Craig Smith, a communications professor and director of the Center for First Amendment Studies on campus, has self-published his first historical novel titled “Herod from Hell: Confessions and Reminisces.” The book revolves around the Roman King Herod the Great, who lived from 73 BC to 4 AD, as he tries to move up the rungs of hell by telling the truth about his dynasty and Jesus.
Smith has written 17 academic books with topics ranging from presidential speeches, film and free speech issues. “Herod from Hell,” though, is the first book Smith has written outside of the limitations of academic writing.
“To do that you need to acknowledge so many peripheral arguments and so many sources,” Smith said. “In this case, I just wanted to write a straight autobiography of Herod the Great, without having to do ‘Well, this source says this, and this source says this, and this is how I arbitrate between those sources.’ I think that gets boring.”
The book was published in 2013, and majority of the book is nonfiction and has been fact checked; however, Smith wrote the story from Herod’s perspective and reimagined what conversations might have taken place.
“We don’t know what conversations were had,” Smith said. “There’s gaps in the history and I fill that in with what I think makes the most sense.”
For example, the Gospel of Matthew says that Herod slaughtered any male under two years of age. However, Smith argues that this never happened because none of the other Gospels mention the event.
“It’s an exaggerated reference that Herod killed his own sons,” Smith said. “It’s unclear sometimes why he chose to kill his sons and I filled those pieces in.”
It took Smith about five years to write the book, but he said the process started long before that. Smith said he was originally writing about the Book of Revelations, but while researching he learned new things about Herod.
“It was just a project I had,” Smith said. “I’ve written a number of articles about the interpretation of biblical works.”
Smith said he did the research as if he were writing an academic book, but then had fun creating Herod’s voice through the narrative.
“I had to pretend that I was Herod,” Smith said.
To Smith, the second best part about writing the book was creating conversation in hell similar to “Dante’s Inferno.”
“I got to make fun of some of the people that I want to be in hell,” Smith said. “So I put them in hell and had conversations with them.”
Some of these people included “Henry VIII and Pope Leo,” he said.
Smith’s book also offers an alternative interpretation of the Book of Revelations as a tool of religious propaganda and an attack on Rome rather than a glimpse of the apocalypse.
“Herod from Hell” can be purchased at AuthorHouse.com.
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