The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth

Very interesting book well worth reading, it cost the author his reputation. Be warned you probably won't like it if you are a devout Christian but it's historic information direct from the scrolls. More for open minded people who are interested in the true history of religion.

Product was advertised as used but came in mint condition! Delivery was fast and no surprises. Great value too.

Interesting read, its quite thick with detail, however it feels needed.

Very good, Allegro is brilliant.

Excellent read fascinating insight in history

The binding on my book completely failed when I opened the cover of the book. Not one page stayed in place. But, it didnt prevent me from finishing this exceptional book.

Ce livre est constitué de scan rendant sa lecture fastidieuse et ne permettant pas les nombreuses facilités (surlignage par exemple) des vrais format kindle.

Love the way the book is preserved. Well done! Far exceeds my expectations. Proud of you people in Amazon! Keep up the good work!

Eisenman in his "James, brother of Jesus" hypothesizes that James the Just is the righteous teacher in the dead sea scrolls and that Paul is the wicked priest. John Allegro before him hypothesized a bit differently; He says the wicked priest is some former Greek ruler and Jesus was the righteous teacher; only, this Jesus was crucified long before the Jesus Christ of the New Testament - like around 88 B.C. I havn't read Eisenman's work yet. I've read Finkelstein's "The Bible UnEarthed", Earl Doherty's "The Jesus Puzzle", and Acharya S's "Christ in Egypt." I think I'm making good time! Well, now, I've read John Allegro's little book here. I feel like I've read maybe the inspiration for Eisenman's work; the question is who's right about who the righteous teacher and the wicked priest is? The above issue is probably what whould stop most people from reading this great, well written book today. I don't know about all his details; he sometimes doesn't give a reference to some of his points; but, more often than not, he gives references to primary sources; you do that in this business and you've got to take it somewhat seriously. The only thing that mythology can point to is printed words and ruins; so, how seriously can you ever take anything about this Bible stuff? If you can get a reference to a primary source . . . ; He of course cannot talk about all aspects of the dead sea scrolls since they were not released in his lifetime; but, what he does is show the culture of the dead sea scrolls writers, and he makes key connections. I mean if your new to this stuff as I was you'll look at the chapter headings and feel like your diving into some meaningless culture; but, each chapter points to the next; what's said in one chapter often makes sense of the chapter heading coming right up. It was something I found in the way he structured the book. I mean what he did in this book was to just give a bare outline hint that the essenes could indeed have evolved into proto-christianity. He could do no more during the time he lived! He just seems to find little threads based on primary references and shows connections all the way to the New Testament. In the end, he mentions that the New Testament notes all kinds of slang and code words for spells and so on; but, he does not begin to show those. Maybe those are in his Jesus is a Mushroom book(oh boy, I have read yet another thousand page tomb!) All in all, I'm thinking this book may have been the inspiration for Eisenman's works. Also, his last chapter is more about philosophy and suggesting that maybe we shouldn't be so harsh on the writers of the New Testament; he notes that they seemed to be torn between keeping their religion pure and for the individual and making one religion to rule the world. He notes that some of the pro-roman tax paying appears to be more of a compromise; that they seemed to be reluctant to put that in there. I myself have found that there are things to appreciate about this whole Judao-Christian religion; that it is solar-theology personified(the Bible starts out with saying god is for controlling the stars and signs . . . astrotheology right there!). I've spent a lot of my life trying to understand the nature and origin of mathematical concepts. And abstraction is certainly a major feature. Abstraction is the common form that many similar structures can take on. The quick and easy example is that two apples and two oranges are just to concrete structures of the abstraction number two. Jesus Christ is just the common form of the solar theology of the mediterraenean back then. It's nice that Jesus Christ can be viewed this way; but, I don't like how Jesus Christ and God are ultimately used; they are ultimately just vague words used to explain away everything without explaining anything. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega; he's everything he needs to be. Whether good or bad happens, god(and even Jesus Christ) did it; if it's something that is perceived at one time to be bad, the common mental trick is to say "god works in mysterious ways." See, In 1931, Kurt Godel proved these 'incompleteness' theorems about logic in general. He said that a finite set of axioms cannot prove an infinity of truths. This is assukming those axioms are consistent. If they are inconsistent, then they can prove an infinity of truths! They can prove everything including all inconsistent statements. This is what God is ultimately, an algebraic X standing for I don't know and I don't want to know. The trinity of gods but one god anyway is more proof of the inconstent statements that christianity for one uses to sweep all problems under the rug. I point out because people want to find silver linings in all this disproof of the Bible and religion in general. I mean you can show all this to bible-philies all you want; it's not what they're in it for. And also, that trying to get closure on this is almost impossible; this is the only closure; that it is a vagueness trick. You, they did, could spend the rest of eternity going through textual interpretation; it's a kind of inconsistent psuedo-mathematics that can absorb the energies of humanity. Humanity is obviously the technologically dependent species; we need to learn the universe to survive. Spending forever in this inconsitent statements trying to get every nuance out of it is futile; it is an infinit bottomless pit; it's a trap that you can get addicted to. Mathematics, the exporation of the universe is the real purpose of humanity. This is what's wrong with the bible then and now. After reading John Allegro's book, do you really want to read Eisenman's stuff? Maybe you could be disciplined and find time when you get stuck on some mathematical problem; or, maybe you're waiting for some experimental results to come in, you could dabble some more in this bible. But, this book is a trap; it's like quicksand. It's like being addicted to gambling. You'll think you'll find Jesus Christ or lay the thing to rest - finally. But, no, you won't; it's an inconsistent statement that can prove every contradictory statement forever; it's just literary commentary on top of literary commentary; that's what the bible is; Joseph of Genesis, then Joseph who goes around conquering canaan, and then Joseph of the New Testament, or in greek, Jesus. It's just literary commentary on top of . . . forever;

I’ve been waiting for the Kindle version for a while, and… It’s very poor and requires zooming on each page… Very disappointed.