A carpenter is shipwrecked on a small Mediterranean island--he's completely lost his memory but has acquired the ability to speak, write and understand all languages. After his rescue, he spends time recuperating with a group of nuns who, observing him perform what appear to be small miracles, take him to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Later, in Beirut, he's hired as a translator for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, and is recruited as a messenger for Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group. Disillusioned by this experience, he treks on foot across the Galilean hills to the Sea of Galilee, encountering a series of strange communities evoking biblical times along the way. Part biblical fable, part magic realism, part thriller, A Simple Carpenter is set in the Middle Eastern "Holy Land" in the early '80s, against the backdrop of the civil war in neighboring Lebanon.