And furthermore:

Go to Amazon.com, put "The Jesus Mysteries" in the search box, wait for a few seconds, then when the book listing appears, scroll down and read the Publishers Weekly review and check the sample pages. This is about all you really need to know about this book.

This sort of book comes along about every five or ten years and then vanishes from sight. I have also seen television documentaries on this theme on Discovery Channel, Nova, the History Channel, and just about everywhere but on the Trinity Broadcast Network (remember Jimmy and Tammy Faye?). I put this sort of thing in the same category as "who wrote Shakespeare's plays?" Hell! I don't even know for certain that there was a real, historical Shakespeare. Do you know for certain!??

The review says, "The authors postulate that Christianity . . . distilled and usurped the greatest wisdom inherent in pagan traditions. Specifically, they charge that Christianity looted the traditions of the Osiris/Dionysus cults, borrowing, synthesizing and domesticating what was most sacred to Greco-Roman civilization."   Well, of course it did! Ever since the first cave man, startled by a burst of thunder and lightning, asked "Who the hell did that!!???" bodies of religious belief have borrowed from previous bodies of belief and modified them to fit. Standard operating procedure.

It goes on to say, "Freke and Gandy assert that Christian history is 'nothing less than the greatest cover-up of all time. Christianity's original Gnostic doctrines and its true origins in the Pagan Mysteries had been ruthlessly suppressed by the mass destruction of the evidence and the creation of a false history to suit the political purposes of the Roman Church.' The authors compare the revolution of the imperial Christian church (which finally suppressed pagan worship) to the Communist revolution in Russia, arguing that both saw enormous bloodshed and suppression of all dissent." Truly deplorable. But secular leaders have always made use of religion in their effort to wield control over the populace. They're still doing it (see Bush administration). And religious leaders have often tried to use their religious position to attain secular power (see Pope Alexander VI, aka Giovanni Borgia, father of Cesare and Lucrezia).

The review concludes, "This kind of polemic detracts from the usefulness of this study. The book's great tragedy is that many of its most scholarly kernels of insight, such as the authors' discussion of Secret Mark or their tantalizing analysis of the Lazarus material, will be lost to responsible discussion. In sum, this is a disappointing, sensationalist polemic." (© Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

I recall an English Literature class some decades ago, when the subject came up about those who question the authenticity of Shakespeare's actual authorship of the plays attributed to him. We kicked the subject around for awhile, and decided that although one could never be absolutely sure, it was most probable the Shakespeare actually did write them. Someone asked, "Why do people keep bringing this up?"

"Well," said the prof, " it keeps them off the streets."

Don Firth