Product Description

When his friend, Father Andrei, is killed on a train en route to the Vatican, Father Nil, a Benedictine who teaches the Gospel of St. John to novices, decides to conduct his own investigation. The dead priest possessed proof of the existence of a thirteenth disciple and an epistle stating that Jesus was nothing more than an inspired prophet, not the Son of God - two things that would spell great danger for the Church.Father Nil then discovers a previously unpublished account of the origins of Christianity. It tells of the Nazarenes, a community excluded from the official Church by Peter and Paul, which appears to have thrived until the 7th century and given birth to Islam. While he pushes ahead with his investigation, the Pope's advisors, rival factions and secret societies (including the Congregation for the doctrine of the Faith and the Society of St. Pius V), are trying, by any means, to lay their hands on the priest's findings. From the Mossad to Fatah, everyone seems to have a very good reason to keep the 13th disciple a secret...This title includes the previously unpublished chapter 'The Shocking Truth Behind The Thirteenth Apostle'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279789 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

From the Publisher
A captivating and thoroughly researched religious thriller
comparable to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

From the Author
"In 1975, having returned safe and sound from Rome,
where I had spent four and a half years in a pontifical university close to
the Vatican, I began to study the sources of Christianity, only to uncover
a scoop: Jesus was a Jew!
I had never heard this before. If Jesus was a
Jew, he lived, behaved, taught, breathed like a Jew. If Jesus was a Jew,
his teachings are those of a Jew, and not of a "Christian".
He was
transformed into a God shortly after his death: Where? When? How? By whom?
And above all, for what reasons?
That is when I discovered the origins of a
2,000-year-old deception, the creation of an immense edifice of power (the
Church) in the name of a man who had become God despite himself. And I
discovered that I was not the only one: for fifty years scholar upon
scholar - Jewish, Protestant, Catholic - had been working towards the same
goal: the rediscovery of the historical Jesus. They were high-level
academics, operating in complex disciplines: history, exegesis, archeology,
linguistics, epigraphy... Along the way I discovered in relation to Jesus a
thirteenth apostle, who appears sporadically in religious texts. This man
really existed, he presents himself in the Gospel according to St John as a
close friend of Jesus. He plays a crucial role in the final weeks of the
life of the man from Galilea. However his existence and even his name have
been erased from all the texts and from Western memory. Why? Did he know
something that must be hidden at all costs? Was he that dangerous? I have
been on his trail, as a scholar interested in historical truth. He seems to
have been linked to the Essenians, and his legacy has begotten a movement
which has persisted throughout the centuries up to our times: Gnosticism.
This had all the elements of a thriller. As opposed to Dan Brown, mine is
solidly based on historical research. I have drawn on this material to
imagine what would have happened if this man had left behind an epistle in
which he revealed the truth about Jesus. This letter does not exist, but
could have existed. Fiction completes history, as long as it respects
probability: sè non è vero, è ben trovato - if it is not true, it is well
imagined. The only thing that was left to do was to let the bombshell
detonate. It places the Vatican in a perilous position, as its power
derives from the foundation myths of Christianity. It is also worrying for
the established Jewish and Muslim faiths, for whom Jesus is a troublesome
figure. As for my description of the behaviour inside the Vatican (plots,
lies, manipulations, sex and money), it is actually an understatement of
the reality that I have encountered.

About the Author
Religious scholar and novelist Michel Benoit was born in Madagascar in 1940 (then a French colony). In 1962, having studied Biochemistry under Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod and obtained a PhD in Pharmacology, he entered the Benedectine order as an unordained monk, remaining there for twenty-two years. Because of his ideological non-conformity, he eventually quit the Catholic Church and decided to devote himself to research and writing. The Secret of the 13th Apostle transposes into fictional form his lifetime's research on the life of Jesus.

Customer Reviews

Better than The Da Vinci Code
I enjoyed this book, and believe it to be much better than the Da Vinci Code. That does not mean I think it is a great book since I thought The Da Vinci Code was badly written, implausible and plain dumb in places. In the case of The Thirteenth Apostle, the translation is poor at times, and the prose can be repetitive (how many times can Benoit say a character moved 'mechanically'! Reminded me of the constant references to the 'black Audi' in The Da Vinci code, enough already with the Audi!). However, the plot while unoriginal, is much more plausible than Dan Brown's. Benoit clearly has the credentials to write credibly on the Catholic Church and Christianity. The strongest parts of the book for me were the sections set in antiquity. The description of Saint Peter facing martyrdom in Rome was gripping. So, I would recommend this book to those looking for a more intelligent and thought provoking take on the genre made so popular by the Dan Brown. Just don't expect the best of prose.

Bit literary but good value
I have just finished reading this book. Have to say that it took me some time as I had to re-read bits which may be translation issues as mentioned by others. Great theory though which is not let down by the conclusion. So many books work well and then end badly but this one didn't for me. It's certainly made me think a lot about catholicism (which I was brought up in) but not one that I would share with my dad!

Could have been good, was in parts, but ultimately poor
The cover notes drew favourable comparisons between this book and the works of Umberto Eco which is why, rushing through the airport without a book in my hand luggage, I picked up this novel. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but more or less everything about this book dissappointed me. To give Benoit the benefit of the doubt, I suspect the translation wasn't up to much. This is no excuse though - there are plenty of authors (Eco for one) whose works have been translated into English but retained their fantastic prose. The writing in this book doesn't flow well at all. One finds oneself re-reading sections in order to get a sense of what's going on. The author also is very repetitive and the translation also has a rather annoying habit of putting rhetorical thought in quote marks which often makes it difficult in dialogue scences to differentiate between what is being thought by a character or said by him. The plotline is unremarkable: There's a secret about the life of Jesus that is covered up by the Catholic Church (or at least the "nasty" bit of its heirarchy). Stumbling upon this secret proves terminal for a scholastic monk and highly dangerous for his friend Nil who takes over his researches. As his researches develop in Rome he is in the middle of conspiracies by a dark Vatican secret society and the creepy Cardinal Catzinger (please!). These various intertwined factions employ members of Mossad and Hammas to do their dirty work (no - really!). Oh yes, as with any of this genre of book, the Templars put in a cameo appearance. The only things that are vaguely interesting are the "flashback" scenes to the life of Jesus and his apostles - centring around the mysterious but ultimately benign 13th apostle.

The plot would have been just about bearable if the prose wasn't so clunking. Although the premise of the book is slightly more credible and ultimately uplifting I suspect this is very much a genre novel. My advice would be to leave a bit more time after checking in to buy a better book.