Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth Book

I was advised this book in Derren Brown's Tricks Of The Mind, where he claims that he started reading it as an christian agnostic and laid it down as an atheist. That sounded nice!

The book doesn't deliver completely, I think there are better options if you want to see someone wiping the floor with religion. In fact, reading Holy Bible: King James Version itself is probably the best choice to get a clear idea of the load of sadistic and patriottic self delusion it contains. But let us return to Mack.

He does a good job in showing how the preachings of some historical Jesus figure gave rise to a small cult of followers, who all had different interpretations of their master's sayings. Instrumental in the rise of Christianity was the Jew Paul, who at first opposed non-jews becoming a christian but then realised that allowing the gentiles to be followers as well, was the key point in making the movement a success. He wrote his famous letters advocating that view to the different Jesus communities and Christ cults that had emerged. Also, some later letters were attributed to him after his death, just as what happened to the evangelists. Mack clearly shows that attributing a large body of text produced by a group of followers to one single, mythical author, was a widely spread practice in hellenistic times. Historically, one can date the production of the gospels somewhere between the first and second century. The 'official' gospels are by no means the eyewitness accounts they are supposed to be, but more the point of view of a particular group of followers who made sure to work their own agendas into the main focus of the gospel in question.

Whereas the early Jesus teachings had no bearings on the Jewish tradition, their Torah was twisted and turned and reinterpreted during the first centuries of Christianity, and the gospels were made to match it, so that finally the Jewish tradition could be adopted by Christianity. The Messiah-idea and the legacy of King David were very artificially arm wrestled to point towards the Jesus figure, who by that time bore little resemblance to the historical man he once was. It is hard to believe even then that anyone would fall for such an obvious and convoluted construction, but two billion Christians today sadly prove otherwise.

The good about Mack is that he proves his point in a detailed, philological way, but the bad is also that he makes his point so academically. The lay out of the book is pure boredom, with not a single illustration, no line spaces and hardly any titles in between. It is just pure text, without any humour or literary aspiration. I think that even in a serious work, one can make a slight effort to present one's ideas in an agreeable manner. Burton L. Mack never bothers.

So, all in all it is a book with valuable insights, but absolutely no fun to read!