The life of the young Jesus Christ remains a mystery. Other than the statement that after he was 12 years old, Luke 2:42, he “advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men,” Luke 2:52, the Bible’s New Testament has no details regarding his early life. So, the coming-of-age of Jesus must be left to imagination and speculation: informed speculation and relevant imagination, hopefully.

The task is not an easy one–how does one go about creating a childhood and early life for the Son of God? In Jeshua, John Cech delivers a compelling, often moving story, his speculation based on extensive research; his imaginations based on contemporary themes of thought. This is NOT the story a non-believer might have expected: a somewhat extra-ordinarily talented child growing into a young adult, turning to spiritual concerns, espousing the principles we now know as “Christian” and developing a following that would grow and eventually envelope much of the earth, with the holy back-story following, an ex-post-facto fiction.

As a teen, how are the limits of Jeshua’s abilities, his knowledge, his empathy, to be dealt with? In Cech’s first-person account, Jeshua is gifted with inhuman abilities right from the start, as are others of his teachers. And Jeshua’s understanding and compassion grow as he learns. But this Jeshua is much more than some super-baby Kal-el discovering and learning to control his superpowers. Although Jeshua’s birth is predicted and celebrated as related in the gospels; his fragile young life is protected by the Magi (the same intellectually-elite confederation that appeared at his birth in the forms of the gift-bearing three wise men), and it takes many years of study, experience, and contemplation before his holiness is fully realized.

Cech’s is a contemporary-to-our-time view of the development of Jeshua’s philosophy and power. As we read, we can feel the formation of Christian thought, evolving from the harsh, distant, retribution-oriented God of the Torah, taught to Jeshua, to the personal, loving, turn-the-other-cheek God of modern progressive Christianity. The basis of this philosophy, in Cech’s telling, comes from Jeshua’s worldly father, Joseph, “Abba Joseph”, evolving through Jeshua’s understanding of his special relationship with his Holy Father, the Creator, in which he also sees all people as children of the Creator.

And so this is Cech’s fascinating story—how each of the experiences of the young Jesus add, exponentially, to his understanding of who he is, who he will become, and his fate, his “qismah”, as prophet and savior for the world. Cech fancifully and credibly fills in the missing times and places, taking on the dilemmas of omniscience and omnipotence. The book is filled with accurate context based on abundant research.

Revelations come to Jeshua from many sources. As he recounts his extensive travels, tragic experiences, and subsequent introspection, we understand more and more of how he evolved into what he became, the fulfilment of the promise surrounding his celebrated birth. And his experiences include the implementation of his mentors’ teaching: the Magi and others he meets along the way, including revelations from Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and his own Jewish tradition.

There is, for example, much foreshadowing of Jeshua’s own personal sacrifice, his wish to suffer in place of those suffering around him, and the reasons for it. Cech’s telling brings greater understanding of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice, which is, of course, for almost two millennia, now, the basis of Christian religion.

Cech’s audacious epic is engaging—Old Testament forces of evil to overcome, with distracting elements of Rowling-style wizardry and Brown-style conspiracy—and convincing. Perhaps, in some future age, Cech’s Jeshua will be re-discovered, deemed praiseworthy, and included among the gospels: The Word of God.