I've finally gotten around to reading this whole "James brother of Jesus" book.
A couple of things that comes to mind are that Mr Eisenman describes much the same stuff from every linguistic angle he can get his hands on. He finds that there's a lot of name change-ups(he references one clear statement to the effect in the new testament; the rest he makes logical arguements for all these name changeups). And uses these decodings to try to figure out who said what, where and when. Another general point is how he spends a lot of time defining things. And he does so historically. I think a lot of people's patience with this book are stretched by this.
Throughout, he's using lots of external literature to analyse even the most mundane passages(the bible midrashes lots of the most mundane stuff anyways; so, I don't see how people can complain!). Outside of all these logical deductions to decode peoples names, he shows how various herodians and a Queen of Helen are in the New Testament. He repeats these appearances with ever more details as you go through the book. Bottom line, Jesus Christ is for the most part an overwriting for James the Just. One is tempted to argue that James the Just is the historical Jesus. But, nothing can be concluded. The appearences of various herodians and their social-political standings with the Romans are always a tease. Nothing much can ever be proved on who wrote what. It's almost tempting to argue that Paul wrote the Gospel of Mark. I just have a couple of things to argue about whether Jesus Christ ever existed.
James is the brother of Jesus Christ. Now, Robert points out that 'brother' can be taken as a kind of slang for 'fellow' or belonging to a club. Eisenman never wants to take this seriously; around pages 400, he notes that Origin more or less says exactly this! One could argue that Origin's statement to the effect is late in the game; but, look who's saying that James the Just is brother of Jesus Christ! Paul. Nobody else! Jesus Christ is not mentioned in the dead sea scrolls! And, what does the dead sea scrolls say of Paul? That he's a lier! What do the Jews say about Jesus Christ? That he never existed!
I've argued to some that Paul is Josephus. I posted this here on amazon "James Brother of Jesus" review as well. Then, I erased it cause there's a few problems. A major weird piece of evidence that Paul is Josephus is that Paul considers an Epiphroditus to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ. Epiphroditus is also Paul's traveling companion. Epiproditus is also Josephus best friend when he turns roman and gets the roman imperial name "Flavius". But, this isn't much. Other things I noted was the correspondence between the dead sea scrolls, Pauline epistles, and Josephus's works which is much of what Eisenman writes up here. How does Josephus have such a photographic memory? Eisenam just says, "oh, he's a really smart guy!" Me? Seems to me that Josephus has this phenomenal memory of the events of James the Just because he's the one who killed him! Who else can get so close to James the Just? If not a person who was in with the Essenes at one time? Josephus as Eisenman stresses hates these messianic jews and believes they are the reason for his people's troubles. Josephus was more than willing to cut the throats of his fellow military radicals when he miraculously gets the right staw of who's going to cut each others throats and then commit suicide. Josephus must have been blown away that he plucked the right staw! I seem to recall more correspondences between the life of Josephus and his account of Paul and James the Just. But, all that is mere correspondence; but, now, I've found this,
"Josephus: Shipwrecked on voyage to Rome
"But when I was in the twenty-sixth year of my age, it happened that I took a voyage to Rome ... At the time when Felix was procurator of Judea there were certain priests of my acquaintance ... whom on a small and trifling occasion he had put into bonds, and sent to Rome to plead their cause before Caesar ...
Accordingly I came to Rome, though it were through a great number of hazards by sea; for as ourship was drowned in the Adriatic Sea, we that were in it, being about six hundred in number, swam for our lives all the night; when, upon the first appearance of the day, and upon our sight of a ship of Cyrene, I and some others, eighty in all, by God's providence, prevented the rest, and were taken up into the other ship.
And when I had thus escaped, and was come to Dieearchia, which the Italians call Puteoli."
- Josephus, Life,3
St Paul: "Shipwrecked on voyage to Rome"
"Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound." - Acts 24.27.
"They talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds. - Acts 26.31.
"It was determined that we should sail into Italy ... And entering into a ship of Adramyttium ... we came to Myra ... And there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy ... they sailed close by Crete. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind ... no small tempest lay on us ... But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down in Adria ... And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves.
The centurion ... commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land. And the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land. And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria ...
And landing at Syracuse ... and came to Rhegium: and after one day the south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli."
- Acts 27,28"
Some have suggested that Josephus wrote the Gospel of Mark. I don't. Josephus would never have made the same linguistic and palistinian geography mistakes. He didn't write the pauline epistles either. Clearly whoever wrote those works were not of the same mind as the scientific Josephus. I would point to Clement of Rome and Alexandria and even others later. Those characters are pointed out by Eisenman as well to decode names and all the herodians in the Gospel of Mark and in the Pauline epistles- the first christians in Antioch were herodians as Eisenman points out. In my mind, he doesn't have to. There is no report of the death of Josephus - just that of his best friend Epiphoditus by Domitian. I'm figuring that Josephus just changed names and disappeared in the roman empire. Who knows where he went for protection. The Pauline epistles were clearly a recasting of Josephus's works as James the Just was written out of history as well. That is enough to explain why the Pauline epistles and the Josephus works are clearly two different people.
The Paul character is probably many different characters. But, I think with the Epiphroditus reference in Phillipines 2:4 I do believe and the above Acts and Life of Josephus clearly shows that part of the write up of the Pauline Epistles is to integrate Josephus in the Christian fabrication to make one religion, one ring to rule them all, and to pacify the messianic jews as Josephus wished to. It's part honoring him and because Josephus partly started it with his ascribing to Titus as the annointed one to the Jews to pacify them.
A further point about this Josephus/Paul correspondence; with the above correspondence between Josephus's boat sinking and paul's, well, if so, then Paul isn't a Herodian. This calls into question Mr Eisenman's "James Brother of Jesus". At least, it needs a rethink.
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I found a remarkable book called "Daniel to Paul." I was reading "Who wrote the Gospels" by a Helm; it's o.k. It was showing the connections between the book of Daniel to the Gospel of Mark which is perhaps one reason why this book caught my eye at Grossmont college library. Pointing out Grossmont college library is key here. When I tried to look this book up on amazon and then googling it, I found it nowhere in sight! I found that this Daniel to Paul book, dated to 1960s says much the same stuff as Robert Eisenman's "James Brother of Jesus"! Only, it doesn't have Paul as a herodian, or that Jesus Christ is a hellenistic sungod overwright for James the Just. It does mention much of what Robert Eisenman says about James the Just being the true head of the Judaic-christian church and not Peter though!
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Ending Xian propaganda and lies
I had a copy of this back in 2001 and it got lost when I moved. To say this is a bombshell is understatement in extremis. Eisenman’s very lucid reconstruction of the Early Church demolishes the propaganda that Paul and his followers created in order to hide his murder of James - Jesus’ brother - and how he managed to hoodwink all of subsequent history into believing a whole series of lies. You need an heroic amount of patience to plow through this book because it has a lot of linguistic and historical analysis in it that is normally left for scholarly readers - but it is quite do-able and understandable. If the origins of Christianity as “explained” by the Church, or as laid out in the New Testament seems a little fishy to you, as it does to most intelligent moderns, this book is a must read.
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