Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #222776 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1120 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781842931868
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
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From Booklist
Eisenman, a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar and an expert in first-century Christianity, theorized in his book James the Brother of Jesus (1997) that the Qumran community, assumed to be responsible for the original Dead Sea writings, was important in the development of early Christianity. He further advances that theory here, once again using literary analysis of pertinent texts. Eisenman examines such topics as James' relationship to the Qumran community's Teacher of Righteousness and offers a reinterpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially the relatively recent translation of the MMT document, which he links to a Jamesian proto-Christianity. There is also much here about the Messianic movement in the first century and, more personally, about Peter and Paul's relationship to James and to one another. As in the previous book, however, Eisenman's writing is dense and often difficult to follow without a solid knowledge of the subject. Readers wishing to delve more closely into his sources will have to check the notes online. Moreover, he also uses some of the hefty work's 1,120 pages to settle some internecine scholarly feuds. As always, Eisenman's ideas are provocative, but it will take dedicated readers to digest them. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

An absolute "must read" for layman and scholar alike
Every decade or so a book comes along that completely redraws the map in its field. In the field of Early Christianity, Robert Eisenman's "James the Brother of Jesus" was just such a book and here, nearly ten years later, Eisenman, with the "New Testament Code", has done it once again. The book is a massive work with incredible depth and insight and completes his promise in his earlier work to lay out the connections between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament/Early Christianity.

Make no mistake about it, Eisenman is a scholar's scholar and possesses an almost unfathomable grasp of the original sources. His stature among the scholarly community has been on a constant upward climb since the days in the early 90's when he broke the scrolls monopoly with the publication of the "Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered" and later with his ground breaking "James the Brother of Jesus". In "The New Testament Code" his main thesis is that James, the actual brother of Jesus and known as The Righteous One in early Christianity can be equated to the Righteous Teacher in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Along the way he unpacks many myths and obfuscations about Jesus and the beginnings of Christianity and clears the way for a keener and fuller understanding of messianism in first century Palestine, as well as where the historical Jesus fits into the equation. Rather than denying the existence of Jesus, he rescues him from the ideological hatchet job given him by a later Pauline Christianity to show the true place that he and his at that time better known brother James occupied in the Jewish fight for liberation from Roman oppression and power.

However, Eisenman is not content to stop there. He shows that the people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls were part and parcel of a larger messianic movement against Rome and he demonstrates conclusively that the authors of the New Testament were well aware of the ideas and beliefs in the Scrolls and used a sort of "code" in their writings to obscure, confuse, parody and disguise the real intent of their authors. Specifically, he demonstrates that what seem to be otherwise benign phrases such as "The Cup of the New Covenant" and "The Land of Damascus" are fraught with meaning for both the Scrolls community and the earliest Pauline Christians. In the end he concludes that the way the author of the Book of Acts and Paul -- among other New Testament authors -- distorted the original meanings of these and countless other expressions "are indicative of some more persistent esoteric or allegorical wordplay" that was meant to transform and downplay their significance "into its exact or mirror opposite" (pg 998) to create a new messianism that the Roman authorities were comfortable with and one that could survive in the Roman Empire.

As it was with "James the Brother of Jesus" his contributions to the field with "The New Testament Code" are monumental and his conclusions are at once awe inspiring and mind boggling. At the same time these conclusions are not for the faint of heart for they spring from the pen of one who is not afraid to allow the materials to speak for themselves. For this reason those who are committed to the Jesus of dogma or for those self styled armchair experts who pass judgment without opening the cover of the book, these deductions can be unsettling. However for those who yearn for a deeper understanding of the roots of Christianity and those who possess the open mind and willingness to investigate these roots, you can do no better than "The New Testament Code, The Cup of the Lord, the Damascus Covenant, and the Blood of Christ."

The Definitive Work on the Implications of the Dead Sea Scrolls
The New Testament Code is the continuation (conclusion?) of Robert Eisenman's thesis of the ambience of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The patience of Eisenman's adherents, who have long waited for the release of the present volume, will be rewarded with the extraordinary scholarship, research, interpretations, and perspicaciousness which continually characterize his endeavors. His thesis is at variance with the majority who are determined to construct their exegesis of the Scrolls in the Maccabean era-- beginning in the mid-2nd Century BC. That upon which these results are based is not in harmony with this time period. He explores assumptions that others have not pursued nor considered. The notion that the movement of those associated with the Scrolls was one of passivity, tranquility, and isolation is dismissed.

The Scrolls are representative of the theological mindset of the Messianic Movement that developed in Palestine before it became usurped and amalgamated into one that conveyed a Hellenistic god-tale and allegorical mythologizing under the name of Christianity. Eisenman identifies many who appear to have been the originators of the Gentile version of the Messianic Movement as having affiliation with the Herodians who were granted rule over Palestine by the Romans. There were four cities that bore the name Antioch which increased the potential for not only expanding the geographical sphere of the New Testament narrative, but by also increasing the number of individuals who might be involved in it. The faction of those who represented the Scrolls, as well as those responsible for the theology of the New Testament, were not only aware of one another, but were also in opposition. This is astutely documented from the scroll Peshers (commentaries) and texts in the New Testament.

Far too many writers and commentators of the Scrolls are simply content to analyze the content, and comment on the "uniqueness." The impression is that from the Palestinian Jewish matrix of ideas, phrases and terminologies that developed, they found their way into the New Testament. The dominant impression is that most of what was associated with Qumran developed in a geographical Petri dish, despite its close proximity to Jerusalem and other Palestinian locales. Eisenman presents a movement whose effects reached the regions from the Levant to southern Iraq. More importantly it was a movement that flourished contemporaneously with the events depicted in the New Testament--the 1st Century C.E. The "internal data" presented by Eisenman, as implements to assist in the dating of the Scrolls, is in opposition with the 2nd Century B.C. renderings of Carbon-14 tests and paleography. The accuracy of Eisenman's data brings into question the scientific impartiality involved. This internal data includes allusions to the New Covenant, pollution of the temple, the House of Judgment, the fallen tabernacle of David, doing according to the precise letter of the Law, the last generation, the righteous living by faith (salvation by faith), the delay of Parousia, the house of his exile, the Cup of Blood/Damascus, and references to fornication and niece marriage, soldiers venerating their standards and worshiping their weapons of war, and a scroll fragment that seems to contain the name of a High Priest who held his position 46-47 C.E. Eisenman also conveys various circumstances described in the Habakkuk Pesher as being consistent with events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. All of which revolve around the 1st Century.

The "code" employed in the New Testament was disinformation, overwrite, and even name changes. It disqualified Jews from its eschatological allusions and enfranchised Gentile believers. Its "history" was sanitized and even distorted. The plethora of names that abound in the New Testament of individuals, incidents, and locations, are scrutinized with similar names and instances in the works of Josephus, the Talmud, and the early Christian Church writers to elicit the significance. The homophonic transfers of names from one language to another reveal that with which other Scroll writers have not dealt. Pentecost was of significance to the covenanters of the Scrolls as well as in the New Testament. The enigmatic personages of the Teacher of Righteousness, the Wicked Priest, and the Spouter of Lies are identified. The Cup of the Lord represents far more than Divine vengeance. Elements associated with the Teacher of Righteousness appear to have been absorbed into descriptions pertaining to Jesus. The paradigm for all traitors, Judas Iscariot, becomes less of a betrayer and one more identifiable with a faction within a movement.

There is a measure of redundancy which appears aimed more toward the reinforcement of the concepts and ideas involved as the reader can easily become overwhelmed by the multitude of imagery, metaphors and transformations that exist between the Scrolls and the New Testament. The relegation of footnotes to an online site is disconcerting to those who regularly examine the sources involved and additional commentary. It should be noted that any such criticism is to be born by the publisher. The paramount importance of this dissertation is that it presents evidence that the movement portrayed in the New Testament no longer was one that could claim the exclusive rights to originality, but had as its antecedent a Messianic faction that flourished at the same time period and in the same vicinity. The content of the Dead Sea Scrolls not only supported the precedent for a Christ, but it also anticipated many of the texts in which the historical Jesus existed, and it helped provide the theological matter from which the Messiah of the New Testament was developed. Evidence is presented of a New Testament that distorted history to vilify those who were the impetus for the Messianic movement in Palestine of First Century.

This is the definitive opus on the Dead Sea Scrolls and their affect on those from which Christianity originated. It is a departure from the "scholarly consensus," which has been more concerned with propriety than implication. The Scrolls were said to be the greatest historical discovery of the Twentieth Century. The New Testament Code is the personification of that declaration.

A Holiday Eye-Opener
The Publisher's description of THE NEW TESTAMENT CODE was daunting enough, and coupled with the fact that Professor Eisenman's reputation preceded my first reading of this latest work, I felt some timidity about reviewing this book. Although I had not yet read the author's previous volume, JAMES THE BROTHER OF JESUS, I had read a few reviews of it--and it was obvious that the subject matter was well beyond the confines of the usual New Age/Gnostic pop material that comes my way. THE NEW TESTAMENT CODE is based on the highly specialized field of biblical antiquity & the comparison of ancient texts.

This book is a straight-up academic, non-fiction dissertation drawing on ancient biblical texts and other historical sources (such as the famous Judaic-turned-Hellenic scholar Josephus.) In other words, it has nothing to do with the other biblical "Code" theories currently on the market. Eisenman's purpose is to sift the fact from the fiction in the process of demonstrating the artificially fabricated nature of New Testament Gospels and the Jesus Legend. Readers don't have to buy into any artificial belief system in order to understand the work, but one probably does need an above average attention span (which let me out) in order to follow this extremely complex work from cover to conclusion.

This is both an asset and a debit as far as the book is concerned.

Robert Eisenman's style is indicative of the highest-level of intelligence and demonstrates his complete command of the subject matter. He effortlessly draws parallels between the myriad historic sources (including The Dead Sea Scrolls, of course) demonstrating their significance regarding New Testament Gospels as they came to be codified in the Christian religion approved by that arch-hypocrite Emperor Constantine. Eisenman tears off the glossy sanitized sheen from the Gospels to reveal their propagandistic, Hellenistic & anti-Semitic origins. Once the reader trusts the author's academic background & credentials, the potentially harmful myths of Christianity are unmasked in a more profoundly fundamental way than with all the other modern speculative and/or Gnostic works put together.

Regarding Gnosticism, Eisenman exhibits a tolerant attitude at those few points where the subject comes up. One senses that he doesn't feel that Gnostic interpretations of the Jesus Legend are any more outlandish or fantastical than the Pauline & Church Establishment versions.

THE NEW TESTAMENT CODE made very interesting reading during the holiday season. The underlying naivety of the "Little Town in Bethlehem" story stood in stark contrast to the historic reality unflinchingly presented in the book. The reader can clearly see how the complex original Judaic sources were twisted into rather crude religious fairy tales designed to convert world-weary Pagans and uneducated peasants.


The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?