Mike (the Paladin)'s Reviews > Behold the Man

I can understand why a Christian would take a dislike to this book but I think that it's a shame you cannot appreciate the story which I think you may well have done if it had been about a different or fictional religion.

Somehow though I don't think it would have been as effective had it been about a made up religion or even another real religion. It had to have some of the characteristics that only Christianity has.

It would be interesting to know if there are any christians who have liked this story, despite it's rough handling of some things which they innevitably hold dear...

Well, you'll note I defended the right of the writer to write the book.

To me Christ is real, the Son of God, one member or part of God (the term Trinity is usually used). So to read this is painful and a slap at my basic beliefs. (I am basically a Moorcock fan, but he has a couple of books I steer clear of)I think those who will be hurt by the book should be able to have an idea of what it contains before purchasing it. In the American debate over national health care a friend in a discussion brought up the struggle I had to get care for my late wife over the two years she was bed fast. My insurance had been tied into my job, so when I ended up disabled I lost her insurance. Thus we had a continual struggle to get provider care. But once that was brought onto the conversation, it changed any point he was trying to make. The same goes here. To me and (I would think) most Christians the same applies here. Christ is real to me, not a mythical figure to be manipulated for a story.

So, I'm all for his rights, but I get nothing from it but offense and pain.

Just another thought. You mentioned that it might not have been so effective had another religion been used. What do you think might have been the reaction (world-wide) had Mohammad been used in a story like this? Christians come in for this sort of thing because the one caricatured in this book taught peace.

So as I said, read the book, I defend the right of the author, and the publisher, and the readers to have it. But please understand that many of us not only have no use for it, it also hurts us.

Sure, I see what you're saying. It's difficult for an athiest to understand how something like this can upset someone so much because...anything that an athiest regards as an objective fact, they don't mind someone postulating that it isn't for the purposes of fiction.

I guess I would have to imagine someone writing a story about someone I knew and loved (like my wife) which portrayed them in a very bad way. Even if it claimed only to be fiction, it would still upset me.

That's probably still not a proper analogy but it's probably as close as an athiest can get to understanding the religous point of view to books like this.

I'm a religious person (I guess you could say I'm a very liberal Christian, or a deist who thinks that some parts of Christianity are cool), and I thought this book was OK. Interesting story, if totally cynical and didactic. I am usually a big fan of religious-based SF. I love PKD's gnostic novels - they play with some religious taboo, but they do so in a much more sincere and far less cynical manner.

It does raise an interesting question, though. What was more important: that Jesus was who he said he was (the divine), or the act of his self-sacrifice? I think even a non-Christian can view the story, the myth if you will, of Jesus' self-sacrifice and life as being a good story that contains an element of truth; if we live our lives serving other people, putting them before us, the world would be a better place.

I will try to answer the question you raised as most Christian believers would.

Please don't take this as a dogmatic correction...I emphasize again that freedom of speech and freedom of belief are essential and all I'm doing here is explaining a general belief. Personal belief is essential to liberty.

The sacrifice was and is what it was and is because it was Jesus the Christ Who made it. I can not sacrifice myself for you and take your condemnation if I stand condemned myself. Even the best and most righteous of humans are not Holy. But God loves us and made provision for us all. (If you want we can talk about why the terrible things that go on here do if God loves us. I don't want to force the discussion).

Many of my Christian brothers and sister will disagree with what I'm about to say (and that of course is fine). God through Christ made provision for all humanity....I said ALL humanity. So far as I can tell the only people who want be with God in the end are the ones who knowingly and with freedom of will choose not to be. Not just the ones who are Christians now.

Okay. I've probably ticked somebody off. I'm not trying to lecture here, just answer the thoughts that came up.

Mike: Well said. You have specifically stated your belief in freedom of sppech and reading; yet indicated why you, as a Christian, will not read this book.

As a Christian also, I was given this book one and would not read it--I gave it away.

I would still read it if I were you. It is a good learning experience to be offended, and to have your own beliefs challenged. I would also wonder how strong a person's convictions really are if a work of science fiction shakes them up too much.

I have tried to remain non-confrontational here and I wish to remain so. This book does not "shake my convictions". One can skim a book and decide if it's worth reading or not. I have tried to explain that the book does not challenge my beliefs, but does impune them. I have gone through several years of study and came to my beliefs after much thought. I'll give details if you wish, but won't go on and on if you don't wish to read.

The book is one that casts Christ as a drooling idiot and then tells of the protagonist dying supposedly as an act of sacrifice, though he dies saying it was a mistake. I'm aware of the content, and simply have no use for it.

Please, read it, enjoy it...but don't imply that someone finding the book insulting means they have not considered their own belief. The story in this book is insulting. If one is a believer the things said are blasphemous and painful...not challenging or insightful.

Again I close by saying...I support your right to read, like and defend, praise or whatever this book. Please do. My dislike is just that, not some weakness in judgement or faith.

I was speaking to Mary who said she would not read it.

You obviously did read it. And didn't like it - that's totally cool.

I've disliked a few books for similar reasons as yourself.

And as far as this one book goes, I would only go as far to say it is OK, and deeply cynical and didactic to a fault.

I do really like a lot of the author's other books - the Elric Saga especially.

If anything, I think the didactic nature of this book reveals more about Moorcock, the man, than it does any bone he might have had to pick with Christianity, and so it sheds a certain amount of light on the author which helps to view his body of work.

I mentioned in my review, I to am a Moorcock fan. I like most of his Eternal Champion cycle. Elric, Hawkmoon, and to a lesser extent Prince Corum. However this book, or The War hound and the Worlds Pain...a few others, not so much.

Try to be understanding though, please. I would think a great many Christians who know much about Behold the Man would steer clear of it and it wouldn't indicate a weakness in their faith.

It just goes to show how we all draw our own lines, right?

I'm sure many Christians would be offended by the pagan or flat out demonic nature of some of the stuff presented in Elric, as well as the perceived immorality in many of Moorcock's other books. He does have a pervasive anti-religious message that runs through a great deal of his work.

Mostly I don't have a problem with imaginary religious systems, and I probably read more fantasy than any other single genre. The problem here was the direct assault on the Biblical account. It's like the series of movies where they use the name Gabriel for a fallen angel. I haven't watched those as I believe that Gabriel is a real being...sort of like slander.

I don't think I'm overly sensitive. The idea of using the word "demon" or "angel" doesn't spook me. They are just words and can be misapplied. It's only a story is a phrase that does have some meaning. This book is just too much of a direct assault on Christian belief, for me. Feel free to look through my book list and see the fantasy entries.

Mike, I have this book on my shelf and your review has made me decide to make it my next read. I am a Christian also. I have a tendency to read the books that get the Christian community in an uproar and judge for myself. I thought the Harry Potter series was wonderful and that the critics were way off-base about it. On the other hand, I couldn't finish The Golden Compass because it directly attacked the Roman Catholic faith AND Pullman just flat-out made up Bible quotes from Genesis. If he had called the religion something different and used a made-up holy book, that would have been different. His attack was not allegorical, it was direct.

I wonder if I should have hated Good Omens. I thought it was brilliantly funny in satirizing end-times hysteria. When I finished, I thought "Maybe I should be offended." However, I wasn't.

Hi Mike, good review. I just saw it through a friends liking it.

I've just recently gotten into Moorcock's Elric books, and I wasn't really aware that he'd written anything like this. I think after readinging your review it has to be bumped up on my to-read list just for curiosity's sake.

I think that there is a line that can be crossed in certain books, where things can change from fiction with borrowed aspects of christianity into things which are just insulting. I've read quite a few novels which feature 'angels' but it doesn't bother me much because mostly they seem to be just borrowing it as a name for a humanoid creature with wings.

And recently I read Kushiel's Dart, in which their mythology is based on christianity, but their diety elua was born from the earth at the crucifiction when Jesus' blood mingled with Magdalen's tears. And then he took some angel companions with him and they founded a civilation. I thought it was an interesting concept, to begin a fictional mythology based on what I consider a reality, but since I could see it as pure fantasy, it was easy to just enjoy the story.

Hi. Sandi, Sath, I like a lot of Pratchett's books. While he's obviously by no stretch writing from a Christian point of view (and has said he's not a believer) he still does his writing with humor and hasn't (at least it doesn't seem to me) condescended or looked down on believers as somehow "hopelessly ignorant" or something. Moorcock's book it seem to me did. It felt very sneering to me, but I admit that's subjective.

As for Pullman, I tried to get to through his work also. I'd had started the Harry Potter books with my kids (of course the way they came out my kids were grown by the time the series completed). Like you (also) I love the HP books. I'm not Roman Catholic, but Pullman's stuff is so obviously anti-Christian that it can be like being pummeled.

I have avoided Kushiel's Dart after looking at it. I haven't condemned it as I haven't read it, just perused it. I have Goodreads friends who have liked it and others who have reservations. I side stepped it because of the subject matter. I to tend to read books for myself and decide what I think.

The Christian community seems at times to get carried away one way or another about books. You mentioned the Harry Potter fu-farah (foo-farah? how do you spell that?) and I kept wondering if the people who were proclaiming it dangerous ever heard the phrase "it's a story"?. On the other hand I wasn't taken with The Purpose-Driven Life Journal or The Shack or some of the other popular Christian reads.

This book however and some others simply seem to constitute almost an attack, sneering (as I said before) at any believers who happen to pick it up. It's not that it may somehow "threaten what you believe' as I would hope believers have thought that through. It's just that if you do believe Jesus is Christ and love Him this is like a slap.

I always wonder if Mr. Moorcock would write a book like this about the Islamic prophet? It seems only Christians are expected to put up (silently) with blasphemy of the dearest beliefs...oh well.

By the way Sath, what I know of Kushiel's Dart came mostly from Lady Danielle (the book huntress)'s review and a couple of other Goodreads friends. If you read it I'll be interested in your review.

Good review. I tend to have a horrible curiosity, but being a Christian, this seems like a book I should steer clear from.

You say that you felt like it was insulting, and I got that same feeling from watching Noah, starring Russell Crowe. I would be a hypocrite if I said it should be censored, due to the offensive take it had on the story, but I hold freedom of speech very highly - and if ideas, movies, books, were censored simply because it offended my beliefs, then who's to say the opposite can be true?

That being said, I believe he took too much of an artistic license to make Noah into a homicidal, family-killing, maniac. And in the end his rebellion against God and his commandments were treated as an act of love. It was a bit too much for me.

Reading this conversation has really made me question myself though. Where to draw the line, exactly? Do you judge a book by it's merits as a story or on it's ethics? I started reading The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, because it was recommended to me. It was a decent three star book, but the sheer amount of casual sex in it bothered me... I proceeded to read the sequel, in the hopes it would get toned down a bit, but instead it got worst. After 50-90 pages I was just done. Couldn't read it anymore.

I liked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I can't say that the life styles exemplified something I can agree with but that's just the way it is.

Here the book purports to relate the story of Jesus through the eyes of a time traveler. It then proceeds to trash Jesus Himself, the "Gospels" (as in the 4 bios in the Bible) and all believers.

That said I emphasize that I'm not suggesting any type of censorship. I believe in free speech. People need to decide for themselves what they will read, watch, listen to etc. I simply reviewed this to give a heads up to those who would rather avoid it. It is offensive. That said all kinds of books are offensive to all kinds of people. Many "radical" atheists will love this book as will people in radical arms of some anti-Christian groups.

I wasn't offended by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (for example) as it's told by a guy living as he lives. His actions, words and thoughts may not agree with mine...the things pictured in the book may be repulsive, but they are told as a straight up story. The evil is shown (in the long run) to be evil.

In the end we all need to decide for ourselves (and for us Christians that means before God) where any lines will be drawn. But we need to defend freedom of speech and press if for no other reason than that there are a LOT of people out there who would like to censor Christian views.

It's better to have a million different viewpoints conflicting with each other than one viewpoint that's dominant, I agree. I do find it strange how in a lot of societies people can face jail-time for showing Islam in a bad light, but the same isn't true for Christianity... I wonder why that is?

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a much more personal thing with me. It's not offensive in the sense that it attacks or persecutes other people's beliefs... It's just something that me (personally) found for uncomfortable reading... even if it is just a fictional story, I have a fear of becoming desensitized to certain things. And like I said I finished the first one, but the sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, had much more heavy content. As a reader, I find pornographic scenes, not just on a moral level, make for uninteresting reading.

I get that. Also I think we as a society have become desensitized to a lot of things.

"offensive, painful, and even blasphemous"... well, the only living beings in this world aren't exactly ONLY christian - there happen to be A FEW OTHERS. I'd like to mention that the name of the religion is DEFINITELY not capitalised. Please don't feel overtly offended.

Blasphemous is relative: you feel offended when your specific religiousities get offended.

Literature is supposed to be appreciated, regardless of whether it comes from the bottomless and abominable pit of British Un-Remarkableness, or American Crassity.

Literature doesn't have a colour or a race.

Oh, also to mention - GoodReads, being an entirely American concept, will definitely find my comment OFFENSIVE. ARE THEY ANTI-CHRISTIAN, or in-remarkably, stupidly, SECULAR?

Also, since you are an entirely devout christian, aren't you HOMO-PHOBIC?

You miss the point. First a review is subjective thus this is my opinion and my take on the book to be taken by perspective readers as they will.

You approach the book from a different point of view and are free to review it as (for example) an atheist, an agnostic, a Taoist. a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu or whatever.

As to homosexuality you statement is closed minded and ignorant. Homosexuals are loved by God. Does the Bible list it as a lifestyle that is unacceptable to God?

Yes.

BUT if you look at the lists where it is listed as a sin you'll see it next to lying and heterosexual sins. Homosexuals are welcome to worship in our congregations as are lairs, people who have cheated on their taxes, people who have sexual fantasies, those who risk their health through smoking, over eating and many other sins that HAVE BEEN COVERED BY GOD'S GRACE.

Yes we need to work on change in our lives but I leave that between God and each person who may come to me for help. I'm not called to judge anyone. I am called to spread the "GOOD NEWS" that Christ covered all sin and wants all to be saved. Again I leave growth and change in others between them and God and do what I can if asked.

By the way, I'm a (an assistant) minister so...

Thanks for the warning. Not a book for me.

I wish I had seen your review before I read this awful thing!

Well as mentioned I was (at the time) reading Mr. Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. There are some books that are sort of peripheral to the series so I was picking up many of his books. This is one of a few books by him that I found personally distasteful.

That said let me repeat that I in no way support any censorship. I just thought that many people would like to know up front (so to speak) what the book concerned. I laid it aside after skimming it and of course can't recommend it.

Sorry you didn't see my review first, LOL. maybe avoid The War Hound and the World's Pain also. Not as bad as this one but still a total misunderstanding of Christian Theology.

I wish I had been able to answer so eloquently when somone criticised my review on goodreads. You have made me feel much better about my own review and my right to say I was upset by the book. If someone had said such things about anothers mother and family it would have been considered disgusting so to say it about who I believe to be the Mother and Son of God was just too much for me.
Thank you Mike

I know. Christians are expected to smile and take no offense. This is of course odd as "at this point in history" it is fashionable to present Christians as dangerous or downright evil in books, movies and on TV.

We are even sneered at (yeah I know that was grammatically incorrect) when we point out the double standard.

I doubt anyone would write a book like this concerning Mohammad.

Still they are actually correct in one way. As Christians we are called to forgive. It's just getting difficult as we try to set the record straight and we keep getting muzzled.

Reading your review got me wondering if I should still read this. Thanks to your thoughts I will take it like a controversial story like The Davinci Code and read it and see if it has any qualities or interesting aspects, etc. on its own and see if it is just a cleverly written story or something deliberately mean or harsh against beliefs.

Not really sure. Moorcock's Eternal Champion cycle of books is one of my favorite fantasy series. However there are a few that sort of slap Christians in the face. Whether he is just an atheist and thinks nothing of it or he's doing it purposefully I have no idea. I only thought some readers would like a heads up as I'm sure this book would be upsetting for some readers.

That said as I observed earlier, I suppose you don't see this type of book written about Mohammad because the reaction would likely be...more intense.

This book felt puerile and juvenile. It's neither clever nor thought-provoking. It's like a teen who still thinks saying "Shit!" is a DARING statement.

im an atheist w regards to all theistic religions, so I wasnt offended by it but was puzzled

this book felt so empty and without anything to take away. the protagonis

it d

the protagonist simply role plays his way into mythology. and thats it.

there is no character arc, no interesting plot turns, the chrcters are 1 dimensional and boring, copy pasted from scriptures but debased at the same time.

it was an empty read.

i cant believe this was nominated for a Hugo. the only scifi element is a poorly developed egg like time machine.

You didn't review the book at all. You just claimed offence... Silly theists...

He did review the book. I'm guessing you didn't read his review.

I was going to ask the same thing. Did you read my review? I gave a short synopsis and my personal take. I stated that it was subjective and gave my reasons.

I get "SingularSuperNinja" that you probably like the book (though of course I can't be sure) and that's fine. Taste in novels as in movies, food and most things is subjective.

Of course I read the review... What a bizarre claim to make. It was a synopsis and was callee offensive... That's not really a review. Not in the way the word is typically used.

I was a bit disappointed by the book story personally. I don't think it lived up to its potential or what I expected after reading the blurb. It was fine for a short read to be entertained by. It doesn't earn a spot at the table for religious criticism.

Interesting comments indeed, in my opinion the offensive depiction of christianity is justified, as numerous examples of abuse, violence and contradictions show.
It is certainly not a reverent view of the faith and practioners.
It lead me to ask, how do I define myself, what does matter to me, what do I belief?
In this lies the merit of this book, the plot is unsurprising, followed by a banal end.
I don‘t think there is such a thing as a meta identity such as christian.
I choose how I define my identity and individuality.
The notion of worshiping a superior being strikes me as odd.
What use could god have for being offended?
Can it not show the irrationality and silliness of the concept followed?
Do this and that and then eternal live will be yours?
I appreciate the provocative manner of the narration.

People may doubt you read the book because your review literally starts with "I could not read this book". If you have, more power to you, but I did not think you got what Moorcock wants to tell us. He's not offensive for the purpose of offensiveness. He's demonstrating how humans are formed by the environment, and reform it in turn. If you haven't read the book, that's totally fine too, but then I'm don't think you should write a review.