I realize there are various and valid explanations for how Christianity ended up—at least on the surface—bearing so little resemblance to its Jewish roots. Nonetheless, I sometimes wonder why, for example, Christian children aren’t taught more about what Jesus’ life as a Jewish boy would have been like. That’s part of the reason I so enjoyed Anne Rice’s book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. It was historical fiction, carefully researched, which painted a picture of Jesus as a child, deeply immersed in Jewish life.

I’ve just read another book of historical fiction set in first century Judea that sheds further light on the Jewish life and customs Jesus would have experienced. Witness, by E. G. Lewis, tells the story of a young shepherdess named Rivkah, whose life intersects with Jesus, or Yeshua, as he would have been called.

With her widowed father, Rivkah lives in Bethlehem. When lambing season begins, she and Abba, as she calls her father, along with the other shepherds, spend their nights in the field guarding their sheep. As the first watch of the night begins, the men chant Ma’ariv, or evening prayers. Rivkah is awakened by what she thinks is a falling star. “Struck dumb with fright, we sat like statues, our faces turned to the sky. What at first appeared to be a falling star gradually took shape. The light came from the creature at the center of it.” Fear gave way to peace upon hearing the creature’s words: “Do not be afraid.” Rivkah and the other shepherds listen as the angel tells them about the Savior whom they will find “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

We don’t think too much about what those shepherds experienced. But we know they went to seek out the babe, as the angel had told them. As Witness tells it, the shepherds go into town and find Yosef. “The hand of the Most High urged us to leave our flocks and come to Bethlehem,” they tell him. “We came without understanding why.”

They didn’t need to understand why. Worship and prayer were an integral part of their daily lives, as Witness makes abundantly clear. So they knew the hand of God when it was shown to them.