Not the Book of Dust

AFTER angering the Vatican with the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman, the children's author, is to launch an assault on Christianity in a story that denies Jesus was the son of God.

Pullman will claim that Christ emerged from the "fervid imagination" of St Paul, the apostle, and spawned a religion that has inspired some to "fanatical bigotry".

Although full details of the plot are being kept under wraps, the book's title, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, gives a...