“As soon as men who believe they are doing God’s will get hold of power, whether it is in a household, or a village, or in Jerusalem or in Rome itself, the devil enters into them.”
Philip Pullman’s closing comments from the Oxford Literary Festival have received a lot of attention over the past few weeks, so we thought we’d share with you some of the video footage that didn’t quite make it into the app.
We visited Mr Pullman at his house in Oxfordshire, and (as well as the Q&A which is exclusive to the app) recorded readings from a number of chapters from the book. Below is Philip Pullman reading from the ‘Jesus in the Garden at Gethsemane’, a pivotal chapter from The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.
Pullman has recently said that this “soliloquy” is the only part of the text where he has Jesus speaking for the author. Last night at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, in discussion with Marina Warner, Mr Pullman said that he “depicts Jesus losing his faith” and it is in this section that the loss of faith is most obvious. Jesus addresses God only to find that he is answered by silence, and in this reading, Pullman displays the vitriol and anger he feels not towards religion, but to the institutions who claim to be doing the work of God.
Find out more about our app for The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ in this short promo:
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