Two Thousand Years Ago

The story of Jesus dominates the history of the first century AD in the Near East, but what was happening elsewhere at this time? This book puts the life of Jesus and the events associated with him within a world context, not in terms of Jesus' world influence, which did not exist at this time, but purely as a means of interesting comparison.

'Absolutely, definitively alone', a young Jewish student in Romania tries to make sense of a world that has decided he doesn't belong. Spending his days walking the streets and his nights drinking and gambling, meeting revolutionaries, zealots, lovers and libertines, he adjusts his eyes to the darkness that falls over Europe, and threatens to destroy him. Mihail Sebastian's 1934 masterpiece, now translated into English for the first time, was written amid the anti-Semitism which would, by the end of the decade, force him out of his career and turn his friends and colleagues against him. For Two Thousand Years is a prescient, heart-wrenching chronicle of resilience and despair, broken layers of memory and the terrible forces of history.

On the banks of Lake Gennesaret, Publius Lentulus (Emmanuel) has an encounter with Christ; Publius has gone to beseech Jesus to heal his little daughter, Flavia, who has contracted leprosy. Moved and magnetized by emotions he has never felt before, he hears the Master tell him: “... It would have been better if you had come publicly and in broad daylight in order to learn once and for all the sublime lesson of faith and humility. “... After many years of deviation from the path of the good due to your blatant wrongs, today you have come to the turning point for the regeneration of your entire life. “... It is up to you, however, to take advantage of it either now or a few millennia from now... “... But no one can impose an act that is against your conscience if it is your desire to spurn this blessed moment indefinitely!” He perceives that Jesus is praying. That very night, his daughter begins to improve noticeably until she is completely well. What are the consequences of this encounter with the Divine Master? Flavia is healed. Livia, Publius’s wife, a patrician woman, converts to Christianity. Publius returns to his political affairs but refuses to believe that Jesus was the author of his daughter’s recovery. Emmanuel narrates this personal experience with the richness of detail that characterizes all his books so that we can ponder the precious “moments” that we are offered throughout our lives; moments that are often wasted, thereby retarding our progress and evolution.

This monumental work has been called a novelized story of civilization. The Wandering Jew is a cosmic symbol-he is a man, he is a woman, he is sex, he is history, he is life itself.

Cartographers have long grappled with the impossibility of portraying the earth in two dimensions. To solve this problem, mapmakers have created map projections. This work discusses and illustrates the known map projections from before 500BC to the present, with facts on their origins and use.