Jesus of Nazareth

Who was Jesus?

               Jesus the son of Joseph and Mary was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judaea around four to six B. C., or according to the Roman dating system of the time, 747 to 749 years since the founding of the city of Rome. Herod the Great ruled the Kingdom of Judaea with the acquiescence and support of the dominant empire of the time, Rome. The emperor Octavian Caesar, Augustus, had been princeps of the Roman Empire for over twenty years, and was in the process of establishing a dynasty that would continue decades after his death. The empire was relatively peaceful: Roman institutions, government, and law provided security and continuity. Roman imperial government was not as harsh as other states, before and after. The benefits of Roman citizenship were sought after, and given due respect. No doubt the humble carpenter and his wife who gave birth to their son in Bethlehem knew little of Roman policies, politics, and traditions. Writers who traced the life of Jesus a half-century after the fact of his birth claimed that Joseph and Mary made their home at Nazareth in Galilee, which was a pastoral, maritime community dominated by a farm economy and the freshwater Sea of Galilee. Fish was the staple of many tables. Fishermen walked to the synagogue along with farmers and craftsmen. Nothing is known about the life of Jesus up to his thirtieth year, save that he and his family had some indications of the significance of his life as they fit his birth into the context of Jewish teaching, history, and tradition.

               The Hebrews had for over a thousand years looked for the appearance of an anointed one, a Messiah (Christos) who would champion their cause, who would free them from suffering and political oppression, who would lead them to a new age wherein the chosen people of Yahweh would find redemption and peace–and power and glory as well. The Messiah was to come in a blaze of glory. According to the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, the Messiah would provide a temporal and secular manifestation of what all people seek, what people of the ancient world in particular sought–wealth, power, glory, revenge, martial success. Hence did the Jews hunger for the anointed one. They looked for such a person. When Jesus began his teaching, according to later writers such as the author of the Gospel of Mark, he was hesitant to proclaim himself the anointed one. But those around him believed that he was. Indeed, during his ministry of several years in and about Judaea, Galilee, and Samaria, Jesus gained a group of followers as well as the reputation as a helper, healer, and teacher of God’s love and redemption. Jesus rarely spoke in any clear terms about who he thought he was. He allowed others to define him as the Son of God, the Messiah, the Holy One. About his own identity he was silent save one simple, mysterious phrase that according to all the Gospel writers he used in self-definition and proclamation. This was the phrase Son of Man. Jesus’s use of the phrase is as mysterious today as it was two thousand years ago. What he meant by the phrase has confused his followers both then and now. And yet it is in his adopted title, his chosen identity, that we see clearly how to measure our own existence in light of the existence of the anointed one, the Son of Man.

Rome

               When Jesus was born at the end of the first century, B. C., the entire Mediterranean world was controlled by the Roman Empire. The city of Rome was founded, according to tradition and legend, in 753 B. C., and was ruled by foreign (Etruscan) kings until 509 B. C., when the Romans revolted, the king was deposed, and Rome established a representative government, the Republic. The Romans were excellent soldiers: the Roman legion consisted of heavily-armed infantry and supporting cavalry. By 300 B. C. Rome was in control of Italy. Opposing the rise of Roman power, however, were a variety of Mediterranean empires. The empire of Carthage in North Africa controlled the western Mediterranean and opposed Roman expansion west of Italy. The kingdom of Macedon in Greece controlled the Balkans and opposed Roman expansion east. Ptolemaic Egypt was rich and powerful, as was the Seleucid Empire in Western Asia.

               The Roman rise to power in the Mediterranean was rapid and ruthless. The Romans conquered Carthage in a series of wars (Punic Wars), and obliterated the city of Carthage itself by 150 B. C. Shortly thereafter the Roman invaded Greece, conquering Macedon and its king Philip V by 180 B. C. The Seleucid Empire, a large Greek empire that was the remnant of the conquests of Alexander the Great, was controlled by Rome late in the second century, B. C. The varied wars that resulted in Roman power led to the decline of the Roman Republic. Powerful generals assumed illegal powers. The most famous Roman general, Julius Caesar, attempted to establish himself as a king in the mid first century, which began the Civil War in 49 B. C. Caesar’s forces defeated the forces of Pompey by 45 B. C.–Caesar declared himself Dictator. Caesar’s rule was short-lived, however, as he was assassinated in 44 B. C., which began another civil war in which Octavian (Augustus) Caesar would conquer Caesar’s friend and ally Mark Antony and Antony’s lover Cleopatra of Egypt. Octavian marched on and occupied Egypt in 31 B. C.

               During this period of Rome’s rise to power the Hebrews had struggled against a series of different kingdoms and empires attempting to control Palestine. The Apocryphal books of Maccabees describe the Jewish struggle against the Seleucid king Antiochus during the mid second century B. C. Meanwhile Roman power continued to expand into Asia; early in the first century B. C. the Roman general Pompey took control of Palestine and established governors and client-kings to rule the region. One of these rulers, after the death of Pompey and assassination of Caesar, was Antipater, from the region of Idumaea. Antipater’s son Herod succeeded him in 37 B. C. and gained the support of Octavian, who ruled Rome from 31 B. C. to 14 A. D. Herod was an energetic ruler who sought to maintain his personal power at all costs. He supported Judaism and lavished money (gained through ruinous taxation of the people) on his own palaces, in the building of cities (such as Caesarea), and on Jerusalem. He was, like many ancient kings, surrounded by flatterers and family members who sought power.

               Soon after the Resurrection and ever since, for almost two thousand years, some have questioned whether the stories of the New Testament are simply that, stories, without a basis in reality. The Gospels were written between thirty and sixty years after Jesus’s death, when the early church was growing and attempting to attract members and to justify its claims. What better way of justification than to base all claims in the teachings and life of a miracle-worker, the Christ, the Son of God, who willingly died for human sin only to live again three days later before ascending into Heaven? But what if early Christians created Christ for their own purposes? A corollary to the question, “How do we know that Jesus actually lived?” is, of course, how do we know that he was the Messiah and Son of God. In other words, even if he did live, is he really all that the Gospels claim he is?

               To answer in the affirmative that Jesus did in fact live, and that what the Gospels claim about him is true, we must rely on contemporary sources, and examine the impact of Jesus’s life on individuals who lived at the same time. Contemporary sources include, of course, the Gospels, but also the writings of a non-Christian, Flavius Josephus (37-100). And there is no better example of the impact of Christ’s life on a contemporary than the life and writings of Paul of Tarsus, author of the New Testament Epistles.

Gospels

               The four Gospels were written in a form of common, spoken Greek, koine, between 60 and 100 A.D., thirty to seventy years after the death of Jesus. Jesus taught by word of mouth; listeners continued to pass along his words for generations until some sayings and stories were recorded. The Gospel of Mark was not the first in order but, according to modern biblical scholarship, the first written, circa 65 A.D., by John Mark, friend of the disciple Peter and associate of the apostle Paul. German scholars of the nineteenth century believed that the reason Matthew and Luke have similar stories to Mark, often more fully rendered, is because Matthew and Luke relied on Mark as a basis for their Gospels. The stories of Jesus in Matthew and Luke not found in Mark, these German scholars reasoned, were based on another source, or common oral tradition, which they labeled quelle (source), or simply Q.

               Written for a Jewish and Gentile audience, the Gospel of Mark introduces Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of Man, which is how Jesus referred to himself. The mystery of this self-proclamation is further heightened by Jesus’s insistence that those whom he heals should not reveal his true nature as the Christ, the Son of God. The reasons for his reticence to be so identified is as unclear as his preference for the designation of Son of Man. The gospel does not provide the birth stories that are found in Luke and Matthew, and indeed does not provide any biographical information except for a vague account of Jesus’s ministry when he is a mature adult and near the end of his life. The Gospel of Mark provides a disjointed chronological narrative, broken into various episodes in the life of Jesus, related in isolated vignettes. The gospel emphasizes Jesus as healer and as Messiah bringing forth the Kingdom of God.

               The Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the gospels, introducing stories and events that the longer gospels of Matthew and Luke explicate in greater detail. the portrayal of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is more human than the others, notwithstanding the numerous miracles this gospel (as well as the other three) describe. The Jesus of the Gospel of Mark is not always certain (as when he claims no one, not even himself, knows when the Son of Man will return); he is afraid on the night of his betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane; he is reluctant for word that he is the Messiah to spread throughout the land; and he tells homely, pastoral parables to illustrate his life, message, and purpose. Examples of the latter include the parable of the sower and the parable of the mustard seed. In the former, Jesus says that “A sower went out to saw. And as he sowed, some seed feel along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed feel on rocky ground, where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil; and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds feel into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” The meaning of the parable is that the immediacy of conversion rarely takes root and grows, for true conversion is long and difficult. The parable of the mustard seed

               The Gospel of Mark is written in a simple Greek than can mask its power and profundity. For example, Mark 9: 30-37: In this passage Jesus leads the disciples through Galilee, teaching them that “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed after three days he will rise.” The disciples, however, are blind to the real purpose of Christ: “they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him.” Uncertainty and secret fears of his words (rhema), which deal with last things (eschatos), lead them to a typical human response to fear, self-centeredness and narcissism. Coming to Capernaum, a port on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples discuss which one among them is greatest; Jesus castigates them for such vanity, and tells them: “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Jesus knows that to act against fear and uncertainty one must turn to others, become a servant  (diakonos) to others. The last will be first (protos). Then, “he took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” In short, to be like the prototype, Christ, one must embrace fear of last things, of death, and by serving others put aside fear.

               The Gospel of Matthew, written (probably) circa 70 A.D., reputedly by a former tax collector and disciple of Christ identified in Luke and Mark as Levi, was directed toward Jewish Christians, to show Jesus was the Hebrew Messiah, fulfilling Hebrew prophecy. The most noteworthy part of Matthew is the section of moral teaching known as the Beatitudes, based on a series of statements by Jesus during the sermon on the mount wherein he indicated who are the blessed ones. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God,” he proclaimed. Jesus teaches that those who realize our poverty in the face of God, who empty themselves before God, are happy. “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.” The mournful are those who feel sorrow for themselves, but for others as well. To feel pain and suffering in the human condition is to feel sympathy and empathy, which is the path to love. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.” The meek, the humble, the one who knows he is no better than another, rather than the proud and arrogant, the one who thinks he is better, will enjoy true happiness. Competition with others so to justify pride and arrogance will never satisfy, will only spur further competition. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” A person who seeks what is right and true will see righteousness and truth in his own life. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” To show mercy is to forgive, to feel charity and love toward another; God in turn will show charity and love toward the merciful. “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.” The person of a pure heart, he who is clean, who eschews sin and evil, will see goodness itself, God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” He who acts in accordance with God, who is peace and love, becomes the child of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” One must fight for God’s ways no matter the consequences. “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” Blessedness, that is happiness, in short, comes to those who live according to God’s ways rather than the ways of the world.

               The Beatitudes are not as absolute as the more rigid moral requirements that follow in Matthew’s gospel. Unlike the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes praise certain traits and behaviors rather than condemn specific actions. The verses following the Beatitudes are more severe injunctions of correct behavior. Jesus commands his listeners not only against killing, as in the Ten Commandments, but against anger and slander as well. Not only must a person not commit adultery, but also to refrain from looking at another person in lust, which is akin to adultery. Rather than “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” Jesus commands his followers to not resist violence with violence. “If any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” These are moral demands that cannot be met in normal everyday life, just like no one can completely abide by the Ten Commandments. For example, the notion of turning the other cheek requires that the Christian practice complete pacifism, that he does not respond to violence in kind. This is a good principle, and one every person should strive for. But in reality there are times when a person cannot help but defend himself and his family, and he must respond violently. Jesus, no doubt, knew this, but wanted to indicate his interpretation of the Scripture as well as his ethical commandments. However, he knew we would fall short. If we did not fall short, what would be the purpose of the redeemer? Jesus died for our sins, meaning that he took our inevitable sins upon himself to cleanse us. But this does not end sin, for merely by being human we will sin, as the Apostle Paul knew.

               The Gospel of Luke was written circa 70 A.D. by the physician Luke, Paul’s friend, for Gentile Christians. This gospel presents the most full biographical account of Christ’s life. Indeed Luke, who also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, was the first historian of Christianity, narrating the history of Jesus and his followers from Christ’s birth to the activities of Paul throughout the Mediterranean region. Luke’s Gospel, like Matthew and Mark, is often a disjointed series of vignettes. Jesus is the Son of Man who performs miracles and constantly warns that unbelievers and sinners will never see the Kingdom of God. Luke also provides the fullest account of the birth of Jesus, including the story of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem, finding no room for Mary who soon will give birth, finding a barn and a manger to lay the newborn in, and being visited by shepherds who have heard of the birth from angels. Luke provides the fullest account of the birth of John the Baptist. It is through Luke that we learn the most about the role of Mary in God’s plan of redemption. Luke also provides the only information about Jesus in the years between his birth and ministry, when he is found conversing with scholars of the Jewish Law at the Temple in Jerusalem when he is twelve years old. In Luke, we have some of the most beautiful and most powerful stories and parables in the Gospel literature.

               The first three Gospels of the New Testament are called the Synoptic Gospels because they generally follow the same pattern and provide a similar account of Jesus. The fourth Gospel, John, is quite different. The Gospel of John was written circa 95 A.D. by the disciple whom Jesus loved, John son of Zebedee. Written for Jewish Christians, it is the most mystical of the Gospels, heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. The Gospel of John, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, presents Jesus as the logos, Greek for “word.” The opening lines of the Gospel read: “In the beginning was the word (logos), and the word (logos) was with God, and the word (logos) was God.” Greek philosophers referred to the logos as the spoken truth, a universal concept, a universal truth. John, by referring to Jesus as the logos, claims that Jesus is more than the Son of God and the Messiah: Jesus is eternally present, the light, knowledge itself, God manifested in His word. The Gospel of John presents the first coherent view of the Trinity: God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit (the paraclete or advocate), of the same substance, the same being, but acting in different ways.

               John’s use of the concept of logos places Christianity firmly in the context of Greek and Roman philosophy. For centuries Greek philosophers had speculated on the character of being, of logos. the Greeks were lovers of grand ideas, and though there were skeptics, and materialists such as the Epicureans, few Greeks doubted that there was some core idea, a spiritual center, a universal and absolute force defined by early philosophers such as Xenophanes as the mind, or the universal soul according to Pythagoras, or to Anaximander of Miletus, the infinite, or to Zeno of Alexandria, the logos. Stoic philosophers conceived of the logos as the “holy spirit” or the “divine fire.”

               Jesus as presented by John is firmly God. He claims as much, as when he says to the Pharisees of Jerusalem (8: 58), “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Such is the name of Yahweh (“I am Who I am”–Exodus 4: 14). Indeed throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus claims “I am.” “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (9: 5) “I am the gate for the sheep.” (10: 7) “I am the good shepherd.” (10: 11) “I am the resurrection and the life.” (11: 25) “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” (14: 11) “I am the true vine.” (15: 1) “I am the bread of life.” (6: 35) “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (14: 6)

Josephus

               One could argue, of course, that as the Gospel writers had a stake in what they were writing about, that no one would believe their words unless they believed that Jesus had lived, that they are inherently biased sources. What is required, then, to provide ironclad evidence of Jesus’s existence, is an unbiased source. Such are the writings of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37-100). Josephus was a Pharisee, perhaps an Essene, a military leader in the uprising against the Romans that occurred in the 60s, and eventually a turncoat who abandoned his countrymen for the Roman cause. He spent the last decades of his life in Rome in retirement, writing books in Latin for a Roman audience, in which he justified Rome’s role in destroying Jerusalem and his own role in abandoning the Jewish cause. He changed his name from Joseph ben Matthias to Flavius Josephus, divorced his wife and married a Roman, and otherwise abandoned his heritage to live a luxurious life in Rome. Josephus was a Jew, perhaps even a pagan, but not a Christian. Hence it is significant that he records information about Jesus. He had no reason to write about Jesus save that the incidents surrounding Jesus’s life were intriguing and fascinating, and as a historian Josephus decided to include them in his history. There are many versions of Josephus’s history preserved in different languages. The Rumanian and Russian edition, translated from Greek, includes accounts of John the Baptist and Jesus. The following description of Jesus reveals that much of what is written in the Gospels is a legitimate account of his life:

                  It was at that time that a man appeared–if ‘man’ is the right word–who had all the attributes of a man but seemed to be something greater. His actions, certainly, were superhuman, for he worked such wonderful and amazing miracles that I for one cannot regard him as a man; yet in view of his likeness to ourselves I cannot regard him as an angel either. Everything that some hidden power enabled him to do he did by an authoritative word. Some people said that their first Lawgiver [Moses] had risen from the dead and had effected many marvelous cures; others thought he was a messenger from heaven. However, in many ways he broke the Law–for instance, he did not observe the Sabbath in the traditional manner. At the same time his conduct was above reproach. He did not need to use his hands: a word sufficed to fulfill his every purpose. Many of the common people flocked after him and followed his teaching. There was a wave of excited expectation that he would enable the Jewish tribes to throw off the Roman yoke. As a rule he was to be found opposite the City on the Mount of Olives, where also he healed the sick. He gathered round him 150 assistants and masses of followers. When they saw his ability to do whatever he wished by a word, they told him that they wanted him to enter the city, destroy the Roman troops, and make himself king; but he took no notice. When the suggestion came to the ears of the Jewish authorities, they met under the chairmanship of the high priest and exclaimed: ‘We are utterly incapable of resisting the Romans; but as the blow is about to fall we’d better go and tell Pilate what we’ve heard, and steer clear of trouble, in case he gets to know from someone else and confiscates our property, puts us to death, and turns our children adrift.’ So they went and told Pilate, who sent troops and butchered many of the common people. He then had the Miracle-worker brought before him, held an inquiry, and expressed the opinion that he was a benefactor, not a criminal or agitator or a would-be king. Then he let him go, as he had cured Pilate’s wife when she was at the point of death. Returning to his usual haunts he resumed his normal work. When the crowds grew bigger than ever, he earned by his actions an incomparable reputation. The exponents of the Law were mad with jealousy, and gave Pilate 30 talents to have him executed. Accepting the bribe, he gave them permission to carry out their wishes themselves. So they seized him and crucified him in defiance of all Jewish tradition.

               Josephus therefore had learned enough about the life of Jesus to know that he someone with a reputation for divine or superhuman qualities; that he performed miracles and was a healer; that he had followers who expected him to overthrow the Roman occupation of Palestine; that the Jewish authorities considered him a liability in their relations with Rome; that he met with Pilate, who found him innocent but ultimately caved into Jewish pressure; that he was crucified.

Nag Hammadi Scrolls

               Another important source giving evidence of the life and teachings of Jesus is the Nag Hammadi Scrolls. These papyrus and parchment scrolls were discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1947. They contain a collection of writings from a sect of Christians heavily influenced by the Greek philosophy of Gnosticism, which assumed that truth involved the search for gnosis, inner knowledge, which is found within each person. Gnostic Christians believed that truth is spiritual rather than bodily, hence the search for God must involve an approach that transcends bodily experiences. Gnostic Christians such as Valentinus did not accept the orthodox interpretation of Christ’s life that included the Incarnation, where God chose to take on human flesh and become man; the Crucifixion, where God chose to suffer and die; and the Resurrection, where God rose again in the flesh. Gnostics believed that flesh was evil, and that Jesus was not a bodily human, rather a spiritual presence, even on the Cross. This interpretation of Christ robbed Christianity of the central tenet that Christ must experience humanity to die for human sins, and was condemned as a heresy by the emerging Catholic Church of the first few centuries, anno domini.

               The Nag Hammadi corpus is a diverse collection of works written between the first and fourth centuries, A. D. It includes new gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, and Gospel of Mary; supposed works of other disciples, such as the Apocryphon of James, the Apocryphon of John, the Apocalypse of James, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Letter of Peter to Philip, and the Act of Peter; and other works of Christians, such as the Prayer of the Apostle Paul and the Apocalypse of Paul. Most of these works were known to the early Church, but were branded as heretical by early Church Fathers, and not included in the corpus that made up the New Testament. Modern scholars consider most of them to have been written several centuries after Christ’s death, and reflect the thinking of second and third century Gnostic Christians, rather than the actual writings of the disciples and followers of Christ of the first century. There are, however, a few exceptions. The most important is the Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas

               The Gospel of Thomas is a Coptic translation of original Greek, with some indication that the sayings were originally in Aramaic, the spoken language of the Near East, hence of Jesus and His disciples. The gospel is a sayings gospel, that is, there are no biographical details, rather just the sayings of Jesus, most beginning with the statement, “Jesus said…” Modern scholarship places many of the sayings in the first century A. D., hence as old as the original four gospels. Some of the sayings are found in the four gospels, but others are completely new, and apparently authentic–that is, part of an oral tradition of the mid-first century that circulated the sayings of Jesus. The Gospel of Thomas is therefore an extremely important source in our understanding of Jesus and his teachings.

               The gospel opens with the statement: “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.” Thomas was the disciple known as the twin, in some traditions Jesus’s twin; he was the “doubting” Thomas of the Gospel of John. The Gospel of Thomas confidently declares that “Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.” The Gospel of Thomas was doubtless included in the Gnostic corpus of the Nag Hammadi Scrolls because it has Gnostic overtones, such as the following: “The kingdom is inside you,” Jesus said, “and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.” Self-knowledge, Gnosis, is the key, therefore, to the wealth of the Kingdom of Heaven. Many of the statements Jesus makes in the Gospel of Thomas are similar to those of the four Gospels, but others are quite different, such as: “Jesus said, ‘When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father’.” A Gnostic would not believe in the Virgin birth of Christ. Another Gnostic saying Jesus makes in the Gospel of Thomas is: “I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind.” Still another: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; . . . then will you enter [Heaven]. The Gospel of Thomas repeats some of the sayings of the Beatitudes, but adds a few new ones, such as: “Blessed is the man who has suffered and found life’; and, “Blessed are the hungry, for the belly of him who desires will be filled.” Echoing the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend.”

For more on Jesus, see my biographical study of Jesus: https://www.amazon.com/Metamorphosis-Jesus-Nazareth-Vanquished-Legion-ebook/dp/B07N9B75YF?ref_=ast_author_dp_rw&th=1&psc=1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.kUZIS5Al0_zKgdrrr5SzCIiJF30vxn6uHcNP6k2N52r2DWHgoEJmJic1Cy_s_3O7DjGJlIiS-MDaEOdx78oBRY_Mpga-vr8P4GNEO3Ng2fJAYMr8A4rfJBtSsaCDx6Of31ApJ_I70Rd9s0k4zerljQWzBD8qNbOgWzzAEw267FnlZ9Rpa6FQHqpqjtZMf3NwW4BWH-dLlhMoVP8HGNGMPLVJfbM2cgirprcTiCc_lVQ.hKVKjxkQjPY4ak8BMDsIrHSTxy1lzy6kcUB2l1K5v-8&dib_tag=AUTHOR