syrinx

Recently finished reading Michael Baigent's "The Jesus Papers", subtitled "Exposing the greatest cover-up in history." Baigent, one of the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" on which much of "The DaVinci Code" is based, has written other books, of which this is only the latest. Other titles include "The Messianic Legacy", "The Temple and the Lodge", "The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception". and "The Inquisition.

Compared to HBHG, this book is a bit thin in substance and stretches things out longer than necessary. On the other hand, it does give a bit more of the flavor of the world of antiquities and archeology and the sometimes shadowy dealings that go on behind the scenes.

The early part of this book attempts to establish some idea of the political and religious context of what is now Israel and Palestine during the first century of the common era. Baigent refers as often as possible to new archeological sources of information, as well as contemporary writings, such as Josephus' histories, and takes into account the bias or spin of the authors. Baigent recounts the early history, as much as is known about it, of the religoius group currently known as "Christian", including the assignment of belief in the uniqueness and the divinity of Jesus in by the Council of Nicea as a bit of church dogma that had more to do with establishing a national religion for the Roman Empire than it did with the historical roots of the movement.

Baigent goes on to discuss such things as the Star proophecy, the disconnect between the mythological view of Jesus and the early Jerusalem assembly, run by Jesus' brother James, which had great similarities to the group which buried the Dead Sea Scrolls, if not one and the same group.

The final chapters are saved for the big disclosures - but both are based on hearsay. The first is a third hand account of Jesus surviving the cricifixion and alive according to some secular documents iin 45 A.D. The other is first hand but not confirmable - Baigent is not a scholar in Aramaic, and the documents in question were written in Aramaic, and dated to about A.D. 34. In one of them, a person who calls himself the Messiah of the Children of Israel has written to the Sanhedrin in defense against a charge of blasphemy - of calling himself the "son of God." He apparently explains that he meant "that the 'Spirit of God' was in him - not that he was physically the son of God.

Certainly one does not have to accept Baigent's conclusions or hypotheses at the end of the book. Nor does one have to attack him to defend beliefs about Jesus that were standardized long after the death of the subject individual But Baigent observes that the Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden away at a time consistent with the first century AD, and are thus original, contemporary evidence. The Gnostic texts were hidden away not much later, in order to preserve them from the orders to destroy them, from the office of the Inquisition. It is only within the past half-century that most of these have come to light, time capsules from the past to provide a first hand account of turbulent times that come to us shrouded in mystery and myth. It might be a matter of time, but perhaps these documents Baigent has only seen or heard about might eventually turn up. Until then, perhaps it is best to keep an open mind and focus on how one behaves instead of what one purports to believe.

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tags: book review baigent jesus jesuspapers davincicode brown