Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal | Christopher Moore

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal | Christopher Moore | Jesus and bud on the road

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Lamb: The Gospel A...

	Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal Christopher Moore Harper Paperbacks, 2003 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 486 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Moore's Best Work

This book was one of the best things I've read in a long time. Many of the review here did it justice, but I'll try to cover a few points I feel were missed:

-This book is not religiously offensive. As a practicing Catholic, I had no problem with the humor - one merely has to take it with a grain of salt. The more devout might wince when Jesus uses the f-word, but this is a minor complaint, and a bad reason to stay away from the book.

-This book is much funnier if you are biblically literate. A few other reviewers have said that the last third of the book, where Jesus and Biff go back to Israel to preach, is the weakest part. However, those familiar with the Wedding at Cana and the Sermon on the Mount will find the retellings deeply amusing. I think my favorite twist was when Jesus cures two blind beggars, and after thanking Jesus profusly (as is the usual matter of course in the Gospels) they whine that there isn't all that much to look at in the Judean desert...not to mention all the references to pillars of salt (one of God's strangest, if not most creative, punishments).

-Others have complained that the ending, which retells the crucifixtion fairly faithfully, is sappy and disapointing. I thought that Moore cleverly managed to make this tragedy fit in with this story, without ever being offensive or crude about Jesus' ultimate sacrifice. I've also personally felt that Moore's endings sometimes fall apart - in particular, "Fluke" and "A Dirty Job" have confusing, overblown endings that don't really seem to tie up the plot. However, Lamb had a built-in ending which had to be treated very delicately. This forced Moore to avoid the showy, confusing endings which populate most of his books.

-This book had a heart of gold. Underneath all the jokes, one develops a real affection for Biff, who while weak and stupid, is loveable, and Jesus, who is never sanctimonious, but only compassionate. When I saw their lifelong friendship torn apart by the crucifixtion, I couldn't stop myself from crying - something I rarely do for any book, much less a humorous one.

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Jesus and bud on the road

OK, here's the premise of this book: imagine if Jesus Christ's best friend was Bart Simpson. OK, is you aren't turned off yet then you'll probably enjoy this absurdist parody. I liked the book as it never for one second denys that Jesus was the Son of God. So, we have Jesus (here called Joseph bar Jacob) who is compelled to travel East to learn about his destiny to become the Messiah. The narrator of the book is Biff. Biff goes with Joseph as he goes looking for the three magi who were present at his birth. They meet demons, gurus, and various con men along the way, always learning something new that comes in handy later (like how to multiply food). This is actually funny book, I found myself laughing out loud several times at some of the situations they found themselves in. Biff is world weary and very fleshy sinner, but somehow he is never a bad guy. In the afterward Christopher Moore says you are not to take this book seriously, so don't. Just go with the flow and be entertained. If you liked "Good Omen" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, then you'll enjoy this little gem too.

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There is Only One Gospel

There is only one Gospel. The "Gospel" according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and now Biff are five versions of the story of Jesus's life. However only in Biff are the "missing" thirty years revealed. And hilariously so. This book is sure to create detractors and down-right meanness from critics but I loved it. First, it's a novel and only a novel which is to say it's fiction. So relax and enjoy the story as told by Biff.

The book is Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide) meets Remo Williams (as created by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir in the Destroyer Series), and, of course, the Bible. Some of the humor is juvenile but the story is overall entertaining, funny, and thought-provoking. Shining through all this is the underlying theme which while important, it will be overlooked (or unrecognized) by many.

Moore writes:
"Others may perceive the Divine Spark in themselves only by realizing through enlightenment that the spark resides in all things, and in that they find kinship. But because the Divine Spark resides in all, does not mean that all will discover it. Your dharma is not to learn, Joshua, but to teach....

We are all seekers. You are that which is sought, Joshua. You are the source. The is divinity, in the beginning is the word. You are the word."

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New high watermark for funny!

I fell into Lamb quite by accident when it was given to me at a Book Club Holiday gathering where we talked about our 10 favorite books of all time, one of which you had to bring for someone else to share. I was lucky enough to receive Lamb.

I'm an avid reader and it's the funniest book I've ever read, by far. Beyond being funny it tells a magical tale weaving serious religious belief with adolescent experience to bring a real human dimension to biblical characters, most especially Joshua / Jesus.

I could go on and on but I'll stop by saying it now sits on my top 10 list holding the place of the funniest book I've ever read. If after reading Lamb you disagree, please send me the name of the book that's funnier.

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Surprisingly Touching

Let's just say that if God does not have a keen sense of humor, Christopher Moore is in a lot of trouble because "the Gospel according to Biff" is filled with the kind of irreverent, often slapstick, humor for which Moore has become well known. Without a doubt, some readers will consider the book to be blasphemy and will not get far with it; most, I think will enjoy Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal as the humorous and rather tenderly told coming-of-age story that it is.

Levi bar Alphaeus, a stonemason's son known as Biff, has been Joshua's (the Greek equivalent of the name Jesus) best friend as long as he can remember. Although Biff and Joshua were best friends, they gladly accepted Maggie, more formally known as Mary of Magdala, into their lives when her family came to live near them. No one knew Joshua better than Biff and Maggie, and that is why the angel Raziel has been assigned to keep the resurrected Biff locked in a modern-day St. Louis hotel room until he completes his writing assignment: a new text filling in the 30-year gap that exists in the known Gospels.

Biff was happy to be alive again but really did not feel like writing down his experiences of a lifetime as Joshua's best friend until he stumbled upon a copy of the Bible in his hotel room (a copy that the angel tried to hide from him) and saw that none of the Gospels so much as mentioned his name or existence. That is when he decided it was time to set the record straight by telling his story...and what a story it was.

As the boys grew older, Biff realized just how special his friend was and he became protective of Joshua, trying to keep his true nature a secret from anyone other than Joshua's closest friends and family, especially the Romans. Joshua understood that as the Son of God he was placed on Earth with certain responsibilities and obligations to his people. But the details were fuzzy and Joshua could think of no one better to answer his questions than the three wise men who visited him upon his birth. Thus began a twenty-year adventure in which Biff and Joshua spent a period of several years with each of the wise men learning everything that could be taught to them (well, Biff did not learn a whole lot other than some super martial arts skills that would later serve him well), a journey that took them as far as India and China.

This twenty-year period, constituting the bulk of Lamb, is narrated with great humor and candor by Biff as the reader watches the evolution of Christian thought as Joshua is exposed to the other major religions of the world. Moore uses humor to emphasize the human aspects of Joshua in much the way that he used it in describing the antics of the two boys from ages five to ten (my favorite portion of the book). As Joshua approaches thirty years of age, though, Moore does not stray far from what is recorded in the New Testament and Lamb becomes a dark tale in which humor does not work nearly so well, though Moore continues to use it.

Lamb is a thought provoking book for those willing to read it rather than condemn it for its very subject matter. There is a huge difference between blasphemy and irreverence and Christopher Moore never crosses the line. His portrayal of Joshua/Jesus as a human being, a man with all of the usual strengths and weaknesses, has a remarkable impact. After all, at the core of Christianity is the belief that Jesus became human in order to redeem the world. Moore's portrayal of Joshua makes exactly that point, and makes it very well.

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