Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

Book Review - Christ the Lord - Out of Egypt

I have never read an Ann Rice book before this one.  And, to be quite honest, I highly doubt I would like any of her other books.  She has a very poor writing style (probably similar to mine in that it isn't complex enough to really be good literature).  That being said, Christ the Lord out of Egypt (her first in a trilogy? of the life of Christ) deals with Christ between the ages of 7 and 8 years old.  It is a reasonably interesting and thought provoking book, making you think quite a bit about what the young family life of Jesus must have been like.  Mary, for instance, is forbidden to enter the synagogue in Nazereth because they believe she was impregnated outside of marriage.  Whether or not these things are true, what traditions or legends they are based off of, etc. is really irrelevant, because I don't think the book is pushing it on us as truth, but rather trying to enlarge our minds about what Christ must have been like and how he developed into the great teacher we see in the New Testament.  

It's an interesting read, and I picked up the second book tonight.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've gotten to where I feel there are so many fundamental things I've never read, that wasting time on just any novel seems like a waste of time now. I've undertaken to read all the non-spurious church father epistles (at least just the early early early ones), so you'd be proud of me! :)

I've only read the first epistle of Clement so far, and once I get done with the semester here tonight and tomorrow, expect a forum post from me.

Greg said...

I don't have much time to read stuff such as this either (you'll understand someday Joseph when you have kids).

Regardless, the story of Anne Rice is very interesting. Here is an article for those of you who don't know her journey:
http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2008/08839.htm

You can also google her interviews with James Dobson. I've not heard them but my wife has. She said they were very good.

Thanks for bringing this up Joseph!