Lamb Unabridged Cd: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Of the three books I've recently read, Christopher Moore's "Lamb" was one of the best. I also enjoyed McCrae's "Katzenjammer" and the Tom Robbins novel "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues." If you haven't read any of these book, do so now as you will love them, that is, if you like to laugh.

Warning: Those who find their beliefs sacred and are easily offended will not warm to Moore's account of the untold part of Jesus's life. Yet this is a lighthearted book about Christ and his growing up period. If I may, this is the coming of age equivalent of Catcher in the Rye, only about Jesus.

This book fills in the thirty year period that we know nothing about--Jesus's life in that period. It just may not fill it in the way you'd expect. There are a couple of subplots in this novel, dealing with Budhism and Hinduism, and this is a novel of the absurd. If you're looking for reality here, go someplace else.

I recommend this novel along with Tom Robbin's "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and McCrae's "Katzenjammer" which are two other "absurdist" novels that will keep you smiling. Great fun and not a wasted word in sight.

A beautifully conceived and rendered story of what one man's youth might have wrought. True or not, the narrative of Joshua of Nazareth is one of the world's most influential in history. Moore proposes that the "lost years" of Joshua's early life would have been recorded but for an unexpected event. The chronicler died suddenly. Resurrected in modern times, Levi bar Alphaeus, or "Biff" from the sound of his mother clouting him, is commanded to create the fifth Gospel. Sequestered in a St Louis hotel room with an angel who, shall we say, lacks "street smarts", Biff recounts the life he and Joshua spent as boys and young men.

Joshua, in his early years, discovers strange powers. We meet him resurrecting the lizards his brother kills. It's a strange ability, although Biff accepts it more readily than does Joshua himself. As the years pass, Joshua becomes increasingly aware of his divine origins. He's frustrated by his inability to understand why he has this role. There are limitations he cannot understand - "no women!". Biff struggles to take up the slack in that aspect as they begin a pilgrimage. Joshua wants to find the "wise men" who visited the manger at his birth. They spend almost two decades in Afghanistan, Tibet and India studying. Along the way, we learn that many thinkers have developed the idea of the "Golden Rule". Loving your neighbour is the aim many philosophers wish to impart - if they could but understand how.

Biff thinks he knows how - love as many women as willingly cross his path. He loves Joshua's mother as only a "neighbour kid" knows how. His real love, however, is "Maggie". Through all his liaisons in far lands, Levi's longing for Mary of Magdalene never fades away. That her own love is reserved for Joshua is an impediment, but cannot quench his continuing ardour. Even daily lessons in the Kama Sutra aren't sufficient to drive Maggie from his mind. Joshua, comfortable in the awareness of Maggie's love, remains celibate - with a twist only Moore could devise. Don't enter this story thinking that because you know the ending, you're not going to encounter anything new.

How valid, even stripping this tale of the fantastic, could Moore's narrative be? His own statement at end of the book exposes the historical void in Joshua's history. Challengers to Christianity's divine roots have long questioned how a manifestation of a deity could disappear for a generation. How unique is Joshua's philosophy of global forgiveness? Could he indeed have learned these tenets outside Roman Palestine? Biff reveals [again!] throughout this book the forces Joshua had to contend with in bringing a new teaching to a community overburdened with a legalist religious tradition. Moore has done a superb job in presenting a human being invested with divine powers. It's not a sinecure. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This was a funny book, a bit blasphemous by times but an interesting slant on the life of Christ.. As a big L Christian I appreciate the humour and the irony and the attempt to humanize Jesus while still giving a fairly accurate account of his ministry!