It is certainly not a serious piece of history. And we shall get it wrong if we treat it as anything else. So what are we to make of this book? Well, on the back cover it states plainly in large letters, ‘THIS IS A STORY’. But then headlines are notoriously misleading, as the Guardian itself acknowledged in its ‘Correction and Clarifications’ column a few days later. But what about – ‘Archbishop of Canterbury Praises Philip Pullman’s Story of Jesus’- a headline in the Guardian directing the reader to a review by Rowan Williams on another page? That turned out, as you might expect, to be a thoughtful assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the book – appreciative of some aspects of it, yes! but rejecting its main thesis. ‘A story about stories falls flat’ – so a reviewer in the Church Times. Others have just been crushingly dismissive. As it is Philip Pullman has received his quota of hate mail – not a new experience for him. If this were a book about the Prophet Muhammad, it would already have earned the author a Fatwa, and he would be taking shelter in a safe house somewhere, à la Salman Rushdie. Review by The Right Reverend George Hacker, former Bishop of Penrith. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
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