EMPEROR AND GALILEAN BIBLE EDITION

The Complete Drama with Comprehensive Biblical Analysis

Emperor and Galilean: The Complete Drama with Comprehensive Biblical Analysis

What happens when Christianity gains power—and loses its soul?

Emperor and Galilean is Henrik Ibsen’s most ambitious and least understood drama: a monumental exploration of faith, empire, apostasy, and spiritual authority set against the turbulent reign of Julian the Apostate, the last pagan emperor of Rome.

In this newly edited Bible Edition, the complete dramatic text (translated by William Archer) is presented alongside a rigorous, verse-aware biblical analysis that reveals just how deeply Scripture shapes every character, conflict, and theological dilemma in the play. Far from being a merely historical drama, Emperor and Galilean emerges here as a biblical tragedy—one that interrogates Christianity’s transformation from persecuted faith to imperial power.

This edition includes:

• The full, unabridged drama in clear modern formatting

• A comprehensive biblical mapping of the play, identifying hundreds of scriptural allusions and theological motifs

• Character-by-character analysis (Julian, Basil, Gregory, Libanius, Maximus, Gallus, Constantius) showing how each embodies a distinct biblical or anti-biblical worldview

• Thematic studies on Paul, the Galilean identity, temple destruction, Christ’s Second Coming, heresy, and spiritual authority

• A concluding theological synthesis framing the drama as a warning against imperial religion, empty orthodoxy, and mystical counterfeit spirituality

Edited and annotated by Antony Hylton, known for his work on Scripture, prophecy, and the intersection of biblical faith with culture and history, this volume speaks directly to readers of theology, biblical studies, church history, philosophy, and serious literature. It also resonates strongly with those concerned about religious power, violence justified by faith, and the loss of spiritual authenticity—issues as urgent today as in the fourth century.

This is not a devotional simplification nor a secularized reading. It is a text-honouring, Scripture-saturated interpretation that allows Ibsen’s drama to confront both the Church and the modern world with an unsettling question:

Can the Galilean still be followed once He is crowned Emperor?