The Life Of Herod The Great. Zora Neal Hurston. 2025. 290 Pages. (Ebook.).

This novel by the late well- known Black American writer was not completed when she died in 1960. But someone thought it was worthy and it was then published earlier this year. There is also a long and confusing detailed historical perspective that seems designed to make prove that it is in fact an accurate historical novel.

The plot is complex with young and handsome Herod competing with the cruel Hezekiah to be governer of Galilee for the Romans when we first meet him. He is the son of Antipater, procurator of Palestine, and brother of Phaseus, the governer of Jerusalem. They all appear to be under the control of Sextus Caesar, president of Syria, who in turn reports to Julius Caesar. And all of them become the enemies of the weak but scheming titular King and High Priest. Keeping these relationship straight proved to be a bit of a challenge for me. But then there are dozens more characters, many of them historical and some perhaps mythical.The king forces Herod to stand trial in the Sanhedrin where Herod prevails and a soldier moons the Sanhedrin.

The boundaries of both Israel and what counts as a Jew seem a bit fuzzy. Malicus then plots to kill Antipatrer following the assignation of Julius Caesar by Brutus. The bisexuality of Anthony and many others was widely accepted in the ancient world, to Herod’s disgust.

The plot gets even more complex with multiple heroic battles. Apart from perfidious and greedy Cleopatra, women are mostly servants or slaves, or used as sexual indulgences as concubines, but worth fighting for when threatened with mass rape. When Herod visits Rome, Mark Anthony appoints him as king of Judea, but Cleopatra and his mother-in-law plot to betray him, feeding lies to Mark Anthony.

If one ignores the gleeful parading of the heads of his enemies through the streets, and the execution of his young wife, and then his mother-in-law, Herod seems almost too good to be true.

The book ends with the natural death of Herod the Great, without any mention of any encounter with Jesus. Indeed, the time lines don’t seem to fit and in the epilogue it appears that many other scholars of Ancient Rome besides Hurston also do not believe that their times ever overlapped, and it is difficult to believe that Herod would have condemned a fellow Essene.

A reference map or two with borders and cities mentioned in the text, as they applied at the time would help those of us who are geographically challenged.

This is a dense book with many plots to attain power and prevalent devious backstabbing by all the characters, but dramatically details the pervasive cruelty of the era. It may be of great interest to dedicated scholars of Ancient Rome, but I suspect it will not become a best seller.

2.5/5

Thanks, The New Yorker.