THE BAPTIST

A debut novel reimagines the life of John the Baptist.

In Anthony’s tale, John leaves Jerusalem for Qumran to join an Essene monastery, much to the consternation of his father, Zechariah, once a priest but now a cloth merchant. John is recognized as a “spiritual adept” and decides to pursue the life of an ascetic and scholar, though he is chronically plagued by doubts and worried that by leaving home he has abandoned his filial duties to his father. He also has profound spiritual misgivings about the path he has chosen, only exacerbated by the challenges posed to it by his cousin Jesus: “The Messiah’s arrival would herald a new Jerusalem, and a new Judaism. God’s blessing was a birthright of the Jewish people. Should that birthright be expressed in the separation of families and repeated cleansing of the body, or in acts of righteousness and charity? If God’s blessing is eternal, then what purpose do repeated immersions in the desert serve?” The author faithfully reconstructs John’s remarkable life, including his ministry built around the notion of a “permanent and eternal baptism” available to all, not merely the members of a particular religious sect. The story is a familiar one, of course, and the virtue of Anthony’s retelling is not its historical or literary originality but rather its theological astuteness. The author conveys, with admirable clarity and precision, the doctrinal differences between the various Judaic traditions of the time. In addition, Anthony, with great rigor, presents a vivid tableau of the era’s political circumstances, especially the oppression of the Jews by their Roman masters. But the plot unfolds at a languorous crawl, as soporific as it is edifying. Furthermore, while the author’s prose is unfailingly clear, it’s also mechanically leaden, absent of either literary style or compelling emotions.

A well-researched but uneven work about a striking spiritual journey.