Anne Rice Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

Anne Rice

Knopf, Nov. 2005, $25.95, 336 pp.

ISBN 0373728449

At seven years of age Jesus was living on the Street of Carpenters in Alexandria Egypt, an ordinary child who played and learned the studies all Jewish boys must know. The fact that he turned clay pigeons into real birds and that he struck dead a child who bullied him and then brought him back to life didn't really impinge on his consciousness although Mary and Joseph know who he is and why he was born to the Virgin Mary. An angel tells Joseph it is time for them to return to Israel so they travel to their homeland.

They stop at the Temple in Jerusalem but a riot breaks out between the rebels and Herod's troops. They journey to Nazareth, but on the way Jesus stops to heal his Uncle in the river Jordan. A curious child, he listens to the hints about his birth and wants to know what was so special about it. Neither Mary nor Joseph feel he is ready to know these things but when Jesus heals a blind man, he knows he must find out the truth including why his mother says he was born not of man.

Anne Rice's portrayal of Jesus as a young child shows him as both divine and human though he is not aware yet of his origins or his purpose in life. The character gradually comes to realize he is not like other children and wants to know why, something any curious seven-year old would try and find out if they were in his shoes. Perhaps the most beautiful trait Anne Rice's Jesus possesses is a wisdom that belies his years and comes out at the most inopportune times. Though well-written, reader bias will either laud Ms. Rice's latest work or condemn her interpretation of the boy destined to become the Savior.

Harriet Klausner