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Synopsis
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is the remarkable new piece of fiction from best-selling and famously atheistic author Philip Pullman. By challenging the events of the gospels, Pullman puts forward his own compelling and plausible version of the life of Jesus, and in so doing, does what all great books do: makes the reader ask questions.
In Pullman’s own words, “The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.”
Written with unstinting authority, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a pithy, erudite, subtle, and powerful book by a controversial and beloved author. It is a text to be read and reread, studied and unpacked, much like the Good Book itself.
The Washington Post - Ron Charles
Fear not, for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy…for all its satanic fanfare and heretical rejiggering, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is—God forbid—kind of inspiring…Again and again, [Pullman] displays a marvelous sense of the elemental power of Jesus's instructions and parables. Even when he transforms the canonical stories to match his atheist perspective, he emphasizes the basic Christian theme of universal love…Yes, some Christians will be offended by this book…but any honest reader will find here a brisk and bracing story of profound implications. And it's bound to send some readers back to the Bible, looking more closely at Jesus's words and especially at all those other words crowded around Him.