Amazing to read this book for the second time. I had forgotten that I read Christ the Lord when it first came out in 2005. I realized this after I read the first page. BUT......it was so fascinating that I read it again. Absorbing myself in this historic fiction writing helped me touch a bit of Jesus' humanity. I believe that Jesus was/is fully human and fully divine. This novel gets to the core of His humanness and this development through his childhood. I have often wondered how Jesus lived his childhood and ways His mission was revealed to him as well as the relationship He had with Mary and Joseph. How difficult and wondrous it must have been to be the parents of Jesus, not knowing what would unfold in Jesus' life. Rice's story of their protection of Jesus from knowing too much too soon made sense. It also made sense of the ways the growing up Jesus had strong KNOWING revelations that He was different than other children, etc. For me, believing Jesus was human does not take away from his divinity and His life of a healing and living example that call us to live in His footsteps.