Metin Arditi does not lack audacity. Or talent to rewrite the life of Jesus (decidedly, this is the trend after The Gospel of the New World, by Maryse Condé, and I am Jesus, by Giosuè Calaciura). The Gospel according to Metin is called The Bastard of Nazareth and has its source in the research of historian Daniel Marguerat concluding that Jesus is a bastard child.
It does not take less for the storyteller Arditi to lead us to his version: child of a rape, Jesus suffers from the ostracization of the mamzer, (bastard in Hebrew) by Jewish law, which also affects his mother, Mary . Brilliant teenager, he revolts in front of the doctors of the law. And will lead a fight against all types of exclusion, facilitated by his gifts as a healer. It would not be necessary to say much more about the key scenes of the course revisited by the imagination of Arditi.
His book is written in a sober language allowing to flourish and savor all the surprises of a Jesus caressing the body of his companion, Mary of Magdala, of a rebel who can fly into a rage against the interpretation of religion so far away of “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”… And if Jesus had become the Christ because of a childhood wound?
“The Bastard of Nazareth”, by Metin Arditi (Grasset, 198 p., €19).
Leemage via AFP – JF PAGA/Editions Grasset
