The Book of DieselThe Light Before the Gospel“Outside Jerusalem, the Magi washed the road from their hands, faces, and feet. In the basin the morning star trembled above dust from Parthia, Syria, Nabataea, and Judea, as though every border they had crossed had become one small darkness beneath the water.”
The Book of Diesel · Gospel Threshold Edition v4.5
Direct canonical threshold + sacred fictionThe final scene stops immediately before Matthew’s canonical narrative begins.
Matthew 2:1 begins after Jesus’s birth by placing Magi from the east in Jerusalem during Herod’s reign. The Gospel then gives their question, Herod’s alarm, Bethlehem, the gifts, the warning, and the alternate road.
The camp outside Jerusalem, pādyāb, private dialogue, symbolic interpretation of the gifts, Second Road map, and final preparations are fictional.