Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal Epilogue

EpilogueThe angel took the book from him, hence went disc over the gate and across the residency, where he knocked on the door. Hes finished, the angel utter to person in the room.What, youre leaving? I can merely go? asked Levi who was c eached garget.The door across the hall opened, and at that place stood a nonher angel, this matchless faceing to micturate more a female aspect than Raziel. She too held a book. She stepped into the hall to reveal a cleaning lady standing behind her, wearing jeans and a green cotton blouse. Her hair was long and straight, dark with reddish highlights, and her look were crystal blue and seemed to glow in contrast to her dark skin.Maggie, tell Levi.Hi, slug.Maggie finished her gospel singing weeks ago, verbalize Raziel.Really?The Magdalene smiled. Well, I didnt redeem as much to write as you did. I didnt see you guys for sixteen long time.Oh, right.It is the forget of the Son that you two go come forward together into this new l and, give tongue to the female angel.Levi went across the hall and took her in his arms. They kissed for a long date until the angels began to clear their throats and murmur Get a room down the stairs their breaths.They held from each one other at arms length. Levi said, Maggie, is this going to be like it always was? You neck, youre with me, and you whop me and everything, only its moreover because you cant cast off Josh?Of course.Thats so pathetic.You dont want to be together?No, I want to, its just pathetic.I construct money, she said. They gave me money.Thats good.Go, said Raziel, losing his patience. Go, go, go. Go away. He pointed down the hallway.They started walking down the hallway, arm in arm, tentatively, looking back at the angels every few steps, until at determination they looked back and the angels were gone.You should withdraw stuck around, the Magdalene said.I couldnt. It hurt too much.He came back.I know, I demand about it.He was sad because of what y ou had done.Yeah, so was I.The others were maddened with you. They said that you had the greatest reason to believe.That why they edited me out of their evangel?Good guess, she said.They stepped into the elevator and the Magdalene pushed the neverthelesston for the lobby. By the way, it was Hallowed, she said.What was Hallowed?The H. His middle name. It was Hallowed. Its a family name, remember, Our father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.Damn, I would produce guessed Harvey, thrusting said.AfterwordTeaching Yoga to an ElephantAnd there argon also more other things which rescuer did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could non contain the books that should be written. Amen.JOHN 2125 buttocks you in truth teach yoga to an elephant? Well no, you cant, but were talking about savior here. Nobody knows what he could do.The book youve just read is a story. I made it up. It is non designed to change anyones beliefs or w orld pick up, unless after reading it youve decided to be kinder to your fellow humans (which is okay), or you decide you rightfully would like to try to teach yoga to an elephant, in which case, ravish get videotape.I researched Lamb, I sincerely did, but there is no doubt I could have spent decades researching and still man get on withd to be in right. (Its a talent, what can I enjoin?) While Ive made whatever attempt to paint an accurate picture of the world in which Christ lived, I changed things for my own convenience, and aroundtimes, obviously, there was no way of knowing what conditions really existed in the years 1 through 33.The available written history about the peasant class, society, and the practise of Judaism in the first century in Galilee degenerates quickly into theory. The role of the Pharisees in peasant society, the Hellenistic influence, the influence of an international city like Joppa nearby who knows how these things would have affected Christ as a boy? whatsoever historians postulate that Yeshua of Naz beth would have been little more than an ignorant hillbilly, while others opine that because of the proximity of Sepphoris and Joppa, he could have been exposed to Greek and Roman finis from an early mount up. I chose the latter because it shakes for a more inte relaxationing story.The historical life of Jesus, beyond a couple of references by Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century, and the odd watch over by Roman historians, is again loosely speculation. What we can know today of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is included in the four slim evangel found in the New volition Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For those readers who know the creed (bear with me), you know that Matthew and Luke are the only when two to mention Christs birth, while Mark and John cover only the ministry part of Jesus life. The rational men are mentioned only in one short transportation system in Matthew, and the shepherds are me ntioned only in Luke. The slaughter of the innocents and the fleeing into Egypt are mentioned only in Matthew. In short, Jesus infancy is a jumble, but the chronicle of his childishness is worse. Of the time from Jesus birth to when he began his ministry in his thirties, the Bible gives us only one scene Luke tells us of Jesus teaching in the tabernacle in Jerusalem at age twelve. Other than that, we have a thirty-year hole in the life of the more or less influential human existence to ever walk the face of the earth. With Lamb, in my own goofy way, I attempted to fill that hole in history, but again, I am not trying to present history as it might really have been, Im simply telling stories.Some of the historical elements of Lamb are uncomfortable to work the modern mind around. The precocious sexuality comes to mind. That Maggie would have been betrothed by twelve and married by thirteen is almost certain from what we know of Jewish society in the first century, as are the fact s that a Jewish boy of the time would have been education his trade by age ten, would be betrothed at thirteen, and would be married by fourteen. Trying to create empathy for the adult roles of those whom we, today, would consider children, was of no small concern to me when I was writing that section of the book, but it whitethorn be the one section where the sexuality of the characters is not historically out of place. The average peasant in Galilee would have been lucky to live to the age of forty, so perhaps the children, by necessity, reached sexual maturity earlier than they would under less harsh conditions.Although there are, Im sure, umpteen historical inaccuracies and improbabilities in this book, the most blatant that I have knowingly indulged is in the section where thrusting and Joshua visit Gaspar in the mountains of mainland China. While Gautama Buddha did indeed live and teach some five ampere-second years forward the birth of Christ, and while his teachings wer e far-flung in India by the time our heroes could have made it to the East, Buddhism didnt make it into China for almost five hundred years after Christs death. The martial humanities would not be developed by Buddhist monks until after that, but to remain historically accurate, I would have had to leave out an of import question that I felt needed to be addressed, which is, What if Jesus had know kung fu?The life of Gaspar, as described in Lamb (the nine years in the cave, etc.), is drawn from the legends of the life of the Buddhist patriarch Bodhidharma, the man who is said to have taken Buddhism to China around A.D. 500. Bodhidharma (or Daruma) is credited with the school of Buddhism that we know today as Zen. Buddhist legend does not mention Bodhidharma encountering a yeti, but they do have him cutting his eyelids off to avoid fall asleep and having them sprout into tea plants which later monks would brew to keep stimulate during meditation (which I left out), so I traded th at story in on an abominable snowman and Biffs theory of natural selection. Seemed fair. Bodhidharma is also said to have invented and taught kung fu to the famous Shao Lin monks to condition them for the rigorous regimen of meditation he prescribed. around of the details of the festival of Kali, including the sacrifices and mutilations, come from Joseph Campbells Oriental Mythology, from his Masks of God series. Campbell cites eyewitness accounts of the spread over ritual from nineteenth-century British soldiers and states that even today over eight hundred goats are beheaded for the festival of Kali in Calcutta. (Anyone who had trouble with this passage, please write to Campbell in his current incarnation.)The cited verses from the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita are actual translations of those revered writings. The verses from the Kama Sutra are completely from my imagination, but youll find weirder stuff in the actual book.Theologically, I made certain assumptions about who Jesus was, mainly that he was who the gospel singing say he was. While I used the Gospels severely for reference, and there are a couple of references to the Acts of the Apostles (specifically the giving of the gift of tongues, without which Biff could not have told the story in modern American idiom), I tried not to draw on the rest of the New Testament, specifically the letters of Paul, Peter, James, and John, as sound as Revelations, all written years after the Crucifixion (as were the Gospels). These missives eventually went on to define Christianity, but no matter what you may work out of them, you have to agree that Jesus would not have been aware of them, or the events in them, or certainly the consequences of their teaching, so they had no place in this story. Joshua and Biff, as Jewish boys, would, however, have been old(prenominal) with the books of the Old Testament, the first five of which made up the base of their faith, the Torah, and the rest which were referred to by citizenry of the time as Prophets and Writings, so I referred to these when I felt it was appropriate. As I understand it, however, the Talmud and most of the Midrash (illustrative stories explaining the law of God) had not yet been formulated and agreed upon, so they were not used as a reference for Lamb.From the Gnostic Gospels (a set of manuscripts found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, but which actually may have been written earlier than the canonized Gospels) Ive drawn only slightly on the Gospel of Thomas, a book of Christs sayings, because it fit well with the Buddhist point of view ( many a(prenominal) of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas are also found in Mark). The other Gnostic Gospels were either too fragmentary, or frankly, just plain creepy (the Infancy Gospel of Thomas describes Jesus, at age six, using his supernatural powers to murder a group of children because they tease him. fashion of Carrie Goes to Nazareth. Even I had to pass.)Lamb is peppered throughout with biblical references, both real and made-up (i.e., Biff quotes liberally from nonexistent books of the Bible such as Dalmatians, Excretions, and Amphibians). My editor and I discussed the merit of footnoting these references and decided that footnotes would detract from the flow of the story. The paradox arises, however, that if the reader knows the Bible well enough to recognize the real references, theres a good chance that he or she has decided not to read this book. Our final decision well, my final decision, my editor wasnt really consulted on this because he might have said no was to advise those who are not old(prenominal) with the Bible to find someone who is, sit them down, read them the passages in question, then say, That one real? How bout that one? If you dont know someone who is familiar with the Bible, just wait, someone will come to your door eventually. Keep spear carrier copies of Lamb on hand so they can take one with them.Another problem with telling a st ory that has been told so many times is that people are looking for elements with which they are familiar. Although Ive glossed over many events that are chronicled in the Gospels, there are numerous elements which many people think are there, which simply are not. One is that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Shes always portrayed that way in movies, but it doesnt ever say that she is in the Bible. She is mentioned by name eleven times in the synoptical Gospels (Matthew, Luke, Mark). Most references to her talk about her preparation for the burial of Jesus, and then being the first witness of his resurrection. It also says that Jesus cured her of shame spirits. No whore references, period. in that respect are Marys without sur name all over the Gospels, and some of them, I suspect, may refer to the Magdalene, specifically the Mary who, soon before his death, anoints Jesus feet with expensive ointment and wipes them with her hair, certainly one of the most tender moments in the Gos pels and the primary initiation for my rendering of Maggies character. We know from letters that many of the leaders of the early church were women, but in first-century Israel, a woman who struck out on her own without a husband was not only considered uppity, but was very likely referred to as a woman of the street (as was a woman who was divorced). That could be where the myth originated.Another Gospel misassumption is that the deuce-ace wise men were kings, or, in fact, that there were even three of them. We make that assumption because there are three gifts given to the Christ child. Their names are never mentioned. The names Balthasar, Gaspar, and Melchior come to us from Christian customs written hundreds of years after the time of Christ. We assume that Joseph of Nazareth, Jesus stepfather, dies before the Crucifixion, yet it is never stated in the Gospels. He just may not have been involved. We make assumptions based on what we have been fed over the years at Christmas pageants and passion plays, but often, although inspired by faith, that corporeal is little more than what you have just read the product of someones imagination. The Gospels do not agree on the order of the events that happen during the ministry, from Jesus baptism by John to the Crucifixion, so I arranged events from all the Gospels in what seemed a logical, chronological order, while adding those elements that allow Biffs participation in the story. There are, of course, elements of the Gospels which I left out in the interest of brevity, but you can always find them in the Gospels if you want.My sending Joshua and Biff to the East was motivated purely by story, not by basis in the Gospel or historical evidence. While there are indeed astounding similarities between the teachings of Jesus and those of Buddha (not to mention those of Lao-tzu, Confucius, and the Hindu religion, all which seem to have included some version of the Golden Rule), its more likely that these stem from w hat I believe to be logical and righteous conclusions that any person in search of what is right would come to, e.g. that the favourite(a) way to treat one another is with love and kindness that hobbyhorse of material gain is ultimately empty when measured against eternity and that somehow, as human beings, we are all connected spiritually. While historians and theologians dont completely regulating out the possibility that Christ may have traveled to the East, they seem to agree that he could have formulated the teachings we find in the Gospels with no more influence than the rabbinical teachings in Galilee and Judea. But what mutation would that have been?Finally, this story was set in a dire time, a deadly serious time, and the world of the first-century Jew under the rule of the Romans would not have been one that easily inspired mirth. Its 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. This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyones faith however, if ones faith can be agitate by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do.My thanks to the many people who helped in the research and writing of this book, especially those who were generous enough to share their beliefs without notion or condemnation.Many thanks to Neil Levy, Mark Joseph, Professor William Sundog Bersley, diaphysis Sanders, and John The Heretic Campbell for their advice on religion, philosophy, and history. To Charlee Rodgers for putting up with the fits, starts, whining, and hubris of the process, as well as to Dee Dee Leichtfuss for readings and comments. Special thanks to Orly Elbaz, who was my tour guide through Israel and who showed interminable patience in answering my nitpicky historical questions. Also to my agent, Nick Ellison, and my editor, to m Dupree, for their patience, tolerance, and advice.Christopher MooreBIG SUR, CALIFORNIANOVEMBER 2000