I was laughing out loud in the first paragraph of this book and found myself reciting excerpts of it to friends and family. I read this book because of a friend's recommendation and because of the humor but the book has depth beyond the humor. It vividly describes, through Joshua and Biff, the teachings of the eastern religions and how they fit into today's Christianity. For me it made me think of Jesus as a real person and not only the untouchable Son of God. It is by far the funniest and ... (show more)

I was laughing out loud in the first paragraph of this book and found myself reciting excerpts of it to friends and family. I read this book because of a friend's recommendation and because of the humor but the book has depth beyond the humor. It vividly describes, through Joshua and Biff, the teachings of the eastern religions and how they fit into today's Christianity. For me it made me think of Jesus as a real person and not only the untouchable Son of God. It is by far the funniest and more thoughtful book I have read and I will read more of Christopher Moore's books! (show less)

First, a word of warning: Do not read this book while sipping on any form of liquid, unless you don't mind having iced tea come out of your nose from all the LOLs you'd be doing.

This irreverent, delightfully risqué account of the Messiah's lost years, as chronicled by the 13th apostle, Biff, takes you to Christopher Moore's unique world of absurdist fiction, where elephants can be taught Yoga, and yetis can sing.

Biff, the Savior's best pal, was resurrected, kidnapped, and forced un... (show more)

First, a word of warning: Do not read this book while sipping on any form of liquid, unless you don't mind having iced tea come out of your nose from all the LOLs you'd be doing.

This irreverent, delightfully risqué account of the Messiah's lost years, as chronicled by the 13th apostle, Biff, takes you to Christopher Moore's unique world of absurdist fiction, where elephants can be taught Yoga, and yetis can sing.

Biff, the Savior's best pal, was resurrected, kidnapped, and forced under threat of eternal damnation by a brain-damaged seraph, to write a gospel on Christ's "missing" years. Although staying true to its original intent as a work of comedy, the book attempts to answer such serious questions as, "Who was the Son of Man's first kiss?", "Does the Lord know kung fu?", and of course, the universal, "What DID Jesus do?".

Prepare to laugh, prepare to cry while laughing, and for Christ's sake, prepare to buy this book. And some piping hot coffee. :-) (show less)

Lamb is the kind of book that can test your faith, not in the sense that it makes you doubt, but that it lets you know how secure you are by seeing if you can really laugh at yourself. For what is faith but a series of beliefs in things we can't and never could prove (which intrinsically is such a silly thing to do anyway)? Why not have a little fun and think, what if?

I found Lamb hilarious, which is interesting considering it had no characters I could really identify with. I've heard &q... (show more)

Lamb is the kind of book that can test your faith, not in the sense that it makes you doubt, but that it lets you know how secure you are by seeing if you can really laugh at yourself. For what is faith but a series of beliefs in things we can't and never could prove (which intrinsically is such a silly thing to do anyway)? Why not have a little fun and think, what if?

I found Lamb hilarious, which is interesting considering it had no characters I could really identify with. I've heard "frat-boy" used in multiple reviews to refer to the main character Biff, but I feel he lacks the true machismo to really warrant that title. Biff (and really the whole narrative of Lamb) is more crude and silly than anything else... suffice to say that Biff is like most teenage boys just becoming men: young, dumb, and... well, you know. Christ as his foil is predictably too mild and... well... saintly to really identify with either (really, I don't have to hubris to say in any capacity that I identify with the son of God). But I really appreciate the way that the comedy and situations, while horribly irreverent (if taken seriously) in a way humanize Jesus as a person, and in that respect could really be good for someone of the faith.

A working knowledge of the Bible really does help to open up this narrative a lot, and I appreciated the amount of work Moore put into grounding his farce in what was mostly believable history seasoning it with notable passages and hidden references. I loved the juxtaposition of Biff and the Christ and how their two characters played off each other. I enjoyed Christ's adventures into the territories of eastern philosophies and even kung-fu. I especially enjoyed the irreverence too... as I think God himself would. There's nothing here saying "this is what really might have happened." It's unabashedly silly and anybody who thinks it's trying to be anything else are much too serious for their own good and need to loosen up.

To that end, I get mad when Moore apologizes (twice) for this book, reminding me of the disclaimer put at the beginning of the movie Dogma. I say, let idiots with poor senses of humor just get pissed off, and keep your dignity by refusing to apologize for your art. Besides, for those of us with working funny bones, watching the others get red-faced is all the more hilarious.

But all is not perfect here. Something must be said about the ending as it left me seriously wanting. I felt that Biff and more importantly Moore himself took a very VERY easy way out. The climax lies only a couple pages from the end of the narrative and all of the falling actions (what few there are) are pure fluff, absolute drivel, tacked-on, insubstantial, cliche, and pointless. Even the change in perspective (which is a bit jarring) points to things being rushed, unfinished, and seriously lacking.

With a farce like this, one hopes for a kind of intelligence behind all of the silliness and in this respect Moore has remarkably succeeded and failed. While the entire narrative manages to walk the very thin line between funny and sacrilegious (often walking with one foot on either side) I didn't feel like there was enough profundity behind things, and nowhere is the more glaringly obvious than the insubstantial ending. Where I would have hoped that Biff and Christ would have combined into a sort of symbiotic relationship, culminating somehow after Christ's resurrection and perhaps saying something about how perfection in the son of God and imperfection in a pitifully crude Jew named Biff are really interlocking pieces in a spiritual mandala. Instead the strands of their relationship leave the narrative frayed and spreading in opposite directions and there is no gratifying conclusion. The climax of Christ's death and the fallout of how Biff is going to take it set up a stage ripe for a grand "point," some really interesting statement that's going to cap off the narrative in a satisfying moment of new awareness, or at LEAST hilarity. Instead... it just... ends. How disappointing.

I'll give Moore a lot of credit here for doing his research, being imaginative, and most importantly of all, making me laugh (really hard at times). However, as with all of the books that I've read of his so far, his characters and themes never seem to transcend their own slapstick corniness. What marks truly great comedy is a piece's ability to be hilarious but also to move, be poignant, or touching. Moore always strikes me as having a lot of fun with his stories and players, but continually failing to say anything of any lasting importance. He certainly had his chance here, putting his unique blend of dead-pan and off-beat comedy to work on an imaginative spin of no less than the entire Christian religion and the most influential man in all of history. But at the end, he has nothing really to say but a long string of fart and sex jokes... granted, some really funny ones, but it is, disappointingly, only that. (show less)

In The Last Temptation of Christ, Judas finds himself in a terrible situation. Jesus has told him that it will be necessary for Judas to betray him in order for mankind to be saved. As Christ acknowledges, God gave Judas the really hard task, that of betraying someone who he holds very dear. By comparison, all Christ has to do is die.

Though it's never acknowledged, the narrator of this book finds himself in a similar bind. As the lifelong friend of Joshua (aka Yeshua aka Jesus) and under ... (show more)

In The Last Temptation of Christ, Judas finds himself in a terrible situation. Jesus has told him that it will be necessary for Judas to betray him in order for mankind to be saved. As Christ acknowledges, God gave Judas the really hard task, that of betraying someone who he holds very dear. By comparison, all Christ has to do is die.

Though it's never acknowledged, the narrator of this book finds himself in a similar bind. As the lifelong friend of Joshua (aka Yeshua aka Jesus) and under the dictum that "dying is easy; comedy is hard," he has been left the more difficult path. All Joshua has to do is die. Biff has to make it funny.

Biff has been brought back to life by God so that he can write the definitive gospel since he was there from nearly the beginning. In order to ensure his cooperation, God has an angel chaperon Biff. Though it makes up very little of the story, the scenes of Biff and the angel in the hotel room are some of the funniest of the novel, especially in the angel's befuddlement at modern life.

Biff first met Joshua when they were both kids, and Joshua was bringing lizards back to life for the benefit of his younger, lizard-killing brother. From there they strike a lifelong friendship not impeded by the fact that Joshua knows he will one day be the Messiah. Biff is your quintessential underachiever, and his philosophical outlook, which has been derived from the teachings of Cynic, makes for a nice foil for Joshua's earnest desire to fulfill the task that has been set before him. When Joshua decides he will never learn how to be the Messiah if he does not seek out his origins, it is Biff who accompanies him on his travels.

They go in search of the Three Wise Men in order to learn the truth of Joshua's birthright. In their travels, this Hebraic Hope and Crosby encounter bandits, Taoist magicians, herbalist concubines, a hungry demon, a Buddhist monastery, the Tibetan Man of the Mountains, martial artists, a Kali ceremony, Tantra, untouchables and the Kama Sutra. After their travels, Joshua comes to learn what he has to do to become the Messiah, so they return to Palestine for the more familiar part of the story.

Christopher Moore here has a fine line to tread in attempting to make the story of Christ funny and believable yet keeping Joshua as the earnest Messiah figure we can all look up to. (No Last Temptation-style dream sequences of Christ experiencing the temptation of giving it all up here.) Having the story told by the underachieving and very sardonic Biff is a great way to thread that needle.

Moore makes the most of the sections where the gospels are silent, which give him a lot to work with. It yields great comic touches, like the time Joshua, Biff and Maggie decide to "circumcise" a well-endowed Greek statue, or the origins of the Jewish custom of Chinese food on Christmas. Though not every joke works, the passages overall maintain a high level of humor without robbing Joshua's quest of meaning.

The humor does begin to lost its impact near the end. Once Joshua and Biff return to Nazareth and Christ begins his ministry, Moore has less leeway with which to play. Once the ministry and the inevitable path to Golgotha have begun, the humor becomes more forced. As Joshua himself once said (though not in this book), a man cannot serve to masters, for he will honor one and neglect the other. The book has to choose between the earnestness of Joshua and the cynicism of Biff. It opts for the latter, for which one cannot entirely blame Moore. To have gone with the latter would have been to write a different, much edgier book. That Moore manages to make both elements work for as long as he does is testament to his talent and his great sense of humor. (show less)

Christopher Moore is a master of the absurd. If you read his books in public places such as airports, doctors' offices, parks or restaurants, you will often find yourself looking up to see if anyone noticed that it was you who just laughed out loud. That is, if you can even see through the laughter-induced tears.

Lamb , a novel, subtitled "The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal."

Lamb is not
disrepectful,
an attack on the Christian religion,
theology,
histor... (show more)

Christopher Moore is a master of the absurd. If you read his books in public places such as airports, doctors' offices, parks or restaurants, you will often find yourself looking up to see if anyone noticed that it was you who just laughed out loud. That is, if you can even see through the laughter-induced tears.

Lamb , a novel, subtitled "The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal."

Lamb is not
disrepectful,
an attack on the Christian religion,
theology,
history,
fact.

It is
irreverent,
hilarious,
kind-hearted,
revealing.

In the Afterword, "Teaching Yoga to an Elephant," the author states,
"The book you've just read is a story. I made it up. It is not designed to change anyone's beliefs or worldview, unless after reading it you've decided to be kinder to your fellow humans (which is okay), or you decide you really would like to try to teach yoga to an elephant, in which case, please get videotape."

If your belief system is fragile or your sensibilities inordinantly, well, sensitive, you might want to pass this by. Otherwise, hang on to your hat and enjoy the very wild ride. And may I say that even those who are secure in their beliefs might be tempted to put this book down before the end for theological objections. I urge you to continue, as the ending will most likely surprise and delight you. (show less)

Talk about a unique perspective on a story told more than probably any other. This is a VERY enjoyable book. It is full of humor and fun while at the same time it is intelligently written and keeps the original story. If you know nothing about the book, this is the story of Jesus as told through the eyes of his best friend growing up - Biff. Now, although I have nothing but good things to say about this book, it does come with a warning. If you are lacking a sense of humor, sensitive about so... (show more)

Talk about a unique perspective on a story told more than probably any other. This is a VERY enjoyable book. It is full of humor and fun while at the same time it is intelligently written and keeps the original story. If you know nothing about the book, this is the story of Jesus as told through the eyes of his best friend growing up - Biff. Now, although I have nothing but good things to say about this book, it does come with a warning. If you are lacking a sense of humor, sensitive about some language or sexual content, or are super religiously sensitive - don't read this book. It will be lost on you and will do nothing but upset you. If you meet the above criteria, I would also urge you to ask yourself why... Seriously, lighten up and read a good book (which this one is). Highly recommended! (show less)

If tasked with choosing my favorite books, those written by Christopher Moore would probably occupy the better portion of my "top ten."

"Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" is a masterpiece. It is, at times, hysterically funny, poignant, terribly sad, and overall, marvelous from beginning to end.

I'd recommend it highly to anyone - "believers," heathens, agnostics... anyone.

Christopher Moore has a remarkable ability to write as one wo... (show more)

If tasked with choosing my favorite books, those written by Christopher Moore would probably occupy the better portion of my "top ten."

"Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" is a masterpiece. It is, at times, hysterically funny, poignant, terribly sad, and overall, marvelous from beginning to end.

I'd recommend it highly to anyone - "believers," heathens, agnostics... anyone.

Christopher Moore has a remarkable ability to write as one would speak, and I find this writing style to be wonderful. His stories flow with such ease that reading his work is almost like watching it play out on a movie screen in my mind.

I enjoyed "Lamb" so much that I got myself the "deluxe" edition, autographed, bound in simulated leather, with gilt-edged pages, and satin bookmark bound into the spine. I'll be sending my original copy to a dear friend in the hope that she'll enjoy it as much as I did. (show less)

This is probably one of the best books I've ever read. While some, like the woman I met on BART who told me what I was reading was blasphemy, obviously has never read the book or has a twisted view of the life of Christ. This book takes the years of Christ's life that we don't read about and puts a spin on them that actually makes the confusing holes in the bible make sense. Now, calm down, I am not saying that it answers questions or is taking the place of the bible, but it does take a pers... (show more)

This is probably one of the best books I've ever read. While some, like the woman I met on BART who told me what I was reading was blasphemy, obviously has never read the book or has a twisted view of the life of Christ. This book takes the years of Christ's life that we don't read about and puts a spin on them that actually makes the confusing holes in the bible make sense. Now, calm down, I am not saying that it answers questions or is taking the place of the bible, but it does take a personal subject and makes it more personable; warmer, funnier, while poking fun at the way people are and how they lived and live now, by depicting the human side of Christ and his best friend. Biff brings to light the human in all of us, trying to understand his best buddy who is larger than life all the while coming to grips with what he knows is inevitable. Great book! (show less)