The Role Of Jesus In Anne Rice's Christ The Lord Out Of Egypt

Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord Out of Egypt: A Novel chronicles the life of seven year old Jesus. Set within the context of ancient Near Eastern culture, Rice begins her novel by depicting a scene between him and another young boy, Eleazer. After accidently claiming the boy’s life, Jesus uses his “power” to bring Eleazer back from the dead. After the turmoil settles, Joseph, Jesus’ father, leads his family out of Alexandria to embark on a journey to Jerusalem. Upon arrival in the Holy City, Roman soldiers lay siege to the city in light of Herod the Great’s death, killing many Jews and burring villages, disrupting Passover festivities. As Joseph leads his family away from Jerusalem in hopes of returning home to Nazareth, Rice recounts many tales of Jesus as he struggles to figure out his true identity, including the healing of his uncle …show more content…
In Scripture, we can see that Jesus had several interactions with women that would have been considered counter-cultural during that time, most notably his interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well. Not only does he converse with a Gentile woman who was alone in the middle of the day, but he commissions her to go tell everyone that the kingdom of God was at hand. This would have been radical during the first-century. In Rice’s work, there are moments when Old Sarah speaks with authority and instructs men boldly. Though Old Sarah wasn’t a teacher of the Law or in any position of power, see was respected and had influence because of her age. Yet, the instance in which she addresses the Roman solider and he actually listens (whether out of respect or recognition of her authority in that moment) would have been shocking. The role that women like Old Sarah and Mary played in the novel was most certainly a foreshadowing of what was to come, as Jesus placed a high value on women and interacted with them in counter-cultural