Copyright © 2003 by D. R. MacDonald

Illustrations copyright by Ken Faulks

All rights reserved

Everyone wondered at the time who that baby was.

But no one wondered as much as another baby that

was born in the same stable just a few days earlier…

	That was the donkey named Pele'yah. That’s Pe, with a short 'e', and le, with just a hint of a 'lay', and then a stop -'- followed by ‘yah’, with the stress on the last syllable: Pe-le'yah. He has a short name too: Pele, with the stress on the first syllable. Here is what the letters look like. Read them right to left - the opposite direction to Latin and Greek: - Peh - La-med - Aleph -Yod - He.
In the 21^st year of Julius Caesar Augustus (Octavian)		Birth of Pele’yah in a stable near Bethlehem – this firstborn donkey was redeemed by a lamb
In the 23^rd year of Augustus		Pele goes to Egypt
In the 24^th year of Augustus		Pele moves to Nazareth
In the 30^th year of Augustus		Birth of the twins in Chorazin
In the 32^nd year of Augustus		Pele’s trip to Jerusalem
In the 4^th year of Tiberius Claudius Nero		Birth of Tsame (Sammy) in Zippori
In the 16^th year of Tiberius		Tsame begins working in Jerusalem
In the 17^th year of Tiberius		Pele is lost in the wilderness
In the 18^th year of Tiberius		Pele returns to Bethlehem
In the 4^th year of Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus		Death of Pele’yah, aged almost 50
In the 5^th year of Claudius		Tsame, aged 26, writes the story