The Counterfeit Christmas

Book excerpt: Much has been said about the birth of Jesus. Come face to face with Mary and Josephas you've never seen them before. Let's unwrap the first Christmas as Jeffery Donley takes you back in time to witness Mary and Joseph's courtship. Stand with Mary before the mighty angelic messenger, Gabriel, as he announces that she will give birth to the Messiah. Hear Mary sing ten stanzasyes, sing! Cry with Mary when Joseph cannot accept her but will privately divorce her. Shout with joy with Mary when Joseph comes to take her home. Walk with Mary and Joseph as you will feel every grueling step to Bethlehem. A cold, damp, stinking, urine/feces-filled room. A burial garment. An animal feed trough. Smell the place where Mary gave birth. Witness what Mary and Joseph used to swaddle baby Jesus. Look where they laid him. Be astonished at what Joseph became! Shiver with Mary as she holds baby Jesus in her arms and sings a lullaby to him. Hear an angelic army sing about the birth of Jesus to shepherds. Tremble in fear with Herod the Great as the Wise Men, the powerful Parthian Megistanes, gallop into Jerusalem. Wake up in the middle of the night and make a strategic trip to Egypt with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. And rejoice when Joseph, Mary, and Jesus return to Israel. After reading The Counterfeit Christmas, you'll understand the birth of Jesus in a whole new way. After reading this book, your life will not be the same! I have enjoyed my reading and imagining with Jeffery Donley what this most magnificent event of our Lord's birth must have felt like to those who were involved in one of the most astounding events in the celestial and terrestrial world. Here is a narrative that will force moderns to pause and to reflect on the central event in history. Christmas will never remain the same for all who live the story of our Lord's birth once again in the way it is retold here. Jeffery's writing takes a story we all think is so well known it hardly bears repeating, yet Donley puts it so dramatically that it will never seem the same ever again. Interestingly enough, Dr. Donley quietly slips in some great archaeological, linguistic and historical studies that will excite even the average reader. I commend this text wholeheartedly to readers of all ages and abilities. Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. Biblical Scholar President Emeritus Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary