Who Was Jesus?: Fingerprints of the Christ [ペーパーバック]

I am not aware of another book on the subject of Christianity that packs more information into 284 pages than Who Was Jesus? D. M. Murdock, also known as Acharya, has written another very fine book on New Testament studies. This volume concentrates on the person of Jesus, but also goes into great detail about how the New Testament was compiled, and how we can determine for ourselves the reliability of the writings. Many dozens of topics are covered in a way that lay people can understand, and the format is designed in such a way that material is very easy to find, because the exhaustive table of contents identifies the subject matter so well. The planning and the detail in this book show that everything is well thought out and clearly presented. It is nice to find a book for people who have serious questions about Jesus and Christianity that provides answers in a straight forward manner without meandering and rambling. This is a first class piece of work that will be referred to over and over by the readers.

The history of Jesus is conveyed in detail for each of the four Gospels, including issues about the dating and authorship of these books. Murdock clearly shows us where the New Testament writers are using historical information and where they are adding their own theological ideas to the text. This book helps to make it more clear for us how and why the New Testament was a progressive compilation that tended to make Jesus more God-like with each telling of the story. This volume also shows the importance of understanding that the New Testament took time to be collected, and it also took time to determine which books were included in the canon, because the finished product was completed in centuries, not decades.

Christians and skeptics alike will find Who Was Jesus? is not vindictive or condescending in the way the information is presented. Because many of the details may be new to the reader, this is a book every Bible student should have in their personal library.

This is the second book by this author that I have read and I am simply overwhelmed by the research, the scholarship and the use of pure reason in dismantling the thinly-veiled mythology behind Christianity. In a well-written and very readable volume, D.M. Murdock (Acharya S) uses Christianity's own words and works to lay before the reader in clear and easily understood prose how the early Christian fathers reworked ancient myths to create a fictional character named Jesus Christ who seemed to embody all the qualities of the gods and legends these simple pagans already worshiped

I am a historian, although my bailiwick is military history, and yet I have always been interested in the history of things. Back in my prep school days, I started to delve into the history of Christianity and found a great deal that I felt I wanted no part of. I gave up my religion at about age sixteen, passing up gladly the easy allure of blind faith for the stonier path of reason. In Ms. Murdock's work I have finally been able to exorcise those last remaining doubts brought about by the early programming I received in school and church.

I would highly recommend this work, especially to those who prize their ability to think for themselves, as well as Acharya's previous volumes, particularly "The Christ Conspiracy" and "The Suns of God."

Well done and brava!

On those CSI TV shows they're always dusting for fingerprints, trying to figure out "Who was here?" and "What happened?" Their motto is, "Follow the evidence." and "The evidence will tell us." The evidence often contradicts their original assumption, pointing them in a new direction, where they eventually find the truth.

In this book Acharya examines all the evidence regarding Jesus. Every scrap of historical evidence we have, every metaphorical "fingerprint" left behind. Acharya follows the evidence, letting the evidence tell it's story. When we put it all together we get the best possible picture of Jesus and where the story came from.