Timing is Everything

Posting for April 6, 2026

Writing Search for the Sacred Scroll was not a problem from the “timeline” point of view. The historical period it was based on did not always have definitive markers for certain events. It was possible for the writer to decide what happened when and where, in the absence of contradictory Biblical texts or other historical proof. The only thing that mattered was whether the plot fit into the time scheme. The Leper’s Testament, on the other hand, deals with events that have a great deal of religious history and evidence running through them.

Historical Fiction can be problematic for writers who are serious about history. Characters from the New Testament and Rabbinic literature contain biographical material about many of them that has already been written. What happens when you create a story that depends on a certain character being alive over a very long time? The plot won’t work if the main character is known to have died thirty years earlier. 

Yochanan ben Zakkai, one of the main characters of The Leper’s Testament, is a Jewish hero who holds a revered place in rabbinic literature. Yochanan ben Zakkai was a witness to the destruction of Jerusalem. He rescues his students from the siege of Jerusalem and establishes a new school at Yavne by the sea. But, for my story to work, I needed him to be a contemporary of Jesus. Could ben Zakkai, for example, have been 33 years old at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. Doing my research on ben Zakkai I discovered that the rabbinic tradition compared his longevity to that of Moses, 120 years. According to that tradition, there were three phases of his life, each numbering some forty years. It was all good. I could continue to write a narrative for Yochanan ben Zakkai that would carry him well beyond the Roman destruction of Jerusalem.