Lamb: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ’s childhood
pal by Christopher Moore (2002).
A truly amazing (sort of)
biography of young Jesus, from 6 to 30, by his best and only true friend Biff.
I’ll just say this: You will
NEVER find any books funnier than this.
You will roll over from your chair
laughing and will cry by laughing too hard. That’s what happened to me and
it’ll happen to you too. Honest to God.
This is an incredible masterpiece
you should NEVER EVER miss!!
Oh, and this book has NOTHING to
do with actual religion, so don’t worry about it.
Warning: this is a bit long
because there are so much to talk about here.
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layers. –Biff. A
really tough and street smart kid/guy who is there with Joshua for every step
of his life.
Ever since
they meet, it becomes quite obvious that his job is get Joshua out of troubles
and he does that till the end. Mentally, physically, practically, financially
and later on tactically, he is the one who keeps Joshua alive for all his journeys.
As soon as
joining Joshua for his journeys to become Jesus, the true messiah, Biff
realizes that he is not a savior material. Not even close. So instead, he
devours himself into other more useful and fun subjects. As a results, at the
end of their long and patient training, Biff becomes bomb/poison specialists,
Kung-Fu master, master tactician and Kamasutra-expert. All of which, except Kamasutra, of
course, turn out
vital to Joshua’s campaign to become a messiah.
He also
invents the concept of sarcasm, builds stick match, figures out the basic
structure of evolution and best of all, becomes the first man ever to smooth
coffee with milk and sugar. Thanks God for his courage!
Joshua. A son of God. He is a
beautiful kid who is too straight, too innocent and that makes him look kind of
thick for Messiah not because he is dumb but too pure.
So he gets himself into
lots of troubles specifically with Roman soldiers and if it isn’t for Biff,
probably gets killed before age 10, several times.
As he grows up, Joshua realizes that there is one thing missing from his mission to be a messiah: an actual direction.
If
you ever read the bible or attend any kind of bible school at some point of
your life like me, you may recall one fact that God NEVER tells you what to do
exactly. He always send you some sort of signal or indirect sigh that you have
to look for. And because of this, Joshua even if he is a God-certified messiah,
just can’t figure out where to begin or how to be a proper messiah. So
naturally, he stumbles upon quite a few troubles.
Later
on after long journey (training), he finds his direction, becomes much more
practical and with Biff as his adviser, security chief and running mate,
Joshua runs now famous “kingdom comes” campaign.
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lace. – It begins
in the town of Nazareth. Then, three different parts of the world for the training.
And back to Nazareth.
For
Biff, after he is back from his grave, he is kept inside Hyatt Regency hotel in
St. Louis by Raziel for a few weeks until he finishes his book.
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lot. – By way of
celebrating the second millennium of kingdom comes, God who, by the way, never
appears and only say one line in entire novel, decides to add a new chapter to
his bible about Jesus’s upbringing and how he becomes a messiah. And who is
better suited for this tremendous task than Biff, Joshua’s buddy, best friend
and the only person who is there with him from the day one?
So, one day,
the heaven send a clueless and somewhat dumb angel named Raziel to resuscitate
Biff from his grave to write a new Gospel for Jesus’s childhood.
(According to
Biff, angels are extremely beautiful and powerful creatures but a bit dumb
because there are given the pride but not the freedom to think. Because, after
all, they are just messengers not co-workers of God.)
This book is
divided into roughly three parts.
1. The
beginning. Biff meets a young Joshua and becomes his life-time buddy.
2. Searching
for three wise men to get advices of how to become a messiah. This process
takes over 10 years because all three decide to stay as far away as possible frrom
each other in three completely different parts of the world for no other apparent reasons
than to provide great storyline for Christopher Moore. And it works marvelously.
Epic journey begins!
Here
are the list of three wisemen and what they do.
· The first
one: Balthasar. A magician. He is in East Asia near desert. Joshua gets vast
knowledge of language and religion and everything else. Biff becomes a master
of poison, explosives and gets laid every night with Balthasar's several young wives. Lots of sex.
· The second
one: Gasper. A monk. He builds a monastery on top of rocky mountain near Tibet.
After years of training, Joshua masters self-control. Biff becomes a Kung Fu
master. No sex.
· The third
one: Melchior. He is a yoga master in India. After years of patient practices, Joshua
finds way to separate his mind from body. After years of patient practices,
Biff becomes a Kamasutra master. Again, lots of sex. Lucky bastard.
3. Finally, Joshua
with mighty Biff on his side and 15 apostles (yes 15!) starts the campaign of
saving his people. Let me just make it little clear for you. There are 15 apostles at the
beginning. However one hates to travel, one has to be on the side of Joshua all
the time (Biff), and the last one is too crazy to preach (his pupils are all
dogs, not people). So the number ends up at 12 not 15.
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How
good is this book? In America where religious-right will do anything to
safe-guard their God, this book not just survive but becomes a best seller.
Just think about that.
If
you still haven't made up your mind about this book, then don’t trust anything I said. Just search the net, find the book and read THE FIRST LINE.
It goes like this:
" The angel was cleaning out his closets when the call came"
It goes like this:
" The angel was cleaning out his closets when the call came"
This
kind of book won't come easily, so please, enjoy it.
