12
Apr
2009
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
To begin, let’s get a couple of things clear. This book is not really irreverent. Like the movie Dogma, it seeks to bring a silliness to religion. It’s a reimagining. If you do not like the idea of a reimagining of the life of Jesus Christ, do not read this book. The humor will be lost on you.
Furthermore, if you have a problem with any of the following, do not bother with this book:
- Jesus having siblings
- Jesus going to Asia during the “lost years”
- Jesus being called Joshua throughout the book
- Ju-Do being etymologically derived from the word “Jew”
- Jesus having (or wanting to have) a relationship with Mary Magdalene
- Jesus instructing his friend have sex with Mary Magdalene and report back to him because he can’t have sex himself
- Any of the reasons you didn’t like the Da Vinci Code other than the fact that it sucked
That said, this book is hilarious. Bringing humor to spirituality allows those who believe in Jesus Christ to explore Jesus’ humanity, similar to the Nativity. The fact is that while most scholars agree that there was such a person named Jesus from Nazareth, be He imbued with Divine elements or not, nobody knows, or can agree on, much about him other than what is written in the four gospels of the New Testament. And those Gospels don’t always agree themselves (see the differing birth stories as told by Matthew and Luke, respectively).
Moore didn’t just make up the facts/stories he constructs this alternative gospel with. Well, O.K., I don’t think that anyone but him could come up with the opening scene in which Jesus as a kid keeps sticking a lizard in his mouth in order to bring it back to life for his little brother to kill again. But he did include many familiarities. Moore actually based the entire character of Mary Magdalene off of the episode in Luke 7:36-50, in which a woman (generally thought to be Mary Magdalene) baths Jesus’ feet with perfume and her own tears and wipes them with her hair.
Overall, I can’t sum up this book better than quote by Voltaire Moore includes at the beginning of Part 1: God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh.
If you like this book/author, you might like:
(my reviews in blue)
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh
Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers by Thich Nhat Hanh
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
The Good Faeries of New York by Martin Millar
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment by Deepak Chopra
The Third Jesus by Deepak Chopra
History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity by Mircea Eliade
A Life of Jesus by Shusaku Endo
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong
The x-rated book: sex and obscenity in the Bible by J. Ashleigh Burke
Lives of the Saints by Omar Englebert
A Life of Jesus by Shusaku Endo
Other works by Christopher Moore:
You Suck: A Love Story
Island of the Sequined Love Nun
Coyote Blue: A Novel
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
A Dirty Job: A Novel
Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
Practical Demon Keeping
Fool
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