Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt

Posted by George

The most exciting classes I took in seminary were the ones that opened the door to the milieu of the 1st century world. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, milieu, it means – the physical or social setting in which something occurs or develops. With each class I took the Bible became more and more interesting and relevant. The crazy stuff Jesus said started making a lot of sense. Not only that, but it was revolutionary sense. Understanding the 1st century context better revealed how truly amazing Jesus was. He wasn’t just some moral guru, he is God in the flesh, and he acted as you might imagine God would act if he were to become man. The pieces began to come together in my mind. The Old Testament and the New Testament became linked not merely because they ought to be but because the story is truly one brilliant story. And the most exciting part of the whole thing was how it made sense for me personally. The truth that came to light with a better understanding of the context fit with the reality of my own life and experience. The proper response to the story, to the man Jesus, was the natural response to the story. If that makes sense. What I mean is, often we do things because we know we ought to but don’t necessarily believe that what we ought to do is also the good thing to do (good in the sense of, “yum, that cupcake was good”). As the story of Jesus became more clear to me It also naturally came clear how one ought to respond.

And with each new insight into that exciting world, each new glimpse into a more accurate context, I longed for everyone to have the opportunity to see the Bible with this fuller vision. I thought to myself, “if only a good writer could wrestle with this milieu and write compelling stories that would bring the context to life for everyone to experience.” I thought, “here is a place where Christian artists could possibly do more for the world than an army of preachers could.” I thought, “If only I had the skills to create easy and engaging access to the 1st century world, the Bible would come alive to so many people.”

Little did I know that while I was thinking these thoughts a good writer was in the midst of launching a book that does the very thing I hoped for. In 2005 Anne RIce published Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt. It covers a little over a year of the life of Jesus (ages 7 and 8). I don’t want to go into a review of the story itself (which is fascinating) because it is something that you ought to just buy or check out from the library and read for yourself. But I would like to go on and on for a while about how great of a job Anne Rice did with this project. It is a masterpiece. Many fiction writers have written books that take place in Biblical times. I am sure some of them are quite good. I haven’t looked into many so maybe I’m telling tales out of school, but it seems to me that many of these attempts take 20th century Christianity and project it back into the historical physical setting of those times. There may be some great 20th century Christianity in it, there may even be great historical accuracy in it, but I don’t know how milieurific they are. And, to be fair, there is no way to get it 100% right, we weren’t there, we can’t know it all. Plus, even if we could get it just right, we’d probably have a hard time communicating it to a 21st century audience without some sort of accommodation. So, while I do want to praise Anne Rice for her tremendous achievement, I want to be sure no one takes me to be saying that Rice does it perfect. There is no way she could, and we wouldn’t want to read it if she did.

I couldn’t hardly set this book down when I read it. In addition to the great story and engaging insight I kept turning the pages in disbelief thinking, “How can this be? How can such a well regarded author out of the “secular” world be writing the exact kind of book I wanted to write from the exact same academic perspective?” In the incredibly interesting author’s note at the end of the book she writes about her life and her journey back to the Church. She then talks about her quest to write this book and how she went about it. She read all the top biblical scholarship of the day. She started with the big secular heavy hitters that the academic world bows down to and she devoured the information. But she began to realize how terrible it was. The world’s best scholarship is often really bad. As I read her experience I could hardly sit still when I got to this part. Learning about this stuff (modern biblical scholarship) is one of the most anger inducing things I have done. The injustice, the foolishness, the hypocrisy, and the immense harm this brand of scholarship has done over the last 150 years can bring a man to tears. And here is Anne Rice, one of the most thorough and experienced researchers in the ranks of fiction writers, seeing with her own eyes the travesty of it, recognizing it, and naming it for what it was. It was a beautiful thing. But it got better. She goes on to talk about some of the scholars that are getting it right. She holds them up as those who have done well and thanks them for the light they’ve brought to the historical context discussion. And she gets these guys right too.

Perhaps this isn’t exciting to most of you. Though it may be a small victory in the grand scheme of things, it is a victory none-the-less. In our times what is sound and true is ignored and scoffed at in institutions all over the world. Academia has turned its back on sound biblical scholarship and instead holds high the rubbish that dominates the field. If the situation wasn’t so serious it would be funny. Books upon books upon books are written based on arguments based on arguments based on preposterous speculations. I almost feel sorry for all these people who spend countless hours researching and writing stuff that is nothing more than vapor. It is behavior that you might see in an insane asylum yet it is considered as true as the sky is blue in the halls of people who know things. So Anne Rice’s stand on the side of the good guys is exciting to me. And that she brings the work of the good guys to the masses in such a brilliant way is even more exciting.

Rice is Catholic (she was an atheist but returned to Christ fairly recently), and she does bring some Catholic beliefs about Jesus and his family into her story. Two things in particular stand out as items worth mentioning. First, Catholics believe Mary was always a virgin. This means Joseph and Mary never had relations. The way Rice handles this in the book is actually quite well done. Nevertheless, I wish that aspect was different. Also, the climactic self-realization might be something I would quibble with a little bit. But that kind of depends on which direction she goes with it. Rice also incorporates some aspects of the gnostic gospels and the gospel of Thomas into her story. That might sound bad, but she does it masterfully. In some ways you might say that she redeemed those stories and made them good. I think there was one other thing that I thought worth mentioning but I forgot what it was. I guess I’ve gone on long enough.

To recap, Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt is a great. It is artistically brilliant and historically accurate beyond anything I’ve encountered in this type of work. And as an added bonus she vindicates the faithful scholars against the tyrants of academia.