Then, after many years, Joshua returns home, Biff as always in tow. At times the story becomes a bit too action-packed, as the two young men contend with demons, bandits, cultists and the Kama Sutra along the way, but the lessons at the core, as Joshua is exposed to faiths outside his native Judaism, are often deeply spiritual. His quest with Biff to find and learn from the three wise men who heralded his birth makes up the central portion of the novel. They share dreams and cravings, they argue over who gets to play Moses in their games, they enjoy the occasional mischief and, yes, they sometimes act like typical boys.Īs Joshua enters his early teens, he decides to seek answers outside of Nazareth. Joshua is always pious, kind, earnest and good-hearted in the tale Biff is the one person, his closest companion, with whom he can freely relax and shed those burdens for a time. He's not writing about the Son of God here he's writing about a small boy who's coping to the best of his young abilities with the knowledge of his divine origin and inevitable fate. Moore's version of Joshua's childhood is wonderfully funny. Those people need to learn to appreciate a good joke. Some will no doubt call it foul, blasphemous and sacrilegious. But Biff, who didn't make it into the Gospels, was there, and it's time to share it with the world. Thus begins a hilarious, epic tale that seeks to fill in the gaps in Joshua's life - after all, the Gospels skip most of the events between Christ's birth and the years immediately preceding the crucifixion. The buddy is Levi who is called Biff, who first met the future savior at age 6 when Joshua was resurrecting smooshed lizards for fun.

It's more than a small anachronism that I portray Joshua having and making fun, yet somehow, I like to think that while he carried out his sacred mission, Jesus of Nazareth might have enjoyed a sense of irony and the company of a wisecracking buddy.' As Moore writes in his end notes, 'the world of the first-century Jew under the rule of the Romans would not have been one that easily inspired mirth. Rather, he's writing from the assumption that Jesus (or Joshua, which is a closer approximation of the original Hebrew name) enjoyed a good laugh now and again. Lamb is not written as a serious history of Christ's life, nor is Moore seeking to mock anyone's favorite religion. The novel's subtitle, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, should explain why. It's called The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, probably composed or at least put into writing around 80 AD, the time in which the gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John were also coming into being.Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood PalĪnyone who found Monty Python's classic film The Life of Brian offensive should probably stay far away from Christopher Moore's Lamb. What I'd like to start with when it comes to Christ comedy is a text that was circulating as scripture in the early Christian world even though it never made it into official biblical canon. I'd like, however, to start my examination with a text that is not in the Bible - and I'm not talking about Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Jesus Childhood Pal (William Morrow, 2004), the awesome novel by Christopher Moore - although you should definitely check that out, too. A classic, and very good, is The Humor of Christ (Harper & Row, 1975), by the wonderful Elton Trueblood. There are several good books on the subject. I'm happy to say that in fact there is much to say about the comedy of Christ. And because this we know because the Bible tells us so. If Christians are to have any basis for a claim that their spiritual walk should be characterized, and primarily so, by laughter and plenty of good humor, it really needs to be because their Master, Shepherd, Savior and Friend was hilarious. After all, Jesus is the main character of the New Testament (besides God, natch) and the focal point of Christian faith. I'm guessing this is one of your big curiosities when exploring the Bible as comedy.

Funny biff jesus