Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ [Paperback]

D.M. Murdock (Author), Acharya S (Author), Robert M. Price (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 28, 2007

Was Jesus Christ truly the divine Son of God who walked the earth 2,000 years ago? How can we be sure the gospel story is an accurate and infallibly recorded historical account? When the gospels are examined scientifically, can we truthfully uphold them as "inerrant?" Is it possible to assert honestly and ethically that the Bible is the inspired Word of God?

The answers to these questions and many more may surprise and shock you! Is the New Testament a "historical record" or "factual biography" of what really happened, or a tool for the priesthood to lay down doctrines and dogma as they were developed over the centuries?

• Was Jesus the Jewish Messiah?
• Was Christ the Savior of the World?
• Was He a Cynic sage or a political rebel?
• Or was Jesus Christ something altogether different?

Subjects in this fascinating "CSI-style" investigation by controversial independent scholar of religious history D.M. Murdock aka "Acharya S" include:

• Foreword by Dr. Robert M. Price
• The Gospel According to Matthew
• The Nativity of Jesus Christ
• The Baptism and Temptation    
• The Calling of the Disciples
• The Sermon on the Mount
• The Lord's Prayer
• Healing of the Sick and Casting out Demons    
• The Mission of the Twelve
• Working on the Sabbath
• John the Baptist Beheaded
• Walking on Water
• The Canaanite Woman
• Peter the "Rock"
• The Transfiguration
• Becoming like Children
• Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven
• Entry into Jerusalem
• Driving out the Moneychangers
• Cursing the Fig Tree
• Signs of the Times/Second Coming
• Jesus's Anointment with Oil
• The Last Supper
• The Garden of Gethsemane
• The Betrayal by Judas    
• Christ's Trial
• The Passion and Crucifixion
• The Resurrection of the Dead    
• The Empty Tomb
• The Gospel According to Mark
• Was Mark First?
• Comparison of Matthew and Mark
• The Missing Scriptures
• The Gospel According to Luke
• Chronological Discrepancies
• Luke's Tenor
• The Gospel According to John
• Authentic or Adulterated?
• Who Killed Jesus?
• Textual Harmonization
• Inspired Originals?
• Scribal Scalliwags
• Error-Filled Copies
• Eyewitness Accounts or Compilations?
• The Gospel Dates
• Anonymous and Pseudonymous Authors
• According to Whom?
• "Back in the Day..."
• The Lukan Prologue
• Irenaeus, "Father of the Catholic Canon"
• Church Father and Bishop Papias
• Justin Martyr
• The Rylands Papyrus
• Late Dating of the Gospels?
• Jesus Outside of the Bible
• Titus Flavius Josephus
• Pliny the Younger
• Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
• Publius/Gaius Cornelius Tacitus
• Thallus, Phlegon and Mara Bar-Serapion, et al.
• The Talmud
• Gnostic Sources
• Extrabiblical Christian Sources
• Who are Elijah and Elisha?
• Jesus as Fulfillment of Prophecy
• Questions about the  Gospel Story
• Miracles, Impossibilities and Implausibilities
• Failed Prophecies
• Contradictions and Inconsistencies
• Errors in Time and Place
• Chronological Problems
• Translation Errors and Language Problems
• Illogic and Irrationality
• Jesus's Character
• Repellant Deeds, Sayings and Doctrines
• Apology Accepted?
• "It Doesn't Matter?"
• Four Camera Angles
• What Jesus Felt or Thought
• History or Propaganda?
• A Uniquely Divine Birth?
• Salvation is from the Jews?
• Son of Joseph?
• Massacre or Myth?
• Son of God?
• The Resurrection of Lazarus?    
• The Naked Youth
• The "Twelve"
• The Sacred Meal
• The Bloody Sweat
• The Trial and Crucifixion
• The Sun of Righteousness
• The Sacred Spear and The Side-Wounding
• The Empty Tomb Redux
• The Ascension into Heaven
• The Sayings of Jesus?    
• Conclusion
• Terror in the Name of God
• Vacuous Christianity?

This detailed but succinct analysis includes quotes from Christian authorities, apologists and evangelists, as well as New Testament scholars, such as:

• John Ankerberg
• Craig L. Blomberg
• F.F. Bruce
• William Lane Craig
• John Dominic Crossan
• Bart Ehrman
• Norman Geisler
• Gary Habermas
• Josh McDowell
• John P. Meier
• Bruce M. Metzger
• J.P. Moreland
• Ronald H. Nash
• Lee Strobel
• Merrill C. Tenney
• Ben Witherington
• Edwin Yamauchi

Using the Bible itself, as well as the research of these individuals and others, Murdock demonstrates that what you see is not what you get when it comes to Christ and Christianity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Who Was Jesus? is a fine work, characterized by your unique ability to spot neglected implications and aspects of debates... --Robert M. Price, Ph.D, The Pre-Nicene New Testament

D.M. Murdock, aka "Acharya S," has written a really fine introduction to the problem of the Historical Jesus. She couches everything in the most basic terms, comprehensible to the layman, and lays out the problem and all the issues in a both really readable and digestible form. Her charts are insightful and extremely useful and presented in such a way as to make things immediately plausible to the general reader. I can recommend her work whole-heartedly for anyone on a world-wide basis who really wants to know what is at stake in approaching and coming to terms with the real person behind the literary image provided by those who created the story of "Jesus." --Robert H. Eisenman, Ph.D, The New Testament Code

I loved this book. It is absolutely superb in every way, from the eloquence of the writing to the integrity of the scholarship. This book should be required reading in every American classroom.... Ms. Murdock is one of only a tiny number of scholars with the richly diverse academic background (and the necessary courage) to adequately address the question of whether Jesus Christ truly existed as a walking-talking figure in first-century Palestine. This question, and many others related to New Testament reliability, are directly confronted and satisfyingly answered in Who Was Jesus? My personal recommendation is that Who Was Jesus? should be the first book purchased and studied by anyone, atheist or true believer, who wants to debate Jesus' existence and the Bible's veracity.... You should therefore make this book priority reading even over The God Delusion, God is Not Great and other excellent but, in my opinion, less important books than Murdock's! .... --David Mills, Atheist Universe

I've known people with triple Ph.D's who haven't come close to the scholarship here. I think I've read every popular alternative theory about Jesus that has come down the pike--with Who Was Jesus? I was very impressed. --Pastor David Bruce, M.Div Pastor David Bruce, M.Div Pastor David Bruce, M.Div, HollywoodJesus.com

Thirty years ago, when in divinity school, I might have had second thoughts about becoming an Episcopal priest if a book like D. M. Murdock's Who Was Jesus? had been available to me. Murdock's book, probably the best of this genre - written with clarity, precision, and conviction - unpacks most of the nonsense and mythology surrounding the ancient Hebrew figure called Jesus and presents a compelling picture of a mythological amalgam to counter most of the misinformation and wishful-thinking that passes for Christian apologetics today. -- Bob Semes, Retired Professor of History and Religion

From the Author

Please note that this is a new cover and slightly revised edition of the same book with the light-blue cover and solar flare in the center.

I wrote this book, Who Was Jesus?, after many people asked me to produce a simple and easy-to-read introduction to the problems with the New Testament, both in its creation/history and within the text itself. This book has been deemed "kinder and gentler" by one Christian apologist, as it more-or-less gently leads the reader from a neutral recitation of the gospel story according to Matthew, proceeding through the other gospels and showing how they differ, into the problems with the dating of the canonical gospels, as well as the lack of mention of Jesus Christ, Christians or Christianity in the works of dozens of writers during the first and second centuries, and so on.

This book differs from my others in that it focuses on the Christian texts themselves, mainly limited to the four canonical gospels, with only a few, brief discussions relating some comparative mythology. It contains information that was difficult to find and does not appear in my other works, such as the writings of early Church fathers in which they discuss the creation of the canonical gospels as having taken place during what we now call the second century.

The book is also unique in that it uses the works of many well-respected Christian authorities and apologists, as well as New Testament scholars and theologians, revealing a strain of critical scholarship that few laymen are familiar with.

Many people have found it useful to provide copies of Who Was Jesus? to their Christian friends and family members, so they too can learn about the problems with the New Testament that scholars have addressed over the past several centuries into the most modern times.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Stellar House Publishing, LLC (November 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979963109
• ISBN-13: 978-0979963100
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

D.M. Murdock, also known by her pen name, "Acharya S," is the author of several books on comparative religion and mythology, including "The Christ Conspiracy," "Suns of God," "Who Was Jesus?" and "Christ in Egypt." She is also the author of "The Gospel According to Acharya S," which seeks to answer some long-held questions concerning the nature of God, religion and humankind's place in the world.

Murdock is an alumna of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, where she studied Classics, Greek Civilization. She has lived in Greece and is also an alumna of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece. Acharya has excavated at Corinth, Greece, where tradition has St. Paul addressing the Corinthians, as well as at a Paleo-Indian site in the U.S. She speaks, reads and/or writes to varying degrees English, French, Spanish, ancient and modern Greek, Latin, German and other languages.

Acharya/Murdock has several websites, including TruthBeKnown.com, StellarHousePublishing.com, TBKNews.blogspot.com and FreethoughtNation.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book !!!, December 12, 2007

By 

L. Ball (Alabama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ (Paperback)

I am not aware of another book on the subject of Christianity that packs more information into 284 pages than Who Was Jesus? D. M. Murdock, also known as Acharya, has written another very fine book on New Testament studies. This volume concentrates on the person of Jesus, but also goes into great detail about how the New Testament was compiled, and how we can determine for ourselves the reliability of the writings. Many dozens of topics are covered in a way that lay people can understand, and the format is designed in such a way that material is very easy to find, because the exhaustive table of contents identifies the subject matter so well. The planning and the detail in this book show that everything is well thought out and clearly presented. It is nice to find a book for people who have serious questions about Jesus and Christianity that provides answers in a straight forward manner without meandering and rambling. This is a first class piece of work that will be referred to over and over by the readers.

The history of Jesus is conveyed in detail for each of the four Gospels, including issues about the dating and authorship of these books. Murdock clearly shows us where the New Testament writers are using historical information and where they are adding their own theological ideas to the text. This book helps to make it more clear for us how and why the New Testament was a progressive compilation that tended to make Jesus more God-like with each telling of the story. This volume also shows the importance of understanding that the New Testament took time to be collected, and it also took time to determine which books were included in the canon, because the finished product was completed in centuries, not decades.

Christians and skeptics alike will find Who Was Jesus? is not vindictive or condescending in the way the information is presented. Because many of the details may be new to the reader, this is a book every Bible student should have in their personal library.

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A look behind the thinly disguised myths of Christianity, December 26, 2007

By 

John L. Reardon "Warwolf" (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ (Paperback)

This is the second book by this author that I have read and I am simply overwhelmed by the research, the scholarship and the use of pure reason in dismantling the thinly-veiled mythology behind Christianity. In a well-written and very readable volume, D.M. Murdock (Acharya S) uses Christianity's own words and works to lay before the reader in clear and easily understood prose how the early Christian fathers reworked ancient myths to create a fictional character named Jesus Christ who seemed to embody all the qualities of the gods and legends these simple pagans already worshiped

I am a historian, although my bailiwick is military history, and yet I have always been interested in the history of things. Back in my prep school days, I started to delve into the history of Christianity and found a great deal that I felt I wanted no part of. I gave up my religion at about age sixteen, passing up gladly the easy allure of blind faith for the stonier path of reason. In Ms. Murdock's work I have finally been able to exorcise those last remaining doubts brought about by the early programming I received in school and church.

I would highly recommend this work, especially to those who prize their ability to think for themselves, as well as Acharya's previous volumes, particularly "The Christ Conspiracy" and "The Suns of God."

Well done and brava!

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Examines all the metaphorical "fingerprints" left behind, December 27, 2007

By 

David Deley (Santa Barbara, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ (Paperback)

On those CSI TV shows they're always dusting for fingerprints, trying to figure out "Who was here?" and "What happened?" Their motto is, "Follow the evidence." and "The evidence will tell us." The evidence often contradicts their original assumption, pointing them in a new direction, where they eventually find the truth.

In this book Acharya examines all the evidence regarding Jesus. Every scrap of historical evidence we have, every metaphorical "fingerprint" left behind. Acharya follows the evidence, letting the evidence tell it's story. When we put it all together we get the best possible picture of Jesus and where the story came from.