Behold the Man
Behold the Man was originally a science fiction novel by British author Michael Moorcock . After its first publication in 1966 in issue 166 of New Worlds magazine , it won the 1967 Nebula Award for novels; shortly thereafter, Moorcock expanded the text and the novel was published in 1969 by the London publisher Allison & Busby. The German translation by Alfred Scholz appeared in 1972 under the title INRI or Die Reise mit der Zeitmaschine . The novel is now regarded by many as a classic in time travel literature. The title refers to the English translation of the Ecce Homo of John's Gospel , chapter 19, verse 5: “Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them Behold the Man (And Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them: See what a man!) ”.
The novel tells the story of the time traveler Karl Glogauer, who traveled from 1970 to AD 28 to look for the historical Jesus of Nazareth .
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At the beginning, Charles reached the Holy Land in AD 28; in the process, his time machine, a ball filled with a liquid, breaks; the scene is reminiscent of a birth. Karl was stranded in the past. In the following, Karl's search for Jesus of Nazareth and the story of his previous life as an outsider in 20th century London are told through flashbacks, which explains why he embarked on the adventure of time travel.
In the Holy Land storyline, Charles, injured by his arrival, is found by John the Baptist and a group of Essenes who care for him. Since the arrival of Charles seemed miraculous, John declares him an exalted person and asks him to support him in his fight against the Roman occupiers. John then asks Karl to baptize him; Karl, a character afflicted with many neuroses, panics and flees into the desert, where he experiences hallucinations caused by the heat and lack of water.
His search for Jesus then leads him to Nazareth , where he meets Mary and Joseph . Maria is a kind of prostitute, Joseph is a bitter old man who ridicules her for claiming that an angel made her pregnant. Your son, Jesus, is a mentally heavily retarded hunchback who just repeats his name. Karl is urged to take on his role. He gathers people around him, repeats whatever he remembers from his Bible reading, and uses psychological tricks to fake miracles. He is slowly becoming famous under the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
Finally he commands, eager to live the story of Jesus to its bitter end, to betray him to the Romans to the confused Judas . He dies on the cross. His last words are not the Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Psalm 22 ) known from the Bible , but the phonetically similar English words It's a lie ... It's a lie ... It's a lie ... ("It's a lie ... it's a lie").
References in other works by Moorcock
Karl Glogauer is also the main character of the novel Breakfast in the Ruins in a slightly modified incarnation . He also appears in various other works by Moorcock, particularly in the Jerry Cornelius novels. A similar time travel machine is described in the trilogy The Dancers at the End of Time .
The short story The Skull (1952) by Philip K. Dick is thematically similar, but does not use any religion that exists in reality.