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A review by flijn
The Fire Gospel by Michel Faber
2.0
Theo Griepenkerl finds an ancient Aramaic text in the ruins of an Iraki museum. As a liguist and specialist in Aramaic, he recognizes that this is een eyewitness accont of Jesus's last days. He smuggles it home, translates it, and publishes it as 'The Fifth Gospel', by the former spy and late convert Malchus. Controverse ensues.
It's a promising plot, but I was disappointed. This book feels rushed and unfinished. This is because Theo is, at best, a humourless and boring man. The main character doesn't have to be likeable, but he should be interesting. Theo is just annoying. Since the other characters are just puppets to spurr the story onward, it is hard to really connect with it.
I also found the controverse caused by this gosel quite unbelievable. Sure, a find like that would be very interesting and provocative. But biblical scholarship tends not to be the deciding factor in people's faith. I don't believe that many people would lose faith because of the Gospel of Malchus like it is presented here. It would be a curiosity and everyone would take from it that which confirms their beliefs.
The gospel itself is another issue I have with this book. It is laughable. Theo describes his translation somewhere as "... a balance between the no-nonsense directness of the original Aramaic and the sort of weird Elizabethan-Hebrew hybrid that people are used to from the King James." (p. 64) He also notes Malchus is a bore. Fine, so were a lot of Biblical authors. But it would have been nice if I could have imagined for a second that this gospel was authentic.
It's a promising plot, but I was disappointed. This book feels rushed and unfinished. This is because Theo is, at best, a humourless and boring man. The main character doesn't have to be likeable, but he should be interesting. Theo is just annoying. Since the other characters are just puppets to spurr the story onward, it is hard to really connect with it.
I also found the controverse caused by this gosel quite unbelievable. Sure, a find like that would be very interesting and provocative. But biblical scholarship tends not to be the deciding factor in people's faith. I don't believe that many people would lose faith because of the Gospel of Malchus like it is presented here. It would be a curiosity and everyone would take from it that which confirms their beliefs.
The gospel itself is another issue I have with this book. It is laughable. Theo describes his translation somewhere as "... a balance between the no-nonsense directness of the original Aramaic and the sort of weird Elizabethan-Hebrew hybrid that people are used to from the King James." (p. 64) He also notes Malchus is a bore. Fine, so were a lot of Biblical authors. But it would have been nice if I could have imagined for a second that this gospel was authentic.