The Greatest Story Ever (Re)told
Rowan Williams has commended Philip Pullman for the contemporary edge with which he re-presents the gospel in his new book - The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - often keeping to the gist of Jesus' teaching despite tampering with the gospel text, as we know it. However, the Archbishop dare not follow into Pullman's Gethsemane, wherein the author constructs an ellipsis of meaning as 'Jesus' loses his faith and crawls off to crucifixion - hopeless, helpless, death.
Interestingly, representing 'Jesus' 'Christ' as twins rather than one man who is both fully human and fully divine, Pullman is content to take many of the miraculous elements of Jesus' life in his stride as he navigates a path through the gospel events. His bald style sustains clay coming to life, scriptural prophecy being fulfilled and staffs sprouting leaves, serving only to increase the illogic of the climactic, staged resurrection - enacted by 'Christ' under the careful direction of a manipulative figure in the shadows, ever-present but never named.
The original gospel texts jump off the pages of Scripture vividly, their direct delivery works because of the glowing truth they demonstrate - complex in shades and depth of meaning, but simple in design: presenting Jesus, the Christ. Although Pullman skillfully echoes their reportage, he strips out the wonder of the story, snuffing out the God-man to whom the authentic gospels are testament. There is no place in Pullman's narrative for the incarnate one. Rather, 'The Word made flesh here is made word again', to quote Edwin Muir.
Pullman acknowledges his book is fiction, even urging comparison to the gospels, but his aim in writing is unequivocally to 'expose' inconsistencies in Christianity. Throughout literary history, authors have had malign intent for their work, only to be thwarted by the power of the reader to interpret what they hold in their hands, and ask provocative questions of their fellow reading public. And if people take Pullman at his word and pick up a gospel, taking on the challenge of meeting Jesus himself, maybe there will be many an angelic party over this yet.
All literature tries to understand human nature, how and why we work emotionally, relationally, physically, mentally. And the problem for all those who want to announce God dead is that because he designed, created and delights in us, the closer any work of fiction comes to uncovering the truth of who or what we are, the closer it comes to revealing something of who created us.
Naomi Carle
Links
To read Rowan Williams' comments on Pullman's book in full, click here
To read what Pullman had to say to The Times about The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, click here
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