In this book, Jennifer Awes Freeman argues that the image of the “good shepherd,” a popular image in early Christian, pre-Constantinian art, is not as “anti-imperialist” as some claim. Rather, the imagery of the shepherd was applied throughout the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world to kings, rulers, and emperors. While the Christian employment of the good shepherd imagery is unique in some regards (especially in that Jesus, the good shepherd, is also the lamb/sheep who is sacrificed), Awes Freeman ultimately argues that this imagery is not in and of itself anti-imperialist, nor is it in opposition to the imperial iconography of the enthroned Jesus, which was popularized in Christian art after Constantine. Awes Freeman also devotes space to the afterlife of this imagery (as well as its waning popularity) in the Byzantine period and the early Middle Ages.

I learned a lot from this book, and I really enjoyed it. I only wish that it was longer. I appreciate Awes Freeman’s concision, but moving from the fourth millennium BCE to the Middle Ages in less than 175 pages is quite a whirlwind of a ride, and I would have loved diving a bit deeper into the ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman background of the imagery.