In her Newbery acceptance speech for The Bronze Bow, Elizabeth Speare spoke to the purpose of her novel by indirectly commenting on the situation of the world at that time and the anxiety it generated in young people who “do not want to accept meaninglessness” in their lives. Looking for values, she said, they turn “urgently to the adult world for evidence that we have proved our values to be enduring. . . . They demand an honest answer. Those of us who have found Love and Honor and Duty to be a sure foundation” must find the words to communicate this to them (quoted in Randall 2001, 129). Significantly, in the text of her speech Speare capitalizes these virtues to signify their monolithic meaning—that their definitions transcend relativity and are not up for debate. They are, like Plato’s Forms, eternal truths. She also argues that “words” rather than actions have the ability to contain these meanings young people seek, thus giving power to “the word” as a reliable vessel for such truths. Western culture has traditionally located such words in the Bible, where, indeed, “in the beginning was the Word.” If there is a final foundation for undisputed truth, many would agree that it lies in that particular book.

That is precisely what Speare shows in The Bronze Bow, for in this historical novel she locates this foundation of meaning that embodies love, honor, and duty in a narrative about Jesus sometime around AD 26 when he was choosing his disciples and beginning his ministry. At first, however, Jesus provides background to the more immediate plot of oppression and resistance, for the time of Jesus was characterized by Roman rule and the desire of Jews to free themselves. Romans had occupied Israel since 63 BC, and during these years (as they had for hundreds of years previous to this), Jews prayed for a savior who would free them from the subjugation brought about by the brutality and humiliation of rule by a conquering force. Eventually, some organized themselves into a group called the Zealots, who fought violently to eradicate Romans from Israel.¹ Speare contrasts the ideology and actions of Zealots with that of Jesus to reveal love, honor, and duty as moral answers to her contemporary audience. In this way, she constructs her story not around people praying piously for a messiah but through an action-packed drama of young people committed, through violent means if necessary, to free Jews from Roman tyranny, which they characterize as “God’s Victory.” The conflict emerges from the different meanings of and solutions to tyranny provided by the Zealots, represented by Rosh, on the one hand, and Jesus, on the other.

The protagonist is Daniel bar Jamin, who as a young boy had witnessed the crucifixion of his father by the Romans for a matter related to taxes, and then endured his mother’s grief and subsequent death as well as his younger sister Leah’s complete withdrawal from society as a result of this horror. Now, at eighteen, Daniel identifies himself as a Zealot: “All I know is I hate the Romans. I want their blood. That is what I live for.” He vows he will “pay [the Romans] with [his] whole life. That [he will] hate them and fight them and kill them.”

His first step in avenging the suffering of his family is to leave his grandmother and Leah to live in the mountains with Rosh, a leader of the Zealots. Rosh, who in our contemporary parlance is an “insurrectionist,” launches small guerilla attacks on Romans while also attacking and stealing from Jews to raise money and feed his group, with the ostensible and final goal of creating an army that will rise up against and defeat the Romans. Through Rosh’s leadership, Daniel hopes he can best accomplish the revenge he seeks. After meeting Joel and his twin sister Thacia, however, Daniel’s views begin to expand, for they offer a friendship he has never known. They, too, commit themselves to the cause of the Zealots, but Joel’s familiarity with the scriptures together with Daniel’s uneasy attraction toward Thacia provide him with a perspective that begins to rattle his earlier surety about his mission in life. As the plot moves forward, Daniel returns to his village to care for his dying grandmother, assume care for Leah, and take over the blacksmith business of his friend Peter, who has left town to follow Jesus, a rabbi intriguing people through his calm charisma, his kindness, and his words that describe and promise a new sort of freedom that Daniel and his friends struggle to understand.

Events grow around Daniel’s choice concerning how best to fulfill his promise to avenge the cruel death of his parents; help free his people from tyranny of Roman rule; and, the real core of his dilemma, free himself from the hate, fear, and anger that has lodged in his heart. Does Rosh, whom Daniel considers as “one man who still dared to act” and whose very name in Hebrew means “leader,” provide the way? “Rosh is the finest leader you could ask for. . . . He is afraid of nothing on earth, nothing,” Daniel tells Joel. “One of these days Rosh would show them all.” Or does Jesus offer Daniel the leadership necessary to allow him to obtain the blood revenge he seeks? Although some speculate Jesus might be a Zealot, he seems an unlikely candidate to lead an army against the Romans, for he knows nothing about fighting and is as gentle as Rosh is fierce. Yet when he first meets Jesus, Daniel observes “how strong he is. . . . The impression of strength came from an extraordinary vitality that seemed to pulse in the very air around him.” The more Daniel learns about Jesus, the more perplexed he becomes. Rosh has warned Daniel about “softness,” calling it “a soft streak. . . like a bad streak in a piece of metal.” According to Rosh, when they are ready to fight the Romans, “there’ll be no place for weakness.” But if Rosh speaks with “scorn” about Daniel’s “weakness,” the voice of Jesus is at times joyful and other times commanding, but often “its gentleness rested on the suffering people [who come to hear him] like a comforting touch.” Yes, Jesus certainly would be considered “soft” in Rosh’s value system, for he says things such as, “Each one of you is precious in His sight.” Here Daniel locates the core difference between the two men: “Rosh looked at a man and saw a thing to be used, like a tool or weapon. Jesus looked and saw a child of God.” Could a true man—a Jew—love a Roman in this way Jesus demands, Daniel wonders. He spits at the thought. Surely not—Daniel’s hate, his need for revenge against the Romans for the atrocities they committed against his family make it impossible for him to believe this.

Daniel’s relationships to the two young women in his life, his sister Leah and new friend Thacia, provide insight to this blind spot of Daniel’s, for as women they rouse feelings in him that he understands as weakness. Though they are different in temperament and behavior, together they represent the feminine, which conflicts with the masculine arrogance and aggressiveness that he admires in Rosh. As the feminine, both women confuse him and make him feel uncomfortable. Leah’s fear of the world causes her to cower from people, hiding and murmuring behind her golden hair, and to “shrink from sunlight as though it were a sword.” Thacia, on the other hand, is bold. She asserts that girls have as much right to fight for Israel as boys and makes an oath with her brother and Daniel to fight for the “cause.” However, Daniel “hates” the murmuring voice of Leah and at first resents caring for her, longing to go back to the mountains and live with Rosh. And when Thacia wants to join the boys to fight the Romans, Daniel explodes, “This is a man’s vow! It’s not for a pretty child.” His ambivalence toward them results from the fact that as women, they remind him of his mother, which in turn reminds him of a vulnerability he must forget in order to carry out his bloody vengeance. Upon seeing Leah for the first time in several years, Daniel notes with discomfort that “she looks like [their] mother,” and when Thacia nurses him while he is delirious after being wounded by a Roman sword, Daniel imagines her voice to be that of his mother, “speaking words he had not heard for years.” Both women arouse in him that softness Rosh disdains and Daniel rejects because “everything he cared about and worked for was threatened” by the feelings the women awake in him. “In all of his life,” he concludes, “he had only known two girls, and he did not understand them. . . . Both girls, so utterly unlike, seemed in some way to threaten his plans.” They begin to represent a love that he cannot incorporate in his value system and sense of himself as a man.

The enormous Samson, the slave whom Daniel helps to free when he and Rosh steal him from a caravan of tradesmen, provides Daniel with a masculine example of the meaning of love. Apparently both deaf and dumb, Samson exquisitely understands and demonstrates selfless devotion and gratitude. When Daniel is injured, for example, “Samson did not allow Daniel to get on his feet again for three days. Like a vast shadow he sheltered him.” Although Daniel repeatedly tries to tell Samson to leave him alone, the man either does not understand or refuses to comply and instead continues to serve him. Though free, Samson remains slavish in his devotion; in fact, it is because he understands that Daniel set him free that Samson serves him so fully. In this way, Speare depicts Samson’s relationship to Daniel as something much greater than servitude; it is a form of agape. This word was used by early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity—a love that is unconditional and self-sacrificing. No matter how frequently Daniel rejects Samson, this giant of a man remains to love and protect him. He is, as Daniel puts it, “inescapable,” and if Samson is a black shadow that does not want Daniel out of his sight, so Daniel begins to consider Leah “a gray shadow” to whom he is “changed. . . incapably.” By this point in the novel, however, he finds this comforting rather than annoying, and by this change we measure his growth toward the message of Jesus and away from that of Rosh. For just as Samson, the freed slave, shows agape to Daniel, so Jesus preaches agape as the real meaning of freedom.

In one of the final climatic moments of the novel, Samson lays down his life for Daniel, throwing him to safety during a reckless attack on Roman soldiers. Filled with sadness and guilt, Daniel seeks Jesus for advice—he feels compelled to talk to him. Jesus tells Daniel that Samson “gave [him] love. There is no greater love than that, that a man should lay down his life for his friend.” When Daniel can only respond that he wants to kill those who killed this man he now understands as his friend, Jesus advises that “hate does not die with killing. . . . The only thing stronger than hate is love.”

Following this conversation, Daniel learns his sister has developed affection for a Roman soldier, and his violent reaction toward this puts her near death. When Jesus visits him and cures Leah, Daniel finally understands that he might never “know” if Jesus is indeed the leader who will bring freedom to the Jews, but that he must nevertheless “choose, not knowing. To know Jesus would be enough.” With this decision, Daniel sees life through a new lens: “Almost with the thought the terrible weight was gone. In its place a strength and sureness and peace. . . flowed through him and into his mind and heart.” Honor and duty, he learns, are inextricably linked, soldered by love, especially by loving those he would otherwise hate.

The story closes with Daniel, now an honorable man, dutifully approaching the Roman soldier loved by his sister to ask him into their house: in doing this, he shows that, as Jesus explained to him earlier, “the only thing stronger than hate is love.” This message provides meaning to the title of the book, which derives from a passage from the Song of David that Joel read earlier to Thacia and Daniel: “He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.” Daniel learns that the strength that will bend such a bow consists of love.

Written in 1962, Speare’s novel reached the hands of its readers at the tail end of a sweep of religious historical epics hitting movie theaters, including the blockbuster The Ten Commandments directed by Cecil B De Mille.² According to Melani McAlister,³ at a luncheon in Manhattan just after the opening of The Ten Commandments, DeMille told the guests, “I came here and ask you to use this picture, as I hope and pray that God himself will use it, for the good of the world,” suggesting that he understood, as did Elizabeth Speare, that his contemporary culture needed advice to fix its problems, that it needed something like examples of “honor, love, and duty” to infuse meaning into a confusing world threatened by fear of the nuclear bomb, an ongoing cold war, racial unrest, and a Middle East in perpetual crisis. In reading The Bronze Bow today within the context of a war on terrorism, insurrections in Iraq driven by nationalism and hate, and continual nuclear threat, Speare’s message perhaps seems a naive palliative, but it nevertheless might serve Speare’s purpose in providing words that can give assurance to children and adults living in a world still racked by the upheavals of hate, violence, and revenge.⁴

Notes
1. As Jewish historian Joseph Telushkin (1991) points out, “Zealots raided Jewish habitations and killed Jews they considered collaborators, while also urging Jews to fight Romans and other Jews for the cause.”

2. My thanks to Dr. Katherine Downey, who introduced me to the “sword and sandal” genre of films and in doing so provided this context for my understanding of The Bronze Bow.

3. See McAlister (n.d.). There were many “sword and sandal” movies, including The Robe (1953) by Henry Koster, Ben-Hur (1959) by William Wyler, and David and Goliath (1960) by Orson Welles, and they fascinated moviegoers. The epics were significant, because “they drew on biblical stories, religiously-inflected moral lessons, and ancient history as the foundation for building multi-faceted, associative meanings for contemporary politics and international relations. Biblical epics mattered, not just for what they said about the Middle East, but for what they made the Middle East say about the world.”

4. See Randall’s (2001) “Let It Be Hope.”

Works Cited and Consulted

Jewish literacy. n.d. Aish HaTorah. http://www.aish.com/literacy/ (accessed November 22, 2007).

McAlister, Melani. n.d. Benevolent supremacy: Biblical epic Films, Suez, and the cultural politics of U.S. power. http://128.36.236.77/workpaper/pdfs/MESV5-6.pdf (accessed November 22, 2007).

Randall, Kristen Downey. 2001. Young adult literature: Let it be hope. The English Journal 90 (4): 125-30.

Speare, Elizabeth George. 1961/1997. The bronze bow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Telushkin, Joseph. 1991. Jewish literacy. New York: William Morrow and Co.

Elizabeth George Speare’s The Bronze Bow centers on Daniel bar Jamin, a young boy living in Israel during the time of Jesus. The novel deals in rich detail with the themes of growing up, love, loss, and faith. Yet the theme that unites all of them is Daniel’s formation of a masculine identity. Throughout the novel, we watch Daniel become a man, and this evolution is achieved through several male figures that exert an important influence over his developing character. To balance the male influence, Speare also employs a few key female relationships to highlight Daniel’s growing understanding of his own mature, masculine identity.

Daniel begins his journey in the caves above Galilee with a vagabond tribe of men known as Zealots. The Zealots are led by Rosh, a controversial figure in Galilee. He is known as something of a Robin Hood figure, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor in his quest to drive the Romans from Israel. At the outset, Daniel is a hardheaded, angry youth who latches desperately onto this cause to fill the loss and the emptiness in his life. Gradually, throughout the book, we discover that Daniel’s father was killed by the Romans ten years earlier. Daniel’s mother died shortly afterwards, and Daniel and his sister, Leah, then had to live with their grandmother for several years. During that time, Leah began to show signs of being “possessed” and stopped going out of the house. Daniel was sold to the local blacksmith, Amalek, who treated him badly. Eventually, Daniel broke his bond, ran away to the caves, and found protection and some semblance of family with Rosh and his ragtag band of men.

Ultimately, Daniel is on a path to find himself and to learn what it means to be a man. At first, he is content to do whatever Rosh asks of him, even if it includes hurting others or taking money and food from the poor. Once Daniel meets Joel bar Hezron and his sister, Malthace, things change. Daniel is at first wary of the two interlopers who find him in the hills, but he gains respect for Joel, and eventually Malthace, as they show interest in helping Rosh’s cause.

Though its context is Biblical, The Bronze Bow is much less a story about religion than it is about inner faith and the choices that determine how a boy grows up and becomes a man. Daniel’s deep attachment to Rosh is clearly born of his deep need for a father figure. Daniel is happy to do whatever Rosh asks of him as long as Daniel receives the slight companionship and praise he finds in the hills. Daniel is one of the smarter boys in the group, so he is given more difficult and complicated tasks to do and finds comfort in knowing that he pleases Rosh.

Daniel’s relationship with Rosh grows strained, however, once Daniel helps free the slave Samson. Samson is huge and powerful, but not terribly bright. He will obey only Daniel and serve only him. At first, Daniel is angered by Samson’s devotion, but it grows into a tender relationship, and he begins to have almost fatherly affection for the big man. This is the first time Daniel has truly felt responsible for another human being, and it is the catalyst that eventually leads him to find his own way in the world.

Daniel is originally jealous of Joel and his wealth and privilege. He quickly realizes, however, that he has mistaken Joel for a privileged rich boy when Joel is really a fighter at heart, like Daniel himself. Daniel continues to gain respect for Joel and ends up relying on him like a brother. Their growing relationship is crucial to Daniel’s evolution.

Another man who crops up in Daniel’s life is his old friend Simon, who was a blacksmith’s apprentice when Daniel was working for Amalek. Simon ends up becoming a benefactor to Daniel and eventually lures him back to his old life in the town. Simon brings news of Amalek’s death, so Daniel feels safe going back. When he sees the sad state that his grandmother and sister live in, Daniel feels guilty about not being there for them, but he also wants to run away to his old life. Simon is instrumental in bringing Daniel away from his life in the caves. Simon is also a Zealot, but he is a follower of Jesus and is the first one to tell Daniel about the preacher. Daniel finally embraces his responsibility to his family when his grandmother dies and he sees how much Leah needs him. He takes over Simon’s blacksmith shop when Simon begins to follow Jesus full-time.

Another of Daniel’s important male relationships occurs when he meets Marcus, a Roman soldier who needs Daniel’s blacksmithing skills. Daniel takes out all of his hatred and disdain for the Romans on Marcus. He is hostile about having to work for Marcus and continues to treat him coldly each time he visits the shop. Marcus embodies everything Daniel has grown to hate since his parents’ death.

Daniel finally meets Jesus and becomes fascinated with his calm nature and healing powers. He is so used to Rosh’s harsh style of leadership that he cannot believe how many people follow the quiet, gently powerful Jesus. Daniel is excited when he hears of Jesus’ plans for the “new kingdom,” but he quickly grows frustrated when no great violent actions follow. Daniel wants to believe and follow Jesus’ teachings, but he simply cannot give in to the idea that a war can be fought with love and not violence.

The culmination of Daniel’s male relationships and his ultimate coming of age occur when Joel becomes involved in one of Rosh’s rash plans and is kidnapped by the Romans. Daniel and Joel have been building a small army of their own to help Rosh when the time comes. When Joel’s life becomes endangered, Daniel rushes to Rosh for help because it was Rosh who put Joel in harm’s way. Rosh, however, is not interested in helping and, in fact, seems to care little for any of his men. In this moment, Daniel realizes his mistake in blindly following Rosh. He sees that many of Rosh’s more recent escapades have taken from the rich to give only to himself and his men, not the poor. Daniel and his group stage a daring rescue and succeed in saving Joel, with the help of Samson. Unfortunately, several of Daniel and Joel’s friends, including Samson, lose their lives. This is a major turning point for Daniel on his quest to find himself and to become his own man. He feels responsible since he is the leader of this small gang of boys. He turns to Jesus for answers and is frustrated when Jesus tells him that love, not hate, is the way to win the kingdom.

In addition to Daniel’s male relationships, he also has a powerful bond with his sister, Leah, and Joel’s sister, Malthace. He loves them both but is at a loss for how to care for them and relate to them. He is frustrated by his sister’s inability to leave the house, but he does not know how to draw her out. He goes back and forth between feelings of guilt, love, and anger toward her. On one hand, she seems to desperately want to go out and see the world he lives in, but on the other hand, she is terrified and childlike.

Daniel’s feelings for Malthace are complicated as well. He respects her tenacity and willingness to fight like a boy, but he is also overwhelmed by his gentler feelings toward her. Thacia shows great daring by dressing like Joel when they need witnesses to see him in town while he is on a mission. When she and Daniel come upon two Roman soldiers in the road who demand they to carry the Romans’ packs, Daniel reacts strongly by spitting and refusing to carry them, but Thacia shoulders one of the packs. Daniel is angry with her for giving in, but he is ultimately awed by her strength, both physical and emotional. Thacia also visits Leah and helps draw the traumatized girl out of her shell. Daniel feels that Thacia deserves a richer man, but eventually he gives in to his love for her and tells her his true feelings. By including these key feminine characters, Speare helps define Daniel and his masculine evolution as more textured and nuanced than if men alone had influenced him.

The climax of the story depicts Daniel’s final journey toward manhood. His group of boys had been prepared to fight to the death for Rosh, but Daniel sees that no good will come of working with Rosh’s band of Zealots. The boys have based their group’s philosophy on the Psalm of David that says, “He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.” Throughout his journey, Daniel has been troubled by what this passage means. As a blacksmith, he knows that no one can bend a bow of bronze. Jesus asks him to give up his hatred and insists that Daniel’s willingness to fight for God’s victory is not wrong: Daniel is just misinterpreting what the fight entails.

Daniel’s final test comes when Leah lies dying of a fever. He discovers that Marcus, the Roman soldier, has been visiting her and has formed a friendship with her. When Marcus comes to his home to see Leah one last time before he is stationed elsewhere, Daniel is furious and refuses the visit. His hatred is simply too great. When Jesus comes to heal Leah, Daniel finally sees firsthand the power Jesus has to cure the sick and finds it within himself to fight for the right cause. As he runs after Jesus, he instead encounters Marcus. For the first time in his life, Daniel lets his guard down and allows love to be his weapon, inviting Marcus in to sit with Leah. Speare here presents the final step toward mature masculine identity as the embracing of supposedly feminine qualities and emotions.

Daniel’s journey into manhood is not an easy one, but it is compelling. With no father in his life, his growing masculine identity is shaped by bonds he forms with other men. Speare’s inclusion of key female characters is significant because it asserts that Daniel’s masculinity is not shaped by men alone. In many ways, his journey would be incomplete without these strong feminine presences in his life. Despite having no real male role models for so long, he finally finds the right path toward maturity. In doing so, he discovers the man within himself and the leader he can become by faith and love instead of violence and hatred.