King Jesus [Library Binding]

Reading this book is a rewarding challenge. It's weird, esoteric, and somehow simultaneously iconoclastic and reverent. As is often the case with Graves, it's clear that he's done a lot of serious research, and from there has gone off on his own curious tangents. (It looks like he got some material from Robert Eisler's book from the '20s, "The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist"). Graves's methods drive some scholars crazy, because they want a clear line drawn between the research and the tangents. "King Jesus" is clearly more propaganda for Graves's "White Goddess" theology, but as propaganda it's great fun. Indulge Graves early on in the book--material that may seem pointless eventually does inform what follows. With few exceptions, the book is sympathetic to Judaism, but the exceptions should not be read as anti-Semitism; rather, the reader should recognize that Graves is equally discriminatory towards all religions where they don't gibe with his White Goddess-ism.

Easy reading this ain't, especially while you're first trying to get into it, but it's hard to think of a more rewarding way to spend your time and intellectual effort. The research is astonishing, the hypothesis is brilliant and revelatory, the theology flawless and the narrative lucid and inspiring. Moreover despite Graves' atheism the novel remains utterly respectful of Jesus Christ. A riveting book with which I expect to bore my friends by quoting for probably the rest of my life.

Having grown up in an Episcopalian family in the Southeastern US, I am very familiar with Christ the Savior from St.John's gospel and the epistles of Paul. Graves offers the viewer two alternative interpreations of Jesus in his book,King Jesus. These two alternative views are based on Hebrew concepts of a political/military messiah and the mystery religion of the triple goddess, which requires the sacrifice of the goddess's consort to bless the land and people with his sacrificial blood. There is no doubt that these two world-views, religions, concepts were dominant in the Mediterranean Roman world. For example, St. Paul's epistles strongly condemn the mystery religions of the triple goddess, which he identies as Artemis (also known as Diana in Roman mythology).

I realize that my many fundamentalists Christian friends would find this book disturbing but I would invite them to read this exceptional historic novel to gain more insight into the Hebrew concept of a worldly military messiah destined to overthrow Roman domination or the concept of the consort of the triple goddess, destined to be sacrificed for the well being of the land and people.

First, the book is a political novel about the efforts of the Hebrew leadership to bring about the birth and development of a young man to be their military leader and savior. Jesus is the son of Mary and Herod's oldest son,Antipater, hidden in the home of Joseph until the time he will arise as the Hebrew ruler. Graves was a scholar of Hebrew religion and he brings his considerable knowledge of the Hebrew faith to the novel. Graves writes of a possible plot wherein the birth, schooling, and mentoring of Jesus were all part of a Hebrew plot to produce the Messiah that would defeat the Romans and bring about a Hebrew golden age of 1000 years.

Second,the book is a novel about the struggle between the patriarchial religion of the Hebrews and the cult mystery religions of the triple goddess, or the white goddess. This ancient religion has as the central deity a female goddess who is mother/birth, wife/consort/fertility, and death/destroyer. Graves has Mary the mother of Jesus, his cousin Mary (sister of Martha and Lazarus), and Mary Magdalene playing these roles. However, in the religion of the triple goddess or white goddess, a male plays the role of son, husband, consort, king, and finally human sacrifice to this triple goddess. Graves has Jesus move from the role of warrior king of the Jews to sacrificial king through the novel. Whereas Mary the mother of Jesus is a player in the Hebrew plot to support Jesus as the military Messiah, his wife and cousin Mary asks him to use his powers to raise his cousin (her brother) Lazarus from the dead. Jesus does this act but because he must now offer God a life for a life, he must offer his own life for that of Lazarus. This puts Jesus directly in the power and plot of Mary Magdalene (the layer-out) who requires the sacrificial death of her husband/consort to bless the world and its people. Graves was probably the foremost expert on the religions of the triple goddess and his scholarship helps maintain the internal consistency of the novel.

Finally, we are left with the question of whether Jesus' crucifixion was a triump of the feminist mystery religion of the triple goddess over the Hebrew messiah or whether Jesus' cruicifixion spelled the doom of the triple goddess as he emerges as the Christian savior.

Graves, an expert on Hebrew religion and mythology, classical history and mythology, and the canonical gospels as well as the Gnostic gospels, is certainly the scholar best suited to try to bring all this together in a fascinating historic novel consistent with the society and theology of the times. Graves was a highly creative and independent thinker and I have no doubt that this book will disturb my fundamentalists Christian friends - none-the-less it is a wonderful description of the world into which Jesus was born and the two major east Mediteranean religious philosophies that competed with Christianity at the time of his death.

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