The dust of a first-century Judean road had a way of settling on everything. It coated the sandals of religious leaders, clung to the hem of the Messiah’s robe, and layered over the skin of a blind beggar named Bartimaeus.   Sitting in the dirt outside Jericho, Bartimaeus was a fixture of the roadside. To the crowds bustling past, he was less than a person; he was background noise, a minor inconvenience, a living reminder of divine punishment. In Roman society, illness and poverty were...