Suppose God wrote a memoir....

     David Javerbaum. The Last Testament: A Memoir by God (2011) 1. In the beginning, I took a lunch with Daniel Greenburg of the Levine Greenburg Literary Agency. 2.For the future of print was without hope, and void; and darkness had fallen upon the face of the entire publishing industry. (Prologue, 1-2) Thus begins this Memoir; and if you have a good knowledge of the Bible, you will recognise allusions to its contents not only here but throughout the book.
     The God who writes this memoir is the God of the Bible, as understood by Javerbaum, and probably others, since he was a writer for Saturday Night Live at the time this book came into being. It’s a well-done and often subtle satire of those who believe in a God that resembles a human being, a conclusion that follows from the assumption that humans are made in the image of God.
     Certainly, the more literalist believers will find much to be offended by, but I think for those who understand that the Bible is one of many attempts to make sense of the astonishing creativity of the Universe that brought us into being, this book will be at least as thought-provoking as it is entertaining. If you have wrestled with questions of creed and theology, this book may suggest that most of those questions are unanswerable in St Augustine’s sense. The trick is to recognise which are mere verbal puzzles, which are matters of substance, and which are the consequence of ill-understood and mistaken assumptions.
     Recommended. A keeper. ****