“Lamb”, by Christopher Moore

“Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus Christ’s Childhood Friend” is a work of fiction. Even though you end up wanting to support this Jesus guy after having read the Gospel that was edited out of the New Testament, you must remember that it is not true. Jesus did not invent a martial art named “Jew-do”, did not teach Yoga to an elephant and he most certainly did never perform a circumcision on a Greek god.

That is… He might have done all these things. Who is to say what Jesus Christ did or did not do when he was alive? It is written that he performed instant-healings and strolled about on the sea for a couple o’ minutes. Why couldn’t the Son of God talk to the abominable snowman when he did all those other neat tricks?

I presume that was one of the questions that Christopher Moore asked himself when he decided to write this book (yet another question was: “What would have happened if Jesus knew Kung-Fu?”) The New Testament is supposed to tell us what took place when Jesus (or Joshua, which was his real name) lived. Unfortunately for us, the Apostles left out some of the events that occured when the Earth passed 31 times around the Sun when Jesus lived and breathed. To be exact: they left out thirty years. Thirty years when we only have the slightest idea what went on the Saviour’s life. Joshua might have gone to the Moon and back again for all that we know.

In the event of Christ’s two millenniums death-day, Heaven decides that the time has come to add another chapter to the Holy Bible. The angel “Raziel” gets the job of going down to earth to bring Biff back from the dead so that he may write his story. After Biff has let some of his anger out on Raziel for being a little late (all the other Apostles was brought back right away. Poor Biff had to wait some thousand of years – naturally, he was pissed). They check into a hotel and Raziel commands Biff to write his Gospel.

You see, Biff grew up in Nazareth together with Jesus. They were inseperable; where Joshua went, so did Biff. Of course, it’s not easy to be the Messiah’s best friend. First of all you might find yourself in sticky situations because of the political situation in the Holy Land. The Romans rule the land, but in fact the Pharisee’s have the real power. Between these two fronts, Biff and the Son of God discovers the drawbacks at having both your best mate’s and his mothers face appear on every baked bread in town, and there’s also the thing about him being the Messiah and all. If that’s not blasphemy; what is?

But Joshua doesn’t know is he is the Messiah, and if he is, he sure as hell don’t know how to go about the fact. To clear things up, he decides to find the three wise men that came to visit him when he was just a little child. Biff demands that he may go with him, for as he himselfs points out: “What if you run into some big blokes on your way and they as you how much money you have?” “Well, that depends on the amount of money I’m carrying at the time” answers Joshua – the man who wouldn’t tell a lie to save his own life (which is the point of Jesus, anyways…).

The events that follow are as laugh-out-louder-than-your-fellow-Rabbi-funny as they are exciting to read about. There’s not a single dull moment in this book and it is by far the funniest book I have ever had the pleasure to read. Biff tells us about every event that we know happened, but the Bible don’t tell us everything Jesus did in the meantime, nor what his exact words were. It turns out that Jesus didn’t care much about swearing or cursing, but committing a sin; that he would never do. This is the best book I’ve read thus far this year. It contains everything you could ever want from a book: chinese concubines, philosophy, Kung-Fu fighting monks, harlots and lepers, sexually confused blind guys, preachings, baptisms, demons and the invention of sarcasm (yeah, right!). I learned more about Jesus while reading this then I ever did in class (and I know that it isn’t true, but I don’t care). If you don’t buy this book I’m sorry to inform you that you will never experience Christianity in the way that I do now, nor will you have a life worth living. I call “Lamb” a masterpiece and you would too – if you only got you ass out of your chair and bought it (waaaaaait a second there. You won’t find it in no bookstore in Norway – you’ll have to order it online).

Final verdict: 8,5/10. Read “Lamb” before you die – you’ll be glad you did