The Life of Herod the Great

A never before published novel from beloved author Zora Neale Hurston, revealing the historical Herod the Great—not the demon the Bible makes him out to be but a religious and philosophical man who lived a life of adventure.

In the 1950s, after the publication of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel reconsidering the life of one of the most-well known Biblical figures, Herod the Great, reimagining him in a very different light than his villainous portrayal in the New Testament. In Hurston’s retelling, Herod is a forerunner of Christ—a religious and philosophical man who enriched Jewish culture and lived a life of adventure.

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 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.

Setting him within this vivid, colorful world little known to modern readers, Hurston’s unfinished manuscript brings this complex, compelling, and misunderstood leader fully into focus. Scholar and literary critic Deborah Plant contributes a new introduction and end note underscoring Hurston’s point about how reimagining figures from the past can address the troubles we experience today.