![]() One or both of them might misremember the order in which an argument was made. They might describe the setting in different ways. They would focus on different parts of the conversation. For instance, if two people had a conversation, and then a week later each wrote an account of that conversation, those accounts would in all likelihood look quite different. In life, we are constantly reshaping and reconstructing events in our memories so that they make sense to ourselves and to others. Where can we draw the line between any retelling and the truth behind it? Synoptic view of the Gospels. ![]() The same is perhaps the case for other important events and their stories. Moreover, they arguably gain literary value by retelling what is the central Truth for Christians all over the world, just as countless paintings and sculptures are enriched by the Truth their creator was trying to convey. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia and other such works of fiction represent the story of Jesus as no more than a ‘retelling,’ this does not detract from their merit as stories. Given that these differing accounts are held by Christians to all be true in their own way and to contribute equally to our perception of the Truth (that is, the message of Jesus), we must ask how different does something need to be from the Gospel Truth before it ceases to be entirely true, and is instead a ‘retelling’? While C.S. These discrepancies are the result of the Evangelists’ different sources, audiences and time of writing. And yet when compared with each other, it is easy to spot differences in timeline, focus and even the main antagonists. Indeed, when compared with Bulgakov’s retelling of the story from Pilate’s perspective, the Gospels are all remarkably unified in their distinction. There are also more inane discrepancies resulting from the perspective of Bulgakov’s retelling nowhere in the Gospels do we hear of Pilate having a splitting headache, or of his faithful dog Banga. For instance, Yeshua ha-Nozri is irritated by the inaccurate scribblings of a certain one of his followers, Levi Matthew, claiming his words are being misrepresented. In view of this declaration, Bulgakov’s secondary narrative made for interesting reading, with numerous clever references to elements of the Gospels as well as several major points of difference. “Indeed, we are given Satan’s assurance that, while Jesus definitely existed and was killed under the orders of Pilate and the Sanhedrin, the four Gospel accounts are all completely false and it is the Master’s version which reflects what really happened…” The tracts of this parallel setting come at times from the unpublished ‘inner’ novel and its author, the ‘Master,’ and at times from the Devil himself within the main narrative. Extended extracts of this novel run parallel to the main narrative, with the ‘inner’ novel gaining an unexpected relevance as the main series of events unfolds. I, however, was struck first by the theme of truth.Ī major part of the book hinges on an unpublished novel about Pontius Pilate, which we are led to believe is in fact the true account of Jesus’ trial and execution. With running themes of belief in the absurd in an atheist society, the easy categorisation of such belief as insanity, and the need for spiritual closure and freedom, this novel could have been a springboard for any number of articles (and probably has). In a beautifully disorienting surrealist style, the novel tells the story of the Devil’s arrival in 1930s Moscow and the havoc he and his retinue wreak in the city’s literary and theatrical circles. There is nothing, and there was nothing! There is that sickly linden over there, there is the cast-iron fence, and the boulevard beyond it…And the ice is melting in the bowl, and at the next table you see someone’s bloodshot, bovine eyes, and you’re afraid, afraid…Oh, gods, my gods, poison, bring me poison!.Over the summer, I read Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita upon my mother’s recommendation. They used to say, the mystics used to say, that there was a time when the handsome man wore not a tailcoat but a wide leather belt with pistol butts sticking out from it, and his raven hair was tied with scarlet silk, and under his command a brig sailed the Caribbean under a black death flag with a skull and crossbones.īut no, no! The seductive mystics are lying, there are no Caribbean Seas in the world, no desperate freebooters to sail them, no corvette chases after them, no cannon smoke drifts across the waves. A handsome dark-eyed man with a dagger-like beard, in a tailcoat, stepped onto the veranda and cast a regal glance over his domain. “And at midnight there came an apparition in hell.
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