Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt: A Novel

I was a little skeptical about the portraial of Christ by Anne Rice. She does have a history of writting dark books. I was very suprised and loved the way she wove the historical account of his life in with a real life account of the way it could of happened.

This book was poorly written and full of inaccuracies about the life of Christ. It makes him into a sci-fi type of superhero who has to learn to control his "superpowers", which suprise even himself (since he doesn't know who he is). It's one of the downers of this book that Jesus is shown as accidentally killing a boy with his superpowers because he hadn't learned to "control" them yet. Moreover, Mary is portrayed as a pathetic, weak and constantly crying woman. In addition, the book is boring and lacks action. The most interesting part of the book was the writer's explanation of her own faith and the research she did for this book - research that unfortunately is not evident in the book itself.

CHRIST THE LORD, Out of Egypt
By Anne Rice
Not into sucking vampires or horror genres, I'd never read anything by Anne Rice.
When I heard Rice had become a Christian and changed her writing goals, I was intrigued. Then I discovered this book.
The orthodox canon of scripture says little about Jesus as a child, so Rice wrote with imagination and speculation. She admits the book is fiction, but based on a great deal of research. I may not totally agree with Anne Rice's theology, but I found the volume plausible.
She writes of Jesus' probable life as a seven-year-old on his family's journey from Egypt to a new sojourn in Nazareth.
Our canon says Christ was tempted like every person is, which means he experienced things that taught him to fully understand humanity. In Rice's book, the young Jesus faces questions that surely Christ wondered about: Why did villagers look askance at his mother? What happened at his birth? Rice gives him believable emotions, such as childhood fear when accosted by the evil one and typical difficulties with social challenges in Jewish villages.
Rice also clearly portrays Christ's deity.
I was challenged by Rice's goal, expressed in her introduction, from now on to write only for God. I wish her success and hope to emulate her goals.
© Geni J. White

Very well written book, yet what had an even greater impact upon me were the words contained in Anne Rice's heartfelt and spiritually inspired Author's note at the end of the book. I understood her spiritual journey and why she wrote this book.

Everyone wonders about the hidden years of the life of Christ as a boy. Anne Rice does a wonderful job "filling in the blanks" of what might have been - and has done an amazing amount of research to make it as realistic as possible. All this in an enjoyable, readable format. I rated this book as a five due to the fun I had reading it and I will also be reading the sequel with just as much pleasure. I'd recommend this book to anyone who's ever wondered just what did happen during those years as these books give you a possible clue. Jesus as a boy is something that I've always wondered about and I can't possibly be the only one!