Customer Reviews

The Firstborn of God : Resolving the Contradictions in the Bible

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Gail Evans is to be commended for an extremely well researched book. To have spent fourteen years on its completion shows a singular devotion to this most fascinating of subjects. Over the last few years there have been a plethora of books dealing with the various hypotheses about Christianity, the person of Jesus Christ, Crucifixion, Resurrection and so on. This is not just another book, but an important contribution to research.

Part of Gail Evan's argument has been to show that the previous apartheid regime in her native South africa has used the Bible in a way that encouraged,".....a servile philsophy in order that those in power can maintain and suppress all those beneath them, not adhering to the laws of justice, but to their own laws of suppression and subjugation".

The book contains a whole host of examples from the Bible to illustrate the points that the author wishes to make. I believe this is an essential book for the serious student of Theology and anyone intersted in the Bible generally and in other explanations of events in the New Testament which modern scholarhip determines are not quite as they seem.

I am sure that this book will be controversial if read by fundamentalists, but to those with an open mind who ultimately wish to seek the truth unencumbered by steadfast doctrine and creeds, it will provide ample food for thought. Gail Evan's erudite scholarship is a credit to her.

At no time does Gail Evans offer any disrespect or irreverence. THE FIRSTBORN OF GOD is the earnest & affectionate quest of a modern woman to not only discover the roots of our social & philosophical stances, it is her way of going back to the source so she may better understand today. That she found some peace in the study & that the answers she discovered make a lot of sense, is a credit to her ability to look at a religious icon & tell it like it is.

Her method is to take contradicting verses, research parallel texts, & then explain both what the original words meant & how we have interpreted them down the ages. It is a fascinating journey.

I am sure professional religionists could tear this author's findings into shreds, however, if you have ever wondered about why The Bible is so contradictory, in some cases from verse to verse, then Gail Evans' THE FIRSTBORN OF GOD is a lively & informative place to start.

"The Firstborn of God" puts forward a challenging hypothesis as to how we can resolve the seemingly contraditory elements in Scripture. However, even more challenging is trying to get the author's meaning while wading through a sea of typographical and grammatical errors and run-on sentences. Only half-way through reading the book I feel compelled to warn potential readers of this problem and urge them to buy it in spite of its editorial shortcomings. It is unorthodox--especially in its views of who the "Lord" was in the Old Testament and the identities of Jesus and the Baptist in the New--but well worth careful consideration!

In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

In the Firstborn of God, Gail Evans begins with Genesis 1 and recreates a telling of the biblical story that breaths new life into the word of God, giving it new meaning for the twenty first century.

Following fourteen years of research that includes input from a host of other biblical scholars and archeologists, and readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the absence of a need to win favor with temple priests, ancient Pharos and Roman emperors, Gail Evans gives us an accurate telling of this ancient story. And what a story it is, a story full of surprises with almost shocking revelations on every page.

I will not pretend to understand all of what she has written, but in the reading I continually found myself becoming very comfortable with a God that I thought I had lost a long time ago. In some unexplainable way, the Bible slowly began to make sense. At an early age I shunned organized religion and now I know why. The word of God does not require an interpreter. It is written on the heart and one has only to look inward to find it...

To everyone who has ever had trouble understanding the Bible and even those who think they do understand the Bible, The Firstborn of God is required reading. Thank you, Gail.

Nathaniel Lott, author of, The House at Trinity Corners, and others...

This book is a very big disappointment. I have trouble getting past the extremely poor writing to see if there is any substance in the discussion. There are very obvious formatting mistakes (in the first chart comparing the first verses of Genesis to the Theory of Evolution, she has headings for 3 different sets of Bible verses, but fails to actually include them in the chart). She repeatedly recites other people's words without describing what they mean or how they relate to her discussion (using the words tetragrammatron YHVH in one location, as if it were everyday language that everyone understands). And it seems to jump around with sentences in the middle of paragraphs that don't have any obvious correlation to the rest of the paragraph. I definitely don't recommend this book to anyone.

Books!! Which books you might ask? Well all those books tracking the Knights Templar and the geneology of Jesus.

This book is quite a shocker and if the author is right, then she will really put the cat amongst the pigeons. This title restricts itself to the Old and New Testaments (though the word restricts should only be used in relation to such titles as "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail etc.) and only touches on the south a France briefly. Her theories on who Jesus was and what he stood for is a revelation in itself. Though, to be honest, this book is really so much more than just the life of Jesus.

I have gone through her hypothesis and I do believe that logically, it holds a lot of water. So, without giving away the bottom line so to speak, if you would like to be tempted with a total paradigm shift, then this books is for you. If, however, you have fundamentalistic views on Hebraic/Christianity, then stay well away!