Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of murder and suicide.

“When I first met Joshua, I didn’t know he was the Savior, and neither did he, for that matter. What I knew was that he wasn’t afraid. Amid a race of conquered warriors, a people who tried to find pride while cowering before God and Rome, he shone like a bloom in the desert. But maybe only I saw it, because I was looking for it. To everyone else he seemed like just another child: the same needs and the same chance to die before he was grown.”

This excerpt introduces the theme of Resistance to Injustice. Under Roman rule, the Israelites are “conquered warriors, […] cowering before [...] Rome.” The courage that Biff so admires in Joshua makes Joshua unafraid of the Romans’ might and allows him to confront injustice throughout the novel. Biff’s description of the Messiah as a child combines strength and beauty with vulnerability: Joshua is “like a bloom in the desert,” but he doesn’t yet know the divine plan for himself, and he looks just as mortal as every other child.

“There were perhaps a dozen Pharisees in Nazareth: learned men, working-class teachers, who spent much of their time at the synagogue debating the Law. They were often hired as judges and scribes, and this gave them great influence over the people of the village. So much influence, in fact, that the Romans often used them as mouthpieces to our people. With influence comes power, with power, abuse. Jakan was only the son of a Pharisee. He was only two years older than Joshua and me, but he was well on his way to mastering cruelty. If there is a single joy in having everyone you have ever known two thousand years dead, it is that Jakan is one of them. May his fat crackle in the fires of hell for eternity!”

This excerpt introduces Jakan, the novel’s antagonist. Although “the son of a Pharisee” is merely a childhood bully to Joshua in Chapter 2, the narrator’s loathing tone is an example of backshadowing: Biff’s reasons to detest Jakan will become clear as the novel progresses. Later in the novel, Jakan marries Maggie and leads the Sanhedrin’s plots against Joshua. Thematically, this passage develops the idea of Resistance to Injustice by establishing the connection between the Pharisees and the Israelites’ Roman overlords and showing that the Pharisees’ sociopolitical influence led to corruption and abuse.