COMING DECEMBER 11, 2015!
THE TESTAMENT OF JAMES
REFERENCES
INDEXED BY TOPIC
(Standard bibliography follows.)
Apocalypse expected to come during the lifetime of Jesus’ disciples: Bart Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Oxford University Press 1999, Preface pg. x. Also see “This generation shall not pass away,” Matthew 24:32–34.
Apostles not aware of Jesus’ plot to survive the crucifixion: Schonfield, The Passover Plot / A new Interpretation of the Life and Death of Jesus, Bernard Geis Associates 1965, pg. 166.
Ascent to heaven, gospels inconsistent, no one outside the inner circle reported to have seen the risen Jesus: The Resurrection, Geza Vermes, Doubleday 2008, pp. 102–110.
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, 39th pastoral letter (“Easter letter”) sets the 27 books of the final Christian canon in 367 A.D.: Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code, Bart Ehrman, pp. 93–94.
Attis/Cybele: “After his vision, Paul left the area and traveled for three years in Asia Minor and Arabia. The worship of Cybele and Attis, her consort/son, was very popular there. Attis was tied to a tree with arms outstretched, died, and three days later returned to life through the agency of his mother.” Leonard Shlain, footnote, Chapter 23, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, Viking 1998.
Book of Acts creates a false history for Paul after his revelation, making it appear he was closely linked to the Jesus movement led by James in Jerusalem, when his own letters to the Galatians contradict this: Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian, pg. 139.
Brothers of Jesus: See 1 Corinthians 9:5.
Canon, being the 27 books of the Christian New Testament, finalized by Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria in 367 A.D.: Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code, Bart Ehrman, pp. 93–94.
Census which is cited as reason for Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem, never happened, Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet, pp. 38–39.
Clement, Bishop of Alexandria, letter to Theodore concerning a secret Gospel of Mark to be “read only by those who are being initiated into the great mysteries”, revealing that Jesus had ritually initiated a youth in Bethany into the Kingdom of God: Baigent, The Jesus Papers, pp. 231–244.
Comrade of Josephus survived crucifixion: The Works of Josephus, Translated by William Whiston, Hendrickson Publishers, Lynn, Mass., 1982, “The Life of Flavius Josephus,” pp. 20–21.
Cornish Horrors: Rhode Island chapter of the loosely affiliated network of Sherlockian organizations of which the best known is London’s Baker Street Irregulars. The Cornish Horrors feature more prominently in the Matthew Hunter/Chantal Stevens adventure The Miskatonic Manuscript.
Davidian descent traced through Joseph, “though this is incompatible with the theory or fact of the virgin birth”: Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, Atheneum 1977, pg. 27.
Disciples could not be taken entirely into Jesus’ confidence: Schonfield, The Passover Plot / A New Interpretation of the Life and Death of Jesus, Bernard Geis Associates 1965, pg. 99.
Drug causes Jesus to lose consciousness on the cross: Schonfield, The Passover Plot, pg. 167. Also Baigent, The Jesus Papers, pp. 126–129, though Baigent cites Schonfield as a source.
Eunapius, 345–420, the platonic philosopher expert on theurgy (music, ritual & dance), alive when Emperor Theodosius banned all pagan religions in A.D. 391. He wrote a valuable history. In 1563 classical scholar Marc-Antoine de Murret was lecturing at the University in Rome, saw a copy of Eunapius’ History in the Vatican library, asked Cardinal Sirlet to arrange for a copy to be made. He was refused, told (with Pope’s support) the book was “impious and wicked.” A Jesuit later told him the book “had perished by an act of divine providence”: Baigent, The Jesus Papers, pp. 88–89.
Feeding of the multitude with the loaves relates to the tradition of Moses and the manna. And again, the eyes of the two disciples at Luke 24:30–31 are opened only after they share the bread: “Manna, the Showbread, and the Eucharist: Psychoactive Sacraments in the Bible,” by psychoanalyst Dan Merkur, essay in Psychoactive Sacramentals / Essays on Entheogens and Religion, book edited by Thomas B. Roberts of Northern Illinois University, Council on Spiritual Practices, San Francisco, 2001.
Gospels, language: “The four gospels declared canonical . . . were circulated, but not necessarily first written, in colloquial Greek, but Matthew was almost certainly translated from Hebrew, and all four were either THOUGHT in Aramaic, or transcriptions from tales which were Aramaic in original circulation, yet which drew on Hebrew quotations. . . .”, Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, pg. 22.
Gospels originally bore no authors’ names: Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Bart D. Ehrman, Oxford University Press 1999, pg. 42. Originally written in Greek between 65 and 95 A.D.: ibid. pg. 45, also pg. 86.
Gospels not written by original disciples whose names they bear: Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, Bart D. Ehrman.
Greenlanders starved because they never learned to eat fish, etc.: Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed.
Isaiah 7:14 taken out of context as a prediction that the messiah would be born in Jesus’ time. Also, Hebrew word almah (“young woman”) mistranslated into the Greek as parthenos (“virgin”): Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian, pp. 207–209.
James saw Jesus alive: Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet, pg. 229. Also see 1 Corinthians 15:7.
James, younger (but oldest surviving) brother of Jesus, judicial murder by the high priest Annas in 62 A.D.: Josephus, Antiquities, published 93 A.D., though Paul Johnson warns the description of Jesus has been tampered with. See Mark 6:3; Galatians 1:19.
Jerusalem council, 49 A.D., Paul supposedly wins approval from James, gentile Christians need not be circumcised: Johnson pp. 36–37.
Jerusalem Council of the late 40s, at which the Book of Acts reports a decision was reached that Gentile Christians would be required to observe only the seven Noahide Laws, not the entire Torah, may never have happened, since Paul seemed unaware of it when writing to the Galatians a few years later: Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian, pg. 117, then pp. 138–144.
Jesus accuses the Jewish priests of keeping the mystery of their fathers secret from the people, and then not even using it themselves: “Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.” Luke 11:52.
Jewish priesthood: “In 43 B.C., Rome appointed a local non-Jew, Herod, to oversee the recalcitrant district. . . . Herod took on the task of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. . . . Herod built a structure so magnificent that it became one of the wonders of the ancient world. . . .Unfortunately, by serving as a magnet for Jews living outside Jerusalem, the massive complex created a crisis for Judaism. . . . The Temple priests overseeing the vast bureaucracy came to see themselves as an elite. . . . An Alexandrine pilgrim, Aristeas, wrote home that he had witnessed seven hundred priests, each performing multiple sacrifices during a single day, . . . The God of Moses and Abraham had been everywhere and nowhere, but in the Herodian era he was presumed by many to dwell in the Temple’s inner sanctum. This belief allowed the priesthood to wield absolute authority over religious matters. The Sadducees, the Temple’s clerical upper class, dominated the Sanhedrin, the Council of Elders, and were intent on maintaining the status quo.” Leonard Shlain, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, Viking 1998 Chapter 22. Shlain also notes “Neither Jesus nor any of his disciples committed any of His teachings to writing. The Gospel writings emerged later. Jesus instructed his disciples to memorize His important sermons. . . Why would Jesus choose not to use the written word for this purpose? The Buddha wrote nothing down. . . . The exceptional teachers shared the intuition that communication changes when it is written. . .”
Jews would have found Paul’s new “Hellenistic religion, with very little — if any �
� Jewish content . . . totally repugnant,” as he rejected Torah observance and backed up his “sketchy arguments” with “inaccurate biblical quotations”: Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian, pg. 125.
Joseph had sex with Mary: Matthew 1:25. The four brothers are described in the gospels as the brothers of Jesus, never as “half-brothers” or “step-brothers.” There’s also no mention of Joseph having been previously married.
Joseph was the father of Jesus: John 1:45.
Joseph of Arimathea built a tomb in a garden near Golgotha for one purpose only: The Jesus Conspiracy, by Holger Kersten and Elmar Gruber.
Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate for the soma of Jesus, but Pilate grants him permission to claim the ptoma: The Passover Plot, pg. 168. Also Baigent, The Jesus Papers, pg. 130, citing Matthew 15:43–45 in the original Greek.
Judas operating under instructions: The Passover Plot, pg. 139–140, though Schonfield insists on the more convoluted interpretation that Jesus purposely goaded Judas into the betrayal, rather than simply ordering it: pp. 134–137.
Judas the only disciple who could be trusted with the secret teachings, and thus the only one who could be trusted with the most important task, turning Jesus in to the authorities at precisely the right moment: Ehrman, The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot.
Manna, dosage: An omer is 1/10th of an ephah, which is 19.2 U.S. dry quarts, or 21.14 liters. The modern Hebrew commentaries say the omer — a term used nowhere else in the Bible — was not a familiar measure to the Israelites, though the ephah was.
“Man-woman”: Although the typographical error “man-woman” (later corrected to “madwoman”) at line 16 of page 25 on John Frazier’s 1997 novel Cold Mountain is frequently referred to as a “first edition point,” in fact the error has been found in second and third printings, as well, having apparently not been discovered and fixed till the fourth printing.
Marcion, early 2nd century wealthy Greek convert to Christianity, hailing from Pontus, none of his books survive: Johnson pg. 46.
Marlowe, Julia, rarity of books signed to: Book Row, Mondlin & Meador, Carroll & Graf 2004, section on Dauber & Pine booksellers, pg. 45.
Myrrh and aloe brought in large quantities to the tomb on the night after the crucifixion by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea (John 19:39) — Neither drug known to have been used in embalming dead bodies, though myyrh was used to stop bleeding: Baigent, The Jesus Papers, pg. 129.
Origen, early Christian ecclesiastic, ordered scribes to change the name of the prisoner whose freedom was demanded by the Jewish crowd from Jesus Barabbas (“Jesus Son of the Father”) to simply “Barabbas”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabbas
Paul, “by birth a pure Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, ‘circumcized on the eighth day,’ . . . from northern Galilee . . . spoke Greek and Aramaic and read the scriptures in Hebrew”: Johnson, pg. 36.
Paul rarely quoted Jesus “and seldom referred to his teachings. Surprisingly, he seemed totally indifferent to the Jesus of history. . . . Paul envisioned a religion that was devoid of Torah, based not on the teachings and practices of the historical Jesus but rather on insights he gleaned from the mystical Christ”: Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian, pg. 115.
Pilate’s career in Judea came to an end in A.D. 36: Johnson pg. 30.
Pilate a prefect, not a procurator: Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet, pg. 59.
Plan to survive the crucifixion, described by Schonfield as “a nightmarish conception and undertaking, the outcome of the frightening logic of a sick mind, or of a genius. And it worked out”: The Passover Plot, pg. 132.
Temple, Jewish: “Nothing could hide the essential business of the Temple, which was the ritual slaughter, consumption and combustion of sacrificial cattle on a gigantic scale. . . . There were literally thousands of priests, attendants, temple-soldiers and minions. To the unprepared visitor, the dignity and charity of Jewish diaspora life . . . was quite lost among the smoke of the pyres, the bellows of terrified beasts, the unconcealed and unconcealable machinery of tribal religion inflated by modern wealth to an industrial scale.” Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, Atheneum 1977, pp. 13–14.
Torah observance no longer necessary for anyone, Paul tells the Galatians, since faith in Jesus has now replaced the need for Torah observance: Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian, pg. 123.
Virgin birth: Matthew 1:23 apparently cites virgin birth in order to match the prophecy of Isaiah at Isaiah 7:14 — Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet, pg. 39. But that reading is taken out of context, and based on an erroneous translation: Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian, pp. 207–209.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Further Readings on Topics Touched on by The Testament of James
* Strongly recommended
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess
Leonard Shlain
Viking, 1998
Book Row
Mondlin & Meador
Carroll & Graf 2004,
The Book That Jesus Wrote: John’s Gospel
Barbara Thiering
Doubleday, 1998
Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed
Jared Diamond
Viking, 2005
Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are
Bart D. Ehrman
HarperOne, 2011
A History of Christianity
Paul Johnson
Atheneum, 1977
*How Jesus Became Christian
Barrie Wilson
St. Martin’s Press, 2008
*Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
Bart D. Ehrman
Oxford University Press, 1999
*The Jesus Conspiracy: The Turin Shroud and the Truth About the Resurrection
Holger Kersten & Elmar R. Gruber
Element Books, 1994
*The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History
Michael Baigent
Harper, San Francisco, 2006
The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed
Bart D. Ehrman
Oxford University Press, 2006
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible And Why
Bart D. Ehrman
Harper, San Francisco, 2005
*The Passover Plot: A new Interpretation of the Life and Death of Jesus
Hugh J. Schonfield
Bernard Geis Associates, 1965
Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origin of Religion
R. Gordon Wasson, Stella Kramrisch, Jonathan Ott, and Carl A.P. Ruck
Yale University Press, 1986
*Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion
Edited by Thomas B. Roberts
Council on Spiritual Practices, San Francisco 2001
The Resurrection
Geza Vermes
Doubleday, 2008
The Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical and Archaeological Evidence
Mark Antonacci
M. Evans and Co., 2000
*The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries
R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, and Carl A.P. Ruck
Helen and Kurt Wolff / Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1978
The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?
Ian Wilson
Doubleday & Co. 1978
Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code
Bart D. Ehrman
Oxford University Press, 2004
The Works of Josephus
Translated by William Whiston
Hendrickson Publishers, Lynn, Mass., 1982
About the Author
Deep in the Nevada desert, in a hidden mansion full of old books and vintage clothes, guarded by five anthropomorphic cats and a family of Attack Roadrunners, Vin Suprynowicz went cold turkey from a 40-year newspaper career. They said he’d never write anything over a thousand words, again. But with the help and encourag
ement of the Brunette and a few close friends, he came back. With The Testament of James, he proved them wrong. Before his recovery, Vin wrote Send in the Waco Killers, The Ballad of Carl Drega, and the freedom novel The Black Arrow.
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CHAPTER ONE
“The prisoner will approach the bench.”
One burly, shaved-bald bailiff took Windsor Annesley’s right elbow, and another his left, and between them the men in their gold-bedecked beige uniforms, their fat-butted German pistols swaying in their black fabric holsters, shuffled him out into the center of the courtroom, turning him to face black-robed Judge Fidelio Crustio, who loomed several feet above his head, the “bench” being an elevated platform with a false plywood front designed to resemble a huge cedar desk.
Judge Crustio’s slicked-back hair, graying at the temples, was parted higher on his head than was currently the fashion, making him look like a throwback to Prohibition days. The prisoner was dressed in a bright orange prison jump suit, his hands manacled and his ankles also chained and shackled, an excess of restraint engineered to visually symbolize his helplessness before the majesty of Judge Crustio’s court.
The Testament of James (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens) Page 20
