LAZARUS IS DEAD. A novel by Richard Beard
In the month of November our thoughts more often turn to the question of death and what happens thereafter. So much so, that even Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13-18 needed to tell believers what to expect. Now Lazarus was asked that question all the time after he came back from the dead, he was interrogated by the Sanhedrin and by the man sent to assassinate him and by everybody who met him thereafter. But the man Lazarus himself is almost as much an unknown quantity as what he would have to tell us.
The novel by Richard Beard gives us a‘ surprising, spellbinding and utterly original’( Sunday Herald) account of the life of Lazarus, starting from the meagre account in St John’ s Gospel, whose‘ reliability as a historian is questionable’ Mark is considered to be the most accurate of the Gospel writers, Matthew and Luke are based on Mark, John is the only one who tells us the story of Lazarus, but John is‘ closer to the type of writing known as creative non-fiction’( Beard). John selects seven of the best of Jesus’ miracles, starting with the water-into- wine, building up to the climatic seventh event, the death and resurrection of Lazarus. This is the sign that announces the arrival of the messiah and precipitates the death of Jesus. In Beard’ s novel it happens close to‘ Palm Sunday’, with the author telling us that the Sanhedrin came to interrogate Lazarus while Jesus had his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
John provides a minimal amount of biography:“ A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, was ill.”( John 11.1) Beard tells us of Bethany as it is today, of a house shown as the one Lazarus had lived in with his sisters Martha and Mary. John does not record any specific symptoms of the sickness. Beard speculates at length what it could have been from all the known deceases of the time, he develops the illness until he sees Lazarus utterly disfigured by it, while after he emerges from the tomb he was healed completely. Lazarus’ life and surroundings are vividly imagined: He is a rich man- since he can afford a tomb with two chambers and linen grave clothes, very luxurious for the time. Also his sister Mary, who later was to pour that expensive perfumed ointment over Jesus’ feet, would by herself not have been able to buy it, had not her brother done so. Among all the people Jesus knows Lazarus is unique in the New Testament, not in coming back from the dead, but in being named as Jesus’ friend. Jesus has disciples, some of whom he loves, but Lazarus is his only recorded friend. And famously, unforgettably, in the shortest verse of the Bible, Lazarus can make Jesus weep.
Beard tries to find out where and when this friendship started. There is no biblical explanation for it, but there are other sources of information than the Gospels. Beard constantly tries to build up the biography of Lazarus from‘ informal records’, e. g. medieval legends, paintings, he is a recognisable figure on frescoes and marble reliefs throughout the ancient world. There are also a number of modern writers, who have written about him or about the
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