Lamb: A Novel

by Christopher Moore

The Magdalene changed everything.

Miracles. She kissed me. Holy Moses on a matzo! She kissed me.

A knot of snakes writhed at Joshua’s feet, skating over his sandals and wrapping themselves around his ankles. ‘Joshua, get away from there.’ ‘They won’t hurt me. It says so in Isaiah.’ ‘Just in case they haven’t read the Prophets . . .’

Evidently, once you accept that your wife slept with God, extraordinary events seem sort of commonplace.

And the angel said, ‘What prophet has this written? For in this book is foretold all the events which shall come to pass in the next week in the land of Days of Our Lives and All My Children.’

‘Well, don’t seat Joshua next to Elijah. If those guys start talking religion we’ll never have any peace.’

On the other hand, can you call such a profound weakness a gift, or is it a design flaw? Is temptation itself at fault for man’s woes, or is it simply the lack of judgment in response to temptation? In other words, who is to blame? Mankind, or a bad designer? Because I can’t help but think that if God had never told Adam and Eve to avoid the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that the human race would still be running around naked, dancing in wonderment and blissfully naming stuff between snacks, naps, and shags.

Imagine my chagrin when the man who would save the world found me in the morning with a twisted burl of Chinese crone-flesh orally affixed to my fleshy pagoda of expandable joy, even as I snored away in transcendent turnip-digesting oblivion.

Since Nathaniel did such a fine job on the camel, we let him clean up Joshua as well. Once he had the Messiah in the water Joshua came out of his stupor long enough to slur something like: ‘The foxes have their holes and birds have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.’

‘Josh, faking demonic possession is like a mustard seed.’ ‘How is it like a mustard seed?’ ‘You don’t know, do you? Doesn’t seem at all like a mustard seed, does it? Now you see how we all feel when you liken things unto a mustard seed? Huh?’

How we doing on the Beatitudes?’ ‘Pardon me?’ ‘The blesseds.’ ‘We’ve got: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; blessed are the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the whiners, the meek, the—’ ‘Wait, what are we giving the meek?’ ‘Let’s see, uh, here: Blessed are the meek, for to them we shall say, “attaboy.”’ ‘A little weak.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Let’s let the meek inherit the earth.’ ‘Can’t you give the earth to the whiners?’ ‘Well then, cut the whiners and give the earth to the meek.’

Meanwhile the chief priest droned on: ‘A man dies and leaves no sons, but his wife marries his brother, who has three sons by his first wife . . . [and on] The three of them leave Jericho and head south, going three point three furlongs per hour, but they are leading two donkeys, which can carry two . . . [and on] So the Sabbath ends, and they are able to resume, adding on the thousand steps allowed under the law . . . and the wind is blowing southwest at two furlongs per hour . . . [and on] How much water will be required for the journey? Give your answer in firkins.’ ‘Five,’ Joshua said, as soon as they stopped speaking. And all were amazed. The crowd roared. A woman shouted, ‘Surely he is the Messiah.’ ‘The Son of God has come,’ said another. ‘You guys aren’t helping,’ I shouted back at them. ‘You didn’t show your work, you didn’t show your work,’ chanted the youngest of the priests.

‘By the way, it was Hallowed,’ she said. ‘What was Hallowed?’ ‘The H. His middle name. It was Hallowed. It’s a family name, remember, “Our father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”’ ‘Damn, I would have guessed Harvey,’ Biff said.