The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

Saramago’s narrative is a secular re-telling of the Gospel, following the life of Christ from his conception to his crucifixion. A naïve Jesus is the son, not of God, but of Joseph who is chosen to lay down his life for man. In the desert it is not Satan but God that Christ tussles with, an autocrat with whom he has an unbalanced and unsettled relationship. In a contemporary twist, Jesus carries with him his father’s guilt for saving his only child from Herod’s Murder of the Innocents. Saramago presents a Jesus who appreciates the ordinary joys and virtues of human life – family, friendship, love – and who struggles to reconcile these earthly virtues with the desires of God and the consequences of his destiny. By subverting the gospels, Saramago has written a dark and provoking parable, an idiosyncratic, satirical and humane investigation into the origins of Christianity.