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When I heard last year that Anne Rice, author of numerous best-selling vampire novels, had returned to her childhood faith and planned to write a life of Jesus I was cautiously hopeful. Too many celebrity conversions have fizzled - often because they have been forced into the spotlight when they needed catechesis. But she seemed very sincere in her interviews. I also knew she had a reputation for historically accurate novels. She was immersing herself in New Testament scholarship in preparation for the series. The lead up to the release gave me even more reason to be excited. And I was not disappointed.
The book, daringly written in the first person, opens with Jesus at age seven living in Alexandria, Egypt. In many ways he is a typical Jewish boy studying with the Rabbis and working in the family business. He is part of a large extended family. But he knows something is different about him. He possesses a strange power he does not understand. He has even performed miracles. His birth was peculiar and Joseph is not his father. Mary and Joseph tell him they will explain everything when he is older.
"Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" is taken up by Jesus' quest to understand who he is and what was so unusual about his birth. There are several clever foreshadowings that call to mind events from the later life of Jesus, such as the controversy over "living water" used in ritual cleansing. Also, their journey out of Egypt back to their home in Nazareth mirrors the journey of the Israelites out of Egypt into Canaan, blending into the story the idea of Jesus as true Israel. Some might question whether Jesus actually performed miracles prior to the wedding in Cana (John 2:11). As I understand it, Rice does not herself believe it since she bases the childhood miracles on apocryphal stories she considers legends. It is, after all, fiction, not a dogmatic textbook.
The Nicene Creed states Jesus Christ, "who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." I've never had a problem with Jesus as God; it's Jesus as man that has always given me trouble. I guess I've grown up with the Superman view of Jesus - he only looked like the rest of us. But Rice has done us a great service. She has given us a portrait of Jesus that allows us to see him as the son of Jewish carpenter, singing Psalms, learning in the synagogues, playing with other children, discovering who he is. Don't avoid the book just because you may disagree with some of Rice's conjectures. It is a valuable, and devout, meditation. The author has imbibed modern scholarship without being poisoned by some of its urbane skepticism. Rice has presented us with a Jesus fully human and fully divine.
email reviewer Jeremy Abel
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