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Rather than spend the reader’s time combing through what is, I must admit, a highly readable one thousand plus pages of text, allow me to summarize a few of the points that Eisenman expects his readers to swallow:
- The Dead Sea Scrolls should be dated much later, to the time of the New Testament - but there is an academic conspiracy afoot to cover up that fact.
- As for the New Testament, it was written very late - and used the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the works of Josephus (dated c. 90 AD) as sources. It is a far less reliable source than the Pseudoclementine Recognitions, which was a source for the NT: In fact, the story of Paul being surrounded by a bright light from heaven is merely a copy of a story in the Recognitions of the tombs of two brothers that were miraculously whitened every year.
- The Gospels are too anti-Semitic to have been written by Jews; they were all written by Gentiles. Anti-Semitism stands out in such teachings as, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first” and “A prophet is never accepted in his own land and in his own hometown.”
- Early Pauline Christianity is guilty of a massive conspiracy to cover up the role of James and the Holy Family in the early church.
- Many events in the NT are adulterated overwrites of actual events. The election of Matthias to replace Judas is an overwrite of the election of James to apostolic office. The stoning of Stephen is an overwrite of the stoning of James by Paul’s command. Events have even been lifted from the works of Josephus and overwritten, then placed in the NT.
- Many persons listed in the NT simply did not exist: Stephen, Judas Iscariot, the apostle James, and Zebedee the father of James and John. Nazareth probably did not exist either. Timothy and Titus are the same person, as are Silas and Silvanus.
- Anti-Jamesian polemic is the point behind Paul’s analysis of those with weak faith in the Book of Romans.
- The early Christians, the Essenes, and the Sicarii are all pretty much the same movement.
- The probable genius behind the conspiracy was Paul’s companion Epaphroditus, who is identical with the Epaphroditus who sponsored Josephus and the Erastus mentioned in the Corinthian correspondence.
Other than that, there are all the usual fallacies involved: Straw men, overreading of texts, outright errors, grasping at greasy straws, word games, and so on. Little else really needs saying. The conclusions speak for themselves. Robert Eisenman lives in a world of fantasy where all of the elements have conspired against him. We strongly suggest that you ignore this book, as well as the next one that is promised (though it has now been 5 years!), and take your own place in Eisenman’s global conspiracy theory. (For a picture of me taking an Eisenman fan to the cleaners, click here.)
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