A review of 'The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ' by Philip Pullman
Note: The following review was originally published at Amazon.co.uk on 17th. September 2015.
Link to original review: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R1S5HSTQ3V3T0Z?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
How did Jesus, assuming he existed at all, become the figure of Christ that is at the centre of one of the world's great religious faiths? To what extent does Christianity honour the true message of Jesus? This novel attempts to provide answers, or a perspective, on these questions. Here Jesus Christ is split into two characters: Mary gives birth to twin boys, Jesus and Christ. Christ is the weaker of the two, both physically and morally. Jesus is the idealistic, passionate and moralistic one.
Jesus devotes himself to preaching a message consistent with what we would now recognise to be the core of Christianity: love, respect, and helping the poor. Meanwhile, Christ is recruited by a shadowy figure, who is never identified, to record Jesus' work and embellish his actions in written form. Christ is told by this stranger :
"There is time, and there is what is beyond time. History belongs to time, but truth belongs to what is beyond time. In writing of things as they should have been, you are letting truth into history. You are the word of God."
This is probably a fair explanation of the miracles recorded in the New Testament of the Bible. The stranger corrupts Christ and persuades him to portray Jesus as a divine and transcendent figure who performs these miracles, rather than the ordinary, albeit great man he really was. It seems to be implied that the stranger is representative of what would become the Church, thus Christ (the word is Greek for Messiah) through his writings helps to create the institution founded on the belief that Jesus, a plain man, is annoited with messianic divinity as demonstrated by his made-up 'miracles'.
Followers of the Church would argue that this is not a lie, but merely a belief in which they repose their faith (i.e. hope) that this Christ - Jesus the Christ - is the one and only way to God. The name 'Jesus' itself is derived from the Hebrew word yešua', meaning 'deliverance', which conveniently aligns with Jesus's theological function, both in Pullman's story and in 'reality'.
I enjoyed reading 'The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ', and I find the author's thesis about the origins of the Jesus myth quite cogent, though I suspect some literate Christians who have studied the historical myth of Jesus in some depth might find this material a little simplistic. We have gotten used to this notion of Jesus having a sort of duality: a corporeal existence as just a man and a more divine existence at the right-hand side of God. I find Pullman's idea of Jesus more convincing. In Pullman's novel, Jesus is a plain man whose modesty and humility stand in sharp contrast to the wealthy Pharisean character of the Church; an unknown quantity on to which a number of beneficient myths and lies have been imperfectly attached, without anyone knowing who the real Jesus ever was.
I haven't tried any of Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' series, and this was my first Philip Pullman novel, but I am glad I tried this, and I think most people will enjoy it, even those with religious faith. It's an easy read, not too challenging, but at the same time it does open the mind and make you think a little.
Jesus devotes himself to preaching a message consistent with what we would now recognise to be the core of Christianity: love, respect, and helping the poor. Meanwhile, Christ is recruited by a shadowy figure, who is never identified, to record Jesus' work and embellish his actions in written form. Christ is told by this stranger :
"There is time, and there is what is beyond time. History belongs to time, but truth belongs to what is beyond time. In writing of things as they should have been, you are letting truth into history. You are the word of God."
This is probably a fair explanation of the miracles recorded in the New Testament of the Bible. The stranger corrupts Christ and persuades him to portray Jesus as a divine and transcendent figure who performs these miracles, rather than the ordinary, albeit great man he really was. It seems to be implied that the stranger is representative of what would become the Church, thus Christ (the word is Greek for Messiah) through his writings helps to create the institution founded on the belief that Jesus, a plain man, is annoited with messianic divinity as demonstrated by his made-up 'miracles'.
Followers of the Church would argue that this is not a lie, but merely a belief in which they repose their faith (i.e. hope) that this Christ - Jesus the Christ - is the one and only way to God. The name 'Jesus' itself is derived from the Hebrew word yešua', meaning 'deliverance', which conveniently aligns with Jesus's theological function, both in Pullman's story and in 'reality'.
I enjoyed reading 'The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ', and I find the author's thesis about the origins of the Jesus myth quite cogent, though I suspect some literate Christians who have studied the historical myth of Jesus in some depth might find this material a little simplistic. We have gotten used to this notion of Jesus having a sort of duality: a corporeal existence as just a man and a more divine existence at the right-hand side of God. I find Pullman's idea of Jesus more convincing. In Pullman's novel, Jesus is a plain man whose modesty and humility stand in sharp contrast to the wealthy Pharisean character of the Church; an unknown quantity on to which a number of beneficient myths and lies have been imperfectly attached, without anyone knowing who the real Jesus ever was.
I haven't tried any of Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' series, and this was my first Philip Pullman novel, but I am glad I tried this, and I think most people will enjoy it, even those with religious faith. It's an easy read, not too challenging, but at the same time it does open the mind and make you think a little.
No comments:
Post a Comment