Customer Reviews

The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said and Did

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Dr. Gerd Ludemann has gained notoriety for being removed from the Evangelical Lutheran theological faculty of the University of Gottingen, Germany, after he decided to "renounce Christianity" in his missive "A Letter to Jesus". The American edition of "The Great Deception" includes a 14-page preface describing the background of his removal, as well as the text of the nine-page letter. Neither is directly relevant to this work's main topic, but both are fascinating background ---- Ludemann asserts that "the process of falsifying and over painting the man Jesus, his words and actions, began in earliest Christianity and is already at an advanced stage in the New Testament." He examines numerous sayings and actions of the New Testament Jesus in the light of his four criteria of inauthenticity, and five criteria of authenticity. His goal: to uncover the "historical Jesus." Most of his criteria are benign. But one of his criteria of inauthenticity would be objected to by many believers: "those acts which presuppose that natural laws are broken." Professor Ludemann makes the naïve eyebrow raising statement that: "Nowadays hardly anyone seriously assumes that Jesus in fact walked on the sea, stilled a storm, multiplied loaves, turned water into wind and raised the dead. Rather, these narratives were credited to Jesus only after his death or his supposed resurrection in order to heighten his significance." (Perhaps in academic circles in Germany, NOT in everyday America!) ---- Professor Ludemann clearly and repeatedly states that he sees theology as a scientific discipline based on solid scholarship. His book does not disappoint. He painstakingly documents his thesis. He not only highlights discrepancies between different accounts of the same actions of Jesus, but also shows how and why the later Gospel writers (Matthew, Luke, and John) elaborated upon - and changed -- Mark's account. He shows where all of them lifted, adapted, and inserted Old Testament passages and accounts into their accounts of Jesus' life. He explains the theological issues that caused the alteration of narrative, anecdote, parable, and wording. In short it this book is a provocative, and worthwhile read. If theology is merely apologetics under another name, this is merely scandal. If indeed theology is a scientific discipline searching for truth - then this is beyond doubt theology

This book is aimed at the general reader and is intended to give the reader an introduction to critical analysis techniques as they apply to the purported sayings of Jesus. Ludemann divides the text into four sections: Authentic Saying of Jesus, Inauthentic Sayings of Jesus Authentic Acts of Jesus and Inauthentical Acts of Jesus. In all four sections, Ludemann shares the critical tools that shed light on the authenticity of the saying. While it is clear that there is no absolute final answer to whether a particular saying or act is authentic, Ludemann's tools are actually quite compelling and allow the reader to acquire the critical tools required to make his own assessment of a New Testament passage. For the disbeliever, this will reinforce one's belief that much of the New Testament is propaganda; for the believer it will allow the reader to see Jesus through a new perspective, free of the "spin" of the early Christian church.

Because this book teaches you some of the elementary skills of the Bible academic, I found this book to be surprisingly thought-provoking. This will enable you to read the New Testament and form your own judgment about the legitimacy of the events and sayings recorded there.

I suppose I have made this book sound heavy and taxing, but it is an easy read, leaving you wanted to take on Ludemanns volumns aimed at a more academic audience.

Well worth picking up!

This is a small book, easily read in a couple of sittings if need be. Nor is the text impenetrable, as is the case with many German theologians. Ludemann explains why many of the sayings attributed to Jesus cannot be genuine. His work complements that of The Jesus Seminar.

Ludemann begins with "A Letter to Jesus" that sets out his personal journey away from the less questioning faith of his childhood. This is a powerful piece of writing in itself. Ludemann does not give in to the tendency to obfuscate. This is honest, direct writing.

Interesting and well written book that exposes some of the fiction behind the Gospels. Of interest to those who approach the Xtian Bible with an inquiring mind. Not of any interest to fundamentalist Xtians whose beliefs are based on wish fulfillment rather than on a rational analysis of their religion.

Gerd Ludemann is in my mind one of the leading world authorities on the "Church" and the authentic teachings of Jesus. Right from the start, this book was a breath of fresh air from the hyponisitzed publications lining the shelves of modern biblical writing and research. Mr. Ludemann flows impressively through a much needed open look at the scriptures of the 4 Gospels. He breaks apart the almost paralysing and confusing mixture of specific time related writing and the more authentic and openly proven correlating writings which would have more credibility as real teachings.

As I read through his book, I found my belief in what was truly taught surfacing more clearly. His approach to the more authentic and vast stripped down real core essence of the words atributed to the Master Jesus, became ever so clear for myself each page I read. I cannot give credit to his writing of this book enough. Unfortunately, this publication grained him much negative criticism from those who, of course, seek not to openly search their faith and reality. This book helps standardize and strengthen the root of the religon founded upon Jesus. This book is a must for anyone interested in 2 things:

1) A more complete and gnostic root tradition of the unlaced teachings of Jesus
2) Scholarly deconstruction of a ball of yarn called the Gospels to see the true essence missing and often ignored or promoted by Church Father

Herr Professor Doktor Luedemann was my teacher thirty years ago. He was an honest person then and this book written over ten years ago only reinforces my opinion of him. He will find an audience among the open minded, inquiring minds; he won't be welcome among those who want certainty and absolutes in their religion. The Great Deception book is really a precursor to his much larger and comprehensive "Jesus After 2000 Years" published in 2000. The 2000 book and the popular percusor are necessary antidotes to the over confident conclusions of the Jesus Seminar of the 1990s. Luedemann takes the Seminar to task on their rejection of Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher. Always the inconoclast, Luedemann includes in the Deception book his "Letter to Jesus" which outlines his rejection of faith in a Christ. I would have given the Deception book five stars, but then, the 2000 book would require six.

This is not a book for believing Christians. The author
dismisses Christ's supernatural nature as just wishful thinking.
I wish he had explained why -- but he doesn't.

This book was of mixed value to me. It reads like a college
text book in which a lot of the key information is left as an
exercise to the reader. The author makes an understandable
definition of how he went about determining which sayings of
Jesus were original and which were created by the churches
that sprung up after his death. However the criteria are often
hard to see in his examples -- I felt that more detailed
explanations would have helped.

I am however glad that I bought the book because the author's
explanations of the sayings of Jesus and the cultural context
of Mathew, Mark, and Luke were enlightening. I guess I wanted
more than I got but was glad to get what I did get.

For the reader from Andrews,South Carolina, a review of this book needs not be an attack on the writer as a disciple of satan. The problem with many of chirstians starts with your stupid blind faith. Many of you accept all the myths of the bible without appealing to your logic . The bible is a myth, an allegorical myth. Religion is a virus blocking scientific advancement and freethinking. I don't need to believe in a barbaric "god" to run my life. Retreat from your blind faith and question the nonsense you have learned. Once you can do that and stop being a fundamentalist, perhaps you can begin to understand the point the author is trying to make.We need more people like him to stop the madness that has plagued humanity for the past two thousand years. In the name of Jesus, we have exterminated millions of people, stopped science on its course,plunged human race to a thousand years of dark ages,embraced slavery. If I recall correctly from the bible,your god killed innocent children, men am women; chased them from their homes in favor of the israelites.By the way, that's a flagrant act of terrorism. Show me in the bible one instance where satan acted that way.It is a humourous fact that the only argument christians have against people who doubt their nonsense allegorical myth, be it jesus or adam and eve,is that it has to be the work of satan. I'm still puzzled to see that so called "intelligent" people still believe in this fairy tale.

Have any of you reviewers, sniping at each other about God vs science, bothered to spend a little time asking what scientists and theologians really think, and to discover that the divisions of which you speak really do not exist? Forgive me this single tresspass of mentioning one of my own books, "Return to Sodom and Gomorrah," in which I gathered scientists and theologians round the same watering hole, the archaeology off the Testament; and far from creating a lot of ruffeled feathers, it turned out that we were all saying the same things, just using different language. Fr. Mervin Fernando (who, along with the "militantly agnostic" Arthur C. Clarke, runs a Jesuit teaching center - and science teaching center - in war-torn Sri Lanka) has perhaps put it best: "In a universe wherein every photon of light manifests simultaneously as a self-contradictory particle and wave, why shouldn't all religions - including perhaps even agnostism (questioning faith, in the tradition of St. Thomas) - be simultaneously correct? That should be child's play in God's universe, in the universe revealed by Einstein and Hawking." Clarke and Hawking agreed, and with such grace was born "quantum spirituality." So a little more tolerance, please, in the traditions of your various founding prophets. Any good scientist will tell you that science differs from faith in being based upon doubt, and that no one really knows the answers. Truly no one. "I don't know," is the best place for an explorer to be.

This is "shock" theology at its worst. In other words, if you say enough radical and outlandish things about the Christian religion (and especially its central figure), you will usually make something of a name for yourself and get newspaper articles written about you and roam the college lecture house and talk show circuits.
Don't get me wrong, I was EXCITED when I saw this book. I was extremely interested in what Ludemann had to say about the authentic (and inauthentic) words of Jesus, especially as he comes across in his introductions as something of an authority on the subject. Unfortunately, this book is far removed from a scholarly work and borders on the inane. The "proof" of all the things those dastardly 1st century Christians put in Jesus' mouth to further their cause (mostly an enterprise in being hounded by their own people and butchered by the Romans) is full of circular reasoning ("Jesus couldn't have said what John said he did, because Mark said he said THIS instead") and judgement calls ("Jesus couldn't have said this because I don't think that, looking at historical context, he WOULD have said it"). You can't go about disproving Biblical text by citing other Biblical text as being "authentic" while dismissing what you don't approve of intellectually. Also, if you look at the historical record, people can say some wild and off the wall stuff. You can't discount statements and dialogue based on your assumptions and perceptions of the character of one that we have so little record of. Even claiming that the followers of Jesus made him say things to strengthen their current position by changing the words of the past is highly suspect. You can't make it true just by claiming it is (one of the author's favorite tactics). I found this whole book to be a maddening and elementary exercise in futility. Scholarly and authoritarian in about the same sense as those sappy Christian self-help books that tell you God's plan is for you to own a mansion and a BMW.
The author made it very clear that the research leading to this work caused him to forsake Christianity. I don't fault him for his decision, I just wish he had a better reason for doing so. Jesus and the Christian faith will surely survive such shallow scrutiny.