, Son of the Most High God? I beg you not to torment me.

Yeshua stared deep into his eyes and demanded, What is your name?

That strange voice spewed out, Legion.

Yeshua, the Galilean, glanced off to the side. There a herd of pigs grazed, tended by two young lads. Yeshua swept his hands upward from the wild man’s face toward the herd, as if extracting something from him. With a powerful voice, the Galilean commanded, Out of him, out of him, and pointing to the swine, he added, and into them.

With that, the possessed man collapsed at the Galilean’s feet. That very instant, the pigs squealed, took flight down the hill, and plunged into the sea. The young herders panicked and ran after them with arms waving in the air, but the pigs continued, splashing, squealing, and thrashing in a wild scene as they drowned. The herders turned with fear toward the Galilean, now the focus of attention of the onlookers.

At his request, one of the Galilean’s followers took his outer robe and threw it around the naked form of the trembling brute at Yeshua’s feet.

Again, now, what is your name—your given name this time?

Looking up with questioning eyes that were clouded with confusion, the man whispered, Chasin.

Part 1

CHAPTER 1

Rebecca

Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.

—John 4:29

Blood pooled around the woman’s head in the dust of the courtyard. How long she had lain there could not be determined, except that flies had gathered on her matted hair and forehead.

The woman’s neighbor, her husband Jared’s cousin-in-law, emerged from an adjoining house in the courtyard, saw her, and screamed. Rebecca! She dropped her bundle and ran to her. Gently lifting Rebecca’s head, the neighbor tried to rouse her and finally got a response. Pulling her away from the blood, the neighbor retrieved the bundle she had been carrying and carefully placed it under Rebecca’s head. Then she ran into the house and brought back a cup of water. After rousing her, she helped her get up and into the house. Then she ran to her own home and sent her son to the field to find Jared.

When Jared arrived, he gently rubbed Rebecca’s hand. His cousin-in-law had refreshed the wet cloth on her forehead. Most of the blood had been rinsed from her hair, but she looked pale, and her matted hair parted at a sizable cut at her hairline.

Dearest, how did you get this wound? Do you recall what happened?

I … was cleaning some vegetables. I remember hearing someone opening the courtyard door … and then I felt this sharp pain in my head. That’s all I can remember.

Jared’s cousin-in-law handed him a bloody rock with a stained, sharp edge. I found this out in the courtyard where she fell. It was among the vegetables she was cleaning.

Jared applied ointment and a bandage to the wound and said to his neighbor, Help me take the robe off her shoulders. Let’s see if there are any other wounds. Ugly bruises forming on her shoulder and back evidenced the extent of the attack.

Rebecca whispered weakly, Who would do this? We have no enemies.

I can’t imagine who it could be, unless it is that cursed Samaritan prejudice surfacing again. Don’t worry. I’ll find out who did this. You just rest.

Jared thanked his cousin-in-law, suggesting that Rebecca would be all right and just needed rest for now. The neighbor picked up her bundle, and Jared followed her to the courtyard door, opened it, and looked down the lane. So he went out to talk with neighbors. Each one expressed alarm at his report of the attack on Rebecca, but no one had seen any strangers about.

Returning home, Jared glanced at the place where his wife had been sitting, the stool now overturned, the blackness of dried blood, and the vegetables strewn about. He noticed several more rocks foreign to the courtyard floor. He could not believe that such an attack could be the result of mischievous boys. Could it be because he and his wife were Samaritans? He thought they had lived in Capernaum long enough to have been accepted.

There must be some purpose behind the assault, and he would not dismiss it. He could not and would not. Jared, a peaceful man by nature, had never been involved in any sort of major conflict with others. But an attack on his beloved Rebecca stirred a deep anger that he had never experienced before, and it raised up disturbing, unfinished business.

* * *

Earlier that morning, the light of a new day had crept over the courtyard on the quiet feet of dawn. Rebecca had risen from her sleeping mat and come up behind her husband as he prepared to go out to the field. She’d quietly put her arms around his chest, pulling her body into his. Feeling her breasts against his muscular back and taking in her familiar female smells always stirred tender feelings in Jared.

How did I ever deserve you? she murmured, nuzzling into his neck.

He took her hands in his and pulled her tightly to him. By being born so beautiful and able to pleasure my life with your goodness, he replied softly over his shoulder.

After all my—

Jared stopped her, turned, and pulled her close. He looked lovingly at her beautiful face.

None of that now. My happiness began the day you came into my life, and it increased and expanded after your encounter with the Galilean by Jacob’s well that day.

They had been fairly successful at putting behind them her troubled past of a decade ago, trying to remember only the best. However, she admitted that she could not completely shake the memory of her former, wayward life. Now, with just three little words, she had inadvertently reopened that past.

That day when you came back into the village, marveling at what had happened out there out at Jacob’s well, I guess it created questions for you about our living together without being married that so surprised me. I guess I felt threatened … that you might leave me.

Back then, Jared’s world had been simple, suited to his background and personality. A bachelor, Jared farmed his patch, sold the results in the marketplace, and lived simply. He had thought himself lucky when Rebecca’s previous lover had thrown her out, thought that he had been in the right place at the right time. She’d needed a place to stay. With middle age approaching, he’d had no prospects of marriage. He cared little that she had lived with five other men. As a plain, ordinary peasant—hardworking, good-hearted, unreligious, and lonely—he was not worried by Rebecca’s reputation. She remained a beguiling beauty. Though he was not so naïve to not recognize that she knew how to charm to get her way, he still felt flattered that she had even given him a glance.

It was a compressed memory. He recalled how it had all started. She had come up to his market stall, smiling, and asked for a single bit of cheese. As she received it, she touched the hand of an immediately smitten man. The next day, he saw her again. She stopped by his stall, fingered the vegetables, and easily engaged him in conversation in a way he had never experienced with a girl in his younger days, or for that matter, with any woman since.

Rebecca ran her fingers through his black, curly hair and stroked his broad face. You took me in when I had no home, and you loved and cared for me, whatever the villagers said about me, and on my terms.

You found easy prey, you know. But your love filled every lonely spot in my life. His encircling arms squeezed her gently. He examined her lovely face, unblemished by all that history. "But, my dear one, when that day happened, the day of the Galilean, it changed everything."

I know. For me too, and how well we both know it. All because of that stranger, the Galilean.

I’ve never told you this, my dove. He hesitated.

She drew back with concern. He had not called her by that sobriquet since their early years together.

What? She asked apprehensively.

I’ve never told you this. When you somehow got the village excited about meeting the Galilean and took many of them out to Jacob’s well to hear him, I felt confused and, I guess, a bit angry. I couldn’t figure out what was going on inside you. In some strange way, maybe, I feared you were going off and might end up leaving me. I’d never heard you talk that way before.

Rebecca replied, "I appreciate that. You could hardly understand my confused state at the time. Something broke loose in my brain. After I went with the villagers back to where the Galilean and his group of men were resting, I heard more from him. I thought about what he had told me—without, as far as I knew, knowing anything about me: that you and I were not married.

For the first time, I considered what God might think about us. Before that, I’d never had any conscience over living with men, including you. You’re right, we had a happy situation. I guess I had come to think that our relationship might be love, in my limited experience of what that meant. But after meeting the Galilean, I knew I had to talk to you about it. Our arrangement suited us both, and we had not intended to consider marriage. But when I came home with my troubled conscience, you were so sweet. You listened to my jumbled recounting of it all. You were so patient with me.

They suddenly realized that they were standing in the middle of their courtyard, discussing past things that they had not talked about for a very long time. Rebecca drew Jared over to the bench along the wall, and they sat. Of course, they had referenced these things before in bits and pieces. But now, after ten years and in such an unexpected moment just before Jared went to the field, the floodgate to the past had opened to significant, buried memories, and the situation seemed to demand that it come out in a full account.

Jared looked at his wife tenderly. I had never seen you as excited as you were that day. I never knew you’d had some of those thoughts, especially since neither of us was particularly religious, even though we observed some of the synagogue’s feast days. I guess I had never given much thought to the things you told me you debated with the Galilean out there by the well, like what the Judeans and Samaritans believed about the right place to worship. To hear you talk about those religious issues was so surprising.

Rebecca looked off into the distance over their courtyard wall, undoubtedly remembering the scene of years past, and then looked back to Jared’s kind face, his beard now showing streaks of gray.

For me, all that came out of the childhood upbringing I’d let fall by the wayside. I think the slide away from religion started when I moved in with my first lover. I was only fifteen then, so poor, and struggling to cope with my place in life. It went on from there.

Jared looked at his wife, now forty-two years old. To him she was as beautiful as she must have been when she was fifteen. The years had been good to her. He took her hand and squeezed it lovingly.

How our lives have changed, and all for the good. We don’t have a lot, but what’s in here, and he touched his chest, makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

Oh, yes, sweetheart. Oh, yes. She smoothed back his hair and kissed him lightly on the lips. Their years together had matured and enriched both of their personalities. Jared could no longer be called a simple peasant, nor was Rebecca a wayward women.

I have to get out to the field now. He picked up the bread, dried fish, and cheese wrapped in a cloth, and kissed her cheek. See you at sundown.

Rebecca had stood at the door and watched him go. Before starting on the chores of the day, she’d looked around the courtyard and their sun-dried mud-and-stone home. Her conversation with Jared had stirred up both good and bad memories. Though ten years had passed, some of it seemed as if it were yesterday. It played in her mind like a written script before her.

She had turned and gone into the house and gotten a bowl of vegetables. Coming back into the courtyard, she’d just settled herself on the stool with the bowl in her lap and started to clean the vegetables, when she’d heard the gate open and footsteps approach. Thinking Jared might have returned, she’d started to turn—and felt an intense pain. And then there had been only blackness.

CHAPTER 2

Chasin

What is your name?

—Luke 8:30

Each day, Chasin looked forward to going to his shop for whatever new project awaited him. While he found satisfaction in the repair of someone’s house or in the fashioning of an implement for a neighbor, a new-house construction filled him with pride.

And today he started building a new home. A friend’s relative had engaged Chasin to build a house for the friend’s cousin, who intended to move from Samaria to Capernaum soon. This had surprised Chasin. Not only had he not known that his friend had originally come from Samaria, but he wondered why the man’s cousin would want to leave Samaria and move into Galilean territory? Most Jews in this area did not freely welcome Samaritans. They carried the stigma from past centuries of the great exile and division of the country by the Babylonians. Jews of Samaria had rejected what Judeans believed: that the only holy place for high worship was Jerusalem. Also, many Samaritan Jews had intermarried with Gentiles.

Apparently the Samaritan couple had enough cash to pay Chasin to add a house to the cousin’s insula, a cluster of several small, flat-roofed dwellings around a central courtyard. Chasin understood that the cousins were also loaning the Samaritans money for a small piece of land to farm on the edge of the village. Chasin had needed no blueprint for the house, and it was one of his most pleasurable and profitable jobs. He easily drew up typical plans to include the few requirements of the Samaritans.

He busied himself gathering his supplies: branches, clay, unhewn basalt stone, and wood beams that he himself had sawed to the proper dimensions.

Chasin’s biceps bulged as he lifted some of the materials onto the cart and harnessed up the donkey. This job would take a week or more. He knew that most of this day would be used in getting the materials out to the building site. The foundation had already been laid out.

Preparing to build an add-on to the insula for the Samaritans—who might be either Jews of a different caste, or maybe Greeks—had a touch of irony, he thought. John, his only child still at home, had grown into young adulthood and worked for a local merchant. Recently John had announced to his father his engagement to an outsider: a Greek Syrophoenician girl. Chasin’s daughters were grown and married to local boys.

Chasin! Chasin! Chasin! Tiny voices rang out, and his broad face broke into a happy smile, stretching his cropped beard, and he stopped what he was doing. The huge man loved the interruption by the village children who adored him. They came by his workplace often to watch him and to hear a story that his deep, rich voice unrolled for them. Sometimes they would ask him to lift a huge beam, and then they would touch his hard biceps, which always delighted them. They whooped for joy when he gave them animals he had whittled at home for their play.

* * *

Chasin regularly attended the special annual fair of the local market, and when encouraged, he performed a few feats of strength, alongside the jugglers and a fellow villager who had trained his dog to dance and jump through hoops. Some knew Chasin as the Gentle Giant. That tag seemed appropriate, since the Hebrew meaning of his name meant strong, which suited his size and strength. A group always gathered around him to watch him lift great weights, with the hope that he might share one of the stories he often felt led to tell.

Chasin claimed a special spot at the market under a sycamore tree. His wares consisted of the few implements he made and sold to supplement his income from building and repair. Equal to his satisfaction in completing a home for someone was the opportunity to share his story of the transformation that filled his great heart. After he had performed his feats of strength, he instinctively knew if, or when, the time seemed right to give his witness. And always there were the children. He loved the clamor and excitement of the children gathering around him to hear his tales.

Now, sitting on a stool near his market stall, children with their parents gathered around. He usually attracted a group who knew him not only for his building and craft skills but also as a storyteller. The group would also attract a few people who had not heard of his amazing transformation from being a demon-possessed madman. If he could encourage a new believer or two, that completed his satisfaction for the day.

He started by asking if they knew why he wore the iron bracelets on his wrist. Some knew, but they wanted to hear his amazing tale again.

Remember my question. Now, let’s see. I came originally from Gadara across the sea, where I lived among tombs in the hills a few miles outside of town. Instead of living in a house in town with my family, like all of you do, I lived out there in a cave. A horrible voice occupied my head, and sometimes it seemed like many voices. People called the voices demons, and I guess they were. They made me do crazy things, finally driving me away from my loved ones to live as an outcast among the tombs. That is a terrible place for a human being to live. But with no other place to go, the other outcasts and I made our home there.

Chasin looked down at the lovely, eager faces of the children.

"Some of the outcasts were lepers. Others who lived there were like me, filled with demons that controlled them. There were simple-minded folks, murmuring to themselves, with strange feelings and pictures in their minds. A few sat with blank stares, as if they were not at