I found Eric Zuesse’s “Christ’s Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity” a bipolar book that is self-contradictory. On one hand I agree with the author’s thesis that Christianity was created around the religious division over the issue of Jewish circumcision between James, brother of Jesus in Jerusalem, and Paul the Apostle to the gentile cities in what is now called Turkey. Zeusse claims Jesus “lived and died a Jew and was never a Christian”. Zeusse’s interpretation is in contrast to Christian doctrine that Christianity started by Jesus’s Resurrection and at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ’s disciples, including Paul.
But Zeusse’s thesis is hardly new. Barrie Wilson, PhD, has a new book out “Paul vs. James: The Battle That Shaped Christianity and Changed the World-An Historical Reconstruction” that in the form of a novel tells the story without all the anti-religious ranting of Zeusse.
Zeusse also contends that his methodology is more important than his findings. This includes three aspects:
Assume as little as possible
Always rely on the best (most reliable) evidence
Explain (not ignore) any contradictions with the evidence p 29
But his contention that he uses legal “forensic” and scientific methods to debunk the New Testament book of Galatians as to how Christianity came about, is mostly itself bunkum.
The Book of Galatians was written around 40 to 50 A.D., describing events in about 20 A.D., and it is entirely hearsay without a first-person witness account or third-party police or court report. Hearsay is not admissible in courts except by expert witnesses in, for example, eminent domain cases where an expert real estate appraiser can testify to their documented interviews with buyers and sellers of properties. Moreover, Paul, the author of Galatians and Jesus’ apostle never met Jesus and would not qualify as a first-person witness nor expert witness who interviewed first person witnesses. Nonetheless, Zeusse contradicts himself when he says Galatians is “universally accepted as a “first person account, not based on hearsay” (p. 27). And Zeusse claims he is the first “cross-examiner” of Galatians in world history. But his book includes no other cross examination of his “witnesses” or thesis by religious experts as would occur in a court of law.
Zeusse goes on to write that “history must be cleansed of myths” such as Christianity. But Zeusse strangely relies on those myths as his evidence. Karl Marx also claimed that religion was an “opiate” and Communism was “scientific” and devoid of myth but Marxism itself was mythic, hypnotically promising an unrealizable utopia. Prominent historian Philip Jenkins, in his book The Lost History of Christianity, makes the point that “religions fails when they are proven true”, not when proven mythical. Religion wouldn’t be religion without myth. I believe that many Christians know Christianity has mythic elements in it.
Moreover, even though I am a Christian, there is no irrefutable evidence that Jesus or Paul ever existed. Zeusse assumes they did exist but claims his book is written with as few assumptions as possible. But how could there be a bigger assumption than Jesus and Paul even existed? Lack of evidence of Jesus or Paul existed outside of scripture, however, does not necessarily prove they did not exist, as the Romans were known book burners. Alexandria, Egypt once was the center of Christianity but the Romans destroyed the library there in order move the center of Christianity to Rome around 275 A.D. A satellite library was demolished in 391 A.D. by the order of Coptic Christian Pope Theophilus. And the Essenes hid their Jewish scriptures from the Romans in caves, now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which make no mention of Jesus but only of a “son of God”.
Zeusse makes an interesting observation that Paul was a tentmaker whose probable main customer was the Roman army. This raises the question of whether Paul was a paid propagandist, like the Jewish historian Josephus, of the Roman Empire who wrote to pacify any Jewish resistance against Rome on the border of the Roman Empire.
In sum, I found Zeusse’s book to mainly be a rant and not any legal argument or based on the scientific method as he claims. The book could also have used a good edit to reduce all the overkill of repetitiveness.
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CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity Kindle Edition
by
Eric Zuesse
(Author)
Format: Kindle Edition
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CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS is a work of investigative history. It documents and describes Christianity’s creation-event, which occurred in the year 49 or 50, in Antioch (present-day Antakya, Turkey), 20 years after Jesus had been crucified in Jerusalem for sedition against Roman rule. At this event, Paul broke away from the Jewish sect that Jesus had begun, and he took with him the majority of this new Jewish sect’s members; he convinced these people that Jesus had been a god, and that the way to win eternal salvation in heaven is to worship him as such. On this precise occasion, Paul explicitly introduced, for the first time anywhere, the duality of the previously unitary Jewish God, a duality consisting of the Father and the Son; and he implicitly introduced also the third element of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost.
This book also explains and documents the tortuous 14-year-long conflict Paul had had with this sect’s leader, Jesus’s brother James, a conflict which caused Paul, in about the year 50, to perpetrate his coup d’état against James, and to start his own new religion: Christianity.
Then, this historical probe documents that the four canonical Gospel accounts of the words and actions of “Jesus” were written decades after Jesus, by followers of Paul, not by followers of Jesus; and that these writings placed into the mouth of “Jesus” the agenda of Paul. Paul thus became, via his followers, Christ’s ventriloquist.
A work such as this can be documented and produced only now, after the development (during the past 70 years) of modern legal/forensic methodology. Previously, the only available methods, which scholars have used, simply assumed the honesty-of-intent of all classical documents, especially of canonical religious ones, such as Paul’s epistles, and the Four Gospels. Only now is it finally possible to penetrate deeper than that, to reach the writer’s intent, and not merely his assertions, and to identify when this intent is to deceive instead of to inform. Whereas scholars have been able to discuss only the truth or falsity of particular canonical statements, it is now possible to discuss also the honesty or deceptiveness of individual statements. This opens up an unprecedented new research tool for historians, and CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS is the first work to use these new methods to reconstruct, on this legal/forensic basis, not just how crimes took place, but how and why major historical events (criminal or not), such as the event that started Christianity, actually occurred.
The author explains: “What I am doing in this work is to reconstruct from the New Testament the crucial events that produced it, without assuming whether what the NT says in any given passage is necessarily true or even honest. Instead of treating the NT as a work that ‘reports history,’ the NT is treated as a work whose history is itself being investigated and reported. Its origin goes back to this coup d’état that Paul perpetrated in Antioch in the year 49 or 50 against Jesus’s brother James in Jerusalem, whom Jesus in Jerusalem had appointed in the year 30 as his successor to lead the Jewish sect that Jesus had started. The Gospel accounts of ‘Jesus’ reflected Paul’s coup d’état – not actually Jesus, who would be appalled at the Christian concept of ‘Christ.’ That concept was radically different from the Jewish concept of the messiah, and Paul knew this when he created it.”
This book also explains and documents the tortuous 14-year-long conflict Paul had had with this sect’s leader, Jesus’s brother James, a conflict which caused Paul, in about the year 50, to perpetrate his coup d’état against James, and to start his own new religion: Christianity.
Then, this historical probe documents that the four canonical Gospel accounts of the words and actions of “Jesus” were written decades after Jesus, by followers of Paul, not by followers of Jesus; and that these writings placed into the mouth of “Jesus” the agenda of Paul. Paul thus became, via his followers, Christ’s ventriloquist.
A work such as this can be documented and produced only now, after the development (during the past 70 years) of modern legal/forensic methodology. Previously, the only available methods, which scholars have used, simply assumed the honesty-of-intent of all classical documents, especially of canonical religious ones, such as Paul’s epistles, and the Four Gospels. Only now is it finally possible to penetrate deeper than that, to reach the writer’s intent, and not merely his assertions, and to identify when this intent is to deceive instead of to inform. Whereas scholars have been able to discuss only the truth or falsity of particular canonical statements, it is now possible to discuss also the honesty or deceptiveness of individual statements. This opens up an unprecedented new research tool for historians, and CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS is the first work to use these new methods to reconstruct, on this legal/forensic basis, not just how crimes took place, but how and why major historical events (criminal or not), such as the event that started Christianity, actually occurred.
The author explains: “What I am doing in this work is to reconstruct from the New Testament the crucial events that produced it, without assuming whether what the NT says in any given passage is necessarily true or even honest. Instead of treating the NT as a work that ‘reports history,’ the NT is treated as a work whose history is itself being investigated and reported. Its origin goes back to this coup d’état that Paul perpetrated in Antioch in the year 49 or 50 against Jesus’s brother James in Jerusalem, whom Jesus in Jerusalem had appointed in the year 30 as his successor to lead the Jewish sect that Jesus had started. The Gospel accounts of ‘Jesus’ reflected Paul’s coup d’état – not actually Jesus, who would be appalled at the Christian concept of ‘Christ.’ That concept was radically different from the Jewish concept of the messiah, and Paul knew this when he created it.”
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateMarch 29, 2012
- File size1164 KB
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Eric Zuesse is a winner of the Mencken Award for investigative reporting. His previous books include IRAQ WAR: The Truth, and WHY THE HOLOCAUST HAPPENED. PRE-PUBLICATION ENDORSEMENTS of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: "A winner." - Bruce Chilton, author of Rabbi Jesus, and Director of the Institute for Advanced Theology at Bard College "My skeptical ear detects a very distinct ring of plausibility in this gripping tale. ... provocatively interesting, ... and forcefully written." - Richard Dawkins, Oxford University and author of bestsellers The Selfish Gene, and The God Delusion "Great writing; great forensic investigation." - David Davis, participant in the Jesus Seminar's discussion group "This book is an absolute must-read for anyone investigating the origins of Christianity ... insightful, well-written, and powerfully informative." - Joe E. Holman, author of Project Bible Truth "Presents a side of Paul that the general reader of the Bible, or even the scholars, miss." - Oswald Schrag, Emeritus Professor of Religion at Fisk University, Fellow of the Jesus Seminar, and member of the Westar Institute "It works for explaining Christian origins. ... Paul has to do away with [Judaism's demand for] circumcision. That is so unambiguous." - James Crossley, Sheffield University Professor of Biblical Studies, and author of Why Christianity Happened "An open-minded reader/juror will come to the conclusion that [Paul] is guilty of inventing a new religion, illegitimately appropriating Jesus." - Abe Van Luik, Ph.D., former Christian fundamentalist "It is surprising to me that this view of Paul has not been previously written. ... I love your boldness." - Reverend Steven Michael Smith, Colona United Methodist Church, and a participant in the Jesus Seminar's discussion group --This text refers to the paperback edition.
Product details
- ASIN : B007Q1H4EG
- Publisher : Hyacinth Editions (March 29, 2012)
- Publication date : March 29, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 1164 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 301 pages
- Lending : Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: #959,767 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #3,045 in Christian Church & Bible History (Kindle Store)
- #5,971 in Christian Ministry & Church Leadership (Kindle Store)
- #6,788 in World History (Kindle Store)
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3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
114 global ratings
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Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2020
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7 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2017
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If you know the Saul con already, and if you can read a brief summary of this book without getting offended, then you already know what it's about and agree with the author. Even so, there's a value in the compilation of so much textual analysis. It is repetitive, overuses emphasis, and is occasionally badly written, but the author was trying to address people who won't agree with him anyway, ergo his over-emphasizing his point. I still considered it valuable given the specific chronological comparisons Zuesse drew between earlier and later evidence.
Unfortunately, Zuesse's interest in forensic analysis and an objective scientific approach does not extend to other topics that he broaches in the book, such as religious warfare, anti Semitism, and the Holocaust, let alone Saul's origins and the net positive effects that revised Jenomic religions have always had for the Semitic peoples. Perhaps someday he will cross that bridge. Until then, there's still some good organized source material in this.
Unfortunately, Zuesse's interest in forensic analysis and an objective scientific approach does not extend to other topics that he broaches in the book, such as religious warfare, anti Semitism, and the Holocaust, let alone Saul's origins and the net positive effects that revised Jenomic religions have always had for the Semitic peoples. Perhaps someday he will cross that bridge. Until then, there's still some good organized source material in this.
13 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2019
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I find the author to be confused about the reason for Christs existence here on earth. Christ came to earth to show God's love through his living a sin free life and to replace the ceremonies such as circumcision and ritual sacrifice with his own life. He died taking on the sins of this world and eliminating the need for such rituals.
8 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2022
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Anything that panders to and receives praise from both the 'Jesus Seminar' AND noted atheist Richard Dawkins is nothing more than a self-important, bloviating waste of pixels.
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2015
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Turgid repetitive. Could have used a slashing editor. Many of the arguments and observations were repeated what felt like dozens of times. Sound enough argument but it got preachy about half way through. Seems to have inadequately reference some writers such as Robert Graves.
11 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2019
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Zuesse sets out to prove, through what he calls forensic methodology, that Paul of Tauruses distorted the teachings of Jesus to create a new religion. His analysis of Galatians is detailed and plausible, but he does a disservice to his cause by constant repetition.
3 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2017
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A little on the dry side. However, it's an important book.
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2018
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Several authors have done deep research into the "founding" of Christianity, but this author goes even deeper - down to the bones. It discloses the history of the beginning of "Christianity". With the use of Occam's Razor and stronger version of Sherlock Holmes' Magnifying Glass, it discovers and explains a new, and quite possibly THE Correct, view, that "Christianity" as most of us understand it today, is different from what we've been given to understand. (That's putting it mildly!)
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries
Felix Rayner
5.0 out of 5 stars
Takes Saul's letter to Galatians as authentic. If this ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 21, 2016Verified Purchase
Takes Saul's letter to Galatians as authentic. If this really is so, the conclusions are correct.
One weak point of the theory in my opinion is the explanation of Saul's motivation to undertake the huge effort he did. The author explains it as an effort to self-agrandisment. I find this insufficient a motivation, the guy was too clever for such a thing. Either he was possessed, or the whole thing has some missing parts.
One weak point of the theory in my opinion is the explanation of Saul's motivation to undertake the huge effort he did. The author explains it as an effort to self-agrandisment. I find this insufficient a motivation, the guy was too clever for such a thing. Either he was possessed, or the whole thing has some missing parts.
paul wynter
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 5, 2016Verified Purchase
Item was as described.
Lloyd Dettering
1.0 out of 5 stars
Utter nonsense!
Reviewed in Canada on August 27, 2021Verified Purchase
Paul created his 'Christianity' among the Gentile goyim.(cattle) to preserve the high priests liaison with YHWH the alien 'god' of Genesis who Jesus called the devil (.John.8: 44)! Food in exchange for.power! Jesus taught TRUTH not religion! ALL religion is nonsense! The true God, Jesus' God, has been conflated with YHWH, the alien with super tech!
Thadeu Martins
5.0 out of 5 stars
Como de fato surgiu o cristianismo pelas palavras de São Paulo
Reviewed in Brazil on July 12, 2016Verified Purchase
Surpreendente o resultado da análise das palavras de São Paulo, em suas cartas a seus seguidores.
Ficam bem clara a situação do surgimento do cristianismo, muito além das aparências e das celebrações que se observam hoje em dia.
Pela primeira vez, a história vista com olhos de um analista forense, ao estilo da apresentação de provas para os jurados, que são os leitores, decidirem como. quando, por que, por quem, para quem, foi criado o que conhecemos como cristianismo.
Uma aula de investigação.
Ficam bem clara a situação do surgimento do cristianismo, muito além das aparências e das celebrações que se observam hoje em dia.
Pela primeira vez, a história vista com olhos de um analista forense, ao estilo da apresentação de provas para os jurados, que são os leitores, decidirem como. quando, por que, por quem, para quem, foi criado o que conhecemos como cristianismo.
Uma aula de investigação.
jatheist
5.0 out of 5 stars
Christ good; Paul bad
Reviewed in Australia on August 6, 2015Verified Purchase
This historian has broken away from a long line of historians reaping each other in the unexamined christian era. He claims to use forensic methodology to examine the work of the man Paul who was the real founder of this religion. Like a breath of fresh air .
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