The Gospel of the Second Coming, mini-review: This book has Jesus-the-literary-mouthpiece praising Freke and Gandy's previous works, written as a gnostic parable with walk-on parts by historical figures "admitting" they made stuff up, e.g. Eusebius wrote Josephus' Testimonium. There's an introduction by "Professor Faye Kinnit" (sic), a disclaimer that reads: Do Not Believe Everything You Read (spelt backwards in a funny script), really odd language (yes, they really put four letter Anglo-Saxonisms into Jesus' mouth), unsubtle sexual references, and what can only be called temper tantrums. We have to call this one little more than a blasphemous rant.
Commonly used by Skeptics for his anti-Christian comments in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately it's a very bad source on science and religion. James Hannam reports in his journal: The best man at my wedding likes to tease me that I'm the only person who has actually read this from cover to cover. I doubt that's the case because it is riveting stuff. It is also almost completely wrong. So many anti-Christian myths began here. Christian's destroying the library of Alexandria, Eusebius's dishonesty, Christianity causing the 'Dark Ages' etc. etc. Gibbon has a lot to answer for. The combination of his enormous erudition, beautiful style, biting wit and enlightenment agenda are a potent combination.
God
All of these are off site except those marked with **.
The Gospels as Ancient Biographies -- useful for understanding the literary background of the Gospels and addressing claims based on the form of the Gospels as episodes strung together -- see also this item compaing other ancient biographies on coverage of a subject's childhood
Harmonization: The Issue of Complimentary Accounts -- one of my earliest projects, and still unaddressed by skeptics: a comparison of four lives of Lincoln, and a dare to criticize them the same way the Gospels are. In four very long parts, so grab some popcorn!
