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

nice?”
    Sometimes you find yourself grateful for the most unlikely things. Right then, when I saw Judas grit his teeth and the vein stand out on his forehead, I said a quick prayer of thanks for Nathaniel’s naïveté.
    “He does smell nice,” said Bartholomew. “It makes one want to reassess one’s values regarding the material comforts.”
    “Thank you, Bart,” said Joshua.
    “Yes, there’s nothing like a good-smelling man,” said John dreamily. Suddenly we were all very uncomfortable and there was a lot of throat-clearing and coughing and we all walked a few paces farther apart. (I haven’t told you about John, have I?) Then John started to make a great and pathetic show of noticing the women as they passed. “Why, that little heifer would give a man some strong sons,” John said in a booming and falsely masculine voice. “A man could surely plant some seed there, he could.”
    “Please shut up,” James said to his brother.
    “Maybe,” said Philip, “you could have your mother come over and tell that woman to cleave unto you.”
    Everyone snickered, even Joshua. Well, everyone except James. “You see?” he said to his brother. “You see what you’ve started? You little nancy.”
    “There’s a nubile wench,” exclaimed John unconvincingly. He pointed to a woman who was being dragged toward the city gates by a group of Pharisees, her clothes hanging in shreds on her body (which indeed appeared to be nubile, so credit to John for working outside of his element).
    “Block the road,” Joshua said.
    The Pharisees came up to our human blockade and stopped. “Let us pass, Rabbi,” the oldest of them said. “This woman has been caught in the act of adultery this very day and we’re taking her out of the city to be stoned, as is the law.” The woman was young and her hair fell in dirty curls around her face. Terror had twisted her face and her eyes were rolled back in her head, but an hour ago she had probably been pretty.
    Joshua crouched and began writing in the dust at his feet. “What’s your name?” he asked.
    “Jamal,” said the leader. I watched Joshua write the man’s name, then next to it a list of sins.
    “Wow, Jamal,” I said. “A goose? I didn’t even know that was possible.”
    Jamal dropped the adulteress’s arm and stepped back. Joshua looked up at the other man who was holding the woman. “And your name?”
    “Uh, Steve,” said that man.
    “His name is not Steve,” said another man in the crowd. “It’s Jacob.”
    Joshua wrote “Jacob” in the dust. “No,” said Jacob. He let go of the woman, pushing her toward us. Then Joshua stood up and took the stone from the man nearest him, who surrendered it easily. His attention was focused on the list of sins written in the dirt. “Now let us stone this harlot,” Joshua said. “Whoever of you is without sin, cast the first stone.” And he held out the stone to them. They gradually backed away. In a moment they had all gone back the way they had come and the adulteress fell to Joshua’s feet and hugged his ankles. “Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you so much.”
    “That’s okay,” said Joshua. He lifted her to her feet. “Now go, and sin no more.”
    “You really smell good, you know that?” she said.
    “Yeah, thanks. Now go.”
    She started off. “I should make sure she gets home okay,” I said. I started off after her, but Joshua caught the back of my tunic and pulled me back. “You missed the ‘sin no more’ part of my instructions?”
    “Look, I’ve already committed adultery with her in my heart, so, you know, why not enjoy it?”
    “No.”
    “You’re the one who set the standards. By those rules, even John committed adultery with her in his heart, and he doesn’t even like women.”
    “Do too,” said John.
    “To the Temple,” Joshua said, pressing on.
    “Waste of a perfectly good adulteress, if you ask me.”

    In the outer court of the Temple, where the women and the Gentiles were allowed to go, Joshua called us all together and began to preach the kingdom. Each time he would get started, a vendor would come by barking, “Get your doves. Get your sacrificial doves. Pure as the driven snow. Everybody needs one.” Then Joshua would begin again and the next vendor would come by.
    “Unleavened bread! Get your unleavened bread! Only one shekel. Piping hot matzo, just like Moses ate on the way out of Egypt, only fresher.”
    And a little girl who was lame was brought to Joshua and he