{"id":311,"date":"2014-06-27T06:16:30","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T11:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=311"},"modified":"2014-06-27T12:39:08","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T17:39:08","slug":"freethought-fridayreads-the-good-man-jesus-and-the-scoundrel-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2014\/06\/27\/freethought-fridayreads-the-good-man-jesus-and-the-scoundrel-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"Freethought #FridayReads \u2013 The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (REPOST)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;color: #000000;font-size: medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/b\/b5\/The_Good_Man_Jesus_and_the_Scoundrel_Christ_cover.jpg\/200px-The_Good_Man_Jesus_and_the_Scoundrel_Christ_cover.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"303\" \/>From the time of Matthew and Luke unto this day, there is a longstanding tradition of rewriting the life of Jesus and putting your own spin on it. Nikos Kazantzakis <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Last-Temptation-Christ-ebook\/dp\/B00768D6V4\/ref=sr_1_3_title_1_kin?s=books\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;font-size: medium\">did it<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;color: #000000;font-size: medium\">, Gore Vidal <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Live-Golgotha-Gospel-According-Vidal\/dp\/0140231196\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;font-size: medium\">did it<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;color: #000000;font-size: medium\">, Christopher Moore <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Lamb-Gospel-According-Christs-Childhood\/dp\/0380813815\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;font-size: medium\">did it<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;color: #000000;font-size: medium\"> and so surely did many others who aren\u2019t springing to mind, not to mention all the pious <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mardel.com\/books\/christian-fiction.aspx\">devotional fiction<\/a> about the life of Christ drekking up the place at your local Christian bookstore. With all these various reimaginings knocking around it can be tricky to really stand out, but Pullman quite nearly pulls it off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;color: #000000;font-size: medium\">He does this mostly by writing superlatively, but in terms of substance over style he\u2019s got also two major plot twists going for him. Firstly, he incorporates an idea <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=XsjCkkUKtrYC&amp;q=twin\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;font-size: medium\">arguably derived<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;color: #000000;font-size: medium\"> from one of the Gnostic gospels \u2013 the idea that Jesus had a twin. This frees up Pullman to portray the \u2018real\u2019 Jesus to be a stand-up guy, suffused with compassion for the suffering multitudes, while still getting his licks in at the Church through the character of his scoundrel brother. The second plot twist is somewhat more original and innovative, that is, the condensation of the future church establishment and hierarchy into a single mysterious figure who counsels Jesus\u2019 brother along the way, looking forward to the day when an organized religion can be founded in the name of the healer from Galilee. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;color: #000000;font-size: medium\">Bascically, if you&#8217;re into creative reconceptualizations, and you had to read the Christian gospels at some point, you&#8217;re probably going to enjoy this book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>EDIT<\/strong>: Came across an old <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/download\/OklahomaAtheistsGodcast\/2010\/2010-07-11_-_AOK_027.mp3\">lo-fi audio recording<\/a> of my friends\u00a0discussing this book in some detail. Spoilers galore!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the time of Matthew and Luke unto this day, there is a longstanding tradition of rewriting the life of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freethought-in-popular-culture","category-friday-reads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2626,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/2626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}