Contents
1. Christianity Without Jesus?
Piety and Dreams Sire a Godman • Growing the dream • Composite Hero • The God Who Never Was • Glory – The Greatest Man Who Never Lived.
2. What DID the Early Christians Believe?
Bizarre Beginnings – The Assortment of Early Christian Belief • Nice Gnostics – Christian ‘Mystics of Knowledge’ • Making an Apology • Orthodoxy and the Early Church.
3. The Syncretic Heritage of Christianity
Conjuring up Catholicism – Religious Fusion in Egypt • Silk and Spice – The Buddhist Influence in Christian Origins • Dress Rehearsal for Christianity – Mithraism • The Church of the Shadows – Waiting in the Wings.
4. Just Who Were the Jews?
Genesis – First invent your Jew, then invent your Christ • Out of Egypt? Palpable Nonsense • Imperial Israel? King David, The Boy Wonder • King Solomon? The Emperor with No Clothes • On the Margins of a Real Empire – Israelites and Assyrians • Babylon – Nurturing the Jewish Priesthood.
5. Christianity’s Fabrication Factory
The Ever-Changing Word of God • “Mark” • “Brother James” • The Mythical “Virgin Mary” • The Mythical “St Peter” • “John” • “Luke” • “Matthew”.
6. Jesus – The Imaginary Friend
A Surfeit of Jesuses! – But No “Jesus of Nazareth” • Nazareth – The Town that Theology Built • The “12 Apostles” • Would they lie? – Copy and Glorify! • Non-Christian Testimony? • Jesus Christ – Paragon of Virtue?
7. Rome and the Jews
World Culture Confounds the Jews • Militant Tendencies • The Apostle Paul • ‘Wars & Rumours of Wars’ • The Piety and Vengeance of Hadrian • Rabbinic Judaism Inc.
8. Heart of Darkness
Constantine – Pagan Thug Makes Christian Emperor • Into the Darkness • Christianity’s “civil war” – The Struggle for Power • Pope Damasus – The gangster who hired a pimp to rewrite the Bible! • Theodosius – Murdering the Competition • The Closing Mind – Death of Tolerance • Christianizing of the Heathen • Sin.
9. The World that was Lost
Christianity Wrecks Civilization • Dwarfs on the Bones of Giants • Twilight of Ancient Medicine • Gathering Darkness • Lost World
10. Truth and Consequence
Love Your Neighbour? • Demolishing the Jesus Myth – a history.
Jesus who?
