A.D. 30

Ted Dekker is at the top of my list of fantastic authors. He does not disappoint in A.D.30 which is an excellent historical fiction. Very dissimilar from his other novels, this one is nevertheless just as captivating.

The main character, Maviah, was an illegitimate child of a father who cast her to the slave traders as an infant. In her life she suffered - she was a slave - she was a woman - she was an outcast.  When Maviah becomes with child, she is sent to live with her father's people again, as a slave. It is here an enemy of her father attacks and in the event her infant son is tossed out a window to his death and her father is disfigured and imprisoned.  It is Maviah who is asked to deliver them - the very ones who had turned her out. She accepts her mission, though she will be held in dungeons and be blinded in the process.

Two travel companions: Judah, a Jewish man who sees Maviah as a queen, and Saba, a strong and caring slave who will eventually sees her that way as well. The mission takes them to the private and dangerous quarters of King Herod. Here, Maviah must present herself as a queen. But does she think herself a queen, or an unworthy slave, a victim?

Dungeons, beatings, kings, journeys....through it all they are led to Yeshua, the Messiah. Maviah will face her anger, hatred and grievances as the result of meeting this mystic of 30 A.D. And she is called to surrender. But how? How does one surrender it all? One word......