Rating: 
Summary: A revisionist life of Christ
Review: This book is probably not for the intensely religious, true believer type, for it paints a very radical view of the life of Christ. From negating the Virgin birth to the real reason for the crucifixion, this book tells us the tale of a very confused individual pushed and pulled by a God with His own selfish agenda for the future. It shows a conflicted man whose entire life is an enigma leading to an ending preordained by a higher power. That being said, it is tremendously well written, with moments of high drama and low comedy. The characters are exceedingly well drawn and the story moves along very well to its tragic conclusion. It turns much of the New Testament on its ear, but does show the power and the future glory of Jesus. There may be a sceptic behind the writing, but there is religion also, and a belief in the ineffable power of God. I'm sure the author may disagree quite violently with me, but he has more faith than he is willing to admit. This book did not shake my own faith or belief, for I recognize that it is fiction, and the author's idea of what happened all that long ago in Israel. He is entitled to his opinion, and I to mine, and that's how intellectual debate lives on.
Rating:
Summary: Another view of a life we all wonder about...
Review: I enjoyed this book because it tells the life of Jesus with an emphasis on the fact that he was a human being, like all of us. like the blatantly sacraligious scenes of Joseph and Mary having sex, or Jesus becoming aroused when he sees a naked woman for the first time. It reveals his human emotions, his fears and doubts. He questions God and his reasons every step of the journey - a message that told me that it is in our nature to doubt, and God or whatever there is wants us to constantly question our existence - or else there is no reason to live. Saramago's sense of humor and creativity come out in the conversations between Jesus, God, and the Devil. The dialouge seems just perfect, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is exactly what was said. Full of great twists and drama ... even though we all know the ending, I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: A Little Healthy Skepticism
Review: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ Let's get this warning written upfront first...if you are a born again Christian or in any other way easily offended by an unorthodox and even blasphemous portrait of one of the most revered and worshiped figures in human history, skip this book entirely. Saramago is not exactly an atheist, but he is a skeptic, and this is a skeptic's look at the Gospels. Saramago plays fast and loose with the canonical Gospel accounts of the life of Christ to create something very different than the comfortable picture of Christ most of us have grown up with. And to my mind, the questions that Saramago raises in his book are good ones, ones that every sincere person of faith should ask. They are not questions that can break a strong faith, but they are ones that hone it and refine it. From the first glowing chapter of this book, I was hooked. Saramago begins the work with a poetic description of the traditional icon of Christ's crucifixion. But from that moment, he wanders far from the Gospel accounts. The first half of the book concerns the events of Christ's birth and boyhood. Joseph, by not warning the citizens of Bethlehem of the murder of the innocents, incurs a bloodguilt that he cannot absolve except by his own mistaken death on the cross years later. This death of his earthly father along with the accompanying sense of bloodguilt haunts the young Jesus and sends him off on a journey to find his own true purpose in life. He spends years as a shepherd apprentice with a man named Pastor who ultimately is the Devil. He meets and falls in love with Mary Magdelene, with whom he lives without the benefit of marriage. He discovers his amazing powers healing and miracle working long before he has any idea of how he is to use them. All through this section, familiar passages from the Gospels such as the calling of the disciples, the walking on the water, and the feeding of the five thousand are presented in unfamiliar guises. Finally, in the last chapter, all of the events of the canonical gospels are condensed into a searing climax. Saramago has a talent for grasping the logical contradictions in Christian faith, though he seems blind to the spiritual depth that lies behind these contradictions. Saramago senses the great paradox between the "all good" God and the need for the atonement of His Son. Saramago's portrait of God is almost a caricature. God is bombastic, greedy for worship and power, and ultimately vain. In many ways, Saramago's version of God resembles the Demiurge of the Gnostics or the Urizen of William Blake....a petty creator god who wants the whole deal for himself. And in Pastor, Saramago creates a devil who's biggest motivator is compassion for the plight of humanity. At times, these characters approach broad comedy. And yet, Saramago is skillful in his handling of language, so that even the most satirical moments have a bittersweet undertone. Throughout the novel, Saramago's prose is brilliant, approaching poetry. Yet it is simple and once you get past the idiosyncratic punctuation, the lines flow beautifully. For language alone, this novel is a wonderful read. Add to that the wealth of historical detail, vivid characterizations and searching questions and this is a novel that challenges the reader to think hard and respond deeply. Saramago's questions challenge Christians, but to my mind they don't break the faith. In fact, a faith that can't stand up to a little blasphemy is not much of a faith at all.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Disturbing
Review: Someone recommended this book to me based on my prior reading habits. I am so very glad they did. This is one of the most simultaneously beautiful and disturbing books I have ever read. As an ex-Catholic, I am always interesting in new and unique versions of religion and god. This book is excellent for that, and for any non-believer, or open minded believer, not to be read by the overzealous!
Rating:
Summary: Poignant, Provocative & Thought Provoking
Review: This re-telling of the life of Christ is a multi-layered masterpiece in the guise of a simple tale, that of the life of Christ on earth. A story told by a bemused skeptic, it is clever and tragic at the same time. Jesus is portrayed from his humble birth until his pre-ordained death and is seen as a simple man who wished only to live his life and who sought to free himself of the mantle of the martyr but who ultimately realized that his destiny was set by God and that he had no choice in the matter. God and the Devil are the puppeteers who pull the strings in Jesus' life and they both know, even in their constant competing with one another, that they cannot exist without the other. Thus, one of the many questions this fascinating novel ponders is the nature of Good vs. that of Evil and how in many respects they parallel one another. God is capricious and selfish, sometimes seeming to ignore blithely the pain and suffering He can inflict on mankind and seeking to have his son be a martyr so that He himself can rule the entire earth. The Devil is the one who teaches Jesus a great deal of what he must learn in order to live his life. The other lessons he is taught by Mary of Magdala, a prostitute who nonetheless understands the true nature of love. The narrator constantly asks taunting questions about God's motives, as well as those of man. As a skeptic myself, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and its exploration of the many philosophical "gray areas" and basic, straightforward questions about the nature of God and of faith. Fascinating reading, classic Saramago. I loved it from start to finish and underlined passage after passage. An amazing and provocative work about a simple man whose philosophy became the basis for a religion, but who was often misunderstood when he was alive and is often still misunderstood today.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent literature, but...
Review: This book is a MUST read for its sheer excellence from the literature point of view. The lack of paragraphs and quotation marks makes it difficult to read sometimes, but there is the unmistakable scent of a literary genius at work throughout this book. Readers must not condemn this book for its atheist and sometimes unnecessarily provocative stance. I, an atheist myself, found the scene where the Devil encourages JC to copulate with a goat quite out of place and offending. However, the book is full of challenging ideas and makes some good points on how religion in general has caused the human race a lot of suffering, mental and physical, sometimes in full contrast with its basic ethical and humanitarian principles. Saramago presents God's greed for power over humans as His only motive for sending His own son to be tortured and crucified, only to set the example for legions of martyrs who must die in order to establish God's reign over humanity. Even if you are a believer, the book presents new points of view on the subject of Jesus Christ's story and I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Rating:
Summary: Revelatory. Transcendent. Challenging. Unforgettable.
Review: I read Saramago's "Gospel" more than a month ago, and it continues to haunt my imagination. Pick it up. Scan the pages. You'll probably think this is a forbidding work, written in dense, often pages-long, paragraphs, with lengthy stretches of run-together dialogue uninterrupted by paragraph indentations or white space. But begin reading, and all hesitation melts away. The writing is stately, scriptural in diction, careful of every nuance. Saramago's original Portuguese, movingly translated into English by Giovanni Pontiero, creates a convincing "gospel voice"--rendered from an ambiguous, perhaps "omniscient," perspective-to portray Jesus of Nazareth in a startlingly new, and believable, way. And into this narrative Saramago adds credible, plausibly motivated, portraits of Joseph, Mary, James "the Brother of Jesus," as well as of both the Deity and the Demon. And, of course, Mary of Magdala. What could a Portuguese atheist (and, perhaps less relevantly, Communist) have to say about the life of Jesus? Don't presume a thing. Simply read, slowly. What will first be apparent is that Saramago respects your intelligence and the sources, and he has done his homework in speculating on how the historical gaps might be filled in: he knows the New Testament, has studied the "Gnostic Gospels" of NT apocrypha, has read his Josephus and other near-contemporary accounts of the "Jewish Wars" and first-century Palestine, and seems familiar with the scholarly Jesus Seminar findings. You will then note the expected traces of irony--sometimes fired from unexpected directions--but here deployed surprisingly to draw out the humanity of Jesus's nature and, in my view, to lure the reader into an early misreading of the author's intent. Indeed, the spell Saramago creates throughout the novel's first half issues from what seems a predictably humanistic, psychological point of view. That changes. But I don't feel I can say any more about the direction Saramago takes his story without spoiling for others what was for me a surprising and thrilling narrative transformation, with a string of unexpected, powerful payoffs. Nor can I pretend to say with any confidence that I know which readers Saramago's novel will appeal to most. Each will find Saramago's telling of the Jesus story challenging in his or her own way. What I can do, though, is encourage you-if Saramago's stature as a Nobel laureate is insufficiently encouraging-to keep an open mind, read the book, and ponder the philosophical and theological questions raised in an unforgettable work of literary art.
Rating:
Summary: Provocative, poetic, a real masterpiece!
Review: One of the most known and controversial story is told in a most poetic way possible. If you think you are open minded, don't miss it. In spite of the popularity of The Last Tempation of Christ, this book deserves more appreciation with Saramogo's bold fiction and tasteful writing.
Rating: 
Summary: 2000 years short of being original
Review: Saramago probably masters his native language amazingly well, but he has the mindframe of a marxist professor of the 50ies, and as much as he can try, he just can't think out of it. He is disturbingly pompous and predictable while pretending to be original and provocative. He pretends to tell the life of Jesus "as if Jesus had been a real man". If this book had been published 2000 or more years ago , it would (maybe) be a nice provocation. Being himself a marxist who has not understood a bit about christianity, he misses the forest for the trees and thinks it is daring to tell how Jesus was peeing as a kid. Jose, wake up! Worth reading, to see how clumsy he gets.
Rating:
Summary: Saramago wasn't "forced" to leave the country...
Review: I don't know why he left, but he wasn't forced to, I think he just got fed up with it. The catholic church lost most of its power ever since the dictatorship was overturned in April 74, so they couldn't possibly impose something like that.
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