The Gospel of the Twin
Author Ron Cooper spent years conducting intense research into the historical, philosophical, theological, scriptural and non-scriptural aspects of Christianity and other world religions. Then he wrote a novel about who Jesus Christ was to family, friends, and acquaintances of all social, religious and economic classes. The result is intriguing and remarkable. To begin, the reader is introduced to the fact that Jesus was a rather simple twin, and that he heavily relied on his brother Thomas. Their father, Joseph, was a gruff man, and Mary, their mother, is characterized as deeply superstitious and perhaps a bit mad. Jesus himself is a precocious, bratty child who often hurts people and animals before he matures. Quite a bit to handle so far, for those with set-in-stone traditional beliefs!
The novel then moves through the entire ministry of Jesus, accompanied by his confused and doubting followers who want an armed revolution against their Roman oppressors. Jesus is depicted as growing into his verbal and spiritual skills with Thomas’s guidance. What is even more intriguing is how all accept and interpret the so-called “miracles” of feeding hundreds, curing the lame, freeing the possessed, raising the dead, etc. Thomas suggests that the Jewish people were so marginalized and suffering in poverty and disgrace that being fully accepted by Jesus was the larger healing that led to physical, mental and emotional change.
The account of Jesus’s lonely death and its aftermath is shockingly far from traditional accounts. Whatever one’s beliefs or non-beliefs, The Gospel of the Twin will intrigue, baffle, frustrate, and mesmerize readers, as well as compel them to ask pertinent questions and reflect on the ministry of Jesus. Engaging, highly recommended historical fiction.
