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

So a friend of mine lent me this book, apparently a funny bit of Bible-mocking sacrilege from humorist Christopher Moore. The idea is to fill the missing youth of Jesus, which the Bible doesn't describe, with a funny adventure story about Jesus and his pal Biff. It's good. But as I read it, I found that the book is in many ways different from what you would expect.

For starters, it's really not offensive in the least. It's clear that Moore has a warm, fuzzy affection for religion. Sure, Jesus and Biff are shown with human thoughts, emotions, and imperfections, and there are lots of sexy naughty parts. But Jesus is always shown as a great human being, putting his all into the difficult task of saving humanity and generally being a top-notch fellow. I guess you might get offended at this book if you have a purity ring for a soul, but if anything, it warmed my chilly atheist heart to the idea of Jesus.

Furthermore, Lamb is sometimes preoccupied with expressing serious religious and philosophical ideas. The part in the middle, in which Jesus visits Gaspar and the Buddhist monks, explores the connections and gaps between Western religious thought and Buddhism, which I liked because I too have struggled to reconcile Buddhist ideas with my own Western way of thinking. In between the jokes about yak poop, Moore gives us delicious food for thought, and I can say that this book has made a greater spiritual impact on me than both the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita.

But it's not all that good. Lamb is still a humor book first and foremost, and in that respect it's rather spotty. Some of the jokes made me laugh out loud (The Beatitudes scene is hilarious.) but many of them fell flat upon the ground. Moore's sense on humor is a bit juvenile at times, and I'm generally a fan of sexy jokes but I was quite tired of sodomy references by the end. Also, the last part of the book is disappointing, because Moore couldn't think of much to add to the death of Jesus, and it's pretty hard to liven that part up with jokes.

So all in all, Lamb is a good book that you will like if you are into religion, philosophy, history, or bestiality jokes. It's pretty flawed though. I'm very glad I read it but it doesn't make me want to read any of Christopher Moore's other books.