Moore: Lamb—The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
FUNNY and SWEET
There is a real dearth of information about the life of Jesus between the manger and the meeting with John the Baptist. What was Jesus like as a ten-year-old? How about as a teenager? Christopher Moore has given us a sweetly skewed look in Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff.
Moore has avoided outright blasphemy by placing the voice with Biff, the childhood pal of "Joshua". The sincere, though immature, Jesus whom Biff introduces is sure of his vocation and destiny, but not yet ready to "take it on the road". (For one thing, he keeps making mistakes with raising the dead.)
When Biff accompanies Joshua on a quest to find the wise men who decided he was the One, the two boys encounter everything from a free-wheeling prostitute to a semi-scamming monastery full of martial artists, travel all the way to India only to fall afoul of the thugee cult, and return in time for Joshua to perform the miracle at Cana.
Christopher Moore is not known for treading lightly or preserving proprieties, so I was impressed at the way he manages to let Biff tell his story without ever really undermining anything essential about Jesus' known life. We are left with a humorous idea of what it might have been like to be the best buddy of the teenage Christ.
I enjoyed this book immensely, and did not hesitate to share it with my mother. Perhaps I can entice her to add her comments.
There is a real dearth of information about the life of Jesus between the manger and the meeting with John the Baptist. What was Jesus like as a ten-year-old? How about as a teenager? Christopher Moore has given us a sweetly skewed look in Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff.
Moore has avoided outright blasphemy by placing the voice with Biff, the childhood pal of "Joshua". The sincere, though immature, Jesus whom Biff introduces is sure of his vocation and destiny, but not yet ready to "take it on the road". (For one thing, he keeps making mistakes with raising the dead.)
When Biff accompanies Joshua on a quest to find the wise men who decided he was the One, the two boys encounter everything from a free-wheeling prostitute to a semi-scamming monastery full of martial artists, travel all the way to India only to fall afoul of the thugee cult, and return in time for Joshua to perform the miracle at Cana.
Christopher Moore is not known for treading lightly or preserving proprieties, so I was impressed at the way he manages to let Biff tell his story without ever really undermining anything essential about Jesus' known life. We are left with a humorous idea of what it might have been like to be the best buddy of the teenage Christ.
I enjoyed this book immensely, and did not hesitate to share it with my mother. Perhaps I can entice her to add her comments.
posted by DrPat at 12/22/2004 01:24:00 AM
2 Comments:
I was wanting to comment on your review and offer a nice follow-up to "Biff".
"Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" is witty religious satire done in an entertaining way. Rather than worry about stepping on toes, Chris tells a fun, entertaining story whose merits are the ability to not only look at Jesus Christ and Christianity from a different angle, but to get to the heart of what it is to be human. Some Christians may find the storyline/plot of "Biff" insulting and heretical in its portrayal of Jesus, but this is simply fiction. There is not intent to smear Christ's name, to undermine his teachings, or to paint Christians in a negative life. This is a very human story.
Like my novel, Anti-Christ: A Satirical End of Days, I can see how on the surface the novel would turn off a large segment of the audience. Just have a little fun people. It's only a book.
If you enjoyed "Biff" with its take on the foundation and heart of Christianity, then I offer "Anti-Christ" as the bookend to Moore's work. "Anti-Christ" takes a look at the current state of religion, in a very skewed/satirical way. I hope you'll give it a look.
sangambayard-c-m.com
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