Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Raziel calms the sea so that Biff can swim back to the ship and declares that Biff and Joshua are under divine protection. The captain behaves with subservient civility to the boys for the rest of the voyage and advises them to look for a woman with one eye when they reach Antioch.

At a bustling marketplace in Antioch, Joshua intentionally bumps into passersby so that he can practice healing people. This alarms Biff, especially when a man draws a knife on Joshua for slapping his wife. The slap frees the woman from a demon, and Joshua embraces the relieved couple. When Biff points out that the man could have killed Joshua, the Messiah nonchalantly answers, “[i]t happens. He just didn’t understand. He does now” (129). The boys find the old woman with one eye, but she recoils at the mention of Balthasar’s name and accuses the magus of meddling with dark forces. When Joshua calmly takes the woman’s hand and asks for her help, she scratches his hand hard enough to draw blood. Joshua is dismayed because he “never understood it when someone was violent or unkind” (131). Furious, Biff shouts that she’ll be punished for harming the Son of God. A trader overhears the hubbub and tells the boys that he can take them to Balthasar.

The trader, Ahmad Mahadd Ubaidullaganji, invites Biff and Joshua to join his caravan for the two-month journey along the Spice Road to Kabul, where Balthasar lives. Joshua and Biff spend their days assisting with the camels and their nights having long discussions under the stars. Joshua’s continued curiosity regarding sex begins to wear on Biff. He asks Joshua if he expects him to commit every sin there is, including murder, so he can explain it to the Messiah. Joshua replies that he doesn’t want to murder anyone, and his friend answers that he may have to kill to free his people from the Romans.

A group of bandits attacks the caravan, and Ahmad’s guards slay the would-be thieves. A distraught Joshua shields one of the bandits with his body and heals his wounds only for one of the guards to strike the bandit dead with an arrow. In a rage, Joshua takes away the bowman’s sight. Ten years ago, Balthasar asked Ahmad to bring Joshua to him, and the trader fulfills the prophetic request by leading the boys to a mansion carved into a labyrinthine canyon outside of Kabul. Balthasar, an Ethiopian magician, amuses himself by frightening the boys and then leads them into his dark and mysterious dwelling.

The narrative moves 2,000 years into the future. Biff reads the Gospel of Matthew and is surprised and offended by the text because it omits everything between Jesus’s birth and the time that he was 30, has a different ending from what he experienced, and doesn’t mention him even once.

The narrative returns to Joshua and Biff’s time in Balthasar’s fortress. The magus tells the boys that they are welcome anywhere in his home except behind a massive door, a “huge, ironclad monster held closed with three iron bolts as big around as [Biff’s] arm and a heavy brass lock engraved with strange characters” (147). Joshua surmises that the ironclad door is somehow connected to Balthasar’s magic, which keeps him spry and healthy despite his advanced age. Balthasar and his eight Chinese concubines teach the boys about chi, Taoism, and Chinese characters. When Biff asks about the forbidden door, a concubine named Joy doses him with a poison that leaves him immobilized for 10 days. After he receives the antidote, Biff tells Joshua that they must uncover what the magus and his companions are hiding.

Joshua and Biff ask Balthasar about the door, and he promises to tell them the truth once they have gained the knowledge and power they need to handle the answer. Balthasar informs them that this training may take years.

The bowman whom Joshua blinded becomes a beggar in Kabul. Joy leads the boys to the city so that they can search for him. Joshua is so weighed down by guilt that he cries as he restores the man’s vision. Once he regains his sight, the man tries to kill Joshua, but Biff and Joy foil his attempts. The young Messiah laments, “I don’t know what I’m doing. Even when I try to do the right thing it goes wrong” (165). Joshua’s healing is stronger than any magic that the concubines have ever seen, and Biff pretends to understand how his friend’s power works to gain sexual favors from the women.

Over the next three years, Joshua studies the writings of Lao-tzu and Confucius while Biff learns how to create poisons and explosives. Balthasar, the concubines, and the boys celebrate Joshua’s 17th birthday with a feast of Chinese dishes. That night, the boys reminisce about home and Maggie, whom Biff still misses dearly. Joy fears that Balthasar is developing feelings for Joshua. She won’t explain why it’s dangerous for the magus to fall in love, but Biff agrees to help and advises his friend to do what he can to discourage Balthasar’s feelings.

Balthasar takes Joshua on a journey to a temple containing tablets that prophesy about “the coming of a child who will have power over evil and victory over death” (179). On the way, he tells Joshua that he sought him out with the other wise men because he believes that Joshua can grant him immortality. The magus has lived to be 260 years old thanks to a pact with a demon named Catch, and he believes that only Joshua can free him. Balthasar’s love for Joshua and what he represents weakens his will, breaking his control over the demon. While Balthasar and Joshua are away, Biff and Joy open the forbidden door, releasing the demon. Catch kills the other seven concubines and pursues Joy and Biff.

The demon chases Biff and Joy. Catch claws through solid stone in its efforts to reach them, revealing that it created the fortress. Catch corners Biff and Joy and then hurls Balthasar into the canyon. Joshua seizes the demon’s tail and subdues it. Catch recognizes Joshua as the Messiah and prostrates itself before him. Moved with compassion, Joshua grants the demon a moment of free will. However, Catch chooses to attack Balthasar, who survived the fall, and Joshua banishes the demon to hell.

With his contract with Catch sundered, Balthasar ages rapidly. He advises Joshua and Biff to travel east and seek Gaspar in the Temple of the Celestial Buddha. With his last breath, Balthasar tells the young Messiah to “remember the three jewels” (195), referring to the Taoist virtues of compassion, moderation, and humility. Joshua and Biff stay in the fortress with Joy for six months and wait for winter to pass before starting their journey. Joy decides to take Balthasar’s treasures and build an opulent house for herself in Kabul. She tells Biff to come to see her one day and gives him two parting gifts: a dagger made of black glass and the double-sided vial that she used to poison and cure him.