The Historical Jesus of Nazareth The Man: According to The Gospel of David of Zebedee

After a long arduous day of fishing out on the sea of Galilee and hauling in a more than substantial catch in his nets to bolster and enrich the Zebedee family business, David pulls his boat ashore, beaching it nearby a sizeable crowd of his friends and neighbors. They seem to be enthralled listening to this young Rabbi, this itinerant preacher, this Jesus from Nazareth.

Not being one of the twelve apostles that Jesus recruits to spread his teachings and hopes for the future of Jews everywhere, David becomes a confidante, friend, and general manager -- a country-wide organizer -- for Jesus and his movement to establish his Kingdom of God. At the same time as he walks in the footprints of Jesus and is blessed to be able to read and write, he devotes his life as an eyewitness to record and write on parchments about the events and actions and activities of Jesus, hour after hour, day after day, even from his birth until the day he buries Jesus and bids farewell to Jesus's wife and daughter as they sail from Palestine in 44 A.D. to Southern France.

During those three years, David faithfully records the words and teachings and parables and stories and hopes and dreams of Jesus, and also, while never leaving his side, he describes the saddest of days as well, the times of Jesus's arrest and crucifixion and the agonizing last days of his life after his crucifixion with Mary and his apostles.

When David's writings are discovered centuries later by two master craftsmen and stone masons, Giovanni Zebedee and Aldo Luciano, inside a hollow marble statue of Mary Magdalene in a church in Saint Baume, France, Gio and Aldo suddenly realize -- after translating them from French into English -- that they possess the power to upset and change the very foundation and future of Christian life as they knew it.