austraLasia #1732
Pride and prejudice, Gospel and
Culture - story-telling the Word
LONDON: 10th January 2007 -- Given that The Times, the New York Times,
The Herald Tribune, the Sydney Morning Herald and several other
notable world dailies have run their pre-publicity blurb on Jeffrey Archer's The
Gospel of Judas, it seems at least an appropriate moment for austraLasia to
mention it, not least because the 'gospel' (Archer insists it is not a novel)
has been co-written by Fr Frank Moloney, currently provincial of the Australian
Province. Frank, incidentally, is recovering at the moment from a rather
nasty but urgent surgical intervention to remove a gall-bladder.
Pre-publicity serves up only what it has been fed with, and
it has been in the interest of author(s) and publisher alike to feed just the
tasty morsels - Judas in need of some rehabilitation; he didn't race off and
hang himself for a few pieces of silver; he was in fact a much-trusted disciple
of Jesus, a tad disillusioned, and so forth - but I thought it better to avoid
the fairly scurrilous tone of most of the big dailies, who 'have it in' for
Archer, and who simply toss off the line that Frank is an eminent Scripture
scholar or, as one writer thought, a 'religious historian'.
No, better by far to go to the publisher and track down
someone responsible to see what they have to say. Richard Charkin of Macmillan,
who is kind enough to blog about his books, says 'I'm pretty certain that a
significant number of people will demonstrate their unshakable prejudices
about Lord Archer but I am proud to be
publishing this book (on March 20th worldwide) and I know it is ruthlessly
scholarly, entertaining and important'. He is also, as far as I know, the
only person so far who has correctly identified Frank - not only as a Scripture
scholar, but as an author of no mean ability and output himself.
Which brings to mind his A Hard Saying, The Gospel and
Culture, a collection of essays on topics which relate the Word of God
written 'then' to 'now' and deal with difficult areas like Jesus' relationship
with women, celibacy and discipleship, the Eucharist as Jesus' presence to the
broken. It should be no surprise to anyone who knows and has read Frank
that he would relish another difficult challenge, to apply some scholarship to
a re-reading of Judas, but in a way which addresses today's culture as well,
especially when it comes to belief and commitment. Story-telling the Word has
something to do with the last word in the Bible - Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus. It will be nice if this item of fiction is another
step to that end.
We know that Archbishop Desmond Tutu willingly accepted the
task of providing an audio version of the book, now completed. He also wanted
to make sure it didn't contain any 'oops', as he called them! His view,
ultimately? In terms of biblical scholarship 'it passes muster'. He also
thinks it has a ring of authenticity - in that a son would want to defend his
father from calumny.
A few facts: the book is written as a gospel, verses and
all, and its narrator is Benjamin Iscariot, our fictional Judas's fictional
son. 'Others do not begin to understand, or fairly record, Judas's passionate
belief and commitment to Jesus of Nazareth', the authors write. There are just
22,000 words in the work.
Interestingly enough, even though a number of commentators
describe Lord Archer as a self-publiciser of note, neither his name nor Frank's
appear on the front cover.
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