But Where Is the Lamb?: Imagining the Story of Abraham and Isaac

Amazon Guest Review of “But Where Is the Lamb?” by James Goodman

By Wendy Doniger

Wendy Doniger (O’Flaherty) has published over thirty books, including Śiva: The Erotic Ascetic; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology; Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities; Other Peoples’ Myths; The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade; The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was; and The Hindus: An Alternative History.

James Goodman’s But Where Is the Lamb? is a great read from the very first line; I really could not put it down until other tasks forced me to take a break. The tone of voice is what hooked me; it’s like reading Biblical scholarship written in the voice of Holden Caulfield. Goodman asks precisely the questions that any thoughtful person would ask, starting with the question of the title, Isaac’s question, and a very good one it is, too: Hey, where is the lamb? The only piece of writing I know on this subject that even begins to compete with the down-to-earth approach of Goodman’s book is Woody Allen’s hilarious dialogue in Without Feathers (which Goodman quotes); but Woody’s language-joke there is that God uses King James English to say things that a New York Jew would say—“Doth thou listen to every crazy idea that comes thy way?”—whereas Goodman does just the opposite: he uses Sam Spade English to ask the same sort of straight questions, and to ask them of Biblical scholarship as well as of the Bible. The result is that the tone begins to feel like your own voice asking these questions, and the book invites you in to ask your own questions, too. It would make a wonderful book to teach with, opening up the sorts of questions that readers as young as Isaac might have had; and it’s also a great book to carry around and read wherever you are. I loved it.