The Year God Died: Jesus and the Roman Empire in 33 AD

Historian and military analyst Lacey (Rome) explores possible connections between Roman power politics and the crucifixion of Jesus in this entertaining if highly speculative account. Lacey’s narrative centers on the Roman emperor Tiberius’s relationship with his general Sejanus, who had earned the emperor’s trust when he shielded him from a rockslide with his body, but, as he rose to become Tiberius’s most intimate confidante, began to secretly lay groundwork for his own imperial takeover. Lacey hypothesizes that Pontius Pilate was one of Sejanus’s cronies, and that once Sejanus’s plot was revealed and he was executed in 31 CE—in the Temple of Apollo, where, à la Goodfellas, an “ebullient” Sejanus arrived thinking he was about to be promoted to tribune—a chain of events was set into motion that led to Jesus’s death. Amid a brutal purge of Roman officials suspected of being loyal to Sejanus, Lacey theorizes that Pilate was terrified that “any disturbance in Judea would attract Tiberius’s watchful eye,” which accounts for why he so easily caved to the mob demanding Jesus’s execution. Lacey’s command of his source material and elegant prose make for a riveting exercise in storytelling that readers will likely want to take with a grain of salt. It’s a fun and enticing what-if. (May)