James, the Brother of Jesus [Paperback]

Robert H Eisenman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2002

Was James - rather than Peter - the true Spiritual heir to Jesus? In this profound and provocative work of scholarly detection, eminent biblical scholar Robert Eisenmann introduces a startling theory about the identity of James - the brother of Jesus, who was almost entirely marginalized in the New Testament. Drawing on suppressed early Church texts and the revelations in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Eisenmann propounds in this groundbreaking exploration that James, not Peter, was the real successor to the movement we now call 'Christianity.' In an argument with enormous implications, Eisenmann identifies Paul as deeply compromised by Roman contacts. James is presented as not simply a leader of Christianity of his day, but the popular Jewish leader of his time, whose death triggered the Uprising against Rome - a fact that creative rewriting of early Church documents has obscured. - Groundbreaking revelations about the leadership of the early Christian Church. - A challenging work of historical detection revealing deliberated falsifications in New Testament documents - A fascinating work of readable and erudite scholarship. - The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered has sold over 200,000 copies

Product Details

• Paperback: 1120 pages
• Publisher: Watkins Publishing (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842930265
• ISBN-13: 978-1842930267
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,473,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jesus is really my brother, July 25, 2005

By 

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: James, the Brother of Jesus (Paperback)

Robert Eisenman was the leading figure in the movement to free the Dead Sea Scrolls and make them all public, which was essential to start understanding what happened twenty centuries ago around Jesus. The present book is the result of his lifelong research in Middle East religious history. First the method. He brings together all documents available from the end of the 1st century BC to the beginning of the 3rd century CE. He considers all that is common but that does not give him the truth. For him the truth may come, and any interpretation can only come, from the differences in overlapping documents. He considers all documents are ideological interpretations of facts and stylistic rewriting of these same facts. The New Testament is a complete rewriting in Greek (he uses the concept of overwrites) of previous documents (he does not specify what they were : probably oral tradition in local semitic languages). He tries to decipher the rewriting and discover the buried version, using the method invented and devised by Kenneth Burke in his logology and his approach of Augustine. And it is the different elements he can find in other documents that lead him along the way to a reasonable and effective interpretation. Second the style. His extremely detailed work leads him to many repetitions of documents and facts in the whole book. It is circular, but each document or fact that is used several times, is used every single time in different conditions and thus helps build a different interpretation and thus gets a different meaning. We have to be patient and very humble in our search for truth, because one fact can have a great number of values and interpretations. That is the style at book level. If we go down at chapter and subchapter levels we have the same circularity but this time because the author threads up facts one after the other in a continuous flow of data from which he eventually gets his interpretation. The discourse is syncretic and thus may give you a vertigo. But it is the only way to proceeed : lines of data from which you draw a conclusion or rather a hypothesis from which you are going to work on. Now the general ideas. Jesus had three brothers, James the Just (minorized in James the Less, and there was only one James), Simon the Zealot, Judas the Zealot (but also Thomas and many other names among which Jude), and one sister, Mary Salome or Salome. The author concentrates on the brothers. First he denounces the multiplication of some names like James, Mary, Judas, Simon, etc. This is done to erase Jesus' family and to lessen and minorize the brothers who were invested by Jesus himself with the responsibility to further his work, James first, in no way with the intention to create a new religion but to create a new balance of power in the East to impose some freedom for the « Jews » to the Romans, and in no way with the intention of being God, or anything like that though he presented himself as the Son of Man, i.e. the Son of Adam, hence the Second Adam, hence the one announcing the end of this unjust world and the coming of divine judgment. The best case is Judas Iscariot who probably did not exist and was a complete invention drawn from various elements in the Old Testament and historical events of the period. This leads to a very clear interpretation of this family as a Zealot or Nazirite family fighting for a strict observance of the Law of Moses (righteousness, love of God, circumcision, separation : no fornication, no consumption of wine and eventually meat, no riches). The book then follows the historical Saulus and his transformation into Paul and his vision/invention of the Christian religion : no circumcision, no food code, spiritual communion with God and Jesus Christ, and communion in the body and blood of Christ (bread and wine) in a ritual sacrifice for everyone. He attacks James in the early 40s but fails to kill him. He lets the Priests and Herodians attack him in 62 which leads to his being stoned. Paul seems to be the inventor of the Christian religion though Mary's perpetual virginity is contained in Nag Hammadi apocryphal documents attributed to James himself. Obviously a new religion was being born. The nazirite of James' party would have led to strong tensions with the Roman empire. His death led to an all-out confrontation and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. But James was spreading his influence fast and far beyond the Jews. Paul highjacked this movement and produced a religion that was universal and acceptable by the Roman Empire, which was to happen with Constantine : the Christian religion became the unifying element of the Empire. With this book we are at the center of such questions, though I do not accept the conclusion that Jesus was on the same line as James. I think Jesus was trying to bring together the two lines : confrontation and collaboration with the Roman Empire into some independent project that would have guaranteed independence for the Eastern part of the Empire, or maybe even more : a federal conception of the Empire.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for the history at the time of Christ, March 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: James the Brother of Jesus Hb (Hardcover)

Detailed extensive history of the circumstances existing at the time of Jesus. Origins of Islam? Origins of Christianity? Origins of modern Rabbinic Judaism? Rings closer to the truth than anything else I've read. You'll refer back to it time and time again. Or.... you'll put your blinders on and go back to sleep. It was a real wakeup call for me. Great book! Must have for anyone serious about finding out the real circumstances of the historical Jesus and Paul and James.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an amazing book., February 21, 2005

By 

Donna C. Goode (Limestone, TN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: James, the Brother of Jesus (Paperback)

Professor Eisenmann has provided us with a thoroughly researched, heavily documented account of an individual the average "Christian" will never hear about and is kept carefully ignorant. As well, the culture of which all these individuals were part is brought into bright light of day. It provides proof positive that one cannot use the New Testament to prove the New Testament. I have simply laid aside my childish fantasies after having completed this book. It is a heavy read but one very much worth the effort.