MILLICENT [JELL
57
past by the desire to subvert the conventional produces a bland retelling
that fleshes out the L3ible story in a way that might easily be exceeded for
inventive extrapolation by an inspired gospel preacher eager
to
"bring
home" the story to his auditors. Mailer adds no new episodes, introduces
no startling challenge
to
traditional doctrinal interpretations. Where he
might have taken advantage of modern speculation that revises the Gospels
he doesn't do so, unlike such recent controversial polemicists as A. N.
Wilson
Ueslls: A
LiM
or john I)ominic Crossan
(Who Killed )eslls? Exposill,r?
the Roots
'!f
Allli-SclllilislII ill Ihe Cospel Story 41h1' Dcnth 4)1'SIIS),
who argue,
for example, that jesus was the victim of the l"Z.ol11an state rather than of
his fellow jews.
Mailer's jesus presents himself as undertaking, somewhat querulously,
to
set the record straight, but hardly changes much. "While I would not
say that Mark's gospel is ElIse, it has much exaggeration. And I would offer
less for Matthew, and for Luke and john, who gave me words I never
uttered." Of the Sermon on the Mount, Mailer's jesus says,
Later those who becaJlle l11y scribes. and most notably M;mhew, in his
gospel. would speak of my Sermon on the Mount. They had me say–
ing
all
Jllanner of things, and some were the opposite of others.
Matthew put so many s,lyings together, indeed, that he might as well
have had mL' not ceasing
to
speak for
~l
lL1y and a night, allli speaking
out of two mouths th ,lt did not listen to eJch other.
That Mailer makes jesus commit the solecism of referring to listening
mouths may not be important. L3ut hisjesus immediately refutes himselfby
recapitulating, in their usual order, both Matthew's L3eatitudes and most of
jesus's subsequent remarks about those who are the "light of the world,"
about turning the other cheek and loving one's enemy, about the lilies of
the field, and other things, with the inclusion of the Lord's Prayer. Mailer
does exclude a good deal , including some of the best of the parables, per–
haps because they are not so much events in the narrative of jesus's life as
stories within the story, or perhaps because they are too ambiguous for his
matter-of-fact Son. His al terations in the direction of a supposi tional ver–
ity include occasional naturalistic explanation; one miracle, the miracle of
the loaves and fishes , is explained as simply having been a matter of cutting
up the original small amounts of each into tiny pieces and distributing
these in the place
0[-
full portions. L3ut there is no consistent effort in this
direction; Mailer's jesus raises the dead, walks on water, and does most of
his reputed miracles without strain.
