Christ the Lord Out of Egypt by Anne Rice

I enjoyed Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. It was an odd book in some ways, but I found it interesting and entertaining. I was very impressed with how well the historical and cultural context was framed. Anne Rice clearly researched this book very well, as is her claim in the author’s note. I had some major concerns going into this book, and didn’t expect to enjoy it nearly as much as I did.

My main concern going into the book was the first person story-telling from the perspective of Jesus. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about Jesus when he was young, so there’s not much sound data from which to build. This led the author to use multiple accounts from the Apocrypha. Those accounts were jarring to read because I know from where they stem. My deep-held Protestantism protested, so-to-speak. Especially the opening passage of the book where Jesus kills a playmate. This story is deeply troubling to me. If that actually did occur, Jesus would not be sinless. Raising the child back from the dead doesn’t cancel out the sins of anger and murder. My uneasiness at this, and other apocryphal passages came because I knew that many other readers (and perhaps the author with her Catholic background), would consider this account historical, and not fictitious. The author clearly wrote from a Catholic perspective. Much of the theology resulting from this presupposition bothered me, especially as related to Mary, and Jesus’ other family members. Mary explicitly confirms that she is perpetually a virgin and would never have relations with her husband. I’m not totally sure about marriage laws and customs, but without Mary and Joseph consummating their marriage, could the two even be considered married? Perpetual virginity required that all of Jesus’ siblings come from Joseph’s previous marriage, or be rewritten as cousins. This troubled me because James could not truly be considered a half-brother if this was the case, since they would have different mothers and different fathers.

Despite my queasy feelings toward some of the book, there were many portions of the book I found very enjoyable, and even edifying. Overlooking the disagreeable idea of James being the older brother, I found him to be a very interesting character in portions of the book. His hatred, jealousy, and spite toward Jesus were well written. I found it odd that the author chose to reconcile the two brothers early in life rather than later as the gospels seem to teach. However, this chapter contained one of my favorite lines in the book. Jesus notices blood in the beard of one of the priests and internally comments on the strange beauty of it. I think Rice masterfully alludes to the far-surpassing beauty of Jesus’ own blood soaked beard when he was the sacrifice for our sins. I also found James’ retelling of the Christmas story very enjoyable. It included a lot of quotes and details that are firmly grounded in the gospels. Even the less reliable details that were added into this excerpt, like the glow on the shepherd’s faces, were enjoyable because they were more plausible than other passages and events depicted.

Throughout the book I felt strange liking the fictionalized Jesus. I kept asking, does it violate the second commandment not to create any graven images of God. Certainly I wouldn’t worship this book’s main character, but I couldn’t help but like him! My favorite example of this is when he is challenged by the priest in Nazareth. The questions were difficult for a 7 year old boy to answer, but Jesus displayed his wisdom. It made me like the boy so much, especially the impressive answer he gave when asked the loaded questions about a carpenter building the house of the Lord and about the Lord’s covenant with King David. A part of me would like to think this exchange actually happened, but I feel like thinking that way is dangerous, lest I inadvertently blur the lines between fiction and scripture and recreate a false idol version of Jesus.

One of the strangest things to me was the way Jesus was kept in the dark and remained ignorant of his own identity, purpose, and history for most of the book. We know from scripture that Jesus did grow in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. It’s still strange for me to think that he was not aware that he was the Messiah and the Son of God. The gospels don’t tell us much about this, so it is a possibility, but it still feels odd. Although the Rice novel was written much earlier, there were multiple moments while reading when I asked myself jokingly “Is Jesus the Avatar?” due to similarities in how the young Avatar is treated in the Nickelodeon series and how Jesus is portrayed in this book. It was so imperative that Jesus, like the Avatar, be kept in the dark about his true identity until he was old enough or figured it out on his own. It was just a funny, odd comparison that stuck out in my mind.

Overall I found the book enjoyable. I would hesitate to recommend it, since so much of it is conjectural, or apocryphal. However, the historical details were so well researched and I feel like I understand first-century life so much better after having read this book.

6.5/10