Book: Lamb:
The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
Author: Christopher
Moore
Number of pages: 444
What I’m watching: TV: How I Met Your Mother, Bones, Dexter, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Colbert Report, Red Dwarf,
Friends, The Victor Borge Show
Movies: Night
of the Living Dead, The Goonies, The Artist, Heart and Souls, Easy A, When
Harry Met Sally, Tangled, The Notebook, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
What I’m playing: Terraria, Batman: Arkham Origins, Skyrim, Bioshock,
Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Dead
Rising 2, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Injustice: Gods Among Us
Well,
it’s the Christmas season, so why not a book about Christ? I remember one of my
brothers reading Lamb a few years ago
and claiming it was his favorite book. With that praise, I bought the book a
bit later, but never read it. Now my fiancé just finished it, and she also
really enjoyed it. Her second opinion pushed me to reading my copy of Lamb.
So
the premise of the novel is that Jesus had a lifelong friend since childhood
named Biff. An angel resurrects Biff in order for him to write a gospel
chronicling Jesus’s life, filling in the 30 years between his birth and his
ministry. Christopher Moore makes it abundantly clear that though he put real
research into the novel, it should not be taken seriously. He has a blessing at
the beginning, but I think his back cover photo and “About the Author” say
enough:
CHRISTOPHER MOORE is the author of seven
novels, including this one. He began writing at the age of six and became the
oldest known child prodigy when, in his early thirties, he published his first
novel. His turn-ons are the ocean, playing the toad lotto, and talking animals
on TV. His turn-offs are salmonella, traffic, and rude people. Chris enjoys
cheese crackers, acid jazz, and otter scrubbing. He lives in an inaccessible
island fortress in the Pacific.
And with that, I have no idea what to
expect in this book.
First
off, Jesus is called Joshua throughout Lamb,
because “Jesus is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Yeshua, which is Joshua” (8). So the first part tells the story of
Biff and Joshua growing up in Nazareth. They play out stories from the
scripture, they do a little apprenticing with their dads, Biff hits on the
Blessed Mary, Josh performs some minor miracles, and other 10-year-old stuff.
They make a fast-growing friendship with the new kid in town, Maggie – Moore’s
version of Mary Magdalene. There’s also the neighborhood bully, Jakan, who I
totally predicted would become one of the high priests who’d have it in for
Joshua when they grew up. One of Josh, Biff, and Maggie’s adventures involves
attempting to circumcise a statue of Apollo:
Joshua took a quick swipe with the
mallet and the chisel slipped, neatly severing Apollo’s unit, which fell to the
dirt with a dull thud.
“Whoops,” said the Savior. (60)
The three of them also witness a
murder. This first part of Lamb
totally feels like a coming-of-age story, like Tom Sawyer, Bridge to Terabithia,
Sandlot, IT, Simon Burch, and I’m
sure a ton more.1
Moore
infuses his humor into his writing style, which makes me really like the book. There
are a lot of masturbation/sex jokes, which I’m fine with, but there are A LOT.
Biff starts out as a young boy going through puberty, and he never seems to
mature out of his horniness.
Periodically,
Moore shows what is going on to the resurrected Biff while he’s writing. For
awhile I was more curious to see what happened to present-day resurrected Biff
than 2000-years-ago Biff. That lessened as I read more, but they’re both
interesting.
Moore
also incorporates the actual Bible stories of Jesus in when he can, although
with his own spin. Of the episode with young Jesus at the Temple, Biff had to
say “in retrospect, after having grown up, somewhat, and having lived, died,
and been resurrected from the dust, I realize that there may be nothing more
obnoxious than a teenager who knows everything” (98).
Before
too long, Josh leaves Nazareth to find the three magi who found him in
Bethlehem and learn about being the Messiah. Biff tags along, but Maggie has to
stay behind. Pretty much all the unaccounted years of Josh’s life get spent
with the magi. There are some mini-adventures in between and during. Each of the
magi lives in the East, so Josh learns a lot of Eastern philosophy, religion,
and meditation. Biff learns some of that too, but mainly has sex. They become
Buddhist monks for a while and train in martial arts.2 I actually
really like how Joshua integrates so much Eastern wisdom into his ministry
later on.
I
don’t want to go into much more detail on plot or give every instance of why I
think Lamb is funny, because that’s a
lot (but I will mention it is a great scene when they run into Legion). I feel
that Joshua’s character is a good portrayal of Jesus; he is a close
representation of how Son of God is usually viewed, which I think is important
to the story. I liked seeing how Moore characterized all the apostles. I liked
Bartholomew right away at the beginning, but in the latter half of Lamb, he becomes pretty flat and
one-tracky. They reunite with Maggie. A lot of the scenes from the actual
Gospels like the Sermon on the Mount and the interrogations with Pontius Pilate
and Herod Antipas happen in the story, but not firsthand, probably because we
already know what happens, though Moore did leave me guessing to the very end
about Josh’s death on the cross. I recognized Joy’s – and subsequently Biff’s –
phlebotinum vial pretty quickly, but wasn’t sure how it would play out. I’m
remaining vague on this point to not spoil anything.
Lamb is a funny, thrilling, clever,
honest, absurd, and wholly entertaining take on the life of Jesus.
Verdict (Is the book staying or going?): Staying.
Notes
1. Speaking of Jesus and coming-of-age
stories, for your consideration, please observe the similarities between Jesus
from Godspell and Sloth from The Goonies.
2. Looks like The Matrix got its Jesus/Neo parallel dead on.
Works
Cited
Moore, Christopher. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002. Print.
