King Jesus

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 thesis of the book is really brilliant. How would an historian in the first centuries of the first millenium view the life of Jesus, the so called "King Of The Jews"? The act of imagination that Graves has taken is breath taking. He fleshes out most of the gaps and mysteries surrounding the Gospels, without attacking or defending Christianity. The book could have been a cringe inducing "Da Vinci Code" but it is a great example of the historical novel.

King Jesus is pure historical romance, a prose masterpiece, a poetically allegorical phenomenon. Blow away the pussywillow's outer flowering and what you hold is the wish granting root and stem; eliminate the metaphor and symbol from the central principle of "King Jesus" and what you find is the actual entity of this heroic figure in Western art, philosophy and religion. I must admit I am a "Johnny come lately" to the wonders that is Jesus Christ. I am a Buddhist by faith, with a kind of theosophical attitude towards all religions; I have tried to appreciate the meaning and significance of Jesus over the years, reading Renan, Schweitzer, Steiner, and most recently A.N. Wilson. Robert Graves has existed in my pantheon of great writers since the late sixties. I read his translation of Apulieus, his poetry, and puzzled over the White Goddess for years. They say timing is everything when it comes to appreciating great literature or works of art. Now the time has come for me to recommend this exceptional literary gem. Anyone familiar enough with the author must note the liturgical thread running throughout his writings: Graves, the poet priest, so to speak, of the Goddess Isis. Here, in this novel, you get our savior, the Christ or "Chrestman," in all the sacrificial and cocksure glory of Frazer, projected out of a chilling virtual reality, paying the ultimate price for all psychic sins and one sided human development. In this nightmare vision to the well known and often told tale, resplendent with a fervent reality beyond the dream within a dream, I find a most endearing and honorable person of rare and supremely authentic quality. Like one of those "prophetic birds" written of in The White Goddess, (c.f., P. 26), whose plumage is said to line her nest containing the "jawbones and entrails of poets," King Jesus is an awesomely important tale to read and hear; as imperative, one could say, as the Mariner's recollection to the Wedding Guest in Coleridge's "Rime." I hope you will find the time to read what this story has to say about the life and death of Western tradition's most important religious icon, King Jesus.

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.

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.