My Women of the Bible series is by far my most popular writing to date. These novellas tell stories of women, who may have been mentioned in only a single line of scripture, who lived at the time of Christ and either actually or presumably met him.

I begin with questions: Who was she? What was her life like? Where did she live? Who was in her social circle? What challenges or problems might she have confronted? What strengths did she possess, and what limitations did she face? What hardships did she endure? Who might have been her friends? Her enemies?

Then the research begins.

For example, in the first book of this series, Rebekah Redeemed, the main character is fictitious, but she allows me to bring in Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary in a redirection plot. I researched online and at the library to find out what daily life was like for women in first-century Palestine, and I spent hours talking to a Jewish friend and scholar, Steve Gens, and his wife, Fredrika, about the laws, customs and practices of that era. We also consulted a rabbi for additional resources. Temporal history books and anthropology resources, as well as early church history books, provided copious information with which I filled notebooks.

Everything else was imagination and invention.

These stories are fictional as far as what happens to my main characters, but they are intertwined with recorded Biblical events. I develop stories from the perspective of what I think it was like for a Jewish woman to live at the time of Jesus and what it might have been like to meet him, talk with him, and act on his message. Then I try to capture what that impact might have done to her and to the other people she knew.

Each story illustrates one central theme, or message, of Jesus as he might have applied it to the people of his time, and these themes are developed in ways that – I hope – relate to problems and issues we face today.