The Gospel of Corax is a 1996 novel by Paul Park

Paul Park

Paul Park is an American science fiction author and fantasy author. He lives in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children. He teaches a course in reading and writing science fiction at Williams College...

 about an escaped Roman slave (Corax) who travels from Caesarea to India with a burly Essene man named Jeshua.

The novel is a suggestion of a historical Jesus

Historical Jesus

The term historical Jesus refers to scholarly reconstructions of the 1st-century figure Jesus of Nazareth. These reconstructions are based upon historical methods including critical analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for his biography, along with consideration of the historical and...

' whereabouts during his "disappearance" from the historical record between childhood and his thirties. This is based on the theory (first postulated by Nicolas Notovitch

Nicolas Notovitch

Nicolas Notovitch was a Russian aristocrat, Cossack officer, spy and journalist known for his contention that during the years of Jesus Christ's life missing from the Bible, he followed travelling merchants abroad into India and the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh, India, where he studied Buddhism.-Life...

) that the historical Jesus travelled to India.

According to a review in In Newsweekly

In Newsweekly

In Newsweekly, known as IN Newsweekly or in newsweekly during some of its publication, was a LGBT newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. It began in 1991 as IN Boston and became IN Newsweekly in 1993 when it merged with other publications and increased its coverage to include other New...

:

Corax is an ex-slave on the lamb in this interesting first-person narrative. He lives in Roman society at a time when professional skills – literacy, chemistry, medicine, surgery and astronomy – were sometimes the province of well-kept slaves rather than free citizens. These same skills serve Corax well in his trek across the ancient Middle East as he plays many roles to keep his freedom and his life. Whether he's acting as a thief and prostitute or a healer and diplomat, Corax's story is sprinkled with satisfying historical, practical, and metaphysical commentary.

External links

• http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/paul-park/gospel-of-corax.htm