The Story of Herod
A never before published novel from beloved author Zora Neale Hurston, revealing the historical Herod the Great--not the villain the Bible makes him out to be but a religious and philosophical man who lived a life of valor and vision.
In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston's retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the "slaughter of the innocents," but the forerunner of Christ--a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea.
From the peaks of triumph to the depths of human misery, the historical Herod "seemed to have been singled out by some deity and especially endowed to attract the zigzag lightning of fate," Hurston writes. An intimate of both Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, the Judean king lived during the first century BCE, in a time of war and imperial expansion that was rife with political assassinations and bribery, as the old world gave way to the new.
Portraying him within this vivid and dynamic world of antiquity, little known to modern readers, Hurston's unfinished manuscript brings this complex, compelling, and misunderstood leader fully into focus. Hurston shared her findings about Herod's rise, his reign, and his waning days in letters to friends and associates. Text from three of these letters concludes the manuscript in an intimate way. Scholar-Editor Deborah Plant's "Commentary: A Story Finally Told" assesses Hurston's pioneering work and underscores Hurston's perspective that the first century has much to teach us, and the lens through which to view this dramatic and stirring era is the life and times of Herod the Great.
A never before published novel from beloved author Zora Neale Hurston, revealing the historical Herod the Great--not the villain the Bible makes him out to be but a religious and philosophical man who lived a life of valor and vision.
In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston's retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the "slaughter of the innocents," but the forerunner of Christ--a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea.
From the peaks of triumph to the depths of human misery, the historical Herod "seemed to have been singled out by some deity and especially endowed to attract the zigzag lightning of fate," Hurston writes. An intimate of both Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, the Judean king lived during the first century BCE, in a time of war and imperial expansion that was rife with political assassinations and bribery, as the old world gave way to the new.
Portraying him within this vivid and dynamic world of antiquity, little known to modern readers, Hurston's unfinished manuscript brings this complex, compelling, and misunderstood leader fully into focus. Hurston shared her findings about Herod's rise, his reign, and his waning days in letters to friends and associates. Text from three of these letters concludes the manuscript in an intimate way. Scholar-Editor Deborah Plant's "Commentary: A Story Finally Told" assesses Hurston's pioneering work and underscores Hurston's perspective that the first century has much to teach us, and the lens through which to view this dramatic and stirring era is the life and times of Herod the Great.
A never before published novel from beloved author Zora Neale Hurston, revealing the historical Herod the Great--not the villain the Bible makes him out to be but a religious and philosophical man who lived a life of valor and vision.
In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston's retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the "slaughter of the innocents," but the forerunner of Christ--a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea.
From the peaks of triumph to the depths of human misery, the historical Herod "seemed to have been singled out by some deity and especially endowed to attract the zigzag lightning of fate," Hurston writes. An intimate of both Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, the Judean king lived during the first century BCE, in a time of war and imperial expansion that was rife with political assassinations and bribery, as the old world gave way to the new.
Portraying him within this vivid and dynamic world of antiquity, little known to modern readers, Hurston's unfinished manuscript brings this complex, compelling, and misunderstood leader fully into focus. Hurston shared her findings about Herod's rise, his reign, and his waning days in letters to friends and associates. Text from three of these letters concludes the manuscript in an intimate way. Scholar-Editor Deborah Plant's "Commentary: A Story Finally Told" assesses Hurston's pioneering work and underscores Hurston's perspective that the first century has much to teach us, and the lens through which to view this dramatic and stirring era is the life and times of Herod the Great.
About the Author:
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of Black heritage remain unparalleled. In addition to her most celebrated work, the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, her books include Barracoon, a New York Times bestseller.
Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated writer, poet, and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, five children's books, and several volumes of essays and poetry. She has received the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and the National Book Award, and has been honored with the O. Henry Award, the Lillian Smith Award, and the Mahmoud Darwish Literary Prize for Fiction. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame and received the Lennon Ono Peace Award. Her work has been published in forty languages worldwide.
