Lamb The Gospel of Biff

It’s a popular believe among the New Age crowd that Jesus was a Buddhist. I’ve read that he spent most of his missing twenty or thirty years studying with the Eastern Masters. Which is pretty much the story in Lamb. Biff is Jesus’s childhood buddy-only his name wasn’t Jesus-it was Joshua.

The story of Biff is split between the present day, where Biff is writing his Gospel, and the good old days of two thousand years ago where he hung out with Joshua and benefited from his friend’s ability to cure all injures and illnesses.

He also spent a lot of time in the company of many Chinese concubines with names like-Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm, Beautiful Gate of Heavenly Moisture Number Six, Temptress of the Golden Light of the Harvest Moon, Delicate Personage of the Two Fu Dogs Wrestling Under a Blanket, Feminine Keeper of the Three Tunnels of Excessive Friendliness, Silken Pillows of the Heavenly Softness of Clouds, Pea Pods in Duck Sauce with Crispy Noodle, and Sue. Ah those were the good old days.

I’m finding the book a bit confusing, but very enjoyable. I am not the Bible scholar that I could be, but I am pretty sure that there are no passages about Jesus hanging out with a Yeti. Maybe there should be, but I just don’t think there was. In the Gospel of Biff, Joshua and Biff spend years in the Far East and many of the words of wisdom that Jesus is famous for are learned at this time. I’m not sure what wisdom was gained from the Yeti, but I’m sure it was something profound.

I’ve never understood the whole Jesus couldn’t have sex thing. In Lamb, Joshua likes bacon, but he still doesn’t have sex. He becomes Enlightened and hangs out with a Yeti, but he doesn’t have sex. He gets drunk of wine he whips up out of water, but he doesn’t have sex. It’s a bit of a mystery. But maybe that’s just my pagan take on the whole thing. Joshua preforms a number of miracles and seems to be a pretty swell guy. Angels, well, angels are just idiots.

In the present day, an Angel of The Lord watches over Biff and falls in love with TV. He likes wrestling and Soap Operas and wants to take over the job of being Spiderman. As an Angel he would make a great Spiderman, if it weren’t for the fact that there is no Spiderman in the real world. Not a lot of angels running around either, but that’s a minor gripe.

Lamb The Gospel of Biff is sort of funny, but it is not really in the same class for me as Christopher Moore’s vampire books. There are a lot of funny things in Lamb, a lot of slapstick, and a lot of making fun of Jews, Gentiles, Buddhists, Hindus, and just about anybody else that Biff and Joshua might have had occasion to run across in their travels. Some of it is funny, some it not so funny. But it is a great book.

Christopher Moore’s writing is funny and deep and totally silly and pointless. I can see a whole new philosophy rising up from his works, they could sit on the shelf next to Terry Pratchett’s Disc World books.

Well, being a guy, my favorite part of Lamb was the time spend in the company of people like Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm-shortened to Joy- the Chinese concubines, most of whom met a bad end with a demon. But before their sad demise, Biff learns all that a Chinese Concubine can teach him about the sexual arts. He later returns to the one surviving concubine and teachers her the art of the Karma Sutra. There are times when it was good to be Biff.

I listened to the audio book with reader Fisher Stevens, who does a great Indian Holy Man and has pretty good timing for the endless jokes and gags that fill the pages of Christopher Moore’s Lamb. Fisher Stevens is a good reader, but many of his voices lack the necessary individuality that lets the listener tell Biff from Joshua from Maggy from the many followers and hanger-ons in Jesus’s Posse. It is a fun listen, but there was the occasional confusion as to who was saying what.

Christopher Moore is a fun writer, and I will keep reading more of his works as I run across them.