You are invited to preview the novel:

• A story about how the New Testament could have been written and compiled: who helped the Gospel authors? who tried to kill them?
• An imaginative picture of the missional communities of Christians in the first century
• Possible answers to questions such as: how did the first Christians manage to spread the Word so quickly? how did female Christians and converts from other cultures participate?
• A secure e-book with two streams of text, pop-up definitions, and an invitation to readers to submit annotations

To register and read several chapters for free, you must provide a valid e-mail address and a password. Once you log in, you can click either of the buttons on this page to resume reading where you left off. You are also invited to:

• Read the mission statement
• Join a discussion of issues in first century Christian community (visitors may read, posters must register, re-opening in early 2013)
• Sign up to receive project updates
• Follow the project on Twitter and Facebook
• Attend a discussion in Second Life

October 2012: an open letter to Christians and unaffiliated young people

Thank you to everyone who has written to discuss our mutual concerns about the young people of today, the under-30, "unaffiliated" Millennial generation. In this open letter I have linked to studies that describe how both unaffiliated and Protestant young people are technically savvy and self-focused, desiring access to Heaven but unwilling to allow God to change their lives in the present. Other studies offer more hope and describe the many ways that online interactive content already reaches this generation.

It is my hope that the e-book on this web site, The Parable of the Messiah Scrolls, can be one means of giving younger millennial and unaffiliated readers an opportunity to see what Christianity and the understanding of Heaven was like in the first century AD, to judge for themselves the claims of Jesus without pressure or guilt.

The full "open letter" may be read here.

If you would like to read and annotate the full novel, the pre-print-publication price of $27.50 entitles you to:

• Secure online access to all chapters of the novel, including group annotations and reference material
• A study guide
• A printed copy shipped free in 2014

Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, please join me in editorial additions, in your annotations, in the discussion boards, in the preparation of public domain study materials, working in hope as we bring fresh images of the developing first century Christian communities into the modern day. 

With gratitude for your interest,

Tertius 29