iTestament

Scrolling through biblical history with
Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus
and the Scoundrel Christ iPhone app

by JULIET WATERS

Philip Pullman is best known as the author of the classic young adult trilogy His Dark Materials. He’s also widely known as one of England’s most vocal atheists, so his decision to write a revision of the Gospels is unusual in itself. There’s something almost eerie about the timing of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, especially if you read it, like I did, as an iPhone app.

The app first became available just after Easter but I started reading Good Man a couple of weeks later, at the peak of two news stories: the public outrage towards the Catholic Church and its neverending history of sex scandals, and the hype surrounding the release of the iPad. Let’s put aside, for the moment, the corruption of religious institutions, a favourite Pullman theme. There’s something a little surreal about the fact that one of the oldest books in the history of print is one of the first examples of how Apple is transforming literature.

The hardcover of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is listed at $27.95. For this you get a compelling story that will probably be of more interest to people who know the New Testament than those who’ve never read it. In Pullman’s version, Jesus has a twin brother named Christ, who’s passive, lacking in charisma and living in the shadow of his more creative, driven brother. At the urging of an unnamed Stranger, Christ begins secretly writing down a version of Jesus’s life that tends to spin his stories to serve the needs of a church the Stranger is already planning. It’s a great story, and last time I checked, you can even get it for the low price of $16.95 online.

But for that same $16.95, if you buy it as an app at the iTunes store, here’s what you get: a book in both text and audio form. The audio book is read by Pullman in his best former British public school teacher voice, and you can even sync between the two, reading while listening, or switching to audio while you do the dishes. While some people balk at reading a book on a tiny screen, I’m finding myself adapting to it so well that I’m almost starting to prefer it.

Like the best reading apps, Pullman’s book has a scroll feature. This means that instead of flipping pages, the text is reduced to columns that can be put on automatic scroll, which means you can almost watch a book like television, not having to move your eyes constantly from right to left. (There’s a reason that most versions of the Bible, not to mention newspapers and magazines, are laid out in columns, and I’m not quite sure why books stopped doing that.)

The app also includes six short video interviews with Pullman, like a DVD. If you happen to be one of the people who recently threatened to kill him for his blasphemy (Pullman now has to go to readings with bodyguards), consider watching the interview in which he explains his views on religion.

“There’s a difference,” Pullman explains, “between being an atheist and being an enemy of religion.” Pullman makes it clear that though he himself doesn’t believe in God, he harbours no contempt or disrespect for people who do. “The target of my hatred is always those who use religion to wield political power. This is where the poison gets into religion.” And here Pullman believes that he and Jesus are perfectly in sync.

All this app is missing is a History Channel-style documentary explaining how once there were many different gospels, until the official church whittled them down to four. But for now, I’m so thrilled to have the ability to easily bookmark, highlight and type notes on my latest version of the Bible that if it turns out Steve Jobs really is the new Guttenberg, I for one welcome my new Apple Overlord.

THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE
SCOUNDREL CHRIST BY PHILIP
PULLMAN, CANONGATE, AVAILABLE
ON ITUNES FOR $16.95