Lazarus Is dead

Famous for being the subject of the Bible's shortest verse - 'Jesus wept' -, there is very little actually known about Jesus' friend, Lazarus. Richard Beard sets out to make amends, creating a lasting impression of Lazarus as a normal man caught up in extraordinary times in this genre-defying work.

Refusing to be pinned down to any one literary category, this account of Lazarus' life, death and resurrection distorts our expectations by mixing narrative with essay, authorial asides with literary and historical reference. Whilst this can be disconcerting at times, the breadth and variety of opinion makes for a textured portrayal of Lazarus and his everyday life.

At the centre, of this original text, though, is the re-imagined relationship between Jesus and Lazarus, complete with rivalry, past bitterness and jealousies. Beard depicts them as close childhood friends who have since lead lives both distant and different. Despite this distance, there seems to be a bond between the two; a bond which manifests itself in Lazarus' sorry decline into illness and Jesus' miraculous rise to fame.

This strange bond is one of many theories proposed in this work,including: did Jesus plan Lazarus' death as one of his miracles?, did the disciples write Lazarus out of history?, were we close to the Church of Lazarus Christ? In the end many of these questions remain unanswered - what matters more is the 'truth of historical imagination' that runs throughout this inventive new take on a two-thousand-year-old tale.