How Philip Pullman’s book split Jesus and Christ

How Philip Pullman’s book split Jesus and Christ

NEW DELHI, April 29: The messiah descends on earth as a classic “split personality” - good Jesus and his twin, the scoundrel Christ - in the new novel by Philip Pullman who believes he must have been “a genius and one of the greatest storytellers”.

Published in April, it is a contemporary and radical retelling of the story of Jesus Christ.“He was a genius, one of the greatest storytellers who ever lived. I simply don’t believe in the miracles like the resurrection, but the parables and the moral teachings are magnificent,” London-based Pullman told IANS in an e-mail interview.He said he has “analysed and re-interpreted the gospels” but did not want his book, The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ, to read like one.

“It certainly was not my intention to write ‘an alternative gospel’ or ‘the gospel according to Pullman’ or anything of that sort. I wanted to tell the story of Jesus, which is an extraordinary one.”“His life was full of stories - the stories he told. When I thought of splitting the character into two brothers, one called Jesus and the other called Christ, I saw the way to tell it,” he said.