The 13Th Disciple

By Baden Williams and Maria Sankey

This is a fictional story of the life of Jesus, as seen and recorded by an ordinary Galilean. Simple Jacob was a harmless, hardworking young man when he first came in contact with Jesus. He first saw Jesus when they were both baptized by John the Baptist and later when he came to the Sea of Galilee to recruit his disciples. Jacob felt compelled to protect Jesus faithfully until his death on the cross. He had an absolute faith in God and was one of the very few who recognized Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, the messenger of the coming of God's kingdom, predicted in the Old Testament.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Nov 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524518912

Baden Williams

Dr. Baden Williams is a former scientist who specialized in soil and water chemistry. He has had many years of interaction with land care groups in Australia, especially in the area of soil and groundwater salinity. This has given him a strong sense of the importance of all aspects of the environment in life, not just humanity. He does not find any insurmountable conflicts between science and his Christian faith, although he is often bemused by the uncompromising attitudes of those who confuse ancient religious records with the reality of God and his kingdom on earth.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Baden Williams.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016918098

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-1893-6

               Softcover       978-1-5245-1892-9

               eBook            978-1-5245-1891-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/07/2016

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

746829

36848.png

H is name is

Jacob. He thinks he is now about fifty-five years of age, but as he has always been regarded as being a bit simple, he doesn’t really know for sure. He loved Miriam, his mum, but she died some time ago. He has been very lonely ever since. He didn’t know his father very well because he was too young for school when his dad divorced his mother, and him. Evidently, Mum had done something his dad hadn’t liked. So he told her she was no longer his wife, and he would inform the scribes at the synagogue in Sepphori that he was abandoning her and his rather simple-minded son. Or it could have been that he met an attractive young woman from a wealthy family. Who knows? Certainly Simple Jacob didn’t.

He could remember his mum crying a lot, as they didn’t have a proper house to live in anymore. Their village was nestled in the foothills west of the Sea of Galilee. It was a lovely stone house with three rooms plus a kitchen out the back. Jacob had lots of friends in the town, but his dad did not know about them, as they were the outcasts and dregs of Jewish society. There were the homeless who slept in whichever shed they could without being caught by the owner. There were good people who had been farmers but were now destitute, landless, and homeless because landlords and tax collectors took most of their profits. There was even a tax collector who had been caught swindling the village people. There were a couple of prostitutes who made their livelihoods in the dark hours of the night. And there were their children, who had never known anything but poverty and many hungry days.

Of course, Jacob’s parents didn’t know that he kept company with these people. It wasn’t until he was ten years old that his father was expected to take a serious interest in what he did during the day. It was probably his approaching tenth birthday that triggered the divorce action, as his father knew he was simple-minded, and it would make his future training quite difficult.

When he and his mum left the house, Miriam carried only a bundle of clothes and a few coins that his father had graciously given her. She just stood in the roadway, with tears pouring down her face, clutching Jacob close to her. She didn’t know which direction to walk, as they didn’t know anyone well enough to just land at their door. Besides, she was consumed with the shame of being a divorced woman.

Jacob, sensing that he should do something, took her by the hand and led her through the back streets he knew so well that she didn’t even know existed. When they arrived at the old stable building where his friends met, he said, "Mother, don’t cry. My friends will help us. We will buy