Generally good with some failings

Generally, this is a good reading and holds one's attention. However, a few times the reader starts a sentence, pauses, and then starts it again, and at one point has a very short coughing fit.

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This was a terrible, terrible book.

I was recommended this book by a Christian who clearly thought it would offer some kind of radical insight to me but it was woefully lacking. As a heads up to any sceptics this book treats the gospels and other bible verses as statements of literal fact and tries to do a sort of CSI Jerusalem around the supposed time of Jesus's death. It also contradicts itself and fails to answer its titular question. I list some of my problems with it below and there are spoilers.

The author makes a big deal about Jesus being arrested and tried in a slightly unorthodox manner. This shouldn’t be surprising as he was an unwelcome leader of an insurrectionist movement. He goes on to suggest that the kangaroo court failing to produce credible evidence is a failing of some grand scheme but we’ve all seen politicians, they bungle and mess up at the best of times, why the author thinks they wouldn’t do so in a trial I don’t know.

He then says there are “Unmistakable Historical Facts” which, much like his statements of things being "Plainly written between the lines" or “obvious” are told to us rather than shown. Quote: "The fact that these men went to sleep at all points to a very late hour and a long vigil before fatigue overcame the natural desire to keep awake and share with their master whatever danger or experience the night might bring." So yeah, apparently the disciples stayed up until 3 am with Jesus every night. Who knew? I guess sleep deprivation based hallucinations would explain some of the ‘miracles’.

The author claims that the Jerusalem residents always wanted an aqueduct but could never get the funding. Then he says Pilate raided a special religious fund to build an aqueduct but that he didn’t need to do that since the Jews would have readily donated the money for an aqueduct had he asked. I think the fact that they never successfully mustered the funds before shows this to be untrue but it doesn’t stop the author from using this act to casually assassinate Pilate’s character.

We also hear a lot about Pilate's wife despite her mere existence being highly questionable according to historians. The author instead presumes to know her name, her social status and the contents of their pillow talk on a particular night circa 30-40AD.

We get a few leaps of logic too such as when the author decides that since Salome isn't mentioned in the ending of Mark's gospel we can infer she must have gone away on business and we can also infer to a “certainty” what that business was. Similarly we can use logical leaps to dismiss possible ideas such as (rough quote): “I won't devote any consideration to the disciples taking the body because it's clear they didn't have that sort of character.”

Other fun conclusions are drawn like how moving a body at night is so difficult we can only conclude that if anyone did move it then they HAD to move it at the break of day at the earliest. I'm sure more than a few murderers throughout history could attest to the plausibility of moving a body at night; it might even be preferred! Don’t worry though we are strongly told how obvious all this is just like how the disciples “obviously” flee to Bethany in an “obvious” panic. Maybe I should tell my boss a 1000% pay rise for me is "obviously" deserved...

He then dismisses all theories of humans moving the body because rumours would have gotten out and there would have been innumerable treasure hunts for his tomb. That there were not any records of such a hunt apparently tell us humans didn't move the body. Too many silly assumptions there to even criticise.

He then explains quite a compelling idea, similar to Malcolm Muggeridge’s Mother Teresa Miracle Miscommunication, that the women found the wrong tomb and a gardener says "Jesus isn't in that one" before they get spooked and flee (since they were trespassing on private property) while misunderstanding that they had in fact found the wrong tomb. The author rebuts this on the assumption that it couldn't have been both dark enough for them to get the wrong tomb and light enough for anyone to be working yet later on in the book he contradicts himself saying that the young man by the tomb would only be there so early in the morning if he was a gardener, custodian or workman.

The author can think of no reason that a youth might sneak out at night to have a peak at the tomb of a local celebrity. He then uses his own assumption that this youth was definitely a gardener to build a bizarre conspiracy around him not being interrogated. If he were just a youth he might have, you know, legged it! Also when the author is convinced the “gardener” was resting inside a tomb he questions why he wouldn’t rest outside (in the pre-dawn) yet earlier in the book he says Herrod and Pilate must have sat together by the fire in the evenings because the nights were very cold. Make your mind up, was it freezing or comfortable outside at night?!

We then get a wonderful attempt at truism that I struggled to categorise between ridiculous ands stupid: "Why did it take seven weeks for the first account of the resurrection to be written down? Because we're not dealing with fiction or romance, we're dealing with fact!" How did the author’s brain work?! Did it at all? Probably not as the author claims that if you were in Jerusalem and heard Jesus was resurrected your only options would be to be violently for or against it. There could be no middle ground. Personally, I think more than a few people wouldn’t have given a toss.

More truisms: "We know the disciples better than we know any other group of men in antiquity." I think we know a fair bit more about Odysseus and his crew but maybe that’s just me. And then: “There are three men whose testimony on this matter, if it could be obtained, would be absolutely final and conclusive." Except eyewitness evidence is often unreliable and we have no reason to believe except the author thinks they have impeccable character as flunkies in strange religious cults so often do.

The author also seems to infer that if the same speeches or events are written similarly in different books of the new testament then they must be true! He clearly doesn’t understand that they were all trying to write roughly the same story and that plagiarism is a thing.

We then get a lot about James and Jesus's family/village not believing his 'miracles' then James going along with it later as some kind of conversion. I think this is the best evidence that Jesus was a con artist since if his tricks weren’t enough to convince the people he grew up around then they can’t have been that convincing. He clearly depended on the gullibility of strangers. As for his James’s conversion, he probably had a ton of weirdos who were obsessed with his brother turn up and badger him, he could have gone along with it out of fear and/or frustration rather than divine intervention.

Apparently Peter and Saul’s honesty is unimpeachable. No reason given as to why. We do get a reason why Mark's gospel's inclusion of a nude guy fleeing into the night makes it absolutely true because... "why would they include that irrelevance if it wasn't the truth"! (Rough quote.) Maybe because it was being written by people and a guy running off naked would certainly be part of the story that no gossip would leave out in the retelling. Don’t worry though our author has more sage advice: “If you consider Mark's gospel as fact it becomes incredible!” True. Same could be said of Star Wars.

He also frequently calls Jesus "The greatest teacher since the prophets" which makes me think he wasn’t unbiased to the gospels going in to the research process. Really, there were many, many prophets in that era and Jesus just got lucky that the Roman state adopted his particular teachings otherwise his sect could easily have gone the way of the Zoroastrians. "Luckiest teacher" might be a more appropriate moniker.

The narration was poor too. The narrator was unenthusiastic and there were repetitions and a coughing fit that weren't edited out.

Finally, who moved the stone?… Inconclusive.

Overall, this is a waste of time to anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly believe pretty much every word of the bible (or at least the new testament). It was certainly a waste of time for me.

Its as if I was there .....1987 years ago !

Superb book....it really open up your mind to what really happened back then !