Cloud23 - Shop now
To share your reaction on this item, open the Amazon app from the App Store or Google Play on your phone.
Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
$28.99
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Friday, January 31 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Wednesday, January 29. Order within 15 hrs 15 mins.
In Stock
$$28.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$28.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Jay Raskin
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Evolution of Christs and Christianities Paperback – March 7, 2006

by Jay Raskin (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 4 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$28.99","priceAmount":28.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"28","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"TxpAnzLCBvrVljmeujRtvPsLBZiMCYqLxP%2FADg3K8mZrIjoQ%2Bj2HSjRrCmsioxeDdJWmGe5AHQ53h7N%2BRojuYiqydOX%2B1DbnMSDT3IEySOO0DK53whrbupjLcBXg0IGiwK8twudz%2Bfg%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

ideology rather than promulgating an authentic history of people and social groups. 2) A woman, wrote the earliest layer of the canonical gospel tales. She was probably named Mary and may have been a daughter of a Jewish High Priest. 3) Most of the words of Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke were originally from texts about John, the Nazarene Prophet, A.K.A. John, the Baptist. 4) Important features of the characters of Jesus and the Apostle Peter came from a Samaritan magician called Simon Magus. 5) The major Christian group in Jerusalem in the first century was The Church of God. This institution was associated with James the Just and opposed by Paul the Tarsan. It apparently made its money by training slaves in obedience for widows. It looked towards Joshua (Jesus) of Nun for salvation as opposed to the laws of Moses and, like Paul, it knew nothing of any Jesus from Nazareth Taken together, these hypotheses suggest that Jesus of Nazareth was not a real historical person. He was primarily a complex literary creation. He was a combination of various texts about Joshua of Nun, John, the Nazarene Prophet, James the Just, Simon Magus and various other literary characters. However some of these earlier characters may have been loosely based on, or intended to refer to, various historical persons who lived in the first half of the First century.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    650 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    March 7, 2006
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 1.47 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1413497918
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1413497915
  7. See all details
Next slide of product details
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Xlibris, Corp. (March 7, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 650 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1413497918
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1413497915
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.95 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.47 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 4 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Jay Raskin

Jay Raskin

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Kurt Finguerra
    5.0 out of 5 stars A most Important Work
    Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2014
    I read this book a few years ago, as I was looking for authors who were trying to discern just what Eusebius did; what mischief did he set to pen in arguably the most important "history" ever written (due to the impact its legacy as an authentic, actual, history has had on the world).

    I found in this work an excellent and long overdue analysis of Eusebius one that I hope Dr. Raskin or someone else can continue to flesh out.

    Nothing but the outright rejection of E.H, as reliable history, and the relegation of it to a category or a "type" such as empire propaganda, just as the lists of martyrdoms and saints that serve only the churches purposes, will allow us to begin to see it as it should be seen.

    And Jay opened that door wide and well.

    Then he opened many doors wide, all well, some he may not have closed sure but that's what makes this so important.

    Hes trying to get to the bottom of these mysteries in any way possible.

    Lets hope he can write a book on Tertullian if he has time: there is a nut that really needs to be cracked.

    Jay, your book changed my thinking and your style of writing will do that for others as well.

    May life bring you the time to examine Tertullian.

    It would be absurd not to. ;)
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Neil Godfrey
    3.0 out of 5 stars Gospels through the prism of film studies
    Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2006
    Jay Raskin analyzes the gospels through the lens of his background in film studies. Raskin's knowledge of film makes him more keenly aware than most that cuts and changes in film sequences are evidence that those film sequences were filmed at different times and later edited together for special narrative effects. So when Raskin sees what he takes to be similar types of narrative cuts and breaks in the gospel texts, he explores the idea that such narrative 'intercutting' is likewise evidence that those different story sections were originally composed at different times and subsequently woven together for the special narrative effect of the whole.

    These original scenes that are so often disjointed, even contradictory, lacking a plausible narrative sequence, he argues, would originally have been composed within earlier narratives in such a way that would have made better sense than they currently do in our gospels. Later editors have selectively chosen some of these episodes and rearranged them over time to produce the gospels we know today.

    By analyzing and deconstructing the 'intercut' narrative breaks and each narrative chunk Raskin believes that he can deduce the most likely original connections between these disjointed episodes. He writes: "I am doing narratological archaeology.... I use the jumps, contradictions and unusual constructions in sections of the narrative to reconstruct the earlier layers of that narrative." By thus reviewing then reconstructing these story elements into what are argued to be more plausible narratives settings, contexts and sequences, Raskin arrives at some astounding conclusions about the original stories from which the Christianity emerged:

    -- early stories of John the Baptist were adapted into stories about Jesus

    -- a crucified Samaritan magician named Simon was the source of the gospel crucifixion scenes

    -- there existed a "proto-Christian" church led by James the Just who was esteemed as a martyred "christ-like" figure.

    Raskin also builds on his "film deconstruction" technique with modern feminist literature studies (alongside references to Nag Hammadi gnostic texts) to argue that a woman (Mary?) wrote an early Christ play that may have been loosely based on real events

    So from where did the current very different view of Christian origins derive? Raskin argues in an interesting opening chapter on the possibility of Eusebius being "the master constructor of the still dominant paradigm of Christian history." This is probably the most persuasive section of the work.

    Raskin is approaching biblical studies as an outsider bringing new paradigms (derived from film and feminist literature studies) and asking fresh questions and arriving at radically different answers. His sources are predominantly web-based, and these are not inconsiderable with such a wealth of ancient documents now available on the internet.

    Readers more familiar with much scholarship not available online that deals with many of these sources will wish Raskin took time to address its conclusions as well. By presenting new methods and answers without addressing longer established methods and solutions (explored most thoroughly offline), and arguing their comparative inadequacy, Raskin's book lacks full persuasiveness.

    Raskin nevertheless admits many of his reconstructions "are problematical because we have no outside evidence for them." He counters, however, that "if we do not assume that such earlier narratives existed, we are left with a multitude of narratological problems....." (p.36)

    Readers can expect to be challenged with original solutions to these 'narratological problems', with fresh paradigms for deconstructing and reconstructing the gospels, and with the implications these have for our understanding of Christian origins.
    12 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Charles O. Wilson
    4.0 out of 5 stars Jay Raskin's _Evolution of Christs and Christianities_
    Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2006
    Bertrand Russell once stated that "Common sense leads to science and science shows that common sense is false."

    Jay Raskin has taken apart a number of "common sense" ideas that have ruled the world of Biblical Scholarship for centuries. This book, extremely well written and extensively footnoted, traces a line of thought from a well documented alignment of critical analysis to an understanding of the gospels not seen before.

    Dr. Raskin looks at Eusebius, commonly seen as the "writer of the early history of the church", and sees, not a writer of history, but a master forger, intent on guiding the future development of the Church as THE future development of THE Church.

    This realization leads to a profound realization: "Once we see the unreality of Eusebian history, we lose many of our traditional sources for reconstructing Christian histories." (p. 20)

    This leads to two striking parts to Dr. Raskin's book. The first is the use of the Internet as a resource for study. This book is an early user of this new tool and when the history of Biblical Scholarship is written, Dr. Raskin's book will be seen as an example of how this tool could be used to further scholarship.

    The second part of Dr. Raskin's scholarship is the use of a tool to re-construct the stories of the gospels. It would be easy (and has been) to look ruefully to the sky when confronted by a falsified Eusebius and complain that we can never know now what the New Testament stories or the early history of the church are about.

    It could be trivially stated that what follows is "A blending of science and art." This would certainly minimize what Dr. Raskin has done. The "art" of a master craftsman comes long after the craft has been mastered. Here is where Dr. Raskin has opened a new section for study.

    Dr. Raskin looks at the gospel stories - and Josephus and others as well - as stories that have been rewritten to support the purposes seen in Eusebius. Using almost every methodologically sound technique around, Dr. Raskin reconstructs the stories, sometimes rewriting them, to arrive at what is both plausible and consistent.

    In short, Dr. Raskin has given us a rubric, an objective guide using subjective judgements, to reconstructing the gospels and their true original intent.

    For example (p. 384 - 385), Dr. Raskin looks at the "...days of John the Baptist" (a critical part of the thesis that Jesus is a construct) after the reconstruction of a particular first passage:

    "The second passage here is more difficult to reconstruct. We may guess what has been changed by taking out the phrases that do not make sense if John is speaking:

    "For the days of __________ until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force..."

    Dr. Raskin continues the quote and invokes a section of Malichi. He then continues:

    "We may take it that the original writer had this passage in mind when he was talking about violence and Elijah. We can now fill in the blanks:

    "From the days of Moses till now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force..."

    Obviously, this technique, like juggling scalpels, could lead to severe injury. Yet, this is where Dr. Raskin has seen where others before have not. He is a scholar of first rank and he has given his art in the form of first rate scholarship. His method is there to see. Those who disagree are more than able to use his own techniques in an attempt to undermine him. They do so at their own peril.

    Dr. Raskin leads himself to several conclusions:

    1. As earlier stated, Eusebius is history falsified for a particular end.

    2. The role of Mary has been submerged in an attempt to wipe out the role of the female main character, this character being both involved in the story and to a major degree writing the story as a play.

    3. The deconstruction of Mark and the other gospels discloses the origins of the stories about John being rewritten as the stories of Jesus, to the detriment of John.

    4. The writers of the later material betray their surroundings to the detriment of the original ideas as Eusebius did.

    I could list points for a much longer time - I even worry that I have compressed too much as it is - but Dr. Raskin's ideas are sound.

    This book is not an attempt to give new meaning to old ideas, if "old ideas" are a pejorative for "if it is old it cannot be good". We have had far too many books that look at the New Testament with an idea towards rehabilitating discredited theory. The "old ideas" Dr. Raskin looks at are the "old ideas" of the original stories that have been hidden for over two thousand years.

    This book is a fascinating road to travel, using a technique that has been in front of us for a long time. Dr. Raskin has performed a valuable service in writing this very useful book.

    Charles Wilson
    18 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report