Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal Chapter 1

PrologueThe okayer was cleaning out his closets when the c every came. Halos and moonbeams were sorted into piles fit in to brightness, satchels of wrath and scabbards of lightning hung on hooks wait to be clayed. A wineskin of glory had leaked in the corner and the holy person blotted it with a wad of fabric. Each beat he turned the cloth a muted chorus rang from the closet, as if hed clamped the lid d proclaim on a pickle jar full of H every last(predicate)elujah Chorus.Raziel, what in heavens holler are you doing?The archangel Stephan was standing everywhere him, brandishing a scroll like a rolled-up magazine everyplace a piddling puppy.Orders? the angel asked.Dirt-side.I was entirely if there. ii millennia ago.Really? Raziel checked his watch, then tapped the crystal. argon you indisputable?What do you call? Stephan held out the scroll so Raziel could insure the Burning Bush seal.When do I leave? I was almost finished here.Now. Pack the gift of tongues and more o r less minor miracles. No weapons, its non a wrath job. Youll be undercover. Very low profile, scarce important. Its all in the orders. Stephan reach him the scroll.why me?I asked that too.And?I was reminded why angels are cast out.Whoa That big?Stephan coughed, cl early(a) an affectation, since angels didnt breathe. Im not sure Im supposed to know, only the rumor is that its a new book.Youre kidding. A sequel? Revelations 2, full when you thought it was respectable to sin?Its a Gospel.A Gospel, after all this clip? Who?Levi who is called punch.Raziel dropped his rag and stood. This has to be a mis possess.It injects straight off from the Son.Theres a reason laggard isnt hanged in the other books, you know? Hes a total Dont affirm it. simply hes such an asshole.You talk like that and you wonder why you get mark-duty. wherefore now, after so long, the 4 Gospels provoke been fine so far, and why him?Because its close to kind of anniversary in dirt-d salutaryer time of the Sons birth, and he feels its time the whole story is told.Raziel hung his propo tantalizeion. Id better pack.Gift of tongues, Stephan reminded.Of course, so I can take crap in a thousand languages.Go get the good news, Raziel. Bring me backwards some chocolate.Chocolate?Its a dirt-dweller snack. Youll like it. Satan invented it.D villainys food?You can all eat so ofttimes w constructe cake, my friend.Mid night. The angel stood on a barren hillside on the outskirts of the holy city of capital of Israel. He embossed his arms aloft and a dry wind whipped his white robe nearly him.Arise, Levi who is called Biff.A whirlwind organize before him, pulling dust from the hillside into a column that took the shape of a man.Arise, Biff. Your time has come.The wind whipped into a fury and the angel pulled the sleeve of his robe across his demonstrate.Arise, Biff, and walk again among the living.The whirlwind began to subside, leaving the man-shaped column of dust standing on the h illside. In a moment, the hillside was calm again. The angel pulled a gold vessel from his satchel and poured it over the column. The dust washed away, leaving a muddy, naked man sputtering in the starlight.Welcome back to the living, the angel give tongue to.The man blinked, then held his hand before his eyes as if he expected to turn around through it.Im a live on, he said in a language he had neer heard before.Yes, the angel said.What are these sounds, these words?You have been given the gift of tongues.Ive always had the gift of tongues, ask any lady friend Ive known. What are these words?Languages. Youve been given the gift of languages, as were all the apostles.Then the kingdom has come.Yes.How long?Two thousand days ago.You worthless bag of dog shit, said Levi who was called Biff, as he punched the angel in the mouth. Youre late.The angel picked himself up and gingerly touched his lip. Nice talk to a messenger of the manufacturing business.Its a gift, Biff said.Part IThe BoyGod is a comedian take oning to an audience that is scared to laugh.VOLTAIREChapter 1You commend you know how this story is going to end, but you dont. Trust me, I was there. I know.The early time I byword the man who would save the world he was sitting near the central well in Nazareth with a lizard hanging out of his mouth. Just the tail end and the hind legs were plain on the outside the head and forelegs were halfway down the hatch. He was six, like me, and his beard had not come in fully, so he didnt look much like the pictures youve seen of him. His eyes were like dark honey, and they smiled at me out of a mop of colored-black curls that framed his face. There was a light older than Moses in those eyes.Unclean Unclean I screamed, loading at the boy, so my mother would see that I knew the Law, but she do by me, as did all the other mothers who were filling their jars at the well.The boy took the lizard from his mouth and handed it to his jr. brother, who sat beside him in the sand. The young boy vie with the lizard for a while, teasing it until it reared its micro head as if to bite, then he picked up a rock and mashed the creatures head. Bewildered, he pushed the dead lizard around in the sand, and once assured that it wasnt going anywhere on its own, he picked it up and handed it back to his older brother.Into his mouth went the lizard, and before I could accuse, out it came again, squirming and alive and ready to bite once again. He handed it back to his younger brother, who smote it mightily with the rock, starting or ending the whole process again.I watched the lizard die three more times before I said, I want to do that too.The Savior removed the lizard from his mouth and said, Which part?By the way, his name was Joshua. Jesus is the Greek version of the Hebraical Yeshua, which is Joshua. Christ is not a last name. Its the Greek for messiah, a Hebrew word importee anointed. I have no idea what the H in Jesus H. Christ stood for. It s one of the things I should have asked him.Me? I am Levi who is called Biff. No middle initial.Joshua was my best friend.The angel says Im supposed to just sit down and write my story, forget about what Ive seen in this world, but how am I to do that? In the last three days I have seen more people, more images, more wonders, than in all my thirty-three years of living, and the angel asks me to ignore them. Yes, I have been given the gift of tongues, so I see nothing without knowing the word for it, but what good does that do? Did it help in capital of Israel to know that it was a Mercedes that terrified me and sent me diving into a Dumpster? Moreover, after Raziel pulled me out and ripped my fingernails back as I struggled to stay hidden, did it help to know that it was a Boeing 747 that do me cower in a wind trying to rock away my own tears and shut out the noise and fire? Am I a fine child, afraid of its own shadow, or did I spend twenty-seven years at the side of the Son of G od?On the hill where he pulled me from the dust, the angel said, You go away see many strange things. Do not be afraid. You have a holy mission and I will protect you.Smug bastard. Had I known what he would do to me I would have hit him again. flush now he lies on the bed across the means, watching pictures move on a screen, eating the sticky sweet called Snickers, while I scratch out my tale on this soft-as-silk melodic theme that reads Hyatt Regency, St. Louis at the top. Words, words, words, a million million words circle in my head like hawks, waiting to dive onto the page to rend and tear the only two words I want to write.Why me?There were fifteen of us well, fourteen after I hung Judas so why me? Joshua always told me not to be afraid, for he would always be with me. Where are you, my friend? Why have you forsaken me? You wouldnt be afraid here. The towers and machines and the shine and stink of this world would not daunt you. Come now, Ill order a pizza from room servi ce. You would like pizza. The servant who brings it is named Jesus. And hes not even a Jew. You always liked irony. Come, Joshua, the angel says you are all the same with us, you can hold him down while I pound him, then we will rejoice in pizza.Raziel has been looking at my writing and is insisting that I stop whining and get on with the story. Easy for him to say, he didnt just spend the last two thousand years buried in the dirt. Nevertheless, he wont allow me order pizza until I finish a section, so here goesI was born in Galilee, the town of Nazareth, in the time of Herod the Great. My father, Alphaeus, was a stonemason and my mother, Naomi, was plagued by demons, or at least thats what I told everyone. Joshua seemed to think she was just difficult. My proper name, Levi, comes from the brother of Moses, the progenitor of the tribe of priests my nickname, Biff, comes from our slang word for a tanginess upside the head, something that my mother said I required at least daily f rom an early age.I grew up under Roman rule, although I didnt see many Romans until I was ten. The Romans mostly stayed in the rampart city of Sepphoris, an hours walk north of Nazareth. Thats where Joshua and I saw a Roman soldier murdered, but Im getting ahead of myself. For now, assume that the soldier is safe and sound and happy wearing a broom on his head.Most of the people of Nazareth were farmers, growing grapes and olives on the rocky hills outside of town and barley and wheat in the valleys below. There were also herders of goats and sheep whose families lived in town while the men and older boys tended the flocks in the highlands. Our theatre of operationss were all made of stone, and ours had a stone floor, although many had floors of hard-packed dirt.I was the oldest of three sons, so even at the age of six I was being prepared to learn my fathers trade. My mother taught my spoken lessons, the Law and stories from the Torah in Hebrew, and my father took me to the tab ernacle to hear the elders read the Bible. Aramaic was my source language, but by the time I was ten I could declare and read Hebrew as well as most of the men.My ability to learn Hebrew and the Torah was spurred on by my friendship with Joshua, for while the other boys would be playing a round of minx the sheep or kick the Canaanite, Joshua and I compete at being rabbis, and he insisted that we stick to the authentic Hebrew for our ceremonies. It was more fun than it sounds, or at least it was until my mother caught us trying to circumcise my microscopic brother Shem with a sharp rock. What a fit she threw. And my argument that Shem needed to renew his covenant with the Lord didnt seem to convince her. She beat me to stripes with an olive switch and forbade me to play with Joshua for a month. Did I mention she was besought with demons?Overall, I think it was good for little Shem. He was the only kid I ever knew who could take around corners. You can make a pretty good living as a defy with that kind of talent. And he never even thanked me.Brothers.Children see magic because they look for it.When I first met Joshua, I didnt know he was the Savior, and neither did he, for that matter. What I knew was that he wasnt afraid. Amid a race of conquered warriors, a people who essay to find pride while cowering before God and Rome, he shone like a bloom in the desert. But maybe only I saw it, because I was looking for it. To everyone else he seemed like just another child the same needs and the same chance to die before he was grown.When I told my mother of Joshuas trick with the lizard she checked me for fever and sent me to my sleeping mat with only a bowl of broth for supper.Ive heard stories about that boys mother, she said to my father. She claims to have spoken to an angel of the Lord. She told Esther that she had borne the Son of God.And what did you say to Esther?That she should be careful that the Pharisees not hear her ravings or wed be picking stones for her punishment.Then you should not speak of it again. I know her husband, he is a righteous man.Cursed with an insane girl for a wife. unfortunate thing, my father said, tearing away a hunk of bread. His hands were as hard as horn, as square as hammers, and as gray as a lepers from the limestone he creamed with. An embrace from him left scratches on my back that sometimes wept blood, yet my brothers and I fought to be the first in his arms when he returned from work each evening. The same injuries inflicted in anger would have sent us crying to our mothers skirts. I load down asleep each night feeling his hand on my back like a shield.Fathers. Do you want to mash some lizards? I asked Joshua when I saw him again. He was drawing in the dirt with a stick, ignoring me. I put my foot on his drawing. Did you know that your mother is mad?My father does that to her, he said sadly, without looking up.I sat down next to him. sometimes my mother makes yipping noises in the night like the wild dogs.Is she mad? Joshua asked.She seems fine in the morning. She sings while she makes breakfast.Joshua nodded, satisfied, I guess, that madness could pass. We used to live in Egypt, he said.No, you didnt, thats too far. Farther than the temple, even. The Temple in Jerusalem was the farthest place I had been as a child. Every spring my family took the five-day walk to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. It seemed to take forever.We lived here, then we lived in Egypt, now we live here again, Joshua said. It was a long way.You lie, it takes forty years to get to Egypt.Not anymore, its close set(predicate) now.It says in the Torah. My abba read it to me. The Israelites traveled in the desert for forty years.The Israelites were lost.For forty years? I laughed. The Israelites must be stupid.We are the Israelites.We are?Yes.I have to go find my mother, I said.When you come back, lets play Moses and Pharaoh.The angel has confided in me that he is going to ask the Lord if he can become Spider-Man. He watches the television constantly, even when I sleep, and he has become obsessed with the story of the hero who fights demons from the rooftops. The angel says that evil looms larger now than it did in my time, and that calls for greater heroes. The children need heroes, he says. I think he just wants to swing from buildings in tight red jammies.What hero could touch these children anyway, with their machines and medicine and distances made invisible? (Raziel not here a week and he would trade the Sword of God to be a blade slinger.) In my time, our heroes were few, but they were real some of us could even trace our kinship to them. Joshua always played the heroes David, Joshua, Moses while I played the evil ones Pharaoh, Ahab, and Nebuchadnezzar. If I had a shekel for every time I was dispatch as a Philistine, well, Id not be riding a camel through the eye of a phonograph needle anytime soon, Ill furcate you that. As I think back, I see that Joshua was practicing for what he would become.Let my people go, said Joshua, as Moses.Okay.You cant just say, Okay.I cant?No, the Lord has hardened your heart against my demands.Whyd he do that?I dont know, he just did. Now, let my people go.Nope. I crossed my arms and turned away like soul whose heart is hardened.Behold as I turn this stick into a snake. Now, let my people goOkay.You cant just say okayWhy? That was a pretty good trick with the stick.But thats not how it goes.Okay. No way, Moses, your people have to stay.Joshua waved his staff in my face. Behold, I will plague you with frogs. They will fill your house and your bedchamber and get on your stuff.So?So thats bad. Let my people go, Pharaoh.I sorta like frogs. loose frogs, Moses threatened. Piles of steaming, stinking dead frogs.Oh, in that case, youd better take your people and go. I have some sphinxes and stuff to build anyway.Dammit, Biff, thats not how it goes I have more plagues for you.I want to be Moses.You cant.Why not?I have the stick.Oh.And so it went. Im not sure I took to playing the villains as easily as Joshua took to being the heroes. Sometimes we recruited our little brothers to play the more loathsome parts. Joshuas little brothers Judah and James played whole populations, like the Sodomites outside of Lots entry.Send out those two angels so that we can know them.I wont do that, I said, playing Lot (a good guy only because Joshua wanted to play the angels), but I have two daughters who dont know anyone, you can meet them.Okay, said Judah.I threw open the door and led my imaginary daughters outside so they could know the SodomitesPleased to meet you.Charmed, Im sure.Nice to meet you.THATS non HOW IT GOES Joshua shouted. Youre supposed to try to break the door down, then I will smite you blind.Then you nullify our city? James said.Yes.Wed rather meet Lots daughters.Let my people go, said Judah, who was only four and often got his stories confused. He particularly liked the Exodus because he and James got to throw jars of water on me as I led my soldiers across the Red Sea after Moses.Thats it, Joshua said. Judah, youre Lots wife. Go stand over there.Sometimes Judah had to play Lots wife no matter what story we were doing. I dont want to be Lots wife.Be quiet, pillars of salinity cant talk.I dont want to be a girl.Our brothers always played the female parts. I had no sisters to torment, and Joshuas only sister at the time, Elizabeth, was still a baby. That was before we met the Magdalene. The Magdalene changed everything.After I overheard my parents talking about Joshuas mothers madness, I often watched her, looking for signs, but she seemed to go about her duties like all the other mothers, tending to the little ones, working in the garden, fetching water, and preparing food. There was no sign of going about on all fours or foaming at the mouth as I had expected. She was younger than many of the mothers, and much younger than her husband, Joseph, who was an old man by the standards of our time. Joshua said that Joseph wasnt his real father, but he wouldnt say who his father was. When the champaign came up, and Mary was in earshot, she would call to Josh, then put her finger to her lips to signal silence.Now is not the time, Joshua. Biff would not understand.Just hearing her say my name made my heart leap. Early on I developed a little-boy love for Joshuas mother that sent me into fantasies of marriage and family and future.Your father is old, huh, Josh?Not too old.When he dies, will your mother marry his brother?My father has no brothers. Why?No reason. What would you think if your father was shorter than you?He isnt.But when your father dies, your mother could marry someone shorter than you, and he would be your father. You would have to do what he says.My father will never die. He is eternal.So you say. But I think that when Im a man, and your father dies, I will take your mother as my wife.Joshua made a face now as if he had bitten into an unripe fig. Dont say that, Biff.I dont mind that shes mad. I like her blue cloak. And her smile. Ill be a good father, Ill teach you how to be a stonemason, and Ill only beat you when you are a snot.I would rather play with lepers than listen to this. Joshua began to walk away.Wait. Be nice to your father, Joshua bar Biff my own father used my full name like this when he was trying to make a point Is it not the word of Moses that you must honor me?Little Joshua spun on his heel. My name is not Joshua bar Biff, and it is not Joshua bar Joseph either. Its Joshua bar JehovahI looked around, hoping that no one had heard him. I didnt want my only son (I planned to sell Judah and James into slavery) to be stoned to death for uttering the name of God in vain. Dont say that again, Josh. I wont marry your mother.No, you wont.Im sorry.I forgive you.She will make an excellent concubine.Dont let anyone tell you that the Prince of Peace never struck anyone. In those early days, before he had become who he would be, Joshua smote me in the nose more than once. That was the first time.Mary would stay my one true love until I saw the Magdalene.If the people of Nazareth thought Joshuas mother was mad, there was little said of it out of respect for her husband, Joseph. He was reinvigorated in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, and there were few wives in Nazareth who didnt serve supper in one of his smooth olive-wood bowls. He was fair, strong, and wise. spate said that he had once been an Essene, one of the dour, ascetic Jews who kept to themselves and never married or cut their hair, but he did not congregate with them, and unlike them, he still had the ability to smile.In those early years, I saw him very little, as he was always in Sepphoris, building structures for the Romans and the Greeks and the landed Jews of that city, but every year, as the Feast of Firsts approached, Joseph would stop his work in the fortress city and stay home(a) carving bowls and spoons t o give to the Temple. During the Feast of Firsts, it was the tradition to give first lambs, first grain, and first fruits to the priests of the Temple. Even first sons born during the year were dedicated to the Temple, either by promising them for labor when they were older, or by a gift of money. Craftsmen like my father and Joseph could give things that they made, and in some years my father fashion mortars and pestles or grinding stones for the tribute, while in others he gave tithes of coin. Some people made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for this feast, but since it fell only seven weeks after Passover, many families could not afford to make the pilgrimage, and the gifts went to our elemental village synagogue.During the weeks leading up to the feast, Joseph sat outside of his house in the shade of an awning he had made, worrying the gnarled olive wood with adze and chisel, while Joshua and I played at his feet. He wore the single-piece tunic that we all wore, a rectangle of fabr ic with neck hole in the middle, belted with a cincture so that the sleeves fell to the elbows and the hem fell to the knees.Perhaps this year I should give the Temple my first son, eh, Joshua? Wouldnt you like to clean the altar after the sacrifices? He grinned to himself without looking up from his work. I owe them a first son, you know. We were in Egypt at the Firsts Feast when you were born.The idea of coming in contact with blood clear terrified Joshua, as it would any Jewish boy. Give them James, Abba, he is your first son.Joseph shot a coup doeil my way, to see if I had reacted. I had, but it was because I was considering my own status as a first son, hoping that my father wasnt thinking along the same lines. James is a second son. The priests dont want second sons. It will have to be you.Joshua looked at me before he answered, then back at his father. Then he smiled. But Abba, if you should die, who will take care of Mother if I am at the Temple? soulfulness will look aft er her, I said. Im sure of it.I will not die for a long time. Joseph tugged at his gray beard. My beard goes white, but theres a lot of life in me yet.Dont be so sure, Abba, Joshua said.Joseph dropped the bowl he was working on and stared into his hands. Run along and play, you two, he said, his voice little more than a whisper.Joshua stood and walked away. I wanted to throw my arms around the old man, for I had never seen a grown man afraid before and it frightened me too. Can I help? I said, pointing to the half-finished bowl that lay in Josephs lap.You go with Joshua. He needs a friend to teach him to be human. Then I can teach him to be a man.