In 1998, Anne Rice returned to the Catholic church which she had left at the age of eighteen. She has written twenty five novels in 25 years and felt it was time for a new direction. Instead of vampires or witches, Rice has turned to the story of Jesus Christ at the age of seven. The author claims in notes at the end of the novel to have done voluminous research on Judaism, the Roman Empire and the historical context of the period. She states: "Anybody could write about a liberal Jesus, a married Jesus, a gay Jesus, a Jesus who was a rebel . . . The true challenge was to take the Jesus of the Gospels . . . and try to get inside him and imagine what he felt." This means that she takes the Biblical accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth as reliable historical accounts. But Rice is also willing to expand this material with details she has fashioned out of her imagination.

Her engaging portrait of the childhood of Jesus does contain some fascinating twists and turns. The tale opens in Alexandria where Mary, Joseph, and their extended family have lived in exile for seven years. Jesus, the narrator, is perplexed by the strange powers he possesses: the gift to animate some clay pigeons and the ability to kill and then bring back to life a bully. He is a star pupil of the historian Philo of Alexandria. But in the back of his mind are questions about his birth which have not been answered by Mary or Joseph. He learns a little bit here and there from James, the son of Joseph by a previous marriage, and from Cleopas, an uncle. Jesus has an inkling of his specialness and keeps a close eye on his cousin John who is destined to enter the ascetic, desert-dwelling community of the Essenes.

One of the best things about Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt is Rice's depiction of the plight of ordinary Jewish families who are subjected to the violence of Herod's soldiers and bands of thieves who use robberies to fund their rebellion against the Roman tyrant. She also does a good job in her presentation of Judaism with Jesus' visits to the temple in Jerusalem for the Passover and to the local synagogue. By the end of the novel, Jesus is no longer in the dark about the miraculous circumstances of his birth and his divine calling. It remains to be seen how Rice will handle the next two works in her trilogy about Jesus as the Son of God. One thing is for sure: Satan will play a big role. Here he appears in a dream that shakes Jesus and mystifies him.