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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Felix Rayner
Takes Saul's letter to Galatians as authentic. If this ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 21, 2016Verified Purchase
paul wynter
Five Stars
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Lloyd Dettering
Utter nonsense!
Reviewed in Canada on August 27, 2021Verified Purchase
Thadeu Martins
Como de fato surgiu o cristianismo pelas palavras de São Paulo
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Christ good; Paul bad
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