The Bible contains but a few verses about the years the Holy Family spent in Egypt - their flight from Herod's death sentence, the weary journey, their return to Israel. But what exactly happened to Jesus and his parents in this ancient land of magic and myth? How did the sojourn in Egypt change Jesus' life and influence his teachings? By poring over narratives of the apocrypha and the traditions of the Coptic Orthodox church, Paul Perry was able to follow the Holy Family's route through Egypt - from their entrance across the burning sands of the Sinai Desert to their zigzagging path down the Nile. Part travel-adventure, part spiritual journey, part historical detective story, JESUS IN EGYPT recounts a modern-day pilgrimage into an ancient and often baffling land. In the basements of Coptic churches and the teeming back streets of Cairo, in shrines thronged by worshipers and desert wastes haunted by saints, Perry turn up shards of the past, tales passed down through countless generations, and reveals a very different side of Jesus than we get in the Bible.