Pilgrim Soldier

For the first time in a few months I’ve been reading a novel. I saw the book on the shelves of Waterstones and simply felt that I wanted to have a read. The book is called The Last Gospel by archaeologist turned novelist David Gibbins. The story is actually quite an interesting read, but I suspect that we could be looking at the next Da Vinci Code once some Christians pick up on it.

The idea is that the Roman Emperor Claudius met Jesus before he started his ministry and Jesus gave him the only text he actually wrote. So potentially traumatic was this ‘Last Gospel’ that Claudius hid it from view and the book revolves around an archaeologists attempts to recover the text. As always in this type of book the main protagonist is the Roman Catholic church, some members of which will not hold back from murder to protect it from potential scandal or alleged heresy.

Whilst the book is a good read it must be remembered that this is a work of fiction. Unfortunately, if that group of Christians who seem to be more interested in lambasting anything that remotely threatens the ‘truth’ of the faith pick up on this it is likely to become the latest in a increasingly long line of books, films etc that are deemed to be detrimental to our faith. Personally, I couldn’t see anything remotely threatening in it. It simply attempts to perpetuate some of the ridiculous ideas that have been trumped before, including the one about Jesus & Mary Magdalene having a baby!

One positive note is that the book ends with the alleged last words of Christ himself and actually these have some value:

“The kingdom of heaven is on earth.
Men shall not stand in the way of the word of God.
And the kingdom of heaven shall be the house of the Lord.
There shall be no priests.
And there shall be no temples…”

Maybe if we weren’t so caught up in the structures of church, in perpetuating a temple and priestly order; maybe if we concentrated more on being the kingdom then maybe, just maybe the books and films that threaten the established order wouldn’t offend us in the same way.