austraLasia #1793

"And Jesus smiled...": a story that communicates. Interview now available

ROME: 20th March 2007 -- The interview with the co-author of The Gospel according to Judas, Fr Frank Moloney, is now available from either the Salesian Digital Library or Bosconet. It should also be available within a day from the Resources section of sdb.org.  For the two former locations, go below to find links.
    "I wrote a fairly spare gospel", Frank says in his interview, "drawing on the Synoptic tradition and nourishing it from the Johannine writings. Archer made the story more vivacious". I asked Frank at one point if he thought it was a better book now than the one he had initially set out to write. "Yes, it is a better book", he says, acknowledging that as difficult as it was (the two almost abandoned the project after a spat over death and resurrection), the creative juices of both writers became a potent mix in the end - and it was the end, or rather the ending that was always going to be difficult.
    Of course I asked him why he tackled the task in the first place.  "There are two engines driving this book", Frank says. "Jeffrey wants to entertain, yes, but he also wants to be successful. He believes this will be a very successful book...I went into it because of who I am and what I do". He went on to explain that after 40 years spent spent in lecturing, writing, indeed telling the story of Jesus, for 99.9% of Christians the gospels are still basically not known or not understood. "They don't know how a gospel works and either read them as 21st century history books or don't read them at all... If this book is successful, and I think it will be, then some of that 99.9% will discover something about the gospels that Professor Moloney, with all his 36 books, could never teach them".
    It's not that Frank thinks of this effort in terms of success, though he's human and he must have gone into it wishing for success, but it's the very subject, Judas (and Peter is not far behind, or was he at times even ahead?), the failed disciple, at least in everyone else's eyes, that leads Frank to say at one point: "I don't know, it's something deep within me, this need to look at failure. The world tells us 'you succeed or you get outa here'. The gospel has a different message". 
    We didn't discuss money, except for a brief excursus on 30 pieces of silver. "It just didn't happen", says Frank.  That was one of his battles - another which he won - with Jeffrey Archer.  He drew up the parallels between Matthew's text (the only evangelist who alludes to the item) and Zechariah and ultimately convinced Jeffrey that what he thought was going to be a centrepiece of his 'vivacious story', might have to get tossed out. "Anzi", as they say in Italian, indeed, Jeffrey the writer suddenly saw another option. A story that denies the 30 pieces of silver!  That will get them reading! That got me smiling - and then I found out that Jesus smiles, many times, in this gospel.
    I haven't transcribed the entire interview, so to apologies to anyone who can't handle a podcast, especially if you are on a slow line. But are you sure you can't?  A local octogenarian here, keen to hear the interview, found it no difficulty at all. My guess is that the only thing that will stop you is your connection. Getting the file to open is merely a double click, and your computer will almost certainly have Media Player, Real Player, Audacity or some other.
    Go Salesian Digital Library or Bosconet homepage what's new to find the file (in the first case enter 'Salesianity - English' and search under 'browse format'. It will be the last item in the 'audio' section. I didn't have an mp3 icon so you get a question mark. Sorry!
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