| Description |
192 p. ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
1. Immaculate Fornication? -- 2. The Birth of Christianity from the Spirit of Resentment -- 3. The Making of the Messiah, Part One: The Cruci-fiction -- 4. The Making of the Messiah, Part Two: The "Virgin Birth" -- 5. The Making of the Messiah, Part Three: The Post-Resurrection Appearances -- 6. The First God to Claim a Monopoly -- 7. In Hoc Signo Decadence Conquers: Esthetic Objections to Christianity -- 8. The Blessed of Christ. |
| Summary |
Looking at the evolution of Christian writings and doctrines exactly as skeptics investigate contemporary accounts of UFO abductions or psychic wonders, Sheaffer shows how early Christian writers altered historical facts to make the new religion "sell" to potential converts. What emerges is a scheme of deliberate distortion and deceit that could grace a mystery novel, leaving in its wake a trail of highly suspicious and incriminating evidence. The Making of the Messiah presents a compelling argument that Jesus was never "crucified by the Romans" but slain and hanged on a tree, under Jewish law, as a heretic and blasphemer. It shows that behind the Virgin Birth story lurks a darker tale of Mary the adulteress whose "divine child" was rejected by her husband, Joseph, as a bastard. And, finally, it traces the accounts of Jesus' Resurrection in chronological order of composition, to reveal that the earliest gospel, that of Mark, contains no actual sightings of a risen Jesus. With time, however, Christianity's claims of a Resurrection gradually evolved, progressing from "vision" to "established fact"--the result of purposeful embellishment and mythologizing. Sheaffer did not rely on dubious and fanciful sources or questionable documents about the life of Jesus to arrive at his startling conclusions. Working from the same ancient sources that biblical scholars use--some of these sources having only recently come to light--Sheaffer pieces the evidence together in a new way. It is the picture that emerges that will generate so much controversy. This unconventional perspective on some of the central tenets of Christianity radically impacts biblical criticism in a manner that humanists and freethinkers will wholeheartedly applaud. |
| Subject |
Christianity -- Origin.
|
|
Christianity -- Origin.
(OCoLC)fst00859622
|
| ISBN |
0879756918 (hard : alk. paper) |
|
9780879756918 (hard : alk. paper) |
|
