Yochi is a historical novel about the fictional formative years of John Mark who wrote the gospel of Mark, but it is not a religious book although it has some spiritual content.
I believe the story would appeal to a wide variety of interested people, including those in academia, Jews, non-believers and skeptics, and anyone enjoying a challenging adventure.
The story, which spans Roman Mediterranean countries, includes characters who lived at the same time as the subject of the book, who could well have known one another, and follows their revelationary journeys around the strict expectations and demands of the religious authorities as they were growing up. The names are their Hebrew names and a names glossary has been included. The culture in the story is mostly Jewish of the wealthy families at the time including those from the Hellenist society of Alexandria, and describes some of their religious practices.
The main characters are close friends and family of Yochanan Marcos, the son of Aristopolos Marcos, a wealthy Levite business man living in Jerusalem, originally from Cyprus, who owned olive groves and an olive oil business. Many of Yochi's friends are Jewish youth who share his cultural background.
The book includes mystery and intrigue and even some villains. Introduced as a surprise and hotly-debated controversy, many well-known First Century Biblical characters known in the Jesus story, are from the Essene community offering some of their previously unknown beliefs and practices as commonplace, for example, the villages of Nazareth and Bethany in the story are Essene villages.
There are twenty six chapters with about ninetynine thousand words including the footnotes and glossaries in two hundred and fiftyfive pages. The notes are important to understanding the novel, the biblical traditions, the historic context and what happened after the story ended.
There are seven illustrations including genealogies and maps. Research has uncovered some controversial theories about certain biblical events and these have been included in the novel as fact.
