21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ECCE HOMO!, September 20, 2002
"Behold the man!" The words of Pontius Pilate reverberate in my mind upon reading this book, a superlative study on the life of Jesus Christ, the central figure of the human race. Gordon Thomas presents the Nazarene and His times unlike any other book I've read to date, with such painstaking realism as to allow the reader to be present during Christ's ministry. One can nearly smell the odors of Jerusalem's streets, hear the bustle of people as they gather to listen to the words of the young rabbi, and witness the events leading to His crucifixion and subsequent Resurrection .
This book is noteworthy for numerous reasons, among these Thomas extensive reasearch -spanning decades- on all extant texts related to Jesus and the events surrounding him: the Bible and the numerous apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books on Christ, early Judaic and Christian histories such as Josephus and Eusebius, and even Talmudic tractates that articulate Jewish law and custom.
THE JESUS CONSPIRACY (previously titled THE TRIAL; the current title is somewhat misleading and ambiguous) is centered on the murderous conspiracy by the staus quo against Jesus and the revolutionary message He spread. It explores the mentality and motives of those who participated in Christ's passion: Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator; Herod Antipas, Idumean tetrarch of Galilee; and Joseph Caiaphas, Rome-appointed high priest of the Temple. This Unholy Triumvirate were responsible for the most infamous show trial in history (covered in great detail in this book) which ultimately condemned an innocent man to one of the most barbaric deaths in human experience and centuries later provided an unjust excuse for anti-Semitism.
The Passion is described with riveting detail; Thomas' vivid descriptions of Christ's flogging (which literally shred the flesh with barbed and weighted thongs) and mockery with the Crown of Thorns is disturbing. The Crucifixion is HARROWING. It is impossible not to be shaken when visualizing these events, and not be left with awe and admiration for the Nazarene, who despite all this exclaimed from the Cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Verily, one is overwhelmed by Christ's magnanimity and salvific love for humanity.
The events following the Crucifixion are demonstrated to impossibilitate any action by the disciples on Jesus behalf. Yet the events on that fateful Sunday morning forever changed the history of humankind.
Gordon Thomas, as a liberal Catholic, is far from dogmatic or confrontational: he actually attempts an unbiased, objective, even-handed examination of Christ's life and times. In his extensive introduction and epilogue, he articulates his research and addresses the numerous concerns and debates, and rightly takes issue with extremist reactionaries (the "Jesus Seminar" and others FARTHER to the left) who are more focused on smearing Christ and the Church than biblical scholarship.
He does question the Bible's authority and disagrees with some important teachings, but this is done in the spirit of objectivity, not theological agenda. What is noteworthy is that in the end of his rigorous scrutiny of Scripture, the fundamentals remain: Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who came into the world to save us from sin by His death on the Cross, and that He rose on the third day. As a result, whether one is a seeker or a seasoned Christian, one comes out of reading this book a changed person. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, March 31, 2000
By A Customer
This narrative reads too much like devotional literature. It does not present a historical study of the life of Christ as is purported by the book's jacket. Admittedly, there were portions that contained some interesting historical information, but nothing new to a long-time Bible student like myself. The comparison to Morrison's "Who Moved The Stone" is not a fair representation of this book. In addition, the title of the book is very misleading. Overall, if you are looking for a nice devotional read, this book will suit your needs, but if you are looking for a historical study of the life and times of Jesus Christ, you will find that this book will fail to meet your expectations. I was greatly disappointed!
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19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Jesus in focus, August 28, 2000
The Jesus Conspiracy
A Book Review
When we, in the 21st Century, seek to understand the life of Jesus it can be helpful to look at Him in the historical setting of His day. It was a time vastly different from what we face today, at least in terms of day to day things and the relationship He and others had to the Roman government and to the prevailing religious environment.
In his recent book, The Jesus Conspiracy, Gordon Thomas takes his readers back to the days of some 2,000 years ago. Thomas is identified in this Baker Book House (1999) publication as a "highly successful British investigative journalist." This book of some 300 pages turns the clock back so that the reader is an eyewitness of sorts to the things Jesus said and did, as they occurred in their proper historical contexts. Along the way Thomas provides some insights about that culture which many of us would find very interesting. The book has been compared to Who Rolled Away the Stone by Frank Morrison, a work by another Englishman who had questioned the validity of the Gospels and their accounts of Jesus, especially the events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection. Morrison began his work as an unbeliever but finished as part of the Family!
Why Thomas selected this title (conspiracy) is not very clear from the text. It may that many, in that time when Jesus was walking this earth, felt that what He was attempting to do was to establish a new order of things, especially of a religious nature. What was taking place, some surely seemed to believe, was a plan to replace much of the established way of doing things in the temple. He presented a threat to the status quo. The so called trial Jesus experienced seemed to have that as the motivation. Thomas, much like Morrison in the earlier work, takes his readers step by step through this trial and shows the many illegal moves made and how those moves were tolerated. The trial was a sham! Many boundaries used to protect people were set aside.
Thomas brings an additional perspective to many of the same events addressed by Morrison so that a reader can come away with a deeper appreciation, especially, of the pain and suffering Christ endured. There are some problems along the way in Thomas' attempt to bring clarity to such an important time of history. He apparently has some difficulty in accepting what the Bible says about things. He notes that "faith does not stand, or fall, on the details of history." Later he says that the "message of God's revelation, while indeed founded on fact, does not depend on each precise detail of fact." This seems to leave the door open for error to enter, especially when someone disagrees with what the Bible might say. Apparently Thomas stands outside the concept that the Bible is God's word because if God wrote the scriptures there would be no room for any mistakes, even in what Thomas may regard as less than precise detail of fact. It is agreed that the things God has told us may not be the exhaustive report. Nevertheless we have little reason to doubt that we have been told is true.
For example, when discussing the trial of Jesus, he says the Biblical accounts speak of this taking place during the night, at least the accounts by Matthew and Mark. Thomas maintains this to be incorrect. Luke, says Thomas, speaks of no proceedings during the hours of darkness. Thomas calls this an "unimportant mistake." While the importance of this trial occurring at night or in the daytime may not, in the grand scheme of things, be all so great, such thinking could easily encourage a person to consider other Biblical passages as being wrong too. Why these accounts don't seem to agree may not so much be mistakes but differing perspectives.
One disturbing section occurred when Thomas discussed the event when Jesus was visiting in the home of Mary & Martha. This is where Mary received a scolding from Martha for not helping. Thomas paints this event as being one in which Mary's attention to Jesus was on the verge of being a sexual thing. Thomas hints that Jesus was unaware of Mary's heart and, in fact, enjoyed the attention. Thomas contends that Martha's concern was not so much that she needed help with things in the house but that Mary refrain from what she was doing. This seems to be reading something into the text that is highly questionable and it might make a person wonder about the ability of Jesus to know a person's thoughts and motivations.
There are at least two serious problems with the book. Thomas speaks of Peter as being the rock upon which the church would be built. This is, at best, a potential misunderstanding of this crucial passage in Matthew 16:18. The "rock" upon which the Church was to be built was not Peter but upon the truth Peter had expressed, that Christ was the Savior. The way this particular verse has been handled has been a major issue dividing the Roman Catholic Church from others who embrace Christianity. Thomas implies that there is no doubt about this verse. Thomas makes this same reference to Peter several additional times.
Thomas, in my opinion, ended the book to soon. He ended it at the cross, but the cross is not the end of the message. There is no reference given to the resurrection. Without the resurrection, the cross is meaningless. Without the resurrection, the figure on the cross was only a man who died. The resurrection is the important part and it is difficult to understand why Thomas stopped before the end of the story. To stop before the end is to present an incomplete account.
However, even given these shortcomings, the book is a good read and can be helpful in understanding the days & times of Jesus.
Dan Schobert Plover, Wi 54467
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