The Gospel According to Lazarus is a 2019 novel by Richard Zimler. [1]
Contents
(The paperback, published in 2022, has the title: The Lost Gospel of Lazarus) The novel is set in the time of Jesus.
The Gospel According to Lazarus is a 2019 novel by Richard Zimler. [1]
(The paperback, published in 2022, has the title: The Lost Gospel of Lazarus) The novel is set in the time of Jesus.
Reviewing Lazarus for The Guardian, novelist Peter Stanford called it "a brave and engaging novel... a page-turner. I simply had to keep going to the very end in order to know on earth what would happen." [2] In her article in The Jewish Week, Sandee Brawarsky observed that "Zimler’s writing is richly detailed, his characters compelling. Even if readers know how this story will unfold, there are surprising turns in these pages." [3] In his Tikkun review, Jacob Staub wrote that "Zimler is masterful at immersing his readers in the ambience and symbols of each period, in the alleyways and culinary scents of each of his settings, so that the human lessons he elicits are credible and grounded in the past. He views Jewish history as a sacred text". [4]
The novel tells the story of Lazarus of Bethany from his own point of view. One of the author's goals was to return to Lazarus and Jesus their Judaism and, in consequence, both men are referred to by their Hebrew names: Yeshua ben Yosef and Eliezer ben Natan. The book presents Yeshua ben Yosef as an early Jewish mystic and explores the deep friendship between Eliezer and Yeshua, who - within the fictional setting - have been best friends since childhood.
In June 2019 Zimler published an essay in the Guardian entitled, "I have never met antisemitism in Britain... until now." It explained how Zimler, a highly acclaimed, bestselling novelist, had been rejected for appearances by two cultural organizations after they inquired whether he "was Jewish." He concluded the essay by writing, "if you fail to be welcoming to Jewish writers and artists because you fear a backlash, then your cowardice makes it possible for the haters to have their way – to spread their irrational dislike of Jews and make shunning them seem acceptable. Is that really the 'new normal' you want for Great Britain?" [5]
According to The Bookseller, a trade publication that covers the British publishing industry, both The Observer and The Guardian confirmed that the arts organizations had decided not to sponsor appearances by Zimler after confirming that he is Jewish. [6] The organizations feared that they would suffer from a backlash if they sponsored a talk by a Jewish writer. [6] [7]
Yeshua or Y'shua was a common alternative form of the name Yehoshua in later books of the Hebrew Bible and among Jews of the Second Temple period. The name corresponds to the Greek spelling Iesous (Ἰησοῦς), from which, through the Latin IESVS/Iesus, comes the English spelling Jesus.
Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda was a Hebrew linguist, grammarian, and journalist, renowned as the lexicographer of the first Hebrew dictionary, and the editor of HaZvi, one of the first Hebrew newspapers published in the Land of Israel. He was the main driving force behind the revival of the Hebrew language.
Yeshu is the name of an individual or individuals mentioned in rabbinic literature, Jesus when used in the Talmud. The name Yeshu is also used in other sources before and after the completion of the Babylonian Talmud. It is also the modern Israeli spelling of Jesus.
Tikkun is a quarterly interfaith Jewish left-progressive magazine and website, published in the United States, that analyzes American and Israeli culture, politics, religion, and history in the English language. The magazine has consistently published the work of Israeli and Palestinian left-wing intellectuals, but also included book and music reviews, personal essays, and poetry. In 2006 and 2011, the magazine was awarded the Independent Press Award for Best Spiritual Coverage by Utne Reader for its analysis of the inability of many progressives to understand people's yearning for faith, and the American fundamentalists' political influence on the international conflict among religious zealots. The magazine was founded in 1986 by Michael Lerner and his then-wife Nan Fink Gefen. Since 2012, its publisher is Duke University Press. Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, led by Rabbi Michael Lerner, is loosely affiliated with Tikkun magazine. It describes itself as a "hallachic community bound by Jewish law".
Jonathan Saul Freedland is a British journalist who writes a weekly column for The Guardian. He presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series The Long View. Freedland also writes thrillers, mainly under the pseudonym Sam Bourne, and has written a play, Jews. In Their Own Words, performed in 2022 at the Royal Court Theatre, London.
In Jewish law and history, Acharonim are the leading rabbis and poskim living from roughly the 16th century to the present, and more specifically since the writing of the Shulchan Aruch in 1563 CE.
Gilad Atzmon is a British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist, and writer.
Jodi Lynn Picoult is an American writer. Picoult has published 28 novels, as well as short stories, and has also written several issues of Wonder Woman. Approximately 40 million copies of her books are in print worldwide, translated into 34 languages. She was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction in 2003.
Howard Eric Jacobson is a British novelist and journalist. He is known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters. He is a Man Booker Prize winner.
Lazarus of Bethany, also venerated as Righteous Lazarus, the Four-Days Dead in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the subject of a sign of Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic traditions offer varying accounts of the later events of his life.
Tony Eprile is a South African writer.
Richard Zimler is a best-selling author. His books, which have earned him a 1994 National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and the 1998 Herodotus Award, have been published in many countries and translated into more than 20 languages.
Tikkun Chatzot, also spelled Tikkun Chatzos, is a Jewish ritual prayer recited each night after midnight as an expression of mourning and lamentation over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is not universally observed, although it is popular among Sephardi and Hasidic Jews.
Rehavia or Rechavia is an upscale Jerusalem neighborhood located between the city center and Talbiya. Since its establishment in 1922, the neighborhood has been associated with German-Jewish (yekke) culture and tradition.
Ariel Horn Levenson is an American novelist and teacher. She is known for turning her job-finding difficulties as a new college graduate into a humorous novel: Help Wanted, Desperately.
Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonne, (1710–1784) or Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Pollonye, was one of the first and best known of the disciples of the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the Baal Shem Tov.
The term Bible fiction refers to works of fiction which use characters, settings and events taken from the Bible. The degree of fictionalization in these works varies and, although they are often written by Christians or Jews, this is not always the case.
City of the Sun is a novel by Juliana Maio, published by Greenleaf Book Group in March 2014. The novel, which blends historical fiction with spy fiction and romantic fiction, is set in Cairo, Egypt in 1941 during the North Africa Campaign of World War II. Though a work of fiction, it centers around true historical events and "connects the root of much of today's turmoil in the Middle East with the Axis-Allied struggle for control of the Suez Canal and the early history of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Allosemitism is a neologism that encompasses both philosemitic and antisemitic attitudes towards Jews as the Other.