The Gospel of Judas Book

This carefully wrought and ambitious novel relates the life-history of Father Leo Newman, a priest who is called in to translate and to help authenticate a first-century papyrus scroll that appears to predate the gospels and was written and signed by one Judas Iscariot. The stakes in such an intellectual exercise are high and are exacerbated by the complications of Father Newman's personal life: an affair with the wife of a British diplomat and uncertainty about his family origins. Is he the son of a Nazi officer's wife and her Italian-Jewish lover, whom his mother turns in? Mawer writes with sympathy and wit and is compelling across the entire range of his subject matter: shaken faith, adultery, betrayal, religious intrigue, scholarly controversy. The opening of the novel sets the tone with some flair: A curious structure, the confessional. A cross between a wardrobe and a prie-dieu, a varnished wooden construction that is probably the only piece of furniture never to have awoken the interest of collectors. You'll not go into a precious modern house, somewhere in Islington say, and find a confessional in the hall and a careless confession by the proud owner that it was "Something we picked up at an auction. We thought it would go so well just there ..." Skilful writing on many levels makes The Gospel of Judas an intelligent and moving meditation on one man's search for the elusive truth of his life and faith and, never mired in its own profundity, the novel simultaneously reads like a thriller. Neville Hoad ENDRead More