Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Throughout the novel, Joshua engages in a passionate fight for justice. When he is a child, his awareness of oppression is formed by his experience of growing up in Roman-occupied Israel. The threat of violent suppression is never far because Roman soldiers monitor any large gatherings of Jewish people with suspicion—even funeral ceremonies. When recounting a boyhood visit to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem, Biff recalls that “[t]he Roman governor would come from Caesarea with his full legion of six thousand men, and each of the other barracks in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee would send a century or two of soldiers to the holy city” (85). In addition to such shows of force, the Roman military enforces their authority through acts of violence and intimidation, especially crucifixion: “[W]hen the Romans caught a Zealot, they didn’t just crucify the leader of the band, they crucified the whole band, their families, and anyone suspected of helping them” (63). Both this threat and the dramatic irony fostered by the reader’s knowledge of Jesus’s life make crucifixion hang over the text as a stark representation of resistance to injustice. During Joshua’s boyhood, he brings a murdered Roman soldier back to life to prevent the sort of widespread bloodshed the passage describes.

Joshua’s journeys abroad give him a new perspective on the problems facing his own society. Moore hence employs a wide geographical scope in the novel to explore this theme. In particular, his time at Kalighat marks a turning point in his struggle against injustice. Biff is horrified by the human sacrifices that Kali’s worshippers perform. Joshua retorts that “[a] man who is born a gentile may not see the kingdom of God. Are we, as Hebrews, any different from them?” (281). Joshua compares the ancient Hindus’ treatment of the Untouchables to the ancient Jewish practice of declaring people with leprosy unclean and ostracizing them from society. When Joshua returns to Israel, he preaches that salvation is open to everyone, including gentiles. Rather than trying to overthrow Israel’s Roman overlords, he confronts the injustices that he sees within Jewish society. He fiercely challenges corruption and hypocrisy, such as when he stops the Pharisees from killing a woman for adultery by inviting someone without sin to throw the first stone.

Joshua’s fight against injustice makes him dangerously powerful enemies, but he sees his impending death as a necessary act of resistance rather than a defeat. Jakan and the other Pharisees’ willingness to use Rome’s might and subject a fellow Jewish person to the agony of crucifixion underlines their corruption and testifies to the need for change. Joshua believes that his passion will destroy “all the corruption, all the pretense [...] that keeps men from knowing God” and that “everything will be new” when he rises from the dead (412). As a result, Moore’s Joshua actively works to ensure his execution because he sees his death as a source of renewal that will make the universe more just and equitable. Biff, on the other hand, sees the crucifixion as the gravest injustice imaginable. Like all of Joshua’s loyal disciples, he attempts to convince his friend “to give up the notion that he had to die to save the rest of us” (414), which reinforces the fact that Biff is largely antagonistic to Christian beliefs in the novel (often to humorous effect). When verbal pleas fail, Biff does everything within his power to prevent Joshua’s arrest and subsequent cruel, torturous death. Eventually, Biff learns that Joshua’s sacrifice succeeded in ushering in the renewal he desired. However, Biff does not discover this until 2,000 years later because he refuses to live in a world so unjust that it demands his best friend’s blood. Moore’s satire encourages his readers to reflect on and resist injustice in their own societies.