Lamb
by Christopher Moore
(Orbit, 2002)
By the way, his name was Joshua. Jesus is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Yeshua, which is Joshua. Christ is not a last name. it’s the Greek for messiah, a Hebrew word meaning anointed. I have no idea what the H in Jeus H. Christ stood for. It’s one of the things I should have asked him.
Page 8.
My nickname, Biff, comes from our slang word for a smack upside the head, something that my mother said I required at least daily from an early age.
Page 10.
Children see magic because they look for it.
Page 11.
The angel says that evil looms larger now than it did in my time, and that calls for greater heroes.
Page 13.
In my time, our heroes were few, but they were real - some of us could even trace our kinship to them.
Page 13.
Don’t let anyone tell you that the Prince of Peace never struck anyone. In those early days, before he had become who he would be, Joshua smote me in the nose more than once.
Page 17.
Mary would stay my one true love until I saw the Magdalene.
Page 17.
You go with Joshua. He needs a friend to teach him to be human. Then I can teach him to be a man.
Page 18.
It’s not like Joshua walked around professing that he was the Son of God every day of the week. He was a pretty normal kid, for the most part.
Page 19.
The miracles Joshua performed were small and quiet, as miracles tend to be, once you get used to them. But trouble came from the miracles that happened around him, without his volition, as it were. Bread and serpents come to mind.
Page 19.
Evidently, once you accept that your wife slept with God, extraordinary events seem sort of commonplace.
Page 24.
If there is a single joy in having everyone you have ever known two thousand years dead, it is that Jakan is one of them.
Page 25.
At ten a boy was expected to start learning his father’s trade.
Page 29.
Rome has only two rules: pay your taxes and don’t rebel. Follow those and you’ll stay alive.
Page 38.
From the beginning, Joshua filled me with divinely inspired worry.
Page 39.
Despite what I’d seen, Joshua was my pal, not the Messiah.
Page 40.
Every boy wonders what he will be when he grows up. I suppose that many watch their peers accomplish great things and wonder, ‘Could I have done that?’
Page 42.
In those days, we started training for our life’s work at ten, then received the prayer shawl and phylacteries at thirteen, signifying our entry into manhood. Soon after we were expected to be betrothed, and by fourteen, married and starting a family.
Page 42.
I’ve never seen a breast without a baby attached to it. They’re more - more friendly in pairs like that.
Page 52.
It gets easier once you know what you’re doing.
Page 56.
I only looked at her in brief takes, the way a man will glance up at the sun on a sweltering day to confirm the source of the heat.
Page 60.
The Romans covered themselves with olive oil before they bathed, so if the wind was right or if it was an especially hot day you could smell a Roman coming at thirty paces.
Page 67.
Our relationship with God was different from other people and their Gods. Sure there was fear and sacrifice and all, but essentially, we didn’t go to him, he came to us. He told us we were the chosen, he told us he would help us to multiply to the ends of the earth, he told us he would give us a land of milk and honey. We didn’t go to him. We didn’t ask. And since he came to us, we figure we can hold him responsible for what he does and what happens to us.
Page 76.
Like my own people, the Romans did not dally with their dead. Unless there was a battle ongoing, Roman soldiers were often put in the ground before they corpse was cool.
Page 80.
Have so say that resurrections weren’t that uncommon in those days. As I mentioned, we Jews were quick to get our dead into the ground, and with speed, there’s bound to be errors.
Page 89.
There was something unsettling about carrying an animal to its death.
Page 105.
There may be nothing more obnoxious than a teenager who knows everything.
Page 112.
In my time, if you had seen forty summers it was time to start thinking about moving on, making room for the youngsters. If you lasted to fifty the mourners would give you dirty looks when they passed, as if you were purposely trying to put them out of business.
Page 124.
When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired losing every argument.
Page 127.
There was a lot of magic for sale in those days.
Page 129.
The Silk Road, the main vein of trade and custom and culture from the Roman world to the Far East, terminated where it met the sea t the port city of Selucia Pieria, the harbor city and naval stronghold that had fed and guarded Antioch since the time of Alexander.
Pages 143-144.
Camels bite. A camel will, for no reason, spit on you, stomp you, kick you, bellow, burp, and fart at you. They are stubborn at their gest, and cranky beyond all belief at their worst. If you provoke them, they will bite.
Page 155.
In the desert, the day gets warmer as it gets later, so the hottest part of the day will be in the late afternoon, just before sundown brings the hot winds to leach the last moisture from your skin.
Page 156.
Now I know why I was brought back form the dead to write this Gospel. If the rest of this ‘New Testament’ is anything like the book of Matthew, they need someone to write about Joshua’s life who was actually there: me.
Page 168.
‘Girls?” I said.
‘Girls?’ Joshua said.
“Yes, girls, you ninnies” Balthasar said. ‘Humans much like yourselves, except smarter and better smelling.’
Page 169.
If there was anything I learned from John the Baptist, it was that the sooner you confess a mistake, the quicker you can get on to making new and better mistakes.
Page 183.
I was given the task of learning waidan, which is the alchemy of the external. My knowledge would come from the manipulation of the physical elements. Joshua, on the other hand, was learning neidan, the alchemy of the internal. His knowledge would come from the study of his own inner nature through the contemplation of the masters. So while Joshua read scrolls and books, I spent my time mixing quicksilver and lead, phosphorous and brimstone, charcoal and philosopher’s stone, trying somehow to divine the nature of the Tao. Joshua was learning to be the Messiah and I was learning to poison people and blow stuff up.
Page 192.
‘That’s the problem with your not being allowed to know women, it means you don’t understand the most fundamental nature of men.’
‘Which is?’
‘Were lying pigs. We’ll say anything to get what we want.’
Page 200.
He said that there was an innate kindness born in women that he’d never seen in a man, and he liked being around them.
Page 202.
Strangely enough, ‘duh’ sounds exactly the same in all languages.
Page 210.
We stayed in Balthasar’s fortress for another six months, waiting for winter to pass before we went into the high mountains to the east. I cleaned the blood form the girls’ quarters while Joy helped Joshua to translate some of Balthasar’s ancient texts. The three of us shared our meals, and occasionally Joy and I would have a tumble for old times’ sake. But it felt as if the life had gone out of the place.
Page 224.
‘A wall is the defense of a country that values inaction. But a wall imprisons the people of a country as much as it protects them.’
Page 229.
‘One can’t be free without action.’
Page 230.
‘A Messiah has to bring change. Change comes through action.’
Page 230.
When one is trying to shed the bonds of ego, a unique appearance is a liability.
Page 239.
Sitting was what we did. To learn to sit, to be still and hear the music of the universe, was why we had come halfway around the world, evidently. To let go of ego, not individuality, but that which distinguishes us from all other beings. ‘When you sit, sit. When you breathe, breathe. When you eat, eat,’ Gaspar would say, meaning that every bit of our being was to be in the moment, completely aware of the now, not past, no future, nothing dividing us form everything that is.
It’s hard for me, a Jew, to stay in the moment. Without the past, where is the guilt? And without the future, where is the dread? And without guilt and dread, who am I?
Pages 250-251.
There’s a difference between veering false witness and saving someone’
Page 259.
‘Any freedom that can be given can be taken away. Moses didn’t need to ask Pharaoh to release our people, our people didn’t need to be released from the Babylonians, and they don’t need to be released from the Romans. I can’t give them freedom. Freedom is in their hearts, they merely have to find it.’
Page 261.
‘Possessions stand between you and freedom.’
Page 261.
I found it was astoundingly difficult to surprise a Buddhist monk, especially one who had been trained in kung fu.
Page 264.
It’s very difficult to stay angry when a room full of bald guys in orange robes start giggling. Buddhism.
Page 266.
To master meditation the student must first master his breath.
Page 274.
Baby talk is the universal language. The words are different, but the meaning and sound is the same.
Page 276.
Routine feeds the illusion of safety.
Page 282.
‘Praying is talking to God. Meditating is listening.’
Page 286.
‘Love is not something you think about, it is a state in which you dwell.’
Page 289.
‘The mountain people. They killed the yeti because they couldn’t understand a creature who wasn’t as evil as they were.’
Page 291.
At the age of twenty-four, Joshua of Nazareth did go down into India.
Page 291.
There were villages scattered all through the mountains, and when the villagers saw our orange robes doors were flung wide and larders opened. We were always fed, given a warm place to sleep, and welcomed to stay as long as we wished. We offered obtuse parables and irritating chants in return, as was the tradition.
Page 296.
All along the muddy riverbank women washed clothes and babies only steps from where cattle waded and shat, men fished or pushed long shallow boats along with poles, and children swam or played in the mud. Here and there the corpse of a dog bobbed flyblown in the gentle current.
Page 298.
Joshua’s solution to everything was to lead with righteous indignation.
Page 304.
The concept of abundance was an abstract one to the Untouchables, except as it pertained to two categories, suffering and animal parts. If you wanted decent food, shelter, or clean water, you would be sorely disappointed among the Untouchables, but if you were in the market for beaks, bones, teeth, hides, sinew, hooves, hair, gallstones, fins, feathers, ears, antlers, eyeballs, bladders, lips, nostrils, poop chutes, or any other inedible part of virtually any creature that walked on, swam under, or flew over the subcontinent of India, then the Untouchables were likely to have what you wanted lying around, conveniently stored beneath a thick blanket of black flies.
Page 309.
Then I said one of those things that as a boy growing u in Galilee, you never think you’ll hear ourself say: ‘Okay, Untouchables, bring me the sheep bladders!’
Page 313.
‘A man’s self does not change, only his body.’
Page 325.
It came to pass, that Joshua of Nazareth moved among them, healing them and performing miracles, and all the little blind children of Nicobar did see again, and all the lame did stand up and walk.
The little fuckers.
Page 334.
‘The divine Spark is infinite, the path to find it is not. The beginning of the path is the word.’
Page 342.
‘You are that which is sought, Joshua. You are the source. The end is divinity, in the beginning is the word. You are the word.’
Page 342.
‘The medium obscured the message.’
Page 346.
There were two sides to Joshua, his preaching side and his private side. The guy who stood there railing at the Pharisees was not the same guy who would sit around poking Untouchables in the arm because it cracked him up. He planned the sermons, he calculated the parables.
Page 361.
I believe … ‘psycho’ was the perfect term for John the Baptist.
Page 362.
At the river, John preached to a small gathering as he lowered Joshua into the water. As soon as Joshua went under the water a rift opened across the desert sky, which was still pink with the dawn, and out of the rift came a bird that looked to be fashioned from pure light. And everyone on the riverbank said ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh,’ and a big voice boomed out of the heavens, saying, ‘This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.’ And as quickly as it had come, the spirit was gone. But the gatherers at the riverbank stood with their mouths open in amazement, staring yet into the sky.
And John came to his senses then, and remembered what he was doing, and lifted Joshua out of the water. And Joshua wiped the water out of his eyes, looked at the crowd who stood stunned with mouths hanging open, and he said unto them: ‘What?’
Page 369.
When our people danced, they danced in large groups, lines and circles, not couples.
Page 380.
Having been free of sin, all of his life, Joshua wasn’t very good at dealing with guilt.
Page 382.
She laughed. My favorite music.
Page 383.
You can travel the whole world but there are always new things to learn.
Page 385.
Capernaum became our base of operations and from there we would take one- or two-day trips, swinging through Galilee as Joshua preached and performed healings. The news of the coming of the kingdom spread through Galilee, and after only a few months, crowds began to gather to hear Joshua speak. We tried always to be back in Capernaum on the Sabbath so that Joshua could teach at the synagogue. It was that habit that first attracted the wrong sort of attention.
Page 390.
From the top of the Mount of Olives we could see across the Kidron Valley to the Temple. Black smoke streamed into the sky from the sacrificial fires which the priests tended day and night.
Page 411.
By following Joshua we had already divorced ourselves of the expectations of normal existence.
Page 415.
We became fifteen: Joshua, Maggie, and me; Bartholomew, the Cynic; Peter and Andrew, John and James, the fishermen; Matthew, the tax collector; Nathaniel of Cana, the young nitwit; Philip and Thaddeus, who had been followers of John the Baptist; Thomas the twin, who was a loony; and the Zealots, Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot.
Page 416.
Maggie had become a fiercely dedicated preacher herself. It was as if she had channeled her personal passion for Joshua into a passion for the Word.
Page 423.
Like any great speech, the Sermon on the Mount sounds as if it just happened spontaneously, but actually Joshua and I worked on it for over a week.
Page 423.
‘Just because I am weak does not make him the Christ.’
‘That’s exactly what makes him the Christ.’
Page 443.
We assumed that he would be swimming or rowing out in one of the small boats, but when he finally came down to the shore the multitude was still following him, and he just kept walking, right across the surface of the water to the boat. The crowd stopped at the shore and cheered. Even we were astounded by his new miracle, and we sat in the boat with our mouths hanging open as Joshua approached.
‘What?’ he said. ‘What? What? What?’
Page 445.
‘The kingdom of God has nothing to do with the kingdom of Israel. … We will be delivered into the kingdom by forgiveness, not conquest. … We can’t cast the Romans out of the kingdom because the kingdom is open to all.’
Page 448.
‘Faith isn’t an act of intelligence, it’s an act of imagination. … They imagine the kingdom as they need it to be, they don’t need to grasp it, it’s there already they can let it be. Imagination, not intellect.’
Page 450.
‘He’s going to allow himself to be killed to show his father that things need to be changed’
Page 451.
The Romans didn’t enter the Temple unless they sensed insurrection, but if they entered, Jewish blood would be spilled. Rivers of it.
Page 465.
The anger ran out of me then, leaving me feeling as if my very bones were losing their structure. I looked forward, straight over the Ben Hinnon valley, into a sheet of lightning-bleached rain. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and I stepped off the cliff. I felt a bolt of pain, and then nothing.
Page 496.
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.
Page 499.
Jesus’ infancy is a jumble, but the chronicle of his childhood is worse. Of the time from Jesus’ birth to when he began his ministry in his thirties, the Bible gives us only one scene: Luke tells us of Jesus teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem at age twelve. Other than that, we have a thirty-year hole in the life of the most influential human being to ever walk the face of the earth.
Page 500.
The average peasant in Galilee would have been lucky to life to the age of forty, so perhaps the children by necessity reached sexual maturity earlier than they would under less harsh conditions.
Page 501.
We know from letters that many of the leaders of the early church were women, but in first-century Israel, a woman who struck out on her own without a husband was not only considered uppity, but was very likely referred to as a harlot (as was a woman who was divorced).
Page 504.
While there are indeed astounding similarities between the teachings of Jesus and those of Buddha (not to mention those of Lao-tsu, Confucius, and the Hindu religion, all which seem to have included some version of the Golden Rule), it’s more likely that these stem from what I believe to be logical and moral conclusions that any person in search of what is right would come to, e.g.: that the preferable way to treat one another is with love and kindness; that pursuit of material gain is ultimately empty when measured against eternity; and that somehow, as human beings, we are all connected spiritually.
Page 505.
This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyone’s faith: however, if one’s faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a git more praying to do.
Page 505.