Christopher Moore is primarily an absurdist writer, but this book (while silly in parts) doesn’t cross over into terribly irreverent or offensive, in my opinion. The journey is wonderful, and the book is intelligent and very thoughtful. Years later in his early thirties, armed with years of training, experience, and knowledge, Josh returns to Israel to lead his people. Biff is somewhat less natural at the training, but stays with Josh every step of the way as he learns what it means to love the world so much that you are not only willing to give your life but offer it as necessary, and what it means to fulfill your destiny and the wishes of a father you’ve never met. Josh takes the best lessons from everyone he encounters in all religious traditions and combines them into the tenets of what will become Christianity. The book playfully indicates that the miracles Jesus performed in the Bible were those taught to him by the wise men – he learns how to multiply food, how to heal the sick, invisibility, levitation, and immeasurable love and understanding for his fellow man – a miracle if ever there was one. Josh tracks down each wise man and spends years with each one, carefully gleaning their knowledge. Their adventure takes them to many countries, some of which are the birthplaces of the largest world religions. As Josh’s lifelong friend, Biff decides that he will be coming along if only to protect Josh on his journey and offer him moral support. In talking with Biff and their friend Mary Magdalene (upon whom Biff has a terrible crush), Josh decides that not everyone has had three wise men attend his birth, and that the best way to learn how to become a savior will be to seek out those wise men, and ask them what they can teach him about fulfilling his destiny. That’s kind of heavy thing to lay on a twelve-year old, and Josh is understandably scared about what being the Messiah is going to mean for him. Biff was Jesus’ best friend from the age of six up until the resurrection, and as the Bible has famously omitted Jesus’ life between the ages of 12 and 30 or so, Biff decides that he is going to tell the story of what they were up to during those years, since he was there.īiff and Jesus (known by his friends as Josh) lead the lives of normal Jewish little boys, save for the fact that Josh can raise the dead (mostly lizards, to freak out his friends.) At the age of twelve, however, when most boys are beginning to learn trades under their fathers and train for their adulthoods, Josh is told by an angel that he is the son of God, and that his destiny is to become the savior of all mankind. Each of your paragraphs could be developed into a chapter like this.What a wonderful, creative, funny, and inventive story! The apostle Levi, better known as “Biff”, is resurrected in present times by the angel Raziel to write down his version of the gospels, having been unceremoniously left out of the Bible. (Amazon has most of that chapter readable: ) Note that the author takes his time and develops the absurd scene with lots of details. My recommendation is that you read Chapter 1 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, about Arthur Dent's house about to be knocked down. I can't really say what's "good" about it yet! You have a lot of material packed into only about a page's worth, so it's difficult for me to get a feel for how the story will develop. Put us more into the action and then the story's self-awareness might work better. I think that right now it reads as a story about a story, because you're describing the action instead of showing it, and that means that when you break the fourth wall it seems like you're commenting on your own story instead of the events going on in it. Don't trap us into your main character's head with only his reactions to things - try putting the astronomer into a conversation with a disbelieving NASA official, and reveal the information that way. My biggest suggestion, though, is to "show, don't tell." For example, in the first paragraph from "A few days ago" to "probably already noticed," that's interesting stuff that deserves more than dull exposition.
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