Joshua The Odyssey of An Ordinary Man, is a historical literary fiction written in a cinematographic style - expanded screenplay- about the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. The book in 9 chapters and a prologue has a word count of 170,000.
I am Theckedath Mathew, M.D. I was born in an aristocratic Catholic family in the state of Kerala on the southern cape of India. As a young boy I was interested in writing, public speaking and music. My parents thought that I would make a great bishop if not a priest and therefore goaded me to become an altar server at the age of 13. I was able to say my portions of the Holy Mass in Aramaic. Soon I realized that many of the priests were ascetic, exceptionally kind and compassionate, but there were some wolves in lamb's skin - pedophiles. I thought some men are created pigs and some pigs are robed priests.
My town consisted of three hills. The first hill was barren used for cattle grazing. On the second hill was a located grand cathedral like Arch Deacon church. The third hill was a steep hill of about a mile with rough rutted rod which had a small dark church at the top for the un-touchable. On this hill there were the 14 Stations of the Cross with 14 small mini church-like structures. In my childhood days we used to decorate these stations with flowers and lit them with candles. From those days on, I had the desire to climb the real Golgotha with a new Nike sneaker. I had a deep curiosity to know, who was this man Jesus? Who was telling the truth and what is the truth?
Thereafter I joined a medical school and became a specialist in cardiology. I have worked on four continents of the world and have travelled to many countries as a student in history and philosophy. These countries included Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Persia, Egypt, Rome, Greece, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and of course India. I was much interested in reading the ancient theological works and classics. Soon it occurred to me that Jesus, in his long 17 years of absence from Palestine, may have travelled through these lands of civilization and he has learned from the sages of the east and west.
To date we have many philosophers in the world such as Akhenaton from Egypt, Cicero from Rome, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoras from Greece, Hammurabi from Babylon, Buddha from India and Confucius from China, but Jesus is the first man ever who had the courage to raise the hand of the harlot and challenge the crowd “who amongst you without sin may cast the first stone.” That challenge reverberates more emphatically today when the Jihadists are running amok shouting, “my God is mightier than your God.”
I wanted to know a lot more about this man Jesus. I read everything that I came across, starting from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the writings in the Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Babylonian, Indian and Chinese treaties. Then I finally concluded that Jesus is an ordinary man. He did not have any divine intervention, and he is the man who worked for the prostitutes, destitutes, workers in the fields and for all children, and spoke violently against the Pharisees and the pedophiles. I started writing this book in 2005 and completed writing in 2010. Then it was a time of revisions, editing and revisions and editing, etc., and the book came into being.
A carpenter boy who grew up in a remote village in Israel at the very best may have known an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth from the Torah and how to make yokes and ploughs from his father. This boy, possibly born out of a wed lock whose father was possibly a Roman Centurian, was a phenom with severe inquisitiveness to study his ancestry, the truth about the exodes, and about Romans -his occupiers- and the world at large. Those days, there were many Greeks settled down in Palestine and the Greek was probably taught in some fashion in tutelage r Greek schools. Joshua had learned some Greek before his next leg of his endeavor. Those days people from Palestine used to go to Egypt for all kinds of needs, a draught or famine or poverty or whatever. The road to Egypt was well known and much traversed -the Via Maris- The Way of the philistines. Jesus' hitch hiked with a caravan going to Alexandria. He secured a job at the library of Alexandria. Here he was able to read and study the “entire knowledge of the universe in one place, under on roof in one dialect'- Greek. In Egypt he did some research and found that the Jewish population during Moses' time was not more than 5000. So, he confirmed that the story of 65000 men alone in the Exodes was a myth.
From Egypt Joshua sailed to Rome. It was the period of 'Pax Romana'. Rome was the most powerful nation in the whole world. Joshua came to know about Cicero and his inimitable style of rhetoric where he used reasoning words juxtapositioned in one sentence that would sound like a ringing dictum. Joshua successfully used that style throughout his life, most notably in his sermon on the mount: “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the land”. The Ciceronian style of rhetoric has been successfully used by many, most notably J. F. Kennedy in his inaugural address in 1961, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask, what you can do for your country”
From Rome, Joshua sailed to the Greek islands. He walked tracing the footsteps of the great philosophers and learned from them; Socrates with his inimitable pious style of asking questions to the Athenians, the political sharpness of Plato and the logic of Aristotle.
His next journey to Babylonia was exhilarating. He learned the original writings of humanity- the story of Gilgamesh- where he saw the original texts of Adam and Eve, the great flood and the many other stories copied in the Torah.
Joshua took the most daring journey to the far east. He hitch- hiked a Chinese caravan and reached the great learning center of Taxila. He started learning Hinduism- its cunningness and pragmatism; Jainism and Buddhism- its philosophy of non-violence and Confucianism- its pearls of wisdom. It was here in Mathura in a hermitage Joshua met the most mysterious being of all Sukanya. Thus after 17 years of odyssey a Joshua enlightened with wisdom and emboldened with knowledge returning to Palestine - a land in the turmoil of revolution against the Romans. He started his ministry of kindness, love and compassion, but the Sanhedrin and the Romans were watching.
I think this is the ultimate book on the life and times of Jesus; the most researched and well written. I think this book will have a place in human history as a landmark work.