How Far to Bethlehem?

Name: How Far to Bethlehem?
Rating: 4.23 (906 reviews)

by Norah Lofts

First published 1965

Amazon

4.2(906)

Lofts retells the Nativity by following several journeys that gradually converge on Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph face the social and physical demands of travel under Roman rule, while the men later remembered as the Magi come from sharply different cultures and intellectual traditions. Their separate motives—astronomy, curiosity, faith, ambition and the search for meaning—turn a familiar religious story into an encounter between the peoples of the ancient world.
The novel places the birth of Jesus within Roman Judaea, where imperial taxation, local kingship and religious expectation shape ordinary movement and political fear. Herod the Great and Augustus belong to the governing world surrounding the story, while Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus remain its human centre. Lofts treats the traditional material as historical fiction, expanding brief scriptural episodes into imagined lives without presenting those inventions as documentary history.

Historical Periods

Roman Judaea and Second Temple Society4 BCE–66 CE

Genres

Christian Fiction Historical Sagas Social & Domestic Fiction

Historical people

Augustus64 BCE–14 Jesus Christc. 6–4 BCE–c. 30/33 CE Herod the Great75 BCE–5 BCE Mary, mother of Jesus1st century BCE–1st century CE Saint Joseph1st century BCE–1st century CE