"JESUS SAID: Two will rest on a bed, the one ...

For those interested in a different take on what the Lord was up to, the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas gives a very different picture of the man from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This was not a serene teacher of the Word occasionally set to anger, but a mystic constantly on the edge of explosion, tossing off improbable aphorisms like Chinese firecrackers.

The Coptic Thomas text (discovered in Upper Egypt in 1945) isn't a coherent story?just a scattershot of random utterances devoid of context. As a piece of religious "literature," it can't be compared to the canonical gospels, even though it includes many of the familiar parables (often without their explanatory moral tagline).

You generally find one of three views of the Gospel of Thomas, depending on the viewer's scholarly, religious or personal bias: 1) an alternate (probably newer) version of Christ's teachings that hews to the Gnostic outlook of its time and place (early second century); 2) (older) raw material for the more ordered, elaborated gospels; 3) silly trash put together by semi-literate heretics.

I don't have the scholarly background to debate this. And I don't think it's fruitful?though many of the sayings read to me like notes jotted down by a confused scribe trotting along behind his hectic teacher.

What appeals to me is the figure of Christ presented: an inspired semi-loony with an overriding sense that his time is limited, that he can't waste a second on explication for thickheads. The occasional "He who has ears, let him hear" of the accepted gospels pops up here on almost every page in lieu of explanation. Thomas' Christ is close to the Jesus of Pier Paolo Pasolini's movie, The Gospel According to St. Matthew. In both, Jesus is out on a limb, close to sawing it off.

Familiar snippets come off in Thomas as more spontaneous, less manipulated: "For many who are first shall become last and they shall become a single one." "Blessed is he who was before he came into being." (Yahweh is my way.) I particularly like this pantheistic summation: "I am the Light that is above them all, I am the All? Cleave a piece of wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find me there."

If you like your Jesus funny, genuinely loopy and more attuned to the common folk, try Romulus Linney's Jesus Tales, subtitled "a novel," but more accurately a loosely tied- together collection of spirited retellings of folk stories from Italy, America and elsewhere. Most feature an earthy Christ accompanied by a sidekicky Saint Peter, or an offhand Joseph and Mary not sure what the fuss is about. They also include stories of Jesus' childhood as a snotty little kid.

Jesus likes acting on the spur of the moment:

"[The farmer] cursed Jesus roundly. Saint Peter didn't believe what he saw. Jesus socked the farmer. He hauled off and belted him. Knocked him flat."

As for Peter, he's a nervous fellow:

"And he came unstrung, and got uncertain, and started making excuses for himself for no reason. This is what Jesus enjoyed about Saint Peter. He loved kidding him about that, and never got tired of it."

Linney's language is uncluttered, deceptively simple and laid-back. But his perfectly placed sense of humor and eye for detail make the tales both engrossing and immediate, even when Jesus is steadfastly refusing to tell Peter what he's up to. Though Jesus' exterior personality could hardly be different from that of Thomas' Christ, the interior man is remarkably the same. As portraits, these two works are not only books, but bookends.