RW Holmen 
Wormwood and Gall 
The Destruction of Jerusalem and the First Gospel

On a late summer’s day during the reign of Emperor Vespasian, the world seemingly ended for the Hebrew people of Palestine; tens of thousands died as Roman legions torched Jerusalem and demolished the Holy Temple, the very dwelling place of the Lord God Almighty of Israel. As blood-swollen gutters ran red and the smoke of hellfire blackened the sky, where was God? Was there meaning to life? To death?

The Great Roman-Jewish War was a watershed moment–no, more than that, an apocalypse in which the end of the world seemed near–not only for the Hebrew people, but also for emerging Christianity, and Wormwood and Gall remembers this oft-forgotten setting for an early, important chapter in the history of the church. Amid death and destruction, the dispirited remnant of the followers of Jesus, who had been awaiting the return of their crucified messiah for four decades, needed encouragement and words of hope. In response, an unknown person compiled the good news narrative that has come to be known as ‘the Gospel according to Mark.’ 

Wormwood and Gall is a fictionalized account of the birth pangs of the early church against the background of revolution, civil war, and apocalyptic devastation. Although Wormwood and Gall fictionalizes the characters behind the compilation of this gospel, the novel attempts to accurately recreate the events, chronology, and apocalyptic milieu of the Roman-Jewish War.