Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #272419 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 444 pages

Customer Reviews

Inspired lunacy
Did you know that Noah postponed his death for 800 years by convincing a sympathetic Angel of Death that he (Noah) was behind in his paperwork? Such is one of the fascinating factoids found in LAMB, the story of Christ's life as told by his life-long best bud Biff, otherwise known as Levi, son of Alphaeus and Naomi of Nazareth.

Biff, so nick-named for the daily slaps upside his head he required as a child, is raised from the dead in the twentieth century to write another gospel. As the millennium approaches, the Son of God is unhappy with the versions written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and wants a re-write. So, Biff is held a virtual prisoner by his minder, the angel Raziel, in the St. Louis Hyatt Regency until the manuscript is finished.

After a few introductory scenes in which a young Joshua (aka Jesus) restores life to dead lizards, has mixed luck with deceased humans, and becomes infatuated with a budding Mary Magdalene ("Maggie"), Biff's story hits its stride after Joshua, at about thirteen, debates the Pharisees in the Temple of Jerusalem. Then, our two heroes set out for the Far East in search of the Three Wise Men (Balthasar, Gaspar, Melchior) that attended Joshua's birth. From them, in Afghanistan, China, and India, Joshua learns the wisdom of the Eastern religions in preparation for his own ministry. Since Joshua is forbidden by his Heavenly Father from "knowing" women in the biblical sense, he relies on Biff to apprise him of the experience. And Biff, a ladies man, is just the one to do it, especially after several years living with the Eight Chinese Concubines, who have such names as Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm, Silken Pillows of the Heavenly Softness of Clouds, Pea Pods in Duck Sauce with Crispy Noodle, and Sue (short for Susanna).

After seventeen years of wandering and adventure, Biff and Joshua return to Galilee, where the latter gathers his apostles and disciples and begins the ministry familiar to readers of the traditional gospels. Of course, there are embellishments. Biff's narrative ends on the evening of the Friday of Joshua's crucifixion.

LAMB is inspired humor. It's also irreverent, but not maliciously so. The book is author Chris Moore's attempt to flesh out the story of Jesus (Joshua) - to give him a more endearingly human side. For example, when Joshua transforms water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana, he samples his miracle perhaps a little too much. And, when his disciples are astounded when he walks on the surface of the Sea of Galilee, Joshua says:

"I just ate. You can't go into the water for an hour after you eat. You could get a cramp. What, none of you guys have mothers?"

As one born and raised Catholic (and since "fallen away"), I immensely enjoyed the flippancy of LAMB. Sister Mary's grade school catechism class was never so much fun. While a Christian of a more fundamentalist belief might find LAMB faintly blasphemous, I would hope not. I trust even JC could laugh at a good dirty joke as he sat around the village well with the lads.

Great At Filling The Gap
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Now, I've never been a religious person, or read the Bible; however, this humorous rendition of the life of Joshua (Jesus H. Christ, and yes, the "H" is explained) through the eyes of his best friend Levi who is called Biff. Not only does it tell of the acts specified within the Bible, but also of the 20 or so year gap that appears within that same text. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone that is looking for a laugh and can take a joke regarding religion. I know that I will go back and read this again, and recommend it to the people that come into the bookstore where I work.

Life, lizards and longings
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]