James was a vegetarian, wore only linen clothing, bathed daily at dawn in cold water, and was a life-long Nazirite. In this profound and provocative work of scholarly detection, eminent biblical scholar Robert Eisenman introduces a startling theory about the identity of Jamesthe brother of Jesus, who was almost entirely marginalized in the New Testament.Drawing on long-overlooked early Church texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Eisenman reveals in this groundbreaking exploration that James, not Peter, was the real successor to the movement we now call "Christianity." In an argument with enormous implications, Eisenman identifies Paul as deeply compromised by Roman contacts. James is presented as not simply the leader of Christianity of his day, but the popular Jewish leader of his time, whose death triggered the Uprising against Romea fact that creative rewriting of early Church documents has obscured.
Eisenman reveals that characters such as "Judas Iscariot" and "the Apostle James" did not exist as such. In delineating the deliberate falsifications in New Testament dcouments, Eisenman shows howas James was written outanti-Semitism was written in. By rescuing James from the oblivion into which he was cast, the final conclusion of James the Brother of Jesus is, in the words of The Jerusalem Post, "apocalyptic" who and whatever James was, so was Jesus.
- ISBN10 1101123060
- ISBN13 9781101123065
- Publish Date 1 March 1998 (first published 20 November 1995)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Penguin Group
- Format eBook
- Pages 1136
- Language English