"This book should be mandatory reading for all scholars concerned with Christian origins ... nothing of comparable importance has been written for at least a decade." - Freethinker
For more than a century scholars have been examining the Gospels and other traditions about the life of Jesus to determine their historical accuracy. Although the results of these scholarly efforts are sometimes controversial, the consensus among researchers today is that the four Evangelists' accounts cannot be taken at face value. In fact, a team of more than 100 scholars called the Jesus Seminar has come to the conclusion that on average only about 18 percent of the four Gospels is historically accurate.
An active member of the Jesus Seminar, Dr. Robert M. Price presents the fruits of this important historical research in this fascinating discussion of early Christianity. As the title suggests, Price is none too optimistic about the reliability of the Gospel tradition as a source of accurate historical information about the life of Jesus. Indeed, he feels that his colleagues in the Jesus Seminar are much too optimistic in their estimate of authentic material in the Gospels. After an introduction to the historical-critical method for nonspecialists and a critique of the methods used by the Jesus Seminar, Price systematically discusses the narrative and teaching materials in the Gospel, clearly presenting what is known and not known about all of the major episodes of Jesus' life. He also examines the parables for authenticity as well as Jesus' teachings about the Kingdom of God, repentance, prayer, possessions and poverty, the Atonement, and many other features of the Gospels.
Written for the general reading public in a lively and accessible style, Dr. Price's highly informative discussion will be of interest to anyone who has wondered about the origins of Christianity.

Did Jesus rise from the dead? Although 19th- and early 20th-century biblical scholarship dismissed the resurrection narratives as late, legendary accounts, Christian apologists in the late 20th century revived historical apologetics for the resurrection of Jesus with increasingly sophisticated arguments. A few critics have directly addressed some of the new arguments, but their response has been largely muted. The Empty Tomb scrutinizes the claims of leading Christian apologists and critiques their view of the resurrection as the best historical explanation. The contributors include New Testament scholars, philosophers, historians, and leading nontheists. They focus on the key questions relevant to assessing the historicity of the resurrection: What did the authors of the New Testament mean when they said Jesus rose from the dead? What historical evidence is needed to establish the resurrection? If there is a God, why would He resurrect Jesus? Was there an empty tomb? What should we make of the appearance stories? Apart from historical evidence, is belief in the resurrection justified? The Empty Tomb provides a sober, objective response to arguments offered in defense of Christianity's central claim.

After more than a century of New Testament scholarship, it has become clear that the Jesus of the gospels is a fictive amalgam, reflecting the hopes and beliefs of the early Christian community and revealing very little about the historical Jesus. Over the millennia since the beginning of Christianity various congregations, from fundamentalist to liberal, have tended to produce a Jesus figurehead that functions as a symbolic cloak for their specific theological agendas.
Through extensive research and fresh textual insights Robert M. Price paves the way for a new reconstruction of Christian origins. Moving beyond the work of Burton L. Mack and John Dominic Crossan on Jesus movements and Christ cults, which shows how the various Jesus figures may have amalgamated into the patchwork savior of Christian faith, Price takes an innovative approach. He links the work of F.C. Baur, Walter Bauer, Helmut Koester, and James M. Robinson with that of early Christ-myth theorists-two camps of biblical analysis that have never communicated.
Arguing that perhaps Jesus never existed as a historical figure, Price maintains an agnostic stance, while putting many puzzles and scholarly debates in a new light.
He also incorporates neglected parallels from Islam, the Baha'i Faith, and Buddhism. Deconstructing Jesus provides a valuable bridge between New Testament scholarship and early freethinkers in a refreshing cross-fertilization of perspectives.

THE DRUMS OF CHAOS by Richard L. Tierney is the author's magnum opus: an epic alternate history dark fantasy Cthulhu Mythos novel that featurs Tierney's most famous characters, Simon of Gitta and John Taggart. Set in the Holy Land during the time of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, Simon of Gitta is on mission to avenge the deaths of his parents, seeking revenge in blood against the Roman officials who commited the murders. As he travels the Holy Lands with his mentor Dositheus, and their student Menander, they become entangled in a complex plot designed to call down a monstrous alien entity to herald a new aeon on Earth. John Taggart, the time traveler from Tierney's THE WINDS OF ZARR becomes involved with Simon of Gitta, as their separate quests converge toward a common goal of saving the very Earth. This novel should appeal to fans of fantasy and sword & sorcery fiction, in the vein of Robert E. Howard, and the elements of the Cthulhu Mythos will satisfy the many fans of H.P. Lovecraft.

Was Leonardo Da Vinci a member of the 'Priory of Sion', a secret society reaching all the way back to the Crusades" Does his famous painting, "The Last Supper", contain a hidden code about this society's most precious secret? Did Jesus father children by Mary Magdalene? What was the Holy Grail? The best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown has stirred the popular imagination by cleverly interweaving theories about such questions with a fast-paced fictional narrative. Many readers have been so swept away by the drama of this murder mystery that they have accepted Brown's fictional reconstruction of Christian origins and medieval history as established fact. New Testament scholar Robert M. Price, a member of the prestigious Jesus Seminar, examines the creative uses of history in Brown's novel, showing that, however intriguing Brown's fictional speculations may be, the real facts behind the novel are even more fascinating. What does the best historical evidence say about the possibility that Jesus might have survived the crucifixion? How did the Gospels come to be accepted as the established accounts of Jesus' life and why were other Gnostic traditions suppressed? How did the Roman Emperor Constantine figure in the development of Christian dogma? What was Mary Magdalene's role in early Christianity and how was it adapted in later attempts to develop a 'sacred feminine' element in Christianity? These are some of the important questions about Christianity that Dr. Price pursues in this engrossing discussion of Christian history. Price combines sophisticated historical analysis with completely accessible and witty prose in this enlightening, factually based analysis of Brown's speculative bestseller.

America may be the land of plenty, but in the midst of our Walmarts, enormous supermarkets, and other signs of material surfeit, it seems that many are experiencing a gnawing spiritual hunger. New religions, spiritualities, and religious therapies attract throngs of believers to megachurches, Yoga classes, and the bestseller bookshelves. The latest popular fad in spirituality is Rhonda Byrne's The Secret, which promises both success and spiritual fulfillment, and is endorsed by no less than Oprah Winfrey.
If you're trying to make sense of all the offerings in this confusing spiritual wonderland, Top Secret is just the book for you. Noted religion scholar Robert M. Price examines the historical roots and the current appeal of today's pop mysticisms. Critical and appreciative at the same time, Price applies his impressive background in theology and biblical criticism to put these trends in perspective. Among other popular movements and books, Price discusses:
Rhonda Byrne's The Secret and New Thought
Helen Schucman's A Course in Miracles and the popular works of Marianne Williamson
Deepak Chopra's How to Know God
James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy
The Jewish Kabbalah, recently made popular by Madonna
Joel Osteen's Prosperity Gospel and his popular Your Best Life Now
Diedre Blomfield Brown (AKA Pema Chodron) and American-style Buddhism
Whether you're a skeptic looking for a rational approach to understanding current religion or a seeker in search of a deeper, more informed understanding of popular spiritualities, Top Secret has much to offer.

Theologian and writer Robert M. Price is perhaps best known today for his scholarly arguments against the existence of a historical Jesus. Yet, he has been at various times in his career an agnostic, an exponent of Liberal Protestant theology, a nontheist, a secular humanist, a religious humanist, a Unitarian-Universalist wannabe, an unaffiliated Universalist, and a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar. Any way you cut it, he is not your typical atheist. This collection of his best essays demonstrates his love for the various great religions, which he views as endlessly fascinating expressions of the human spirit. Beneath the keen insights and sharp critiques he offers, whether the subject is theology, secularism, or biblical studies, the essays themselves are also deeply personal and revealing. Read together, they document his self-extrication from the born-again Christianity in which he dwelt for some dozen years--and his subsequent rise to celebrated freethought advocate whose work has challenged an entire field.

What if we have been missing a whole stage of how the canonical gospels came to be? What if there were a whole raft of prior Jesus narratives, the fragmentary vestiges of which now appear in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? This would explain why these gospels seem over-crowded with incompatible understandings of Jesus ("Christologies")? In The Gospels Behind the Gospels, innovative biblical scholar Robert M. Price attempts to reassemble the puzzle pieces, disclosing several earlier gospels of communities who imagined Jesus as the predicted return of the prophet Elijah, the Samaritan Taheb (a second Moses), a resurrected John the Baptist, a theophany of Yahweh, a Gnostic Revealer, a Zealot revolutionary, etc. As these various sects shrank and collapsed, their remaining followers would have come together, just as modern churches and denominations seek to survive by merging and consolidating. Our canonical gospels might be the result. Similarly, Price explores the possibility that Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ were originally figureheads of rival sects who eventually merged in much the same way. You will never read the gospels the same way again!