The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

The novel reimagines the life of Jesus Christ from a human, earthbound perspective, recasting the gospel story through inherited guilt, divine manipulation, and the entanglement of God and the Devil. It opens with a description of an engraving of the crucifixion at Golgotha, the hill outside Jerusalem where condemned prisoners are executed. The narrator scrutinizes every figure and establishes a revisionist tone: These events belong to earth, and from them "will be written the only possible history" (7).

In Nazareth, the carpenter Joseph wakes before dawn beside his wife, Mary. Stirred by a sky of mysterious violet clouds, he returns inside, and they conceive their first child. Four weeks later, a beggar appears at the gate. Mary gives him her supper. When he returns the bowl, he appears radiant and transformed, tells Mary she is pregnant, and reveals himself as an angel. The bowl glows with luminous earth. Joseph concludes the beggar was sent by Satan, and three synagogue elders decide the bowl should be buried in the yard.

Roman soldiers proclaim Caesar Augustus's census, requiring every family to register in their ancestral homeland. Joseph, originally from Bethlehem in Judaea, journeys south with his heavily pregnant wife. They find no lodging. A slave named Salome leads them to a cave and serves as midwife. Jesus is born. Three shepherds visit, the third a massive man who brings bread baked "in the fire that burns beneath the earth" (59). Mary recognizes him as the angel-beggar.

King Herod, ravaged by disease, is haunted by the prophet Micah, who reveals that the future ruler of Israel has already been born in Bethlehem. Herod orders the massacre of all boys under three. Joseph, working at the Temple site in Jerusalem, overhears soldiers discussing the plan. He races to the cave and urges Mary to flee but warns no one else. Twenty-five children die.

The angel appears in the cave and condemns Joseph: He could have warned the other families but saved only his own child. The angel declares that the father's guilt will fall on Jesus. That night, Joseph dreams he rides with Herod's soldiers to kill his own son, a nightmare that recurs nightly for years.

Back in Nazareth, Mary bears eight more children. A mysterious plant sprouts over the buried bowl. When Jesus is nearly twelve, rebellion erupts against Rome. Joseph's neighbor Ananias joins the rebels and is mortally wounded in the city of Sepphoris. Joseph finds him in a makeshift infirmary and watches over him through the night. After Ananias dies, Joseph is arrested and grouped with captured rebels. Forty men are crucified. Joseph, the last to be nailed up, remains silent when given a chance to declare his innocence. He dies at thirty-three.

Jesus finds his father's body, takes the dead man's sandals, and digs the grave. That night, he inherits the nightmare. Under pressure, Mary confesses the truth about the massacre. Jesus is shattered: "Father murdered the children of Bethlehem" (151). He leaves home for Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

In the Temple, Jesus debates scribes about inherited guilt. A scribe warns that guilt is a wolf devouring father and cub alike. In Bethlehem, he visits the tomb of the slaughtered innocents. Salome, the slave who delivered him, takes him to the cave where he was born. There he meets Pastor, a large, mysterious shepherd who has known about Jesus since birth. Jesus joins the flock for four years. Pastor is not Jewish, does not pray, and challenges Jesus's assumptions about God. His flock exists outside ordinary economics, and he claims to have lived for centuries.

One day a sheep wanders into the desert. Jesus follows and encounters a column of smoke: "I am the Lord" (220). God tells Jesus He will demand his life in exchange for power and glory, and orders him to sacrifice the sheep. Jesus complies. Pastor banishes him: "You've learned nothing, begone with you" (222).

Traveling north, Jesus stops in Magdala, where a prostitute named Mary Magdalene washes his injured foot. Their relationship deepens into devotion. She pledges to give up prostitution. Jesus returns to Nazareth, announces he has seen God, and meets disbelief. He takes the black bowl, the vessel the angel once returned to Mary, now unearthed from the yard. Mary calls it the devil's symbol. Jesus leaves home for the last time and goes to Mary Magdalene.

An angel visits Mary of Nazareth and confirms that God mixed His seed with Joseph's at conception, making Jesus the son of God. She sends her sons James and Joseph to find him by the Sea of Galilee, but Jesus refuses to return.

Jesus and Mary Magdalene settle along the lake. He commands a storm to be still and turns water into wine at a wedding in Cana. He visits Mary Magdalene's siblings Lazarus and Martha in Bethany and heals Lazarus of a chronic heart ailment. He heals lepers, feeds thousands, and exorcises demons who call him "son of the Almighty." Twelve disciples gather around Jesus; as each joins, he foresees that man's future martyrdom.

One misty morning, Jesus rows to the center of the lake, where God confirms Jesus is His son. Pastor, revealed as the Devil, swims to the boat. God explains He wants Jesus's death on the cross to found a religion extending His dominion beyond the Jews. He recites a litany of future martyrs and describes centuries of crusades, inquisitions, and religious wars. Pastor proposes that if God pardons him, evil will cease and Jesus need not die. God refuses: His good cannot exist without the Devil's evil. Pastor takes the black bowl and swims away. God vanishes. Jesus has been on the lake forty days.

Jesus sends the apostles to preach throughout Israel. He finds John the Baptist at Bethabara on the Jordan and is baptized. He leads his disciples to overturn the money changers' tables in the Temple. They return to Bethany, where Lazarus has died. Martha pleads with Jesus to raise him, but Mary Magdalene intervenes: "No one has committed so much sin in his life that he deserves to die twice" (362). Jesus drops his arms and weeps.

News arrives that John has been beheaded. Jesus reveals everything God told him on the lake and proposes a plan: If he dies as a political criminal claiming to be king of the Jews rather than as the son of God, perhaps God's design can be thwarted. He asks one disciple to denounce him. Judas Iscariot volunteers. Jesus embraces him: "Go, my hour is yours" (370).

Temple guards arrest Jesus. On the road to Jerusalem, the procession passes Judas's body hanging from a fig tree. Before the Roman prefect Pilate, Jesus insists he is king of the Jews and refuses to claim divinity. He is sentenced to crucifixion. On Golgotha, as Jesus hangs dying, the heavens open and God declares, "This is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased" (376). Jesus realizes he has been deceived: God has publicly claimed him, ensuring the sacrifice serves the divine plan. He cries out, "Men, forgive Him, for He knows not what He has done" (377). As he expires, he dreams of his father shrugging and smiling. A sponge soaked in water and vinegar touches his lips. Beneath the cross, unseen, sits the black bowl, catching his dripping blood.