History of Christianity
Page 1
These are a few of the books we have found helpful along the way!
Barns & Noble, New York, NY. Paperback price, $12.00 plus SH. Also check www.campusi.com/.
©1986. Hb; 237 pp.
ISBN 0-76070-787-1 (Hardback).
ISBN 0-06250-585-5 (Paperback).
“Maccoby contends that Jesus was no more the founder of Christianity than the historical Hamlet was the author of Hamlet. Rather, Christianity was the invention of St. Paul, who used elements of Judaism, Gnosticism, and pagan mystery cults as his materials, fusing them around the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. Throughout The Mythmaker, Maccoby wages warfare on time-honored beliefs about the origins of Christianity. He holds that Jesus . . . was himself a Pharisee; that the self-proclaimed Pharisee Paul never was one; that . . . such ideas as Jesus’ divinity and the Eucharist . . . were brainchildren of Paul; and that the heretical Ebionite sect was really a continuation of the ‘Jewish Christianity’ against which Paul had rebelled.
“In progressing from failed rabbinical student to self-appointed apostle, Maccoby’s Paul displays the wiliness and, often, unscrupulousness of a picaresque hero. Yet Maccoby grants Paul a rich, indeed mythmaking, religious imagination.
“As exciting in its revelations as it is exciting in its methods, The Mythmaker is essential reading for anyone interested in the problematic historical origins of Christianity.” From the book papercover flaps.
Reformation, The: A History. Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Penguin Books. ©2003. Available from www.Amazon.com/.
A well-written history providing insights into the beginning of the 70-week prophecy of Daniel 9 in 1513 and the end of the first seven-week jubilee period in 1562-3. William Tyndale’s translation of the Scriptures into English has already begun its work in Great Britain. The New Testament had been printed in 1525-1526 and the Pentateuch five years later.
Gael Bataman
Originally Written: 11 April 2006
Latest Update: 29 August 2007
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