The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity [Paperback]

It is my view that not only have Maccoby's claims not yet been effectively or even partially rebutted by Christian apologists and theologians but that his work remains criminally unrecognised by the Scholarly community at large.
Perhaps in 50 years time we will be talking about Maccoby and Eisenman in reverential tones, as the scholars who blew the lid on who the real men are behind those stained glass portraits of Paul and James.

In linking the decree of the Jerusalem council of Acts to "abstain from things polluted by idols, immorality, whatever has been strangled and blood" with the Noahic covenant of Genesis 9 Maccoby has thrown a large stick of dynamite onto the fire of Christian apologetics. These are clearly not a list of unimportant eating rules for early Christians, this is James the Just's "salvation plan" (Ie Christian terminology not Maccoby's) for Gentiles!

James does not tell the Gentile believers to "Ask Jesus inside your heart", become "crucified with Christ", or "believe Jesus died for your sins" No instead James the Brother of Jesus maintains THE TRADITIONAL PATH OF SALVATION THAT HAD BEEN AVAILABLE TO GENTILES FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS! By reading Eisenman and Maccoby it must be clear that James taught the Jews to obey the Law of Moses and Gentiles to obey the covenant of Noah, Paul's own revelation concerning "blood sacrifice" is left out of the loop.

After reading Maccoby's ground breaking work, I found it impossible to mount a convincing argument that Paul was a Pharisee (he couldn't read Hebrew amongst a mountain of other evidence).

If you've ever wondered why Paul took 3 beatings in the book of Acts before revealing his Roman citizenship, Maccoby answers the query decisively.

The anti-semetic attitudes of the Greek Gospels are also placed on display and Maccoby alone is able to make snese of the infamous "corn plucking" incident in the Gospels where Jesus flagrantly breaks the sabbath Law and steals from the owner of the field!

Finally, we peel back the sheaths of the Pharisee's demonisation and Maccoby asks the mind rattling question of what sort of document Acts is "that we have Paul persecuting the Christians BECAUSE HE IS A PHARISEE and Gamaliel standing up and defending Peter BEACUSE HE IS A PHARISEE!" (Caps mine)
How on earth could Gamaliel state to the Sanhedrin that the Nazarene movement might be "from God" if he considered there teaching to be vial blasphemy?

If I could only recommend two books to throw contemporary New Testament scholarship onto it's ear I would go with Eisenman's "James the Brother of Jesus" and Maccoby's "the mythmaker" both of which I have about worn out.

I only hope that one day these leading scholars will achieve the widespread recognition so richly deserved.

Stephenhanes@yahoo.com

And to the anonymous reviewer who claimed that Maccoby thinks Paul got ticked off at the Jews because he failed to win over the heart of the High Priest's daughter: talk about "quoting" out of context! You obviously have not read the book, but rather individual segments that you could extract and criticise. If you HAD read it, you'd have seen that Maccoby clearly says in the very next line that this account (which by the way comes from Epiphanius, not the author) is NOT history (p.182) and that Paul's frustrated love-affiar was NOT with the High Priest's daughter but with Judaism (p.183). Nor does Maccoby say that Paul was a Sadducee, as you indicate in your misleading review. Your comments only demonstrate the depths to which certain fanatics will sink in order to discredit all scholarship that goes against their personal beliefs.

Jesus was friendly with scribes (Pharisees) and agreed with them about the core aspects of Judiasm; Pharisees were friendly to Jesus, the followers of Jesus, and helped save their lives in several trials, e.g. Gamaliel in Acts; Pontius Pilate was the Saddam Hussein of his day, and so cruel that Josephus and Philo of Alexandria documented his cruelty and cavalier executions in the historical records; the Gospels are misleading in their characterization of Pontius Pilate because they were designed for converting pagans to Christianity and were Roman friendly; Jews didn't kill people for considering themselves the Messiah or for "blasphemy", but Jesus was seen as a revoluntionary and died because it. Overall an extraordinary book with remarkable scholarship.