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

by Christopher Moore

“Go get the good news, Raziel. Bring me back some chocolate.” “Chocolate?” “It’s a dirt-dweller snack. You’ll like it. Satan invented it.” “Devil’s food?” “You can only eat so much white cake, my friend.”

“Look around. Rocks as far as the eye can see. Galilee is nothing but rocks, dirt, and more rocks. Be a stonemason like me and my father. We can build cities for the Romans.” “Actually, I was thinking about saving mankind.” “Forget that nonsense, Josh. Rocks, I tell you.”

“I didn’t get that from your father’s answer.” “It’s sarcasm, Josh.” “Sarcasm?” “It’s from the Greek, sarkasmos. To bite the lips. It means that you aren’t really saying what you mean, but people will get your point. I invented it, Bartholomew named it.” “Well, if the village idiot named it, I’m sure it’s a good thing.” “There you go, you got it.” “Got what?” “Sarcasm.” “No, I meant it.” “Sure you did.” “Is that sarcasm?” “Irony, I think.” “What’s the difference?” “I haven’t the slightest idea.” “So you’re being ironic now, right?” “No, I really don’t know.” “Maybe you should ask the idiot.” “Now you’ve got it.” “What?” “Sarcasm.” “Biff, are you sure you weren’t sent here by the Devil to vex me?”

I shuffled up to her to talk, but kept looking at my feet. I knew that if I looked into her eyes I would forget what I was talking about, so I only looked at her in brief takes, the way a man will glance up at the sun on a sweltering day to confirm the source of the heat.

“You see, my plan is working. For it is written that ‘if the wise man always appears stupid, his failures do not disappoint, and his success gives pleasant surprise.’”

The sin of Onan. Spilling the old seed on the ground. Cuffing the camel. Dusting the donkey. Flogging the Pharisee. Onanism, a sin that requires hundreds of hours of practice to get right, or at least that’s what I told myself. God slew Onan for spilling his seed on the ground (Onan’s seed, not God’s. God’s seed turned out to be my best pal. Imagine the trouble you’d be in if you actually spilled God’s seed. Try explaining that).

If there was anything I learned from John the Baptist, it was that the sooner you confess a mistake, the quicker you can get on to making new and better mistakes.

“What was that about three jewels?” “The three jewels of the Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility. Balthasar said compassion leads to courage, moderation leads to generosity, and humility leads to leadership.”

“Why did we set up twenty posts if we were only going to use three?” “Why were you thinking of twenty when you can only stand on one?” answered Three. “I have to pee,” I said. “Exactly,” said the monk. So there you have it: Buddhism.

astoundingly difficult to surprise a Buddhist monk, especially one who had been trained in kung fu. So alert were they to the moment that one had to become nearly invisible and completely silent to sneak up on a monk, and even then simply jumping out and shouting “boo” wasn’t enough to shake their chakras. To get a real reaction, you pretty much had to poleax one of them with a fighting staff, and if he heard the staff whistling through the air, there was a good chance he’d catch it, take it away from you, and pound you into damp pulp with it.

“Look, Josh, there’s another message from your mother.” Josh glanced and looked away. “That’s not my mother.” “But look, in the elephant poop, it’s a woman’s face.” “I know, but it’s not my mother. It’s distorted because of the medium. It doesn’t even look like her. Look at the eyes.” I had to climb to the back of the elephant to get another angle on it. He was right, it wasn’t his mother. “I guess you’re right. The medium obscured the message.” “That’s what I’m saying.” “I’ll bet it looks like someone’s mom, though.”