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The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity
Maccoby, a Talmudic scholar from London's Leo Baeck College, will inflame many with his contention that Paul, not Jesus, was the true founder of Xianity. Despite impressive research, the author's needlessly pugilistic stance--he comes off as one defending the honor of Judaism against pagan insurgents--bleeds his argument of real force. In sum, these are his beliefs: Paul, who claimed to be a Pharisee rabbi, was in fact "an adventurer of undistinguished background"; Jesus, portrayed by Gospel writers as opposing the Pharisees, was in fact one himself, a devout Jew who believed he'd been chosen by God to overthrow Roman rule & reign as King of Israel; the earliest Xians didn't preach the divinity of Christ until Paul rejected the Torah & replaced it with a pagan myth of a dying & resurrected god. When it comes to asserting the Jewishness of Jesus, he stands on firm ground alongside most contemporary scholars. His work will probably strengthen the belief that Jesus was to some extent an anti-Roman political revolutionary, Paul a Hellenistic interloper. However, it's difficult to take seriously the charge that Paul "sought fame by founding a new religion" because he "was disappointed in his hopes of advancement." By making Paul out as a sort of carnival huckster, he ignores the apostle's religious profundity; by making of Paul a spiritual Svengali who misled many of Jesus' closest followers, he'll seem to some to be promulgating his own religious myth. His arguments simply confirm the observation that when it comes to the early years of Xianity, documentary material is so scarce & fragmentary that the few available texts can, & have, been used to bolster every conceivable viewpoint. Like other debunkers, he sometimes lets polemic get in the way of prudence; many of his assertions stand unsubstantiated by quote or other reference. A historical brief of questionable reliability--but undeniably fascinating. Elegantly argued, this should ruffle feathers for years to come.--Kirkus (edited)
237 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
November 19, 2007
I'd like to give it 5 stars; it's very close, but since it made my mom cry, I'll leave it at 4. This is a fascinating history about something that so many people take for granted. It's not even taking for granted, so much as needing to believe it in order for their worlds not to crumble beneath them. Even if you don't believe what he says, I think it's an important book because it gives you something (very big) to think about. As someone who grew up resenting Paul for his misogynistic views, I was happy to read this. It allowed me to see that Paul, a man, was as flawed as we all are, and his words don't necessarily reflect God's stance. Unfortunately, this does throw a kink in the whole "Christianity" thing. See? A lot to think about.
April 25, 2012
I was impressed with Maccoby's attempts to manipulate the reader's perceptions, but disappointed in his scholarship. His book is full of what I refer to as "sleight of tongue." This is a rhetorical device by which the writer posits a hypothetical situation of what “might have happened,” then subtly changes the language from the conditional or theoretical (“might have,” “could have”) to the positive until they are speaking of the hypothetical incident or situation as if it had actually happened. The writer may then tell the reader what "we have seen" or what "I have shown" or what they may surmise. Having promoted an idea and assumed the reader has accepted it, the writer then proceeds as if the point has been proven rather than merely raised.
In "Mythmaker" Maccoby tells us that, according to Ebionite sources (which are not cited) Saul of Tarsus—later, the Apostle Paul—was not, as he claimed, a Pharisaical rabbi, but rather a Gentile, born of Gentile parents. Further, he is “an adventurer of undistinguished background.” We are asked to accept Maccoby's word that the adjective “undistinguished” is accurate—ditto, the descriptive noun “adventurer,” both of which are evocative.
Maccoby proceeds with the rest of his commentary on Paul as if he has proved that this is so, and so, later in the chapter, he says that “Even though Saul, after his conversion to Judaism, never actually became a Pharisee rabbi, the mere fact that he felt a strong urge in later life to represent himself as having been one must be significant. It means that ... this had been his dream. If his parents were indeed ‘God-fearers’ (i.e. Gentiles who lived as Jews), they must have told him about the famous Pharisees of Judea... The young Saul would have heard the names of the greatest Pharisee leaders ... he may have seen [them].”
Maccoby completes the hypothetical construct by asserting, in non-hypothetical terms, that “The young Saul, planning to be a full convert, would be impelled by his naturally ambitious nature to see himself as no ordinary convert, but ... to become ... a great Pharisee leader himself.” At the end of the chapter, Maccoby sums up what we may now “surmise” about Paul based on the foregoing: “We may surmise that he made an abortive attempt to rise in the Pharisee movement; that he enrolled with some Pharisee teacher for a while ... but proved a failure.” The finale: “Instead of his dream of respected status as a rabbi, the reality was ignominy as a member of the High Priest’s band of armed thugs.” (Maccoby’s Mythmaker pp98 & 99)
These two paragraphs are a case study in the attempted manipulation of the reader’s perceptions. After laying out a fabric of mixed conditional and unconditional assertions (must be, may have, must have, would have)—which are opinions about what Paul might have thought, been and done—Maccoby goes on to claim that based on these suppositions, we may surmise an entire chapter full of actions and attitudes on Paul’s part.
Let’s reverse engineer this. Two things stand out most starkly, to me: 1) in the entire passage, the author fails to offer one actual fact and 2) the one thing he actually labels a fact is something he would have to be Paul to know. This is “the fact that he felt a strong urge” to represent himself as being a Pharisee. In Maccoby’s case, I think it’s instructive to look at the depth of omniscience he claims. He says with certainty that Paul:
1. never became a Pharisee
2. wasn’t Jewish by birth, but a convert
3. felt a strong urge to be taken as a Pharisee
4. dreamed of achieving high status in the Pharisee movement
5. planned to be a full convert to Judaism
6. had a naturally ambitious nature
7. made an abortive attempt to rise in the Pharisee movement (especially difficult if he was never a member of the movement to begin with.)
8. proved a failure (at an unproven, hypothetical ambition).
It’s a mixed bag, but among the unsupported assumptions are three items that there can be no historical record of—Paul’s feelings, urges, plans and naturally ambitious nature. An unwary reader may emerge from the chapter believing that a scholarly treatise has uncovered an historical character’s true nature when it’s done nothing of the kind.
As a rhetorical device this assumption of omniscience can be very useful. It allows a writer to paint a picture of the individual that—unless the reader is aware enough to deconstruct it—can outlast any factual information the reader might glean. I’m uncomfortable with this usage, even from writers whose viewpoints I agree with. Maybe it’s because I’m primarily a writer of fiction, but even in the realm of non-fiction, I’m a firm believer that showing, not telling is the best way to communicate honestly.
In "Mythmaker" Maccoby tells us that, according to Ebionite sources (which are not cited) Saul of Tarsus—later, the Apostle Paul—was not, as he claimed, a Pharisaical rabbi, but rather a Gentile, born of Gentile parents. Further, he is “an adventurer of undistinguished background.” We are asked to accept Maccoby's word that the adjective “undistinguished” is accurate—ditto, the descriptive noun “adventurer,” both of which are evocative.
Maccoby proceeds with the rest of his commentary on Paul as if he has proved that this is so, and so, later in the chapter, he says that “Even though Saul, after his conversion to Judaism, never actually became a Pharisee rabbi, the mere fact that he felt a strong urge in later life to represent himself as having been one must be significant. It means that ... this had been his dream. If his parents were indeed ‘God-fearers’ (i.e. Gentiles who lived as Jews), they must have told him about the famous Pharisees of Judea... The young Saul would have heard the names of the greatest Pharisee leaders ... he may have seen [them].”
Maccoby completes the hypothetical construct by asserting, in non-hypothetical terms, that “The young Saul, planning to be a full convert, would be impelled by his naturally ambitious nature to see himself as no ordinary convert, but ... to become ... a great Pharisee leader himself.” At the end of the chapter, Maccoby sums up what we may now “surmise” about Paul based on the foregoing: “We may surmise that he made an abortive attempt to rise in the Pharisee movement; that he enrolled with some Pharisee teacher for a while ... but proved a failure.” The finale: “Instead of his dream of respected status as a rabbi, the reality was ignominy as a member of the High Priest’s band of armed thugs.” (Maccoby’s Mythmaker pp98 & 99)
These two paragraphs are a case study in the attempted manipulation of the reader’s perceptions. After laying out a fabric of mixed conditional and unconditional assertions (must be, may have, must have, would have)—which are opinions about what Paul might have thought, been and done—Maccoby goes on to claim that based on these suppositions, we may surmise an entire chapter full of actions and attitudes on Paul’s part.
Let’s reverse engineer this. Two things stand out most starkly, to me: 1) in the entire passage, the author fails to offer one actual fact and 2) the one thing he actually labels a fact is something he would have to be Paul to know. This is “the fact that he felt a strong urge” to represent himself as being a Pharisee. In Maccoby’s case, I think it’s instructive to look at the depth of omniscience he claims. He says with certainty that Paul:
1. never became a Pharisee
2. wasn’t Jewish by birth, but a convert
3. felt a strong urge to be taken as a Pharisee
4. dreamed of achieving high status in the Pharisee movement
5. planned to be a full convert to Judaism
6. had a naturally ambitious nature
7. made an abortive attempt to rise in the Pharisee movement (especially difficult if he was never a member of the movement to begin with.)
8. proved a failure (at an unproven, hypothetical ambition).
It’s a mixed bag, but among the unsupported assumptions are three items that there can be no historical record of—Paul’s feelings, urges, plans and naturally ambitious nature. An unwary reader may emerge from the chapter believing that a scholarly treatise has uncovered an historical character’s true nature when it’s done nothing of the kind.
As a rhetorical device this assumption of omniscience can be very useful. It allows a writer to paint a picture of the individual that—unless the reader is aware enough to deconstruct it—can outlast any factual information the reader might glean. I’m uncomfortable with this usage, even from writers whose viewpoints I agree with. Maybe it’s because I’m primarily a writer of fiction, but even in the realm of non-fiction, I’m a firm believer that showing, not telling is the best way to communicate honestly.
September 17, 2025
In his impressive Kingdom, Emmanuel Carrère when referring to Paul states that he was not interested in Jesus the historical man, but only in Christ the son of God. He references The Mythmaker as a source to better understand Paul’s dominant role in the establishment of the Christian church.
I’m very interested in early Christianity and in the birth of the religion that in a very short time swept the western world and its areas of influence. I have read quite a few books on the subject and a recommendation from Carrère seemed like a good path to follow. Although The Mythmaker enlightened me on certain dynamics relating to the early sects of the followers of Jesus, all in all I found it quite disappointing.
Maccoby makes his case with much theorizing based on his subjective reading of the gospels and on his perception and analysis of the mindset of Paul the historical person. His basic premises:
• Paul, who grew up as a Pagan, not as a Jew, and not Jesus, was the founder of the Christian church. Jesus himself and those who followed him during his lifetime and immediately thereafter had no intention of founding a new religion. They were a Jewish messianic sect like many others of that time.
• Paul was an innovator who created a myth that had no roots in Judaism and even less so in the actual historical circumstances of Jesus’ life and teachings.
• Paul’s founding concepts, those of the divinity that is sacrificed as atonement and then resurrected, and of the Eucharist as the incorporation of the worshipper with the divinity, are a known aspect of the Pagan mystery cults on which he drew.
My knowledge in this area is infinitesimal, but if I were forced to choose a side based only on a comparison of this book to the form, methodology and referenced sources of other histories that I have read, I would lean more to the position of one of Maccoby’s main critics (John Gager) who slams The Mythmaker as “not good history, not even history at all.”
I’m very interested in early Christianity and in the birth of the religion that in a very short time swept the western world and its areas of influence. I have read quite a few books on the subject and a recommendation from Carrère seemed like a good path to follow. Although The Mythmaker enlightened me on certain dynamics relating to the early sects of the followers of Jesus, all in all I found it quite disappointing.
Maccoby makes his case with much theorizing based on his subjective reading of the gospels and on his perception and analysis of the mindset of Paul the historical person. His basic premises:
• Paul, who grew up as a Pagan, not as a Jew, and not Jesus, was the founder of the Christian church. Jesus himself and those who followed him during his lifetime and immediately thereafter had no intention of founding a new religion. They were a Jewish messianic sect like many others of that time.
• Paul was an innovator who created a myth that had no roots in Judaism and even less so in the actual historical circumstances of Jesus’ life and teachings.
• Paul’s founding concepts, those of the divinity that is sacrificed as atonement and then resurrected, and of the Eucharist as the incorporation of the worshipper with the divinity, are a known aspect of the Pagan mystery cults on which he drew.
My knowledge in this area is infinitesimal, but if I were forced to choose a side based only on a comparison of this book to the form, methodology and referenced sources of other histories that I have read, I would lean more to the position of one of Maccoby’s main critics (John Gager) who slams The Mythmaker as “not good history, not even history at all.”
June 3, 2023
كتاب جيد لو أنه ترجم كاملا
فالمترجمة قررت أن ترجمة الكتاب كاملا سيكون مؤذيا لمشاعر المسيحيين.. فإذا كان كذلك فكان الأحرى ألا تترجم أي شيء من الكتاب
ولكن ظني أنها بدأت الترجمة ولم ترد أن تكملها وقررت أن جهدها لن يذهب هباء حتى ولو كان ناقصا.. فلم لا ننشر ثلث الكتاب ولا داعي للباقي..
ذلك لأني لم أجد أن السبب التي ادعته في عدم ترجمة الكتاب كاملا (خوفا على مشاعر المسيحيين) سببا مقنعا
فالمترجمة قررت أن ترجمة الكتاب كاملا سيكون مؤذيا لمشاعر المسيحيين.. فإذا كان كذلك فكان الأحرى ألا تترجم أي شيء من الكتاب
ولكن ظني أنها بدأت الترجمة ولم ترد أن تكملها وقررت أن جهدها لن يذهب هباء حتى ولو كان ناقصا.. فلم لا ننشر ثلث الكتاب ولا داعي للباقي..
ذلك لأني لم أجد أن السبب التي ادعته في عدم ترجمة الكتاب كاملا (خوفا على مشاعر المسيحيين) سببا مقنعا
March 18, 2024
بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ (1) ٱلۡحَمۡدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلۡعَٰلَمِينَ (2) ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ (3) مَٰلِكِ يَوۡمِ ٱلدِّينِ (4)
إِيَّاكَ نَعۡبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسۡتَعِينُ (5) ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٰطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ (6) صِرَٰطَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَنۡعَمۡتَ عَلَيۡهِمۡ غَيۡرِ ٱلۡمَغۡضُوبِ عَلَيۡهِمۡ
وَلَا ٱلضَّآلِّينَ (7)
عند إنهائك لهذا الكتاب ستعلم معنى سورة الفاتحة
ستعلم لماذا اليهود هم المغضوب عليهم والنصارى هم الضالين
نفس النمط دائما يسير عليه اليهود نمط النفاق و الإفتراء على الله
و نفس النمط الذي يسير عليه النصارى هو الإتباع من دون دليل
سأعلق بإختصار عسى الله أن يوفقنى لأسجل مراجعة مرئية عن الكتاب
بولس أو شاؤول هو الرجل الذي اخترع النصرانية
هو رجل يهودي في الأصل لم يرى المسيح و لم يؤمن به بل بعد رفع المسيح عليه السلام
كان بولس يعمل شرطيا و كان يسوم الحواريين و أتباع عيسى عليه السلام
يسومهم أشد العذاب
لكن في طريقه إلى دمشق ادعى أنه رأى عيسى و أنه تلقى وحيا منه
و بذلك بدأ يخترع و يلفق و يكسب أنصارا له في كل مكان
و كان لا يتورع عن الكذب و مخادعة من يدعوهم إلى دينه فيظهر لهم دائما مدى تقاربه معهم
و كانت له ميزة و عقبة
أما الميزة التي امتاز بها
فهي كون رسائله كتبت قبل الأناجيل بثلاثين سنة تقريبا وبعد رفع المسيح عليه السلام ب50 سنة تقريبا
بينما كتبت الأناجيل بعد 80 سنة تقريبا
ما أعطاه تفوقا و هيمنة عليها نوعا ما
فالكثير مما هو موجود فيها مستوحى من أفكاره علما أن لوقا مثلا كان تلميذا لبولس
أما العقبة فهي كنيسة القدس و هذه الكنيسة ليست مبنى قائم بذاته بل إتجاه و جماعة
و هم أتباع المسيح الحقيقيون و حواريوه الذين عارضوا بولس أشد المعارضة و على رأسهم يعقوب الذي يقول الكاتب أنه أخ المسيح
و حاول بولس التحايل عليهم دائما مدعيا توبته و مدعيا عدم اختلافه معهم و تلفيقه لأحداث محاكمتهم له
و إظهار مظلوميته كعادة اليهود و استعمل في ذلك شتى الطرق من بينها أنه اشترى الجنسية الرومانية بمال أتباعه السذج لكي تكفل له تلك الجنسية الحماية من المسيحيين أتباع كنيسة القدس
و غيرهم من أعدائه .
و أما غايته فقد استمعت لمراجعة الاستاذ احمد دعدوش لكتاب الظاهرة القرآنية لمالك بن نبي
فبربط الأفكار ببعضها نجد أنهما لم تكن غاية بولس لوحده بل غاية اليهود ككل فهم لا يبشرون بيهوديتهم بل يريدون دينا يسهل معه التحكم في أتباعه و يقدس معتنقيه القائمين عليه كما يقدسون إلههم و هو ما يقوله بولس نفسه و نفس المنهج سار عليه عبد الله بن سبأ في محاولة تحريف الإسلام لتطويعه و اتبعه من اغتر به من الباطنية
والله المستعان
أما عن الترجمة فلا أدري صراحة لماذا لم تكمل المترجمة ترجمة باقي أجزاء الكتاب
و أجد حجتها في احترام مشاعر المسيحيين حجة واهية
وقد خطر لي في البداية أنه قد تكون تعرضت للتهديد أو ماشابه
لكن الله يعلم ما وراء ذلك
هذه مجرد خواطر عابرة لعلي إذا تيسر الأمر أن أكمل قراءة باقي الكتاب بالإنجليزي آملا أن يتم ترجمة ما تبقى إلى العربية
أما عن الكتاب فيعطيك فهما واسعا للمسيحية بشكلها الحالي
نسأل الله أن يثبتنا على دينه الحق و أن يهدينا الصراط المستقيم و أن يهد بنا
و لا غالب إلا الله
إِيَّاكَ نَعۡبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسۡتَعِينُ (5) ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٰطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ (6) صِرَٰطَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَنۡعَمۡتَ عَلَيۡهِمۡ غَيۡرِ ٱلۡمَغۡضُوبِ عَلَيۡهِمۡ
وَلَا ٱلضَّآلِّينَ (7)
عند إنهائك لهذا الكتاب ستعلم معنى سورة الفاتحة
ستعلم لماذا اليهود هم المغضوب عليهم والنصارى هم الضالين
نفس النمط دائما يسير عليه اليهود نمط النفاق و الإفتراء على الله
و نفس النمط الذي يسير عليه النصارى هو الإتباع من دون دليل
سأعلق بإختصار عسى الله أن يوفقنى لأسجل مراجعة مرئية عن الكتاب
بولس أو شاؤول هو الرجل الذي اخترع النصرانية
هو رجل يهودي في الأصل لم يرى المسيح و لم يؤمن به بل بعد رفع المسيح عليه السلام
كان بولس يعمل شرطيا و كان يسوم الحواريين و أتباع عيسى عليه السلام
يسومهم أشد العذاب
لكن في طريقه إلى دمشق ادعى أنه رأى عيسى و أنه تلقى وحيا منه
و بذلك بدأ يخترع و يلفق و يكسب أنصارا له في كل مكان
و كان لا يتورع عن الكذب و مخادعة من يدعوهم إلى دينه فيظهر لهم دائما مدى تقاربه معهم
و كانت له ميزة و عقبة
أما الميزة التي امتاز بها
فهي كون رسائله كتبت قبل الأناجيل بثلاثين سنة تقريبا وبعد رفع المسيح عليه السلام ب50 سنة تقريبا
بينما كتبت الأناجيل بعد 80 سنة تقريبا
ما أعطاه تفوقا و هيمنة عليها نوعا ما
فالكثير مما هو موجود فيها مستوحى من أفكاره علما أن لوقا مثلا كان تلميذا لبولس
أما العقبة فهي كنيسة القدس و هذه الكنيسة ليست مبنى قائم بذاته بل إتجاه و جماعة
و هم أتباع المسيح الحقيقيون و حواريوه الذين عارضوا بولس أشد المعارضة و على رأسهم يعقوب الذي يقول الكاتب أنه أخ المسيح
و حاول بولس التحايل عليهم دائما مدعيا توبته و مدعيا عدم اختلافه معهم و تلفيقه لأحداث محاكمتهم له
و إظهار مظلوميته كعادة اليهود و استعمل في ذلك شتى الطرق من بينها أنه اشترى الجنسية الرومانية بمال أتباعه السذج لكي تكفل له تلك الجنسية الحماية من المسيحيين أتباع كنيسة القدس
و غيرهم من أعدائه .
و أما غايته فقد استمعت لمراجعة الاستاذ احمد دعدوش لكتاب الظاهرة القرآنية لمالك بن نبي
فبربط الأفكار ببعضها نجد أنهما لم تكن غاية بولس لوحده بل غاية اليهود ككل فهم لا يبشرون بيهوديتهم بل يريدون دينا يسهل معه التحكم في أتباعه و يقدس معتنقيه القائمين عليه كما يقدسون إلههم و هو ما يقوله بولس نفسه و نفس المنهج سار عليه عبد الله بن سبأ في محاولة تحريف الإسلام لتطويعه و اتبعه من اغتر به من الباطنية
والله المستعان
أما عن الترجمة فلا أدري صراحة لماذا لم تكمل المترجمة ترجمة باقي أجزاء الكتاب
و أجد حجتها في احترام مشاعر المسيحيين حجة واهية
وقد خطر لي في البداية أنه قد تكون تعرضت للتهديد أو ماشابه
لكن الله يعلم ما وراء ذلك
هذه مجرد خواطر عابرة لعلي إذا تيسر الأمر أن أكمل قراءة باقي الكتاب بالإنجليزي آملا أن يتم ترجمة ما تبقى إلى العربية
أما عن الكتاب فيعطيك فهما واسعا للمسيحية بشكلها الحالي
نسأل الله أن يثبتنا على دينه الحق و أن يهدينا الصراط المستقيم و أن يهد بنا
و لا غالب إلا الله
Want to read
May 23, 2009One reviewer said it made her mom cry (and not for warm-fuzzy reasons). Recommendations don't get much better than that!
January 29, 2009
The Mythmaker is a profound book. Maccoby uses biblical and other ancient texts to support his argument that Jesus, a man who lead a group of political dissidents, was just a man, and that it was Paul who later infused pagan and gnostic mysticism into the story to create the Jesus myth. He provides a lot of evidence for his case, though I thought it was a bit too much when he started to explain Paul's motivations. I don't think the evidence exists to do that, one can only speculate. Perhaps he was a charlatan in search of greatness, or perhaps he was just delusional. The real point of this book, and what gave me pause, is that we have a Jew who thinks he is a king who will liberate Isreal from the Romans and create a new Jewish state in peace, and what he becomes is a god-figure in which his own people are blamed for killing him and have suffered the consequences of that blame for the last 2,000 years. No wonder this book made someone cry.
January 6, 2016
What drew me to The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity was an interest in seeing how Christianity is viewed by an academic from another religion--in this case, a Jewish Talmudic scholar, Hyam Maccoby.
Maccoby utilizes the normal canons of contemporary New Testament scholarship to suss out the evolution of early Christianity and to analyze just who Paul really was.
One of Maccoby's major arguments--and one that has wide currency among non-dogmatic, non-fundamentalist scholars, even Christian scholars--is the idea that, for all intents and purposes, Paul was the founder of Christianity.
Jesus, Maccoby asserts, was an observant Jew; he was, in fact, a Pharisee, though the gospels attempt to set the Pharisees as his primary opponents, and Maccoby shows why and how the gospel writers made this attempt. Jesus did not see himself as God incarnate and did not see himself as coming to die for the sins of the world by serving as an atoning sacrifice. Maccoby thinks that Jesus did see himself as the messiah, but as the messiah in completely Jewish terms: the term messiah in Hebrew simply means "anointed one" and refers to one anointed by God to be king of Israel. Thus, Jesus saw himself as a king of Israel in opposition to Rome.
Unlike other messianic claimants, Jesus was not a violent revolutionary but thought that God himself would usher in the kingdom of God by overthrowing Israel's Roman oppressors through a miracle and then installing Jesus as king. Unfortunately for Jesus, his calculations about himself and God's performance of a miracle were wrong, and the Romans crucified him as a rebel. This entire line of thought is well reasoned and is, by and large, accepted by most scholars who don't have a theological ax to grind.
Where Maccoby strays into unusual territory is in his assessment of Paul. Initially, much of what he has to say is in the mainstream of contemporary scholarship: Maccoby points out that Paul never knew Jesus personally and developed his religious views not from any teachings of Jesus that he received from the leaders of Jesus's Jewish followers (Jesus's brother James and the disciples Peter and John), but rather Paul had visionary experiences of Jesus, from which he derived his views. From these mystical experiences and his reflection on these experiences and his understanding of Judaism, Paul developed the Christian religion; Paul, not Jesus, founded the Christian religion. Jesus would have been aghast at what Paul taught in his name. Still even here, Maccoby is on fairly solid ground among modern academic scholars of early Christianity.
It is only when Maccoby tries to develop a biography of Paul that he makes conjectures that would be rejected by mainstream scholarship. Drawing on non-canonical sources and his own reading of Acts and Paul's epistles, Maccoby concludes that not only was Paul not a Pharisee (as he claims in his epistles and as is claimed in Acts) but that Paul was actually not even Jewish. Maccoby argues that Paul was, as Acts asserts (though which Paul never mentions in any of his epistles), a native of Tarsus, but he was not among the Jewish diaspora living in Tarsus; rather, Maccoby claims that Paul was a Gentile who converted to Judaism. I won't go into all the arguments that Maccoby puts forward as the curious reader can read this book for that information, but I will say that, on the one hand, I find his argument that Paul was not a Pharisee to be moderately convincing. On the other hand, Maccoby's argument that Paul was a Gentile lacks good supporting evidence and is largely a matter of speculation on Maccoby's part.
Overall, this was a fascinating read, but there is not much in the way of scholarship that is new or unusual, and much of Maccoby's argument is standard fare in the academic community--apart from his startling claim that Paul was not actually Jewish.
Maccoby utilizes the normal canons of contemporary New Testament scholarship to suss out the evolution of early Christianity and to analyze just who Paul really was.
One of Maccoby's major arguments--and one that has wide currency among non-dogmatic, non-fundamentalist scholars, even Christian scholars--is the idea that, for all intents and purposes, Paul was the founder of Christianity.
Jesus, Maccoby asserts, was an observant Jew; he was, in fact, a Pharisee, though the gospels attempt to set the Pharisees as his primary opponents, and Maccoby shows why and how the gospel writers made this attempt. Jesus did not see himself as God incarnate and did not see himself as coming to die for the sins of the world by serving as an atoning sacrifice. Maccoby thinks that Jesus did see himself as the messiah, but as the messiah in completely Jewish terms: the term messiah in Hebrew simply means "anointed one" and refers to one anointed by God to be king of Israel. Thus, Jesus saw himself as a king of Israel in opposition to Rome.
Unlike other messianic claimants, Jesus was not a violent revolutionary but thought that God himself would usher in the kingdom of God by overthrowing Israel's Roman oppressors through a miracle and then installing Jesus as king. Unfortunately for Jesus, his calculations about himself and God's performance of a miracle were wrong, and the Romans crucified him as a rebel. This entire line of thought is well reasoned and is, by and large, accepted by most scholars who don't have a theological ax to grind.
Where Maccoby strays into unusual territory is in his assessment of Paul. Initially, much of what he has to say is in the mainstream of contemporary scholarship: Maccoby points out that Paul never knew Jesus personally and developed his religious views not from any teachings of Jesus that he received from the leaders of Jesus's Jewish followers (Jesus's brother James and the disciples Peter and John), but rather Paul had visionary experiences of Jesus, from which he derived his views. From these mystical experiences and his reflection on these experiences and his understanding of Judaism, Paul developed the Christian religion; Paul, not Jesus, founded the Christian religion. Jesus would have been aghast at what Paul taught in his name. Still even here, Maccoby is on fairly solid ground among modern academic scholars of early Christianity.
It is only when Maccoby tries to develop a biography of Paul that he makes conjectures that would be rejected by mainstream scholarship. Drawing on non-canonical sources and his own reading of Acts and Paul's epistles, Maccoby concludes that not only was Paul not a Pharisee (as he claims in his epistles and as is claimed in Acts) but that Paul was actually not even Jewish. Maccoby argues that Paul was, as Acts asserts (though which Paul never mentions in any of his epistles), a native of Tarsus, but he was not among the Jewish diaspora living in Tarsus; rather, Maccoby claims that Paul was a Gentile who converted to Judaism. I won't go into all the arguments that Maccoby puts forward as the curious reader can read this book for that information, but I will say that, on the one hand, I find his argument that Paul was not a Pharisee to be moderately convincing. On the other hand, Maccoby's argument that Paul was a Gentile lacks good supporting evidence and is largely a matter of speculation on Maccoby's part.
Overall, this was a fascinating read, but there is not much in the way of scholarship that is new or unusual, and much of Maccoby's argument is standard fare in the academic community--apart from his startling claim that Paul was not actually Jewish.
March 14, 2012
I will start off by saying I never much cared for Paul, nor for the fact that his writings - all dated decades after the death of Jesus - were the ones that made up most of the New Testament. His misogynistic teachings and dogmatic approach to the system of philosophy created by Jesus would undoubtedly cause that good man to shudder and be shamed.
I found this text to be most illuminating and it helped me to revise my opinions of Paul slightly - from a raving misogynistic fanatic to a very sad man who likely couldn't find anyone to love him and who wanted to raise himself to a level that fit his own inflated sense of self.
The Mythmaker shows how Paul took the teachings of the Nazarenes and combined them with the mystery cults and Gnostic teachings to create his very own new religion, completely revising the original teachings and twisting them to fit his own scheme. It is a very well-written and accessible book - Maccoby specifically states in the text that he wrote it for the layman and that he planned a more scholarly work subsequent to this one, which I plan to seek out. A strong recommend to anyone interested in history - whether it is regular history or religious history - and a work that MUST be read with an open mind.
I found this text to be most illuminating and it helped me to revise my opinions of Paul slightly - from a raving misogynistic fanatic to a very sad man who likely couldn't find anyone to love him and who wanted to raise himself to a level that fit his own inflated sense of self.
The Mythmaker shows how Paul took the teachings of the Nazarenes and combined them with the mystery cults and Gnostic teachings to create his very own new religion, completely revising the original teachings and twisting them to fit his own scheme. It is a very well-written and accessible book - Maccoby specifically states in the text that he wrote it for the layman and that he planned a more scholarly work subsequent to this one, which I plan to seek out. A strong recommend to anyone interested in history - whether it is regular history or religious history - and a work that MUST be read with an open mind.
October 1, 2014
This book was given me as a gift by Chris Meyers when he was still working on his philosophy dissertation at Loyola University Chicago. For the most part it is old hat despite the author's treatment of familiar arguments as if they were new and earthshattering. The is no debate, excepting, of course, biblical inerrancists who stand outside of any scholarly pale, that Christianity as we think of it bears little resemblance to what Jesus and his brothers and the later Ebionites believed. Nor is there any reason to contest the predominance of Paul and Pauline thinking in the current Christian canons. What is contestable is what Maccoby claims about the character of Saul/Paul, all of which is highly interpretative. For instance, Paul claims and was claimed to be a Pharisee. Stronger arguments than Maccoby's are necessary to contest these assertions. Similarly, Maccoby's claim that Jesus, unlike Paul, actually was a Pharisee, all texts representing him as attacking them notwithstanding, also needs far stronger documentary evidence than this book provides. The fact that Jesus held many views in common with Pharisaic Judaism no more proves he was a member (whatever that might mean) than a similarity between the views of a social democrat and a liberal member of the Democratic Party would entail the former's membership in the latter. Still, overall, this book, like many others written for the general public, might be recommended to Jews and Christians interested in a taste of what contemporary scholars are talking about.
February 12, 2017
ترجمة غير امينة للأسف
April 4, 2015
I really enjoyed this book, but I think that there are many people who would not. This is a pretty trenchant critique of one of the founding figures of Christianity. It uses history and pragmatic literary interpretation to try to explain many of the inconsistencies that surround Paul in the biblical literature. I found its arguments clear and convincing, but I suspect that those devoted to the teachings of the Christian church might be more apt to find fault in its claims.
One of the main focuses of the book is how badly the New Testament misrepresents the Jews, not just that it implicates them as guilty for the death of Jesus, but even in the fact that it doesn't seem to be able to distinguish the Pharisees (rabbis) from the Saduccees (priestly class under the proverbial Roman thumb). There are other points throughout where Maccoby shows Paul misrepresenting the Jews, and these misrepresentations range from simple historical or theological inaccuracies to outright anti-Seminitism.
The argumentations starts out as a slow accumulation of discrepancies in the biblical accounts of Jesus and Paul. In the beginning, the arguments seemed less convincing, even tenuous at times, but as the book progresses the picture of Paul become clearer and the weight of the evidence becomes hard to displace.
This was a starter book for me in the topic of early Christianity. I like that it balances helpful exposition with a more critical stance. Since I don't have a horse in the race (I'm an atheist), I didn't mind the book's polemical stance about Paul. Ultimately, Maccoby doesn't completely condemn Paul, but merely thinks that Paul is less original and authoritative than he is given credit for. The book convincingly argues that Paul is more of a mythologist than a theolgian. For some, this is a damning claim, but it makes a lot more sense to me than most of the Christian hermeneutics that I have seen.
One of the main focuses of the book is how badly the New Testament misrepresents the Jews, not just that it implicates them as guilty for the death of Jesus, but even in the fact that it doesn't seem to be able to distinguish the Pharisees (rabbis) from the Saduccees (priestly class under the proverbial Roman thumb). There are other points throughout where Maccoby shows Paul misrepresenting the Jews, and these misrepresentations range from simple historical or theological inaccuracies to outright anti-Seminitism.
The argumentations starts out as a slow accumulation of discrepancies in the biblical accounts of Jesus and Paul. In the beginning, the arguments seemed less convincing, even tenuous at times, but as the book progresses the picture of Paul become clearer and the weight of the evidence becomes hard to displace.
This was a starter book for me in the topic of early Christianity. I like that it balances helpful exposition with a more critical stance. Since I don't have a horse in the race (I'm an atheist), I didn't mind the book's polemical stance about Paul. Ultimately, Maccoby doesn't completely condemn Paul, but merely thinks that Paul is less original and authoritative than he is given credit for. The book convincingly argues that Paul is more of a mythologist than a theolgian. For some, this is a damning claim, but it makes a lot more sense to me than most of the Christian hermeneutics that I have seen.
October 7, 2015
Maccoby does a thorough, and mostly believable*, job of demonstrating that Paul was not the man he says he is in his New Testament writings, and that the Jesus of Christianity is a mythical figure made up by Paul out of whole cloth. He uses close analysis of the N.T. text itself, noting contradictions with other places in the text, with history, and with common sense, to suggest places that the text is corrupted by a Pauline editor. In the process, he builds an image of what the Gospel texts (synoptics) might have looked like before Pauline orthodoxy re-made the story of Jesus in Paul's image. Maccoby demonstrates Gnostic and Hellenistic influences, and re-interprets anti-Jewish biblical scenes to suggest that Jesus was a Pharisee, and Paul was not only not one, but a disappointed one, and not even necessarily fully Jewish. Lots in this book, and worth reading if you have any interest in where Christianity may have come from.
(*mostly believable: there are a few places where it really feels like he's stretching his argument beyond what he has solid evidence for)
(*mostly believable: there are a few places where it really feels like he's stretching his argument beyond what he has solid evidence for)
February 21, 2016
Early Christianity is a topic most classical historians shy away from, the pool having been muddied by centuries of devotional presupposition. 'The Mythmaker' was my first exposure to the work of Macoby and I found it both accessible and enlightening. His particular Jewish perspective on Jesus, Paul and earliest Christianity was a revelation. Almost everything in this book runs counter to conventional wisdom; for instance, his conclusions that Jesus was probably a Pharisee or that Paul almost certainly wasn't a former Pharisee, and perhaps wasn't even Jewish.
Sometimes Macoby seems to follow the reasoning, "Paul can't have been X, so he must have been Y", without exploring other alternatives. However, this is a trade book that is a distillation of a scholarly work, so perhaps these issues are explored more fully in that other book.
'The Mythmaker' is a very useful addition to my knowledge base on early Christianity. It is written in a clear and direct style and I recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
Sometimes Macoby seems to follow the reasoning, "Paul can't have been X, so he must have been Y", without exploring other alternatives. However, this is a trade book that is a distillation of a scholarly work, so perhaps these issues are explored more fully in that other book.
'The Mythmaker' is a very useful addition to my knowledge base on early Christianity. It is written in a clear and direct style and I recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
February 1, 2010
Maccoby makes some great points but fails to follow them up with good footnotes which makes his points dubious. His works cited list is impressive, but a little digging makes me wonder how much he actually uses his sources at all. In making an argument of such weight, I would have preferred he chose fewer points of contention and stuck to those he could backup easily with research.
Overall, this book seems to lack scholarly attributes, though raises important questions I would like to see handled by a more qualified researcher.
For a review that misses the point about as much as Maccoby seems to, read this Tektonics.org
Overall, this book seems to lack scholarly attributes, though raises important questions I would like to see handled by a more qualified researcher.
For a review that misses the point about as much as Maccoby seems to, read this Tektonics.org
June 4, 2011
The author does a decent job of breaking down prevailing beliefs, but then does a poor job of providing evidence to support his own different hypotheses. There are many questions about the author's methods and sources. The overall concepts are interesting, but the foundation for said concepts leaves something to be desired.
maybe
April 6, 2012How can this be chocking news? Doesn't everybody know that Christianity as we know it was primarily founded on his teachings and writings? Or is this common knowledge for those of us who actually bothered to study Religion at the university?
December 30, 2019
I read as much as I wanted to read. It lacks any kind of scholarly backing to be believable at all. Conjecture and sketchy leaps by the author. Interesting premise but this book is not the one to prove it.
December 28, 2022
So apparently Paul was never a pharisee or even a Jew, but just a guy on the fringes who was attracted to Judaism but couldn't get inside so he invented Christianity, which the real Jesus would never have dreamed of because his main goal was a political utopia, mmkay?
August 18, 2022
يعرض لمسيرة البدء بتحريف النصرانية ويثبت بالتواريخ والأدلة فساد بولس وإسهامه في هرطقة المسيحية، أرى أنه مهم لمن يعيش في المغترب أو يصادف نصارى أو مشككين في حياته، فهو يدعم حجّة المناظر في بطلان النصرانية وإثبات تحريفها بالسند التاريخي..
December 17, 2025
“Pauline myth is combination of : Gnosticism, mystery religion, and Judaism.
Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with.”
To be both king and prophet meant that Jesus was not just an interim Messiah, but the final, culminating Messiah. Isaiah 11
The High Priest only had police authority in Judea.
As often happens in antinomian movements, a reaction against chaos produces repressive legislation— far more repressive than is found in communities that value law in the first place.”
Paul belonged to the fringes surrounding Judaism, of people who were impressed and attracted by Judaism but had to fight against their upbringing and emotional make-up when they attempted a closer approach.”
Paul rejects as inferior the Jewish concept of the dignity of human nature, by which the Torah constitutes a convenient and agreement between two partners, God and Israel.”
None of them (not even Moses) had regarded the Torah as permanently binding; all of them had looked forward to the advent of the savior who would abrogate the Torah and show the true way of faith and salvation.
Islam performed the same operation declaring Abraham, Moses and Jesus as proto-Muslims.
In Judaism the issue is not salvation at all for one is saved merely by being in the covenant, and the issue is then to work together with God by implementing the Torah.
In Gnostiscism the issue is not instruction about how to behave but salvation.”
Gnostics: gnostics despised the law as something essentially inferior to gnosis. Law was indissolubly connected with the activities of the body. The spiritual being was above the operation of the moral law- beyond good and evil.”
Mishnah Avot 4:17; For Rabbis the point of life is in the struggle, rather than the reward.”
Paul is unable to fit law into his scheme of things intelligibly and yet the law simply will not go away. People who are saved behave unaccountably so that the law has to be reintroduced to restrain them.
All Gnostics wish to abolish law and go substitute for it some kind of instinctive , saved behavior that will fulfill all the demands of law without the necessity of having a law. But in practice things never work out this way.”
This led to a building up of a huge body of canon law which began as a revolt against the law. Starting from scratch
This paradox of an antinomian religion with a complicated legal system led constantly to attempts in Christian history to restore pristine antinomian attitudes: Reformation.”
Gnostics denied that Jesus ever died on the cross, saying that this is mere appearance. Docetism
Paul did not invent any of the elements that went to make his mythology; he invented the way in which all the elements were combined to make a new and powerful myth.”
Paul was the sole creator of this myth about the angels fathering the Torah. Says Ordained instead of promulgated.”
Ebionites declared heretics by Pharisees in 135AD. Disappeared by 4th century
The Pseudo-Clementine writings: 2nd century Syria Ebionites writings. The Arabic manuscript discovered by Shlomo Pines; 5th century.
The Ebionites did not survive for the simple reason that they were persecuted out of existence by the Catholic Church.” Survived until the 10th century.
Belief that many Judaizing heresies in Christian history such as Arianism derived from underground Ebionite groups.”
Since the Gospel of Matthew contains verses commanding observance of the Torah Law, the Gospel as a whole has been characterized as a re-Judaizing Gospel, written specifically for a Jewish Christian audience.”
The Pauline Christian movement, which up to 66AD had been struggling to survive against the strong disapproval of Jerusalem Church, began to make great headway.”
Paul was no martyr and was not even notably truthful; he was first and foremost a survivor. He was unscrupulous, especially when he felt that the Lord’s cause required a policy of deception.
Nazarenes was the original name for the followers of Jesus; the name Christians was a later development , not in Jerusalem but in Antioch.”
Chrestos meaning good, which was a common appellation of divine figures in the mystery religions.”
Bultmannite; The Trial of Jesus (Catchpole); Jesus and the Politics of his Day (Moule&Bammel)
It was only to his Gentile converts that Paul revealed that he regarded the Torah as obsolete ; and he may have revealed the is also to Jewish converts to Christianity, when he considered that their progress had reached such a level that they would be receptive to anti-Torah teaching.”
It is as if the author of Acts is going out of his way to tell us that Paul did not purchase his Roman citizenship, a possibility which might not otherwise have occurred to us.”
He urged his disciples to obey Rome, whose power was ordained of God and he also urged slaves to be contented with their lot and not strive for freedom. This contempt for politics was in fact a political attitude— an acquiescence in the political status quo.”
The Pauline Christian Doctrine was fitted from the start to become the official religion of Rome.
While forced to admit that Paul was saved by the Pharisees, he tries to deprive them of all credit by ascribing their attitude to mere factiousness , degenerating into ludicrous brawling.”
Damascus was under rule of Nabateans. Caligula ceded the territory in 37AD.
Paul wrote letters in 55-60AD and Acts was written 90AD.”
The earliest assertion of Eucharist is in Paul’s Epistles. Salvific power
Matthew 16; the account which only appears in Matthew was combined with 2nd century legend locating peters death in Rome to provide support for the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to supremacy over Christendom.”
Later movements in Christianity, such as the Ebionites, are regarded as re-Judaizing sects, which lapses back into Judaism , unable to bear the newness of Christianity.”
All the evidence of the Jewishness of Jesus in the Gospels is due to the late tampering with the text, which originally portrayed Jesus as rejecting Judaism.”
The general aim of the Book of Acts which is to give a picture of essential unity in the early Church, and hide the fact that there is a deep conflict between Paul and the Jerusalem Church under the leadership of James and Peter.”
The belief that Jesus had been resurrected was indeed the mark of the movement after Jesus’s death.
The call by Peter to baptism also cannot be regarded as a call to conversion to a new religion except by reading into the practice of baptism a meaning that it acquired later in the Pauline Christian Church.”
Jesus would have found such ideas repugnant (Eucharist) though not unfamiliar, for they were a well-known aspect of paganism, especially in its mystery manifestations.”
Paul is saying here that he knows about Jesus’ words at the Last Supper by direct revelation, not by any information received from the Jerusalem apostles, some of whom were actually at the Last Supper. The Eucharist was not observed by the Jerusalem church.
The addition of mystery religion trappings was the work of Paul, by which he turned an ordinary Jewish meal into a pagan sacrament.”
By surrounding an audaciously pagan ceremony with a web of scriptural allusions, Paul hoped to attach his cult of Jesus as a savior-god to the Jewish background which he still cherished as a convert and in which he had aspires to reach great heights.”
How difficult it is to rewrite history without leaving tell-tale traces of the original story. One alteration always implies others; but the refactor does not always think of the repercussions of an alteration he has inserted, and so leaves other parts of his work unaltered and inconsistent with his pattern of adaptation of the original.”
Pharisaism everywhere stressed the concept that the Torah may be fulfilled on various levels, according to the state of spiritual advancement of the individual.”
The application of energy and effort to the moral life is of the essence of Pharisaism and nothing is more alien to it than a moral despair which declares that human effort is useless and the only remedy lies in the grace exercised by God.”
It was impossible for any Jew at this time to describe himself truthfully as of the tribe of Benjamin. Deportation of the Ten Tribes by Shalmaneser of Assyria. They intermarried with tribe of Judah and became judahites or Jews.
Because of his pagan background, Saul would have read into the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus meanings which were absent from the minds of the Nazarenes themselves.”
Idea of vicarious suffering by saints on behalf of a sinful community was idea in Judaism.
The Jerusalem Jesus movement did not observe the special service known as Eucharist, Communion, or Mass that marked odd Christianity as a separate religion eventually.”
The book of Acts and the Gospels themselves were composed or edited in order to consolidate this myth of the unity of the early church and to derive from Jesus himself the ideas of the later Church, which were based on those of Paul.”
That Paul was a Pharisee is rendered most unlikely both by his persecution of the Nazarenes and by his association with the High Priest.”
Paul’s elevation of Jesus to divine status was for the Pharisees and for other Jews too, a reversion to paganism.”
Christ, Being in Christ: Apart from the implied elevation of Jesus to divine status, this concept involves a relationship to the Divine that is alien to Judaism.
The idea of being in Christ can be paralleled without difficulty in the mystery cults.
To the recipients of Paul’s letters, the use of the term Lord (kurios) for Jesus would not have seemed shocking at all, for this was the regular term for the deities of the mystery cults.”
“…vagaries of scholarship, which will always make the attempt to find in a text what is believed, for extraneous reasons to be there, whether the text itself gives support to the enterprise or not.”
Qal va-homer argument
The qal va-homer argument is a form of analogy, and in Greek logic the analogy was never regarded as capable of logical form or precision. Greeks used syllogism- useful in science where concern is with classification but not in human relationships (analogy is used).
Nothing could display more clearly Paul’s lack of Pharisee scholarship than his use of the a fortiori argument, which he employs in a rhetorical style that can be paralleled from stoic preachers of Hellenism. Not rabbis.”
Deu 21:23
Vague concepts such as being under a posthumous curse because of the baleful magical effect of the manner of one’s death, belong to paganism, not to Judaism.
Romans 7:1-6; What we have here is a case of someone trying to construct a legal analogy and failing miserably because of his inability to think in the logical manner one expects of a legal expert.”
Paul spoke Koine Greek . He did not know Hebrew. He quotes from the Greek Septuagint
The trials of Jesus and of Stephan are incredible because they depend on a definition of the terms Messiah, Son of Man and Son of G that did not exist in the Jewish religion of the time but did exist in later doctrines of the church when all 3 expressions had been given a connotation of divinity.
Church leaders changed the reasons for Stephens martyrdom in order to disguise his anti-Roman motivation and make him into a victim of Jewish religious intolerance instead.”
Targum translation of the Bible into Aramaic.
The whole argument is predicated on the view that Nazarenes were heretical in their doctrines or practices but they were not. They were Orthodox Jews in their whole way of life. They just believed that Jesus was the Messiah.
If Jesus’s movement had been heretical, espousing theological doctrines that contradicted the traditional Rene ta of Judaism, the High Priest would have been entirely unconcerned- being no theologian.”
The idea of an undivulged Messianic concept is merely an attempt by later christians to attribute to Jesus an idea that in reality did not arise until after his death.”
The whole episode of the Sermon on the Mount is Matthew’s invention.”
Deu 23:25-26; When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbor, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand.”
It would have been revealed that Jesus was not flouting Pharisee law but also that he was a hunted man, wanted by Herod and the Romans and in rebellion against them.”
Son of Man: as a title it does not imply divine status but rather prophetic status, it is used throughout the book of Ezekiel in this sense.”
The New Testament has created conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees by turning what was originally a friendly argument into a hostile confrontation.”
Synoptic Gospels: Mark, Matthew Luke. In John, Jesus has become unrecognizable. He spouts grandiose Hellenistic mysticism and proclaims himself a divine personage.”
Jesus was framed; he was innocent of the political charges for which he was e executed. Romans in this account were innocent of his death. They were tricked, bamboozled, and blackmailed into executing Jesus.”
Paul’s view of Jesus has colored the story told in the Gospels and has thus influenced the imagination of all Western civilizations.”
Gospel attempts to show that Jesus was in some way a rebel against Jewish religion are utterly implausible in the light of any genuine understanding of Jewish religion at the time.”
Jesus’ genuine opinions and teachings have still been preserved in these earlier Gospels; it is only their impact that has been falsified.”
Josephus and Acts both written around 90AD.”
Such acquaintance gained through visions and transports, was actually superior to acquaintance with Jesus during his lifetime, when Jesus was much more deficient about his purposes.”
The earliest writings in the New Testament are actually Paul’s letters, which were written about AD 50-60, while the Gospels were written AD 70-110.
Luke wrote Acts and the Gospel of Luke
He came from Tarsus in Asia Minor where there were few of any Pharisee teachers and a Pharisee training would have been hard to come by.
The undeserved reputation for hypocrisy which is attached to the name Pharisee in medieval and modern times is due to the campaign against the Pharisee in the Gospels-a campaign dictated by politico-religious considerations at the time when the Gospels were given their final editing- about 40-80 years after the death of Jesus.”
Paul never mentions that he was a pupil of Gamaliel. Mentioned by Luke in Acts.
High priest is Sadducee, opposed to Pharisees.
Paul was never a Pharisee rabbi. He was attached to the Sadducees as a police officer under the authority of the High Priest before his conversion to belief in Jesus. He deliberately misrepresented his own biography in order to increase the effectiveness of his missionary activities.
Jesus and his immediate followers were Pharisees. Jesus had no intention of founding a new religion. He never regarded himself as a divine being and would have regarded such an idea as pagan and idolatrous, an infringement of the first 10 Commandments.”
James and Peter founded the Jerusalem Church after Jesus’s death. They were called Nazarenes ; their beliefs were indistinguishable from the Pharisees. The Nazarenes did not believe that Jesus had abrogated the Jewish religion or Torah. He never rebelled against the Law all his life.
After an attempt to reach an understanding with Paul, the Nazarenes broke irrevocably with Paul and disowned him.”
Paul was the founder of Christianity. The central myth was that of an atoning death of a divine being.
Paul derived his religion from Hellenistic sources; Attis and Gnosticism
Jesus himself had no idea of it and would have been amazed and shocked at the role assigned to him by Paul as a suffering deity.”
The essential dilemma of Christianity is to be Jewish yet not to be Jewish. The figure of Paul abjuring his alleged Phariseaism as a hindrance to salvation and yet somehow clinging to it as a guarantee of authority.
The most powerful group regarded as heretical by the Pharisees was that of the Sadducees, of whom frequent mention is made in the Gospels.
Sadducees rejected the Oral Law and saw no need for a class of interpreters, sages, or rabbis engaged in expounding the scriptures in accordance with new ideas and circumstances.”
Three institutions comprised the focus of Sadducee religion: Bible, temple, and priesthood.”
Rabbis thought prophecy had ceased with the last of the biblical prophets and would only be renewed in the Messianic age.
The Sadducees defended status quo from 3rd century BC - Judea ruled by Ptolemaic Greeks of Egypt.
Ptolemaic Greeks of Egypt to Seleucid Greeks of Syria to Hasmoneans to Herodians and Romans. Pharisees rose as movement in 160bC opposing Sadducees.
The apparent spiritual head, the High Priest, was in reality of little account, being personally despised by the majority of Jews and even in his official capacity regarded as having no real authority.”
In Judaism the man who performs the sacrifices does not pronounce on theology or religious law or adopt the role of inspirer or prophet.
The whole picture of Jesus at loggerheads with the Pharisees is the creation of a period some time after Jesus’s death when the Christian church was in conflict with the Pharisees because of its claim to have superseded Judaism.”
Mark is earliest Gospel
When we speak of a later Godpel taking the bias or tendency further , we mean that this occurs when both Gospels are handling material taken from the same source.
Alliance between the Pharisees and Herodians is impossible. Herodians and Sadducees allied.
Pharisees believed in resurrection but Sadducees did not believe.
At the time the Gospels were edited, the Sadducees had lost any small religious importance that they had once had. The Pharisees were the sole repository of religious authority.”
It was the utmost importance to the Gospel editors to represent Jesus as rebeling against the Jewish religion not the Roman occupation.”
In later Christianity, the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah had come to mean a dirty or divine being.”
The Gospels in pursuance of their policy of representing Jesus as a rebel against the Jewish religion depict the High Priest as concerned about Blasphemy rather than rebellion.”
This is an area in which confusion of thought is rife and Jesus is credited with upholding a definition of the law of love which is mere non sense and would result in a society in which oppression and violence would reign unchecked.”
Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with.”
To be both king and prophet meant that Jesus was not just an interim Messiah, but the final, culminating Messiah. Isaiah 11
The High Priest only had police authority in Judea.
As often happens in antinomian movements, a reaction against chaos produces repressive legislation— far more repressive than is found in communities that value law in the first place.”
Paul belonged to the fringes surrounding Judaism, of people who were impressed and attracted by Judaism but had to fight against their upbringing and emotional make-up when they attempted a closer approach.”
Paul rejects as inferior the Jewish concept of the dignity of human nature, by which the Torah constitutes a convenient and agreement between two partners, God and Israel.”
None of them (not even Moses) had regarded the Torah as permanently binding; all of them had looked forward to the advent of the savior who would abrogate the Torah and show the true way of faith and salvation.
Islam performed the same operation declaring Abraham, Moses and Jesus as proto-Muslims.
In Judaism the issue is not salvation at all for one is saved merely by being in the covenant, and the issue is then to work together with God by implementing the Torah.
In Gnostiscism the issue is not instruction about how to behave but salvation.”
Gnostics: gnostics despised the law as something essentially inferior to gnosis. Law was indissolubly connected with the activities of the body. The spiritual being was above the operation of the moral law- beyond good and evil.”
Mishnah Avot 4:17; For Rabbis the point of life is in the struggle, rather than the reward.”
Paul is unable to fit law into his scheme of things intelligibly and yet the law simply will not go away. People who are saved behave unaccountably so that the law has to be reintroduced to restrain them.
All Gnostics wish to abolish law and go substitute for it some kind of instinctive , saved behavior that will fulfill all the demands of law without the necessity of having a law. But in practice things never work out this way.”
This led to a building up of a huge body of canon law which began as a revolt against the law. Starting from scratch
This paradox of an antinomian religion with a complicated legal system led constantly to attempts in Christian history to restore pristine antinomian attitudes: Reformation.”
Gnostics denied that Jesus ever died on the cross, saying that this is mere appearance. Docetism
Paul did not invent any of the elements that went to make his mythology; he invented the way in which all the elements were combined to make a new and powerful myth.”
Paul was the sole creator of this myth about the angels fathering the Torah. Says Ordained instead of promulgated.”
Ebionites declared heretics by Pharisees in 135AD. Disappeared by 4th century
The Pseudo-Clementine writings: 2nd century Syria Ebionites writings. The Arabic manuscript discovered by Shlomo Pines; 5th century.
The Ebionites did not survive for the simple reason that they were persecuted out of existence by the Catholic Church.” Survived until the 10th century.
Belief that many Judaizing heresies in Christian history such as Arianism derived from underground Ebionite groups.”
Since the Gospel of Matthew contains verses commanding observance of the Torah Law, the Gospel as a whole has been characterized as a re-Judaizing Gospel, written specifically for a Jewish Christian audience.”
The Pauline Christian movement, which up to 66AD had been struggling to survive against the strong disapproval of Jerusalem Church, began to make great headway.”
Paul was no martyr and was not even notably truthful; he was first and foremost a survivor. He was unscrupulous, especially when he felt that the Lord’s cause required a policy of deception.
Nazarenes was the original name for the followers of Jesus; the name Christians was a later development , not in Jerusalem but in Antioch.”
Chrestos meaning good, which was a common appellation of divine figures in the mystery religions.”
Bultmannite; The Trial of Jesus (Catchpole); Jesus and the Politics of his Day (Moule&Bammel)
It was only to his Gentile converts that Paul revealed that he regarded the Torah as obsolete ; and he may have revealed the is also to Jewish converts to Christianity, when he considered that their progress had reached such a level that they would be receptive to anti-Torah teaching.”
It is as if the author of Acts is going out of his way to tell us that Paul did not purchase his Roman citizenship, a possibility which might not otherwise have occurred to us.”
He urged his disciples to obey Rome, whose power was ordained of God and he also urged slaves to be contented with their lot and not strive for freedom. This contempt for politics was in fact a political attitude— an acquiescence in the political status quo.”
The Pauline Christian Doctrine was fitted from the start to become the official religion of Rome.
While forced to admit that Paul was saved by the Pharisees, he tries to deprive them of all credit by ascribing their attitude to mere factiousness , degenerating into ludicrous brawling.”
Damascus was under rule of Nabateans. Caligula ceded the territory in 37AD.
Paul wrote letters in 55-60AD and Acts was written 90AD.”
The earliest assertion of Eucharist is in Paul’s Epistles. Salvific power
Matthew 16; the account which only appears in Matthew was combined with 2nd century legend locating peters death in Rome to provide support for the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to supremacy over Christendom.”
Later movements in Christianity, such as the Ebionites, are regarded as re-Judaizing sects, which lapses back into Judaism , unable to bear the newness of Christianity.”
All the evidence of the Jewishness of Jesus in the Gospels is due to the late tampering with the text, which originally portrayed Jesus as rejecting Judaism.”
The general aim of the Book of Acts which is to give a picture of essential unity in the early Church, and hide the fact that there is a deep conflict between Paul and the Jerusalem Church under the leadership of James and Peter.”
The belief that Jesus had been resurrected was indeed the mark of the movement after Jesus’s death.
The call by Peter to baptism also cannot be regarded as a call to conversion to a new religion except by reading into the practice of baptism a meaning that it acquired later in the Pauline Christian Church.”
Jesus would have found such ideas repugnant (Eucharist) though not unfamiliar, for they were a well-known aspect of paganism, especially in its mystery manifestations.”
Paul is saying here that he knows about Jesus’ words at the Last Supper by direct revelation, not by any information received from the Jerusalem apostles, some of whom were actually at the Last Supper. The Eucharist was not observed by the Jerusalem church.
The addition of mystery religion trappings was the work of Paul, by which he turned an ordinary Jewish meal into a pagan sacrament.”
By surrounding an audaciously pagan ceremony with a web of scriptural allusions, Paul hoped to attach his cult of Jesus as a savior-god to the Jewish background which he still cherished as a convert and in which he had aspires to reach great heights.”
How difficult it is to rewrite history without leaving tell-tale traces of the original story. One alteration always implies others; but the refactor does not always think of the repercussions of an alteration he has inserted, and so leaves other parts of his work unaltered and inconsistent with his pattern of adaptation of the original.”
Pharisaism everywhere stressed the concept that the Torah may be fulfilled on various levels, according to the state of spiritual advancement of the individual.”
The application of energy and effort to the moral life is of the essence of Pharisaism and nothing is more alien to it than a moral despair which declares that human effort is useless and the only remedy lies in the grace exercised by God.”
It was impossible for any Jew at this time to describe himself truthfully as of the tribe of Benjamin. Deportation of the Ten Tribes by Shalmaneser of Assyria. They intermarried with tribe of Judah and became judahites or Jews.
Because of his pagan background, Saul would have read into the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus meanings which were absent from the minds of the Nazarenes themselves.”
Idea of vicarious suffering by saints on behalf of a sinful community was idea in Judaism.
The Jerusalem Jesus movement did not observe the special service known as Eucharist, Communion, or Mass that marked odd Christianity as a separate religion eventually.”
The book of Acts and the Gospels themselves were composed or edited in order to consolidate this myth of the unity of the early church and to derive from Jesus himself the ideas of the later Church, which were based on those of Paul.”
That Paul was a Pharisee is rendered most unlikely both by his persecution of the Nazarenes and by his association with the High Priest.”
Paul’s elevation of Jesus to divine status was for the Pharisees and for other Jews too, a reversion to paganism.”
Christ, Being in Christ: Apart from the implied elevation of Jesus to divine status, this concept involves a relationship to the Divine that is alien to Judaism.
The idea of being in Christ can be paralleled without difficulty in the mystery cults.
To the recipients of Paul’s letters, the use of the term Lord (kurios) for Jesus would not have seemed shocking at all, for this was the regular term for the deities of the mystery cults.”
“…vagaries of scholarship, which will always make the attempt to find in a text what is believed, for extraneous reasons to be there, whether the text itself gives support to the enterprise or not.”
Qal va-homer argument
The qal va-homer argument is a form of analogy, and in Greek logic the analogy was never regarded as capable of logical form or precision. Greeks used syllogism- useful in science where concern is with classification but not in human relationships (analogy is used).
Nothing could display more clearly Paul’s lack of Pharisee scholarship than his use of the a fortiori argument, which he employs in a rhetorical style that can be paralleled from stoic preachers of Hellenism. Not rabbis.”
Deu 21:23
Vague concepts such as being under a posthumous curse because of the baleful magical effect of the manner of one’s death, belong to paganism, not to Judaism.
Romans 7:1-6; What we have here is a case of someone trying to construct a legal analogy and failing miserably because of his inability to think in the logical manner one expects of a legal expert.”
Paul spoke Koine Greek . He did not know Hebrew. He quotes from the Greek Septuagint
The trials of Jesus and of Stephan are incredible because they depend on a definition of the terms Messiah, Son of Man and Son of G that did not exist in the Jewish religion of the time but did exist in later doctrines of the church when all 3 expressions had been given a connotation of divinity.
Church leaders changed the reasons for Stephens martyrdom in order to disguise his anti-Roman motivation and make him into a victim of Jewish religious intolerance instead.”
Targum translation of the Bible into Aramaic.
The whole argument is predicated on the view that Nazarenes were heretical in their doctrines or practices but they were not. They were Orthodox Jews in their whole way of life. They just believed that Jesus was the Messiah.
If Jesus’s movement had been heretical, espousing theological doctrines that contradicted the traditional Rene ta of Judaism, the High Priest would have been entirely unconcerned- being no theologian.”
The idea of an undivulged Messianic concept is merely an attempt by later christians to attribute to Jesus an idea that in reality did not arise until after his death.”
The whole episode of the Sermon on the Mount is Matthew’s invention.”
Deu 23:25-26; When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbor, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand.”
It would have been revealed that Jesus was not flouting Pharisee law but also that he was a hunted man, wanted by Herod and the Romans and in rebellion against them.”
Son of Man: as a title it does not imply divine status but rather prophetic status, it is used throughout the book of Ezekiel in this sense.”
The New Testament has created conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees by turning what was originally a friendly argument into a hostile confrontation.”
Synoptic Gospels: Mark, Matthew Luke. In John, Jesus has become unrecognizable. He spouts grandiose Hellenistic mysticism and proclaims himself a divine personage.”
Jesus was framed; he was innocent of the political charges for which he was e executed. Romans in this account were innocent of his death. They were tricked, bamboozled, and blackmailed into executing Jesus.”
Paul’s view of Jesus has colored the story told in the Gospels and has thus influenced the imagination of all Western civilizations.”
Gospel attempts to show that Jesus was in some way a rebel against Jewish religion are utterly implausible in the light of any genuine understanding of Jewish religion at the time.”
Jesus’ genuine opinions and teachings have still been preserved in these earlier Gospels; it is only their impact that has been falsified.”
Josephus and Acts both written around 90AD.”
Such acquaintance gained through visions and transports, was actually superior to acquaintance with Jesus during his lifetime, when Jesus was much more deficient about his purposes.”
The earliest writings in the New Testament are actually Paul’s letters, which were written about AD 50-60, while the Gospels were written AD 70-110.
Luke wrote Acts and the Gospel of Luke
He came from Tarsus in Asia Minor where there were few of any Pharisee teachers and a Pharisee training would have been hard to come by.
The undeserved reputation for hypocrisy which is attached to the name Pharisee in medieval and modern times is due to the campaign against the Pharisee in the Gospels-a campaign dictated by politico-religious considerations at the time when the Gospels were given their final editing- about 40-80 years after the death of Jesus.”
Paul never mentions that he was a pupil of Gamaliel. Mentioned by Luke in Acts.
High priest is Sadducee, opposed to Pharisees.
Paul was never a Pharisee rabbi. He was attached to the Sadducees as a police officer under the authority of the High Priest before his conversion to belief in Jesus. He deliberately misrepresented his own biography in order to increase the effectiveness of his missionary activities.
Jesus and his immediate followers were Pharisees. Jesus had no intention of founding a new religion. He never regarded himself as a divine being and would have regarded such an idea as pagan and idolatrous, an infringement of the first 10 Commandments.”
James and Peter founded the Jerusalem Church after Jesus’s death. They were called Nazarenes ; their beliefs were indistinguishable from the Pharisees. The Nazarenes did not believe that Jesus had abrogated the Jewish religion or Torah. He never rebelled against the Law all his life.
After an attempt to reach an understanding with Paul, the Nazarenes broke irrevocably with Paul and disowned him.”
Paul was the founder of Christianity. The central myth was that of an atoning death of a divine being.
Paul derived his religion from Hellenistic sources; Attis and Gnosticism
Jesus himself had no idea of it and would have been amazed and shocked at the role assigned to him by Paul as a suffering deity.”
The essential dilemma of Christianity is to be Jewish yet not to be Jewish. The figure of Paul abjuring his alleged Phariseaism as a hindrance to salvation and yet somehow clinging to it as a guarantee of authority.
The most powerful group regarded as heretical by the Pharisees was that of the Sadducees, of whom frequent mention is made in the Gospels.
Sadducees rejected the Oral Law and saw no need for a class of interpreters, sages, or rabbis engaged in expounding the scriptures in accordance with new ideas and circumstances.”
Three institutions comprised the focus of Sadducee religion: Bible, temple, and priesthood.”
Rabbis thought prophecy had ceased with the last of the biblical prophets and would only be renewed in the Messianic age.
The Sadducees defended status quo from 3rd century BC - Judea ruled by Ptolemaic Greeks of Egypt.
Ptolemaic Greeks of Egypt to Seleucid Greeks of Syria to Hasmoneans to Herodians and Romans. Pharisees rose as movement in 160bC opposing Sadducees.
The apparent spiritual head, the High Priest, was in reality of little account, being personally despised by the majority of Jews and even in his official capacity regarded as having no real authority.”
In Judaism the man who performs the sacrifices does not pronounce on theology or religious law or adopt the role of inspirer or prophet.
The whole picture of Jesus at loggerheads with the Pharisees is the creation of a period some time after Jesus’s death when the Christian church was in conflict with the Pharisees because of its claim to have superseded Judaism.”
Mark is earliest Gospel
When we speak of a later Godpel taking the bias or tendency further , we mean that this occurs when both Gospels are handling material taken from the same source.
Alliance between the Pharisees and Herodians is impossible. Herodians and Sadducees allied.
Pharisees believed in resurrection but Sadducees did not believe.
At the time the Gospels were edited, the Sadducees had lost any small religious importance that they had once had. The Pharisees were the sole repository of religious authority.”
It was the utmost importance to the Gospel editors to represent Jesus as rebeling against the Jewish religion not the Roman occupation.”
In later Christianity, the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah had come to mean a dirty or divine being.”
The Gospels in pursuance of their policy of representing Jesus as a rebel against the Jewish religion depict the High Priest as concerned about Blasphemy rather than rebellion.”
This is an area in which confusion of thought is rife and Jesus is credited with upholding a definition of the law of love which is mere non sense and would result in a society in which oppression and violence would reign unchecked.”
April 4, 2020
I didn’t read all of this book. Much was sort of redundant and just him supporting aspects of his theory. Sometimes they were theories within theories that weren’t entirely relevant but were also “in your face” fringe theories that I feel detracted form his goal of his book.
He makes a clear case Paul invented what modern day Christianity stemmed from. Slam dunk. 100% agree. Paul does not, however, need to be a gentile nor Pharisee to make this case and that’s what over 1/3 of the book is about: that Paul was actually a gentile. It’s very fringe theory and not relevant to his conclusion. He commits a great deal of time claiming Jesus was a Pharisee. Again, interesting, but not relevant.
I learned a great deal about Jewish history and tradition that I don’t think I would have found in many other like minded books. Unfortunately, about half of this book is, in opinion, an unnecessary distraction from the other half.
He makes a clear case Paul invented what modern day Christianity stemmed from. Slam dunk. 100% agree. Paul does not, however, need to be a gentile nor Pharisee to make this case and that’s what over 1/3 of the book is about: that Paul was actually a gentile. It’s very fringe theory and not relevant to his conclusion. He commits a great deal of time claiming Jesus was a Pharisee. Again, interesting, but not relevant.
I learned a great deal about Jewish history and tradition that I don’t think I would have found in many other like minded books. Unfortunately, about half of this book is, in opinion, an unnecessary distraction from the other half.
July 13, 2012
The author, a Jew and Talmudic scholar, gives an impressive show of imaginative scholarship in his account of Paul as a man of tremendous religious imagination himself having invented 'Christianity.'
It would have been a more convincing book if Mr. Maccoby did not so strongly give the impression that he carried a grudge against Paul and his new invention of this mystical Christianity which caused the Jews a lot of trouble.
I doubt if anyone understands the complicated apostle Paul; however, this book opened my eyes to a number of interesting possibilities. Look between the covers and be surprised! And now I wonder if Paul were living in this era: 'would he be under psychiatric care?' However, he did claim to be satisfied no matter what happened to him...in those days.
It would have been a more convincing book if Mr. Maccoby did not so strongly give the impression that he carried a grudge against Paul and his new invention of this mystical Christianity which caused the Jews a lot of trouble.
I doubt if anyone understands the complicated apostle Paul; however, this book opened my eyes to a number of interesting possibilities. Look between the covers and be surprised! And now I wonder if Paul were living in this era: 'would he be under psychiatric care?' However, he did claim to be satisfied no matter what happened to him...in those days.
April 26, 2016
كإنسان لا ديني شدني العنوان من النظرة الأولى، لا سيما و أنني كنت قد قرأت عن بولس و تأثيره على النصرانية الحقيقية التي تلت موت يسوع و قيامته الجدلية.
لكن الكاتب هنا حاول أن يلفت انتباه القارئ إلى ناحية أخرى من عمل بولس، و هو ربطه ربطاً مباشراً بالرومان و الديانات القديمة التي تدعو إلى الخضوع و الرضوخ، زاعماً أنه السبب الرئيسي الذي أدى إلى انتشار الديانة المسيحية بشكلها الحالي في أرجاء الامبراطورية الرومانية آنذاك.
الترجمة العربية للكتاب ناقصة، المترجمة تقول أنها عمدت إلى إلغاء صفحات بأكملها من الكتاب مراعاة لشعور المسيحيين، و الذي أعتبره عملاً غير أمينٍ في محاولتها لإيصال فكرة الكتاب.
الجدير بالذكر أن الكاتب يهودي و المترجمة مسلمة، و الإثنان يحاولان تفنيد أسس ديانة ثالثة ألا و هي المسيحية.
الكتاب كارثة بكل معاني الكلمة.
لكن الكاتب هنا حاول أن يلفت انتباه القارئ إلى ناحية أخرى من عمل بولس، و هو ربطه ربطاً مباشراً بالرومان و الديانات القديمة التي تدعو إلى الخضوع و الرضوخ، زاعماً أنه السبب الرئيسي الذي أدى إلى انتشار الديانة المسيحية بشكلها الحالي في أرجاء الامبراطورية الرومانية آنذاك.
الترجمة العربية للكتاب ناقصة، المترجمة تقول أنها عمدت إلى إلغاء صفحات بأكملها من الكتاب مراعاة لشعور المسيحيين، و الذي أعتبره عملاً غير أمينٍ في محاولتها لإيصال فكرة الكتاب.
الجدير بالذكر أن الكاتب يهودي و المترجمة مسلمة، و الإثنان يحاولان تفنيد أسس ديانة ثالثة ألا و هي المسيحية.
الكتاب كارثة بكل معاني الكلمة.
February 2, 2015
Starts off with an interesting premise, but then loses stem and the second half of the book seems like a rant. Paul is an interesting character because everything that contradicts between the Old and New Testament is connected to Paul (like telling women not to talk and throwing away the Kosher laws). He's the one whose story doesn't add up historically compared to the other apostles. It is impossible to read the New Testament and take Paul seriously after finishing this.
July 28, 2015
A great clarification of Paul's role in myth making of the Christian religion which is vastly different from the Judaism Jesus and James were part of. Jesus never defined himself as a god; he understood Messiah in the normal terms of someone who would restore the Jewish monarchy, drive out the Roman invaders and establish a Jewish state. This book echoes other books I have read particularly Zealot and The Evolution of God.
October 7, 2015
Maccoby is obviously pursuing an agenda of his own (i.e. proving that anti-semitism is deeply rooted in the very origins of Christianity, while also argumenting that Christianity is based on the delusions of a fraud/failed Pharisee), but in doing so he builds up his argumentation in a superb manner.
You should appreciate this book like you would appreciate the work Freud - not for its claims of holding truth, but for the sake of the argument and the author's inventiveness and erudition.
You should appreciate this book like you would appreciate the work Freud - not for its claims of holding truth, but for the sake of the argument and the author's inventiveness and erudition.
January 21, 2014
Mythmaker provided some interesting and necessary context to the world of first century Middle East. Maccoby's hypothesis is that Christianity as a separate religion didn't exist until Paul invented it; that Jesus himself never intended to found a church separate from Judaism. He writes in narrative style and provides plenty of research to back up his claim. I thought it was well worth the read.
July 20, 2009
A very interesting premise that Paul created christianity to fulfill his own religious desires and shortcomings.
excellent scholarship, presenting a new and unique view of the current mythos of christianity.
excellent scholarship, presenting a new and unique view of the current mythos of christianity.
December 1, 2009
If you want to know how Saul completely changed what we call Christianity, and why it isn't what Joshua of Nazareth started, find a copy of this work. In other words, don't read the New Testament past the Gospels.
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