The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

First U.S. Edition, 245 pages

English language

Published May 4, 2010 by Canongate U.S..

ISBN:: 978-0-8021-2996-3
OCLC Number:: 456177369

(3 reviews)

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is the remarkable new piece of fiction from best-selling and famously atheistic author Philip Pullman. By challenging the events of the gospels, Pullman puts forward his own compelling and plausible version of the life of Jesus, and in so doing, does what all great books do: makes the reader ask questions.

In Pullman’s own words, “The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.”

Written with unstinting authority, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a pithy, erudite, subtle, and powerful book by a controversial and beloved …

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is the remarkable new piece of fiction from best-selling and famously atheistic author Philip Pullman. By challenging the events of the gospels, Pullman puts forward his own compelling and plausible version of the life of Jesus, and in so doing, does what all great books do: makes the reader ask questions.

In Pullman’s own words, “The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.”

Written with unstinting authority, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a pithy, erudite, subtle, and powerful book by a controversial and beloved author. It is a text to be read and reread, studied and unpacked, much like the Good Book itself.

15 editions

arensb reviewed The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman

Review of 'The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Jesus Christ in a transporter accident

The idea behind [b:The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ|9560752|The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ|Philip Pullman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328822542s/9560752.jpg|10839280] is that Jesus Christ was not one man, but a pair of twins, one named Jesus, the other nicknamed Christ. Both want to spread the word about God's Kingdom, their approaches very different: Jesus simply preaches in town squares, while Christ acts the chronicler, staying out of the spotlight, making sure that Jesus' work is recorded "correctly" for future generations, lest it fizzle and die.

One refreshing aspect of Pullman's treatment of the Jesus story is that there's no magic. SpoilerJesus doesn't perform miracles. Rather, he tries to make people feel better, but people retell the stories of what happened, and they get turned into tales of miraculous healings, resurrections, multiplying loaves and fishes, and so on.

The book's nadir comes at Spoilerthe Garden of …

Jesus Christ in a transporter accident

The idea behind [b:The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ|9560752|The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ|Philip Pullman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328822542s/9560752.jpg|10839280] is that Jesus Christ was not one man, but a pair of twins, one named Jesus, the other nicknamed Christ. Both want to spread the word about God's Kingdom, their approaches very different: Jesus simply preaches in town squares, while Christ acts the chronicler, staying out of the spotlight, making sure that Jesus' work is recorded "correctly" for future generations, lest it fizzle and die.

One refreshing aspect of Pullman's treatment of the Jesus story is that there's no magic. SpoilerJesus doesn't perform miracles. Rather, he tries to make people feel better, but people retell the stories of what happened, and they get turned into tales of miraculous healings, resurrections, multiplying loaves and fishes, and so on.

The book's nadir comes at Spoilerthe Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus makes an Ayn Rand-style speech (though much shorter, thankfully) about the evils that the church will wreak if it is allowed to have its way.

Martin

rated it

Nov. 19, 2023

Leif Hammer

rated it

July 14, 2017

Subjects

Fiction
Literary Fiction
Religion
Christianity
Jesus Christ