Review 10 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

 

 

Moore, Christopher. Lamb. New York: Perennial, 2003. Print.

Citation:

If you think you know the real story of Jesus of Nazareth, you would be wrong.  Biff, his childhood friend has been brought back to life to write his gospel, the definitive and true gospel of the real life of Jesus.  What follows are the stories that you might know from the bible turned on their heads and those missing years of Christ's life are finally filled in.  You will now know the whole story, warts and all from the definitive expert on Jesus Christ of Nazareth Biff, his lifelong friend. When you are done you will see why Biff was completely written out of the four gospels we know today.

Justification for Nomination:

I honestly laughed so hard that I cried at several points in this book.  Lamb by Christopher Moore tells the story of Jesus from a different angle.  This point alone will have some readers angry because it is messing with religion, but a careful reading of this book will show that Biff is indeed a pig and a sinner and kind of a jerk but, Jesus does no sinning in the book.  The loutish behavior is all Biffs’.  I predict that Lamb will work its way onto some lists of book to be banned, however that would be a mistake.  I found this story to be well researched and a great deal of care was taken not to make fun of Christian beliefs or to argue against the divinity of Jesus.  It really is a what if story about  the missing years in the life of Jesus, the years that the bible does not tell of.  Jesus witnesses a great deal of sin, most of it committed by Biff, and tries to understand it without actually sinning himself.  Some of the writing in Lamb is so crisp and funny that I had to reread several passages over again because I was laughing so hard.  Be sure to pay special attention to the funeral dirges sung by Biff.  As much as I liked this book and would recommend it to anyone who wanted to read a truly funny book, I can only nominate it with reservations.  Many YA readers would like this, Biff is crude and very funny and a great character, but the biblical setting and the attention to detail about the lifestyles and politics of the time might turn off the YA reader.  The dialogue is crisp and well written, the story is fabulous and very creative and the humor is excellent.  Lamb is a recommend read even if it is not a wholehearted Printz nominee.   

Genre:

Humor, Coming of Age