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    The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
    The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
    The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
    Audiobook3 hours

    The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

    Written by Philip Pullman

    Narrated by Philip Pullman

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    This is a story.

    In this ingenious and spellbinding retelling of the life of Jesus, Philip Pullman revisits the most influential story ever told.

    Charged with mystery, compassion and enormous power, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ throws fresh light on who Jesus was and asks the listener questions that will continue to reverberate long after the final word is spoken. For above all, this audiobook is about how stories become stories.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMay 20, 2010
    ISBN9781441857996
    Author

    Philip Pullman

    Philip Pullman (b. 1946) is one of the world’s most acclaimed children’s authors, his bold, brilliant books having set new parameters for what children’s writing can say and do. He is best known for the His Dark Materials trilogy, installments of which have won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. In 2003, the trilogy came third in the BBC’s Big Read competition to find the nation’s favorite book, and in 2005 he was awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international prize for children’s literature. In 2007, Northern Lights became a major Hollywood film, The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Pullman has published nearly twenty books, and when he’s not writing he likes to play the piano (badly), draw, and make things out of wood.

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    Reviews for The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

    3.5/5

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    • 5/5
      I loved the trilogy "His dark materials" except for the fact that I thought the idea of killing off God was very underplayed and very anticlimactic. The being that Lyra kills off isn't even God but someone masquerading as God - a very weak, ineffectual substitute. There is no infinity or direct power involved in what she does. She truly does kill off an idea rather than anything else. God is more remarkable for his absence than his presence.In such a dramatic story, I felt that this aspect was skirted around and handled on tip toes with disappointing results. I therefore wanted to see whether Pullman addressed the topic more effectively in "Good man Jesus..." And he does. Interestingly, it is immediately obvious that the absence of God is once again the theme; only this time the absence is active, forceful and tragic. The whole "Why hast thou forsaken me" line takes on heartbreaking significance.But what I love about this book is that it isn't really about a "scoundrel" at all. The whole story is very sympathetically and movingly portrayed. Jesus is at times powerful and reverent, at times apparently lonely, angry and even unloving. But apart from his dramatic monologue towards the end, he is seen nearly entirely through the eyes of others, so it is hard to really feel identification with him. Christ is a different matter. And the true tragedy of the book is that he is no scoundrel. He is a man full of faith and devotion, to God and to his brother. It is he who believes in a God for all people, not just the Jewish people. And he truly believes, at least in the beginning, that truth is greater than history, and can be made to "irradiate history". He believes, unlike Jesus, that human frailty must be accepted and that people must be helped to be the best they can be, through carefully ministered loving order, rather than set up to fail to achieve perfection, unaided.It is the absence of God that betrays both Jesus and Christ. The church, like the crucifixion, is necessary only because it is the best possible substitute (or so Christ believes) for a genuine divine presence in people's everyday lives. The loneliness, the good intentions and the love, of both Christ and his brother Jesus, are portrayed in a way that is at once believable, sympathetic and powerful. I am delighted to finally see what I felt was missing from "His dark materials" and am very glad I took the time to read further.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I liked the idea of the original Jesus, with his very personal message, and the more institutional Christ being brothers. Also, the fact that Christ from the start tries to mold what Jesus says and does to fit his grand design, is quite inventive.

      Pullman's take on the the New Testament is pretty personal, but overall, the persona of Jesus becomes a lot more consistent.

      It looks as if Pullman tried to emulate typical biblical writing, but sometimes this results in a bit of a style clash, especially in the scenes that Pullman envisions as having gone totally different compared to the official version in the Bible (i.e. Christ's version).

      The basic idea, that Jesus wasn't a goody-two-shoes and intended his faith to be a very personal and spiritual affair, is something that I can only agree with.
    • 3/5
      It's an interesting take on a much-told story. If you're interested in revisionist storytelling this is for you. There is only the teensiest bit of Pullman's views on organized religion in any direct way at the end--I was expecting more, actually, as I know he feels very strongly on the issue.

      Worth the read, if you like to think about what might have actually happened with this guy who lived long ago that a lot of people seem to think was pretty special.
    • 4/5
      This beautiful alternate version of the story of Jesus Christ reads like a lost Gospel - one that no orthodoxy would have ever allowed to see the light of day. Rarely has such a gentle book been so challenging. Much, much better than an aggresively anti-religious polemic.
    • 4/5
      A very creative premise marred by the same overly didactic vices that characterized the third book of His Dark Materials, only worse in this case.
    • 4/5
      I have just finished this book and have to say that by the end I quite enjoyed it! When I started I have to admit I was very disappointed, it read very much like a book for children, being very simply written, but I suppose the fact that Philip Pullman has written a lot for children and young adults I shouln't be too surprised!!The Story is about the theory that Jesus and Christ were twins, with Jesus being the GOOD one whilst Christ is a bit more 'realistic' in his views.It takes you through most of the well known stories told in the bible about healing, changing water into wine and the money changing in the temples etc.. with a sight twist! Christ is the one noting down all that Jesus says and does, without his knowledge and it is Christ that eventually betrays Jesus to the Romans.I am not a religious person myself, but found the story very clever, although it did take me until over halfway to appreciate it as just that, a story.
    • 5/5
      Oh, Pullman is so clever (and has been reading AN Wilson on Jesus)
    • 4/5
      It's a retelling of the story of Jesus. In this he and Christ are brothers, not one person.
    • 4/5
      A clever idea well executed and always having the ring of a possible truth.
    • 4/5
      An interesting reworking of a bible story! It will absolutely offend some, and I would say to anyone with faith not to read it. I, however, enjoyed it. As always, Pullman's story-telling is wonderful.
    • 3/5
      This is alright, not a patch on His Dark Materials, but diverting enough for a quick read. To simplify somewhat, it uses the conceit of a 'good' twin Jesus - the prophet and idealist - and the 'bad' Christ - the church builder and tradition beginner - to discuss what Pullman sees and good and bad aspects of religion. Jesus brings a spiritual message of seemingly genuine authority, but Christ, wanting it to last forever and apply to everyone, flavours its chronicling with miracles, rituals and plans for a great Church to spread the Word across the world. The style of it is generally good, echoing the New Testament, but is broken annoyingly a few times for 'now this is the point' sections - sudden, several-page-long digressions on the wrongs of the Catholic Church, and a rather forced change of heart for one of the characters towards the end. Thought provoking at turns but not massively so.
    • 4/5
      I'm a bit disappointed in Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Maybe that's becasue I had too high to of expectation, maybe that's becuase I constantly compared the book to Pullman's other, highly-regarded series His Dark Materials, or maybe that's becasue I thought it would be mroe than what it was. No matter the reason for a slight disappiontment, Pullman's writing was a good as ever. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel takes the story of Jesus from the Bible and adds a twist: Jesus was the good guy, much like the Bible says he was, but he has a twin brother, Christ, who-- like the title suggests-- is a scoundrel and gets into trouble. This book, unlike His Dark Materials, won't offend Christians becuase all of the material in this book comes from the Bible.
    • 4/5
      Interesting take on the difference between the church (represented by the character of Christ) and Jesus (represented by the character of Jesus). These characters are twins. This is a work of fiction - a story. In this novel, Jesus dies and his twin brother takes his place, having made notes throughout about what his brother said in his lifetime. The message is twisted, and turned into a more worldly version, with reasons, excuses and rationalisations given by the help of a sinister stranger. It is the vision of religious authority, more concerned with power than humility and service. It is a criticism of religious power and arrogance and not an attempt to rewrite Christian history.
    • 3/5
      A nice and intriguing retelling of the story of Jesus Christ. Pullman manages to build up a very nice arc but sadly loses the plot a bit near the end. In those paragraphs he is slightly too eager to link the present day problems of Christian religion to this alternative origin story and as a result aggressively pulls you of its own setting.Still, the twist on the story alone makes it a nice read, but be sure to brush up on the original for maximum effect.
    • 4/5
      I've read a number of retellings of the central Christian story recently: C K Stead wrote a fascinating and surprisingly faithful (irony intended) secular retelling from the eyes of Judas Hiscariot; I was fortunate enough to attend a performance of the famous, once-in-a-decade Oberammergau Passion Play in Bavaria, and now I've stumbled over the famously atheist Philip Pullman's take - which involves a fair bit more licence than Stead's but is otherwise of a similar demystifying disposition: rationalising miracles into ordinary materialistic phenomena, and rebasing Jesus from mystic to idealistic, but nonetheless political, historical figure. Pullman's licence is to pull Jesus Christ apart into two figures: Jesus (an idealist if naive populist) and Christ, his twin, a more introverted, but more intelligent, dark inversion. Curiously, the Passion Play - which is entirely reverend to orthodox Christian doctrine in a way that Stead's and Pullman's works are not - also de-emphasises the spiritual in favour of the political machinations of the Sanhedrin and the political dimension of Christ's mission. All three, in some way, accordingly miss what's so special and clever about the passion. But we live in rational times - or so we like our chroniclers to tell us. All three also bring the character of Judas into sharp relief: Stead and Oberammergau by his prominence, Pullman by his notable absence. The thing is, unless read purely as a pantomime villain, Judas is the not only the central driver of the passion's narrative, but also the most interesting and recognisably human character of the lot: he means well, but is naivety/stupidity/vanity/self importance (delete as applicable) lets him down. His is the character arc which gives us lessons: if this were a Shakespearian Tragedy he would be the lead: a complex, brooding anti-hero in the vein of Macbeth. Jesus, by contrast, is a rather cardboard cut-out good guy not unlike the fated Duncan: At key points in the drama, Christ remains passive and stays pointedly silent. By contrast Judas agonises, soliloquises, and, for better or ill, acts. While Judas is not represented by name here, his actions are, and it is telling how Pullman has re-designed the whole myth to accommodate them (it would spoil it to say more: you'll have to read the book to see what I mean). Much of Pullman's industry is to illustrate that there is no such thing as truth other than the compelling story contextualised and carved out of events which, in their unfinished natural state, don't have a moral or didactic dimension. Jesus provides the unshaped events, Christ the chronicle. Christ is, by turns, appalled by and drawn to the power he derives from his narrative talent. This brief book is written stylishly and evenly in Pullman's curt and economical prose. He might seem a controversial choice to retell this particular story, yet despite his inventions Philip Pullman generally does not let his atheism get in the way of the thrust of Jesus' central message. Indeed, as a storyteller of the first order, you wonder whether he doesn't see a little of the tragic scoundrel Christ in himself. If you like this, try C.K. Stead: My Name Was Judas
    • 2/5
      Eh. Nothing compared to The Golden Compass.
    • 4/5
      I just finished The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. I read somewhere on LT that His Dark Materials series wasn't atheistic but just anti catholic. Two thirds of the way through this book I thought maybe that was right. Jesus and Christ are twin boys born to an innocent and easily confused young wife Mary who was tricked into bed by a local boy who said he was an angel. Jesus is healthy and lovable from birth, Christ is sickly and kind of a mamma's boy (this is not his usual feminist writing). Jesus gets into trouble with boyish pranks while he's growing up, and Christ has to get him out of it -- by performing miracles. Or by the end of the book one thinks perhaps those miracles didn't happen as first described but were tales concocted by Christ. As they grow, Jesus becomes so charismatic crowds of people are drawn to him. The loaves and fishes tale is shown to be less a miracle and more that Jesus was able to feed a large group of people by convincing members of the crowd to share what they had with others. He "heals" people by giving them hope and a new sense of self worth. Christ is only a little jealous, but wants to support Jesus in his preaching by maybe starting a church. He goes through the whole system of hierarchy explaining how it could bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth. Jesus wants nothing to do with it.As Jesus goes preaching around the area, Christ begins to become his chronicler, writing down his sayings even though he makes god and salvation seem contradictory and arbitrary. At some point Christ is confronted by a stranger (whom you might think of as the devil, but he says he isn't, and since Pullman is an atheist I can only think this stranger is a farsighted entrepreneur). The stranger tells him that there is a truth that goes beyond time, that is the handmaid of posterity rather than its governor. Meaning, as you write down what Jesus says, feel free to edit it so that it makes sense of the larger picture, the worship that we want to bring about in the church we can create. Christ is a good editor.In the Garden of Gethsemane finally the atheism becomes clear. Jesus is praying but doesn't know if there's anyone out there to pray to. He says, "I can imagine some smartarse of a priest in years to come pulling the wool over his poor followers' eyes, 'God's great absence is, of course, the very sign of his presence' or some such drivel...The priest is worse than the fool in the psalm who at least is an honest man. When the fool prays to god and gets no answer, he decides that God's great absence means he's not bloody well there." Jesus then goes on to describe accurately all the evils that could be perpetuated by a church. "As soon as men who believe they're doing God's will get a hold of power...the devil enters into them. It isn't long before they start drawing up lists of punishments for all kinds of innocent activities...build great palaces and temples to strut around in...levy taxes on the poor to pay for their luxuries...start keeping scripture secret too holy to be revealed to ordinary people so that only the priests interpretation will be allowed... They will become more fearful because the more power they have the less they'll trust anyone...But any priest who want to indulge his secret appetites, his greed, his lust, his cruelty will find himself like a wolf in a field of lambs where the shepherd is bound and gagged and blinded." Then he asks god "And where will you be? Will you strike these blaspheming serpents...To ask the question and wait for the answer is to know there will be no answer."Then there's a rather expected description of the resurrection and its consequences. It doesn't leave much doubt that Pullman isn't just anti church.This is an interesting book, part of the Myths Series, which I didn't even realized existed. Lots of myths rewritten, though I note no one has yet been willing to risk a fatwa by rewriting the myth of Mohammad.
    • 3/5
      Other reviewers have commented on Pullman's atheism - I thought he left quite a lot of room for God, even if it is a God with no concern about his creation or at least no interest in human-kind. The author can't, of course, accept the virgin birth, miracles or the resurrection so knocks the props from under Christianity despite approving Jesus' attitudes, teaching and integrity. His main dislike is for established religion, a creation of imperfect, if not greedy and power-hungry mortals.Pullman's explanations of the supernatural are neat, if not particularly original, and Christ is given the responsibility for writing up the history to ensure that Jesus' story will last through the ages. The one enigmatic character is the commissioner of the history who is never named: he visits Christ regularly and guides him in the manner of manipulation of the truth. This commissioner might have been one of the Sanhedrin but, if one didn't know better, he might have been intended to be Satan.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating retelling of the Greatest Story Ever Told - sketched with a light touch, a little wickedness, and an unexpected amount of respect. Intriguing, challenging, and very satisfying.
    • 4/5
      This is a fascinating book. It's a retelling of the biblical story of Jesus, but with his twin brother, Christ, who acts as the primary chronicler of the life of Jesus (perhaps the Q source of biblical exegetes?).The tension which Pullman creates between facts and the "truth" to be derived from those facts is instructive for any reading of history. His contrast between passion and calculation also goes well beyond religious boundaries.Pullman is an outspoken critic of the institutional church, so perhaps his intent is to discredit the church. If so, he does it cleverly and courteously. But in fact many within the church will identify with the tensions that he creates. Thirty years ago there was a lively debate over "mission" or "maintenance", and Pullman's book would have made an interesting contribution. A very good read, whether the reader is religious or not.
    • 3/5
      Thinly written but with some clever twists on the Gospels.
    • 4/5
      A story about how stories come to be. Much functions well as religious commentary but what impressed me most was the creativity involved, the splitting of the Biblical Jesus into twins, Jesus & Christ, and the interplay between them, using bits of proto-gospels and gnostic material.
    • 4/5
      This retelling of the New Testament is spare, pared to the bone, but far from simplistic, The dualism between sacred and profane, between truth and myth, between fact and fable, between Jesus the believer and the belief, become the central parable. I expected something more radical, more daring, but in the end was satisfied it was not. The last third of this quick read is the more daring.
    • 4/5
      In this fantasy for adults, the author sets up a situation where Jesus was born a twin. His twin, Christ, follows him around and chronicles his activities, reporting on them to the mysterious stranger who appears at crucial moments. An interesting twist on an old story.
    • 4/5
      I knew I'd like this, and I was right. Imagine Jesus was a twin. He's still a very devout Jew who attracts followers wherever he goes because he's so sincere, so committed to spreading good news about the coming Lord, and knows how to tell a great story. But it's his twin brother, Christ who is responsible for Jesus going down in history as the son of God and founder of the Christian church. In Pullman's take, the resurrection is staged, historical events are embellished, and Christ is the real Judas. The Garden of Gethsemani scene is the heart of the book. Here Jesus asks god for a sign, any sign, to prove his existence. There is none, of course, and what Jesus thinks to himself then turns out to be incredibly prescient. In a way his worst nightmare has come true. As in all Pullman's work, the whole point of the exercise is to tell a good story, and he accomplishes this quite well.
    • 2/5
      "This is a story." proclaims the back of the book, leaving the Reader in no doubt that the Author wants to make this clear and possibly in anticipation of reaction to the book. The book quickly establishes that this is "the story of Jesus and his brother Christ" and even before we learn that these brothers are twins, the title has already suggested to me that we may be in "evil twin" territory. Sadly the book does not develop well enough to support my first impressions and it becomes, quite simply, a retelling of a well known story and of possibly lesser known Gospels. I very nearly stopped reading at the end of the first short chapter. I felt as if I should be reading this aloud to a child. And, whilst there are some big words and bigger issues as the story progresses, I am still left feeling that I have been patronised. The style is simplistic. Maybe the Author intends to provoke our own thoughts, but he promised me a story and I feel as if I have been short changed. If I had no knowledge of the Bible at all I would have been left totally bewildered as to what this story was about. It is a story and has the makings of a good one but it is not well-rounded and I am left feeling as if I have read a synopsis.
    • 4/5
      Absolutely riveting re-imagining of the Jesus story, with lots of recourse to the Gnostic Gospels. The conceit here is that Jesus and Christ are twins, and Jesus is the guy with the message- the guy who heals the sick, the guy who has that no-nonsense spirituality one might recognize from parts of the Gospels. Christ, OTOH, stands in for the church, for the status quo, for the massaging of information.

      Really well done, says this non-believer.
    • 3/5
      If you read a lot of historical Jesus type of stuff (Crossan, Borg, that kind of thing) then you'll like this. It's a light romp through the turmoil of first century Palestine. You know the plot already, unless you are like totally and completely unfamiliar with the life of Jesus.The premise is that Mary has not just Jesus, but twins. The first twin is named Jesus, the second doesn't have a name until some guys arrive from the east looking for the "king of the Jews." Mary happens to be holding the second twin when they show up, so since they're looking for the Messiah, she names the second twin Christ. Jesus and Christ grow up together and when Jesus starts preaching, a mysterious stranger approaches Christ. It goes on from there.What I liked best is how Pullman retells the stories about Jesus, sometimes pretty much the same, and sometimes with a twist -- and sometimes, a major twist. Sometimes Jesus will tell a parable, and you'll say, "what's the big deal? This is exactly what's in the New Testament." But other times, it will be different. I liked the changes he makes to the parable of the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom. Even when I don't like the changes (the passion story isn't quite satisfying to me), the story is interesting. What I didn't like is that Jesus seems to lack any passion. We don't get a sense of Jesus being driven by a sense of mission; instead it's as if Jesus said to himself, "well, I'm 30, so I guess it's time to do the preaching thing." Christ is a bit stronger figure, and definitely does not come across as a scoundrel, despite the title of the book. It's interesting to see how the stories develop. As scholars tell it, these stories got altered along the way; but as Pullman tells it, we get to see the original along with the modifications -- in fact, in some cases, the modifications are almost immediate. So if you're into historical Jesus stuff, I'd recommend this book, take a break from all that heavy scholarship, and you'll finish this in no time.
    • 2/5
      Enough already! I am sick to death of stories about stories. We don’t need further evidence that writing is among the most self-regarding of professions. Just give me a story, for Christ sake, and keep that other shit on a floppy disk somewhere
    • 3/5
      The conceit behind Pullman's new novel is really cool. That in the stable in Bethlehem, Mary had twins, one named Jesus the other Christ. Christ was a mature, introspected child - pious and thirsting for knowledge of all types. Jesus was something of a terror - constantly getting into trouble, fiercely independant. However, as he neared adulthood, he became more and more affected by spiritual matters, untill he was divinely inspired to preach. He quickly adopts a dedicated following, and becomes a thorn in the side of authorities. His sermons might be somewhat familiar to those who have read the bible, though they are decidedly more mean-spirited in this novel and less well-rounded and well-considered. Christ is approached by a figure he assumes to be an angel with a proposition - to record his twin brother's sermons, and to edit them for content and posterity. Pullman's point here seems obvious - to underscore the problems with organized religion and hagiography. He sees the bible as a simplification of historical events. As the novel progresses, and the full implications and contours of his thesis emerge, it becomes all the more interesting. However, this is very much a novel of ideas - outside of the (wonderful, provocative) ideas, there's not a lot going on narratively or in terms of characterization. Also, the writing is intermittently clumsy.