Every scene in this novel that involves a named biblical figure - Abra- ham, Hagar, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Ruth, Hannah, David, Elijah, Daniel, Esther, Mary, and above all Jesus Christ - is built on the plain text of Scripture, and I have tried, with whatever skill I could bring to it, never to contradict that text or to invent a chronology or an outcome Scripture does not itself support. Where the Bible is silent, I have imagined. Where it speaks, I have followed.