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Satirizing the 'Greatest Story Ever Told'Author offers a tale of the Christ and his pal, Biff
By Todd Leopold
(CNN) -- Christopher Moore was curious about Jesus' "missing years," that span of time between the prophet's childhood and the final years of his life about which almost nothing is known. It seemed like a great subject for a book, though Moore -- a self-described "Buddhist with Christian tendencies" -- wasn't exactly a biblical scholar. "I thought, 'Someone should write that story. And since I know nothing about religion or history, I should be that someone,' " the author said in an e-mail interview. The result of Moore's imagination is "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" (Morrow), a tale that falls somewhere between the New Testament, a book on Roman history, a guide to Eastern religion and "Monty Python's Life of Brian." In the book, a forgotten apostle -- Levi, who is called Biff -- is brought back from the dead by the angel Raziel to give his version of the life of Jesus (also known as Joshua, son of Joseph, or simply "Josh"), which he does trapped in a hotel room at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis while the angel gets hooked on daytime TV and junk food. As Biff was Joshua's lifelong best friend, he fills in the gaps in the Messiah's adolescent and 20-something life. The story follows the pair to the Far East, where Jesus is tutored in the ways of Buddha and Confucius, and back to the Holy Land, where Jesus begins his priesthood with a rather motley crew of followers. Moore treats the historical Jesus gently, even honorably, focusing on the "love your fellow human" message even as he makes jokes about turn-of-the-first-millennium politics and the Kama Sutra. Still, he was concerned about how the book would be greeted. "My family was concerned about my safety, and I was a bit reticent about touring the South, but as it turned out, the reaction ... has been overwhelmingly positive. I had always said, even before the book was released, that I wasn't worried about the people who read the book, but those who didn't. That's still my worry," he said. "The book is not in the least bit mean-spirited, so anyone who took offense to it would have to be looking for something that simply isn't there." Perhaps, Moore added, he did his job too well. "Unfortunately, we weren't able to garner any negative publicity either, and at one point I was calling friends in Ohio and begging them to burn my books (I even offered to pay for the books and the lighter fluid), but in the end everyone remained reasonable and intelligent," he said. "America is more reasonable and intelligent than the pundits would have us believe." 'A revolutionary, a radical'
"Lamb" was almost four years in the works, Moore said, much longer than any of his other books had taken. "I just didn't know about the time, the man, the society," he said. "I needed to get the history right if I was going to write this as a comedy, so I did a lot of reading and spent some time in Israel as well." He gained a new respect for Jesus of Nazareth in the process. "I suppose if there was any personal enlightenment in doing the work, it was in realizing that passion and compassion do not have to be mutually exclusive," he said. "Lately it seems that Jesus has been co-opted by conservatives in our society, but what I learned is that this man was anything but conservative. He was a revolutionary, a radical, and like all of those who seek to change the status quo by peaceful means, he was killed for his views. "I also learned," he added, "that there is no such thing as too many camel jokes in any biblical story." Golden parallelsMoore likes treading the intersection between legend, reality and silliness. He first became known for his book "Practical Demonkeeping: A Comedy of Horrors," a novel about a small-town California man who wanted to get rid of his man-eating demon. The book was sold to Hollywood for "a major six-figure advance," Moore writes on his Web site, and he was on his way. Other novels have included "Coyote Blue," "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" and "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove." He was brought up a Methodist in Ohio and "raised in the first church of the NFL," he said. His father was a highway patrolman and his mother a department-store saleswoman who often had conflicting schedules. "I believe they would have raised me with a much stronger spiritual base if they could have found a religion that held services on Thursday evenings between, say, 6 and 6:15," Moore said.
"Lamb" is satire, of course -- Moore is fond of attributing inventions such as cappuccino, the pencil and sarcasm to Biff, and Moore's Joshua sometimes takes his Son-of-Godness a little too far -- but Moore also wanted to drive home a message of tolerance and understanding. "I was hoping to show a number of parallels in the great religions of the world," he said. "It's no accident, I think, that Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism all formulated some version of the golden rule." And the humble Joshua, after being exposed to all these traditions, grows as well. "I decided that [the goal] would be Joshua learning how to be the messiah that he knew he was. I treated it as if he hadn't gotten the instruction book," Moore said. And what of Biff? He can be a sophomoric jerk, but his loyalty and friendship shine through. It's that light that makes Jesus of Nazareth all the more compelling, said Moore. "I wanted to write the 'greatest buddy story ever told,' just to give another take on this man about whom we believe so much, but know so little."
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I also learned that there is no such thing as too many camel jokes in any biblical story.
