The Emperor's New Clothes: A Challenging and Provocative New Work on the Origins of Christianity
(PRWEB) May 28, 2008 -- But what really happened following Jesus' death? We know what Christian tradition suggests, but how much of it can be proven to be true? How much of it is dubious and improbable? How much of Christianity is really pagan practice and belief?
Bill Johnston is an Ontario-based author, scholar and historian with a profound interest in the study and history of Christianity. He has spent three decades of his life reading and examining the origins of the religion. He has taught and lectured on the subject. And over the course of his adult life, he has found reason to cast doubt upon much of the accepted wisdom regarding the history and development of the Christian religion.
Johnston has just published a new book entitled The Emperor's New Clothes, subtitled An (Un)popular Account of the Origins of Christianity. It is a remarkable, thoughtful work, 338 pages in length, including an impressive source and reference list, and it challenges many of the historical assumptions that are commonly made concerning Christianity and its early development.
The book overall is enormously challenging and very readable -- and therein lies the core of its value. The Emperor's New Clothes takes the prevailing wisdom about Christianity's origins and turns much of it on its ear, obliging the reader to at least consider the possibility that Johnston's thesis may be an entirely valid one.
The Passion? The Resurrection? Johnston states categorically that they did not occur. The author suggests also that the religion itself did not form immediately upon Jesus' death, but developed, instead, over many, many years following the Crucifixion. And it did not evolve easily and seamlessly: it was a battle, and sometimes a literal battle- to bring Christianity into being.
The Emperor's New Clothes makes for intriguing reading. It is well written, it is well researched -- and it obliges the reader to think. And isn't that exactly what a good book is all about?
The Emperor's New Clothes
by Bill Johnston
ISBN: 9780980937107
$22.00
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