Holmes Marjorie - Two From Galilee

One hushed Christmas Eve several years ago a woman sat in a darkened church. The greens, the carols, the beauty of the nightall contributed to the expectant stillness that filled the church. Suddenly she became aware of the strong sweet smell of the hay in the candlelit manger.

It actually happened, she thought in wonder. It happened to real people in a real place with real smells and sounds and sights. And that young mother was no older than my own daughter.

The impact of the discovery was overwhelming, and the woman left the church that night determined to tell the story of two real people whose lives were touched by God. The woman was Marjorie Holmes, and the story that was born in the scent of the hay was

TWO FROM GALILEE

This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED .

TWO FROM GALILEE
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with
Fleming H. Revell Company

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Revell edition published May 1972
Guideposts edition published March 1973
A condensation appeared in MCCALLS Magazine December 1972
Bantam edition / March 1974

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1972 by Marjorie Holmes Mighell.
Introduction copyright 1986 by Marjorie Holmes Mighell.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
For information address: Fleming H. Revell Company,
184 Central Ave., Old Tappan, New Jersey 07675.

eISBN: 978-0-307-83120-0

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words Bantam Books and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Random House, Inc., New York, New York.

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Of all the books I have written, Two From Galilee will always be dearest to my heart.

It goes back, no doubt, to that magical Christmas Eve in a candlelit church when I sat next to my thirteen-year-old daughter, so close to the manger scene we could smell the hay. Real hay its pungent fragrance transporting me back to the sweet-smelling fields and barns of my Iowa childhood. Filling me with a sudden, almost overwhelming sense of reality. For the first time in my life I realized, Why, this really happened! On this night, a long time ago, there actually was a girl having a baby far from home in a manger, on the hay!

A very young girl, surely, for I remembered reading somewhere that in the culture of Marys time every girl was considered ready for betrothal and marriage as soon as she went into her womanhood. And I thought, astonished: When Mary bore the Christ child, she couldnt have been much older than my own Melanie here beside me!

With this sudden awareness came a thrilling conviction about Joseph: He must have been a young man too. Old enough to protect and care for Mary and her child, but young enough to be deeply in love with her. And she with him. Why not? They were engaged to be married. Surely God, who loved us enough to send his precious son into the world, would want that son to beraised in a home where there was lovegenuine human love between his earthly parents.

My feelings go back to the three years I spent researching and writing their beautiful story. Living with the characters, seeing them, hearing their voices, feeling their every emotion. They became as real to me as my own husband and children; not only Mary and Joseph but their parents, their families, the people in the village of Nazareth.

I could hardly bear to part with them when at last, with the tears rolling down my cheeks, I finished the final scene. I remember hugging the manuscript to my hearta moment of both exaltation, and anticipation. All that I had experienced so profoundly, was now ready to be shared with the world.

What followed next was only to intensify my impassioned faith in the book: For six long years I was destined to journey with Mary and Joseph from publisher to publisher, only to be turned away at the inn. No room, no room! Nobody wants to read Biblical novels anymore, I was told. And, Youve made the Holy Family as real as the people next door! You cant do that.

Thats exactly what I meant to do, I pleaded. to make people realize they werent just statues or pictures on a Christmas card. They did breathe and hurt and hope and love just like we do. They too were human beings!

Despite all these rejections, my stubborn faith never wavered. It was fortified by that of another fine writer, Patricia McGerr. Gods time is not our time, she told me. When the Lord is ready this novel will be publishedand have a great success.

Her prophecy was to be fulfilled. One final publisher did have the courage to publish Two From Galilee, Fleming H. Revell. And their courage was rewarded. Ninety thousand copies were sold in the first three months. It was soon on the New York Times best seller list, and became one of the ten best-selling novels of that year: 1972.

Fully nine years after that moment of revelation in the church on Christmas Eve.

But nothing makes Two From Galilee more dear to me than the avalanche of letters that have poured in about it. Beginning with the Christmas issue condensation in McCalls (a feature the editors told me drew the highest readership of anything we have published all year) and continuing ever since. Letters from men, women, and teenagers, from people in every circumstance, from all over the world. Not only letters but countless phone calls. One girl telephoned from a distant state to tell me it was her thirteenth birthday. My mother says I can have any gift I want. I told her all I wanted was to tell you personally how much I love Two From Galilee.

Phone calls and letters, saying that Christmas has taken on an entirely new significance for them; concepts of love have been changed, lives altered, faith enhanced.

One statement I particularly cherish came from a minister who had been discouraged: You made me realize that if God would choose such simple, everyday folk for his great purpose, he surely has use for a humble servant like me. I have resolved to dedicate my talents anew to his service.

Two From Galilee has never been out of print. But I am proud and happy that Bantam Books has published this book and its sequel, Three From Galilee. I am very grateful to the publishers who did make room for Mary and Joseph in their inn!

A ND now she was a woman.

She was a woman like other women and her step was light as she hurried through the bright new morning toward the well. She knew she need not tell the others, they would know the minute they saw her. They would read her secret in her proudly shining eyes. And she knew she need not tell her beloved (if indeed he was still her beloved) though to speak of it would have been unthinkable anyway. He too would know. If, pray heaven, there were some way to see him before this day was past.