Lamb

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore, 444 pages

Those who are familiar with the Bible will generally admit that there's something of a gap in the gospels, leaving a large chunk of Christ's life unaccounted for. This hilarious novel takes a stab at filling that gap, as told through the eyes of Christ's foul-mouthed, womanizing, and generally unscrupulous best friend, Levi, who is called Biff. According to Biff (and Moore), at the age of 12, Josh (which is what Biff calls Christ) has no idea how he's supposed to be a messiah, so he and Biff seek out the three wise men who attended Josh's birth. If they knew that this kid was the messiah when he was born, perhaps they'd be able to tell him what to do now. What follows is a physical exploration of Asia — including the grand home of a magus, a Buddhist temple, and a poor village in India — and a theological trip through Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

This has long been one of my favorite books, but this time, I tried the audio version, read by actor Fisher Stevens. Stevens did a great job differentiating the voices and elevated the humor with his inflections. I highly recommend the book in either form, though be prepared for saltier language than you might expect in a "biography" of Jesus Christ.