Bellow and Jesus
Moved and horrified
Jun 28, 2005
by Martin E. Marty
Stephen Mitchell sent his 1993 book The Gospel According to Jesus to Nobel Prize–winning novelist Saul Bellow, and to his surprise received a passionate response. Mitchell passed the correspondence on to me a dozen years ago, and I will forward it to the Bellow archives. But first some excerpts from Bellow’s reply:
“I have great sympathy with what you have done. Let me explain: I was at the age of eight years a patient at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal—dangerously ill. . . . My people were orthodox Russian Jews. I had a religious upbringing. In those times four-year-old kids were already reading Hebrew, memorizing Genesis and Exodus. Such was my background—the child of a despised people in the Montreal slums.
“I had never been separated from the family. It was a hellish winter (1923-1924), with heavy snows. . . . There were three operations. . . . I understood that I might die. . . .
“I have great sympathy with what you have done. Let me explain: I was at the age of eight years a patient at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal—dangerously ill. . . . My people were orthodox Russian Jews. I had a religious upbringing. In those times four-year-old kids were already reading Hebrew, memorizing Genesis and Exodus. Such was my background—the child of a despised people in the Montreal slums.
“I had never been separated from the family. It was a hellish winter (1923-1924), with heavy snows. . . . There were three operations. . . . I understood that I might die. . . .
This article is available to subscribers only. Please subscribe for full access—subscriptions begin at $4.95. Already have an online account? Log in now. Already a print subscriber? Create an online account for no additional cost.
Tags:
