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

by Christopher Moore

Joshua stood. “Philip, Thaddeus, go to Judea, tell John’s followers that they are welcome here. Tell them that John’s work is not lost. Bring them here.” “But master,” Judas said, “John has thousands of followers. If they come here, how will we feed them?” “He’s new,” I explained.

“Come out, Simon Lazarus, come out into the light.” Nothing but stench came out of the tomb. “Come forth, Simon. Come out of that tomb,” Joshua commanded. And absolutely nothing happened. Joseph of Arimathea shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I wanted to talk to you about the dinner at my house before you got there, Joshua.” Joshua held up his hand for silence. “Simon, dammit, come out of there.” And ever so weakly, there came a voice from inside the tomb. “No.” “What do you mean, ‘no’? You have risen from the dead, now come forth. Show these unbelievers that you have risen.” “I believe,” I said. “Convinced me,” said Matthew. “A no is as good as a personal appearance, as far as I’m concerned,” said Joseph of Arimathea.

Finally Joshua lowered his arms and stormed into the tomb. “I can’t believe that you bring a guy back from the dead and he doesn’t even have the courtesy to come out—WHOA! HOLY MOLY!” Joshua came backing out of the tomb, stiff-legged. Very calmly and quietly, he said, “We need clean clothes, and some water to wash with, and bandages, lots of bandages. I can heal him, but we have to sort of get all of his parts stuck back together first.” “Hold on, Simon,” Joshua shouted to the tomb, “we’re getting some supplies, then I’ll come in and heal your affliction.” “What affliction?” asked Simon.

Then Peter stepped with both feet onto the surface of the water, and for a split second he stood there. And we were all amazed. “Hey, I’m—” Then he sank like a stone. He came up sputtering. We were all doubled over giggling, and even Joshua had sunk up to his ankles, he was laughing so hard. “I can’t believe you fell for that,” said Joshua. He ran across the water and helped us pull Peter into the boat. “Peter, you’re as dumb as a box of rocks. But what amazing faith you have. I’m going to build my church on this box of rocks.” “You would have Peter build your church?” asked Philip. “Because he tried to walk on the water.” “Would you have tried it?” asked Joshua. “Of course not,” said Philip. “I can’t swim.”

Three hours later, Joshua was still at it, and he was starting to run out of things to liken the kingdom to, his favorite, the mustard seed, having failed in three different tries. “Okay, the kingdom is like a monkey.” Joshua was hoarse and his voice was breaking. “How?” “A Jewish monkey, right?” “Is it like a monkey eating a mustard seed?” I stood up and went to Joshua and put my arm around his shoulder. “Josh, take a break.” I led him down the beach toward the village. He shook his head. “Those are the dumbest sons of bitches on earth.” “They’ve become like little children, as you told them to.” “Stupid little children,” Joshua said.

Nobody’s perfect…. Well, there was this one guy, but we killed him. ANONYMOUS

On Monday Joshua led us through the Golden Gate into Jerusalem, but this time there were no palm fronds laid on the road and no one was singing hosannas. (Well, there was this one guy, but he was always singing hosannas at the Golden Gate. If you gave him a coin he’d stop for a while.)

The inquisition went on for two hours, with the priests concocting every verbal trap they could think of, and Joshua wiggling out sometimes, and blundering through at others. I looked for some way to get Joshua out of the Temple without him being arrested, but the more I looked, the more I noticed that the guards had moved down off the walls and were hovering around the gates to the courtyard. 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.

“Five,” Joshua repeated. The priests looked around among themselves. “That’s right, but that doesn’t give you authority to heal in the Temple.”

“He washed us all,” Peter said. “Of course we had to hold Bart down, but even he’s clean.” “And as I washed them, they will go out and wash others, by showing them forgiveness.” “Oh, I get it,” I said. “It’s a parable. Cute. Let’s go eat.”

“And why do we only eat the matzo on this night?” asked Nathaniel. “Skip ahead, Nate,” I said. “We’re all Jews here. Summarize. Unleavened bread because there was no time for it to rise with Pharaoh’s soldiers on our tail, bitter herbs for the bitterness of slavery, God delivered us into the Promised Land, it was swell, let’s eat.” “Amen,” said everyone. “That was pathetic,” said Peter.

“Of course God is part of you,” James the brother said, “he’s your father.” “No, in all of you. Watch, take this bread.” He took a matzo and broke it into pieces. He gave a piece to everyone in the room and took a piece himself. Then he ate it. “Now, the bread is part of me, the bread is me. Now all of you eat it.” Everybody looked at him. “EAT IT!” He screamed. So we ate it. “Now it is part of you, I am part of you. You all share the same part of God. Let’s try again. Hand me that wine.”

found in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For those readers who know the Gospels (bear with me), you know that Matthew and Luke are the only two to mention Christ’s birth, while Mark and John cover only the ministry part of Jesus’ life. The wise men are mentioned only in one short passage in Matthew, and the shepherds are mentioned 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 childhood 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 Temple in Jerusalem at age twelve. Other than that, we have a thirty-year hole in the life of the most influential human being 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, I’m simply telling stories.

from author's afterword

Buddhism didn’t make it into China for almost five hundred years after Christ’s death. The martial arts would not be developed by Buddhist monks until after that, but to remain historically accurate, I would have had to leave out an important question that I felt needed to be addressed, which is, “What if Jesus had known kung fu?”

from author's afterword.