The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

Blurb

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a novel by Philip Pullman. Published in 2010 by Canongate Books, as part of the Canongate Myth Series, it retells the story of Jesus as if he were two people, brothers, "Jesus" and "Christ," with contrasting personalities; Jesus being a moral and godly man, and his brother Christ a calculating figure who wishes to use Jesus' legacy to found a powerful Church.
Pullman's historical understanding has been criticised by Jesuit theologian Professor Gerald O'Collins. Diarmaid MacCulloch reviewed the book positively for Literary Review. Brian McClorry concluded, "Is it Pullman who is the scoundrel as O’Collins suggests? I don’t think so... There are some failures of historical imagination, and some real successes of Pullman’s storytelling avocation... All this is honourable enough, though I’d back O’Collins both in being honourable and in having a better sense of that truth which is in history.".