Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff

The Bible has plenty to say about the birth of Jesus and almost nothing about the thirty years in between. Christopher Moore's irreverent comic novel sets out to fill that gap — narrated by Levi bar Alphaeus, called Biff, the Messiah's smart-mouthed best friend, who has been resurrected two thousand years later and confined to a hotel room by a television-addicted angel named Raziel to write his own gospel.

Biff's account follows him and his friend Joshua from a dusty childhood in Nazareth on a decades-long journey east, in search of the three wise men who attended Joshua's birth. Along the way the pair study with a magus, a Buddhist monk, and a Hindu holy man as Joshua tries to figure out exactly what it means to be the Son of God — and Biff, ever the pragmatist, chases every worldly pleasure Joshua must forgo.

By turns hilarious, filthy, and unexpectedly moving, Lamb is a warm-hearted, well-researched, gleefully blasphemous romp that pokes fun at every faith of the ancient world while telling a genuine story of friendship, doubt, and devotion.