I Never Intended to Write a Novel

                  I never intended to write a novel. Teaching classes on the TANACH/the Hebrew Scriptures was a passion I could indulge in as a congregational rabbi and as an adjunct professor of Jewish philosophy at St. Louis University. But it was the heartfelt questions of my students in both communities that propelled me down the path of historical fiction.

                  Every course I ever taught on the Bible began with a careful explanation of the Documentary Hypothesis. The short version goes something like this. The Bible as we know it today is a library of sacred texts, written by a multitude of authors and assembled over a period of 2,500 years. My students were usually accepting of the non-divine authorship of the text. But the question I could not answer was “How did it all happen?”

                  Biographies of Albert Einstein, all agree about his talent for creating stories that illustrated complex concepts of physics. Perhaps that would be the way to explain the compilation of the sacred texts we know as the Bible. If I could imagine the circumstances that led to the writing of the Torah, perhaps that would answer the question. 

                  Two books moved me forward, one non-fiction and the other fiction. The non-fiction book was Surpassing Wonder by Donald Aiken. He describes the process of sacred text authorship as “invention.” Ancient authors and scribes took existing works of religious tradition and reimagined them or reworked them. Over time they would take on the patina of being “sacred”. We eventually lose track of their human authors. 

                  The other book that inspired me was the fabulously popular thriller, The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown. In a work of fiction, he conveys Catholic Church history and scandal. He reveals the existence of sacred materials suppressed by the Church, that most readers knew nothing about. For me, it was hard not to notice the obvious.  Brown was teaching Bible in a work of fiction and readers could not get enough of it.  It certainly sounded like a plan for me.

                  My book first appeared as a self-published work, The Ezra Scroll. It was costly to produce and, now with hindsight, badly in need of editing. But it was out there. I had fans who kept prodding me for the next book. One of those fans was a rabbinical school classmate of mine, Donald Gerber. Donald is a natural salesman. He sold me, at the time of its first appearance, on the idea that the Ezra Scroll was a worthy effort, even a movie deal. He talked the book up every chance he got, to anyone who would listen.  

                  One of those chances was a case of mistaken identity. Cruising the web, Donald took notice of the Newhouse Creative Group website. It caught his eye because he was a native of Syracuse and was familiar with the great philanthropy of the I.E. Newhouse family. He called the contact number on the NCG website and spoke with Keith Newhouse.  He spoke with Keith Newhouse at length and convinced him to give the “second” book a fair look. As it turned out, Keith was definitely interested. Keith’s dad, NCG author Mark Newhouse became my new editor. He saw thriller potential, in the story. Mark helped in restructuring the Ezra Scroll into a serial thriller, The Search for the Sacred Scroll. Under Mark’s able guidance, it became a three-part thriller, Book 1 Discovery Under Fire; Book 2 The Secret of the Crowns; and Book 3; Amaryah Orenstein took over as the editor of the third book, The Samaritan Bone Box. It has just been published (July 20) and is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. 

Mark Leslie Shook