This is an interesting grouping of stories, reimagining Jesus in various fictional guises. Some are poignant, some funny, some reflect a Christian belief on the part of the author, others a disdain of Christian belief. Many of the authors are quite well known, like Oscar Wilde, Walter Wangerin, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Babel, Gene Wolfe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Jorge Luis Borges. I sort of ran through the volume in a pick and choose fashion, and was glad that I found some good stories. ( )

Jorge Luis Borges's "The Gospel according to Mark" is an exceptional parable to the dangers of fanaticism and literalism in religion. The story is an elaborate extended metaphor for the story of Christ. The main character Baltasar, who shares many of Christ's attributes, "with an almost unlimited kindness and a capacity for public speaking." Upon being stuck in his cousin's country home during a storm, he begins reading the bible to the family of ranch hands, who in the end worship him and crucify him in the last paragraph of the story. The ending is outlandish to put it mildly, and the story has a an almost tongue-in-cheek sense of humor about it. However ridiculous it may be, the story does carry a strong warning about religion. Religion can be extremely dangerous if taken literally. In this instance, the Gutres family literally thinks that crucifying Baltasar will save their souls. Although this is an extreme illustration, there are many people who share a similar thought process as the Gutres. Members of the Westboro Baptist church for example say that AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Such backwardness is a direct result literal interpretation. The stories in the Bible aren't literally true, and to look at them that way blinds oneself from the deeper meaning. These stories are meant to be a method by which to convey moral lessons and cultural information, and Baltasar's mistake of teaching the gospel to the Gutres literally caught up to him in the end. Overall this is a bizarre but surprisingly profound piece of fiction.