The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
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- ISBN13: 9780802129963
- Condition: New
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Product Description
The Excellent Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is the remarkable new piece of fiction from best-selling and famously atheistic leader Philip Pullman. By challenging the events of the gospels, Pullman puts forwards his own compelling and plausible version of the life of Jesus, and in so doing, does what all fantastic books do: makes the reader question questions.
In Pullman’s own words, The tale I tell comes out of the tension within the dual scenery 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 additional things, a tale about how tales become tales.”
Written with unstinting power, The Excellent Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a pithy, erudite, devious, and powerful book by a controversial and beloved leader. It is a text to be read and reread, studied and unpacked, much like the Excellent Book itself.
In Pullman’s own words, The tale I tell comes out of the tension within the dual scenery 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 additional things, a tale about how tales become tales.”
Written with unstinting power, The Excellent Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a pithy, erudite, devious, and powerful book by a controversial and beloved leader. It is a text to be read and reread, studied and unpacked, much like the Excellent Book itself.
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While the concept is appealing, Philip Pullman’s book is built on a fake premise…that there were two different conceptions of Jesus Christ in the New Tribute. He claims that one is from the Gospels, “Jesus,” while the additional, “Christ,” comes from the Pauline Epistles, since the word “Christ” is mentioned five times more by Paul than by the Gospel writers.
The problem is that the use of a title and the conception of who a person is does not depend on how regularly the title is used. In the Gospels, additional titles are used in place of “Christ.” In Matthew, “the Son of the living God, Emmanuel,…” In Mark, “the son of the Blessed, Son of the Highest,…” In John, “only begotten of the Father, one with the Father, the Messias,…” In Luke, “the Lord’s Christ, the Christ of God, the chosen of God,…” I could go on but I reflect this makes the point.
And there are factual errors, such as Paul wrote his Epistles before the Gospels were written when really, for example, the Gospel of Mark was written during the same time.
So it is hard to delight in the book since these factual errors and the fake premise are in the way.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
The tone of the book towards the reader is very close to condescending. I establish that too off-putting for my taste, and gave up on the tale after reading 45 pages. I also realized I had no interest at this time in reading anything having to do with mythology or religion.
I don’t want lessons in mythmaking, especially from a man whose writing talents place me cold. I quickly lost interest in “His Dark Materials”, because the tale wasn’t even remotely appealing. The same happened here. I noticed in both books that he revels in taking swipes at the Roman Catholic Church. I personally don’t care about that one way or another, but seeing it twice tends to make me reflect he has an axe to grind.
Having tried two of his works, and finding both wanting, I will not bother with anything else he writes. There are several well loved writers whose books I can’t stand to read; I’m worried his are among them.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
The leader of this book knowingly makes fake statements about the Lord Jesus Christ. He freely and openly admits that he is lying.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This book is a critique of Christianity written by an athiest. Pullman has never been shy in his hatred of Christianity as expressed in his additional works. This book seems an attempt to place a more proper and intellectual framework around his despise. Rather than simply attacking, he tries to pull Christainity apart in an attempt to recast it into something else.
The literary contrivance he uses is the concept of “twins”. “Jesus” is the embodyment of what the leader seems to consider the salvageable aspects of Christianity while “Christ” (the terrible twin) is the repository for all of Pullman’s anti-Catholic/anti-Christian thoughts. The fantastic irony of the book is of course the Pullman himself by writing it is playing the role of his own character “Christ” in reshaping “jesus” for his own ends.
The problem with the book isn’t that its “blasphemous”, the problem is rather that its on its face stupid for a name who doesn’t judge in a particular religion to address persons who do about what form their religion should take. Especially persons who really read “dark materials” all the way to the end and know the kind of despise Pullman brings to the table on these subjects. This is a man who regularly spits poison. His particular obsessive and public hatred of C.S. Lewis and his Narnia Chronicles (grotesque, disgusting, hideous, poisonous and nauseating) is no secret.
Pullman sticks remarkably to the gospel narratives with one glaring exception that tears out any heart the book had. Jesus abandons god and dies at Gethsemane. Christ fakes the reserection and steps in afterward. In keeping with the leader’s fanatical anti-Catholic viewpoint, there is also the character of the “weirder”. Calling him the weirder agreed its rather obvious who he is doesn’t do Pullman much credit.
So the message in the end for Christians is that their religion is a lie made up by the evil people who founded the evil church. To be “right” to Jesus, they should rewrite their made-up religion with helpful advice from athiests like Pullman. The direction of the rewrite would be to turn Jesus into a secular philosopher with no association to god. And abolish the works of the evil “strangers” from the bible.
This book will go over well with some christians. It will go over well in particular in persons churches where the bible is considered a book of folk tales and the church is small more than a democratic political club.
The essential problem with the book is that its permanently terrible for people to take self-improvement advice from a person who despises them.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I’ve had a problem with Pullman’s sexist writing in the past, but this small bit of fan fiction made me sick. Of course a lovely young 12-year-ancient is agreed to an ancient man in marriage. Of course God woos Mary and tells her how physically gorgeous she is. Really? That’s the most vital thing to the Lord?
When the Lord has sex with Mary, that’s when I threw up into the book, clogged it, and returned it to the library. I’m glad I didn’t buy it.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5