Benedict XVI revives the recipe for the picaresque novel. Take a charming rogue of low estate; flavor with a menagerie of bizarre companions; put this comic hero in a dozen absurd situations; establish him as pope. Then serve as an outsize farce that makes the recent scandals of priests and their fondness for altar boys, to say nothing of cardinals and their fondness for confidentiality, look like copy for a slow-news day.

Ed Budwieser, an English teacher, comes to believe he is the reincarnation of Shakespeare. His wife and daughter don't believe it. His pastor has serious doubts. Only his grandson maintains a simple, childlike faith.

John Reisender is puzzled. Why did his great-grandma get married in a Muslim mosque way hell and gone out in the wilds of Central Asia? On the road to finding the answer, he finds himself excommunicated-temporarily-from the Mennonite religion, discovers how his maternal grandfather escaped from czarist Russia, acts as undertaker at his piano teacher's cat's funeral, takes a crash course in Nietzsche from the keeper of the city dump, becomes an unsung accidental semi-hero in a high school football game, escapes death on a spelunking expedition, and falls in lust with a girl who sports a...

One evening Father Alazon Lecher appears on a popular talk show to announce that he has received a series of revelations. Several God-sent angels, he says, instructed him to find and translate a set of twelve scrolls, then choose four disciples to help him interpret these scriptures-the Bear Lake Scrolls-and establish the Church of the Comic Spirit. The Scrolls, the original versions of some famous Bible stories, form the centerpiece of this novel. Each of the twelve tales has a distinct plot, style, and characters, who are cast in the roles of rogues, buffoons, fools, and schlemiels. God is...