Product Description

Controversial and explosive, this book marshals an enormous amount of startling evidence that the religion of Christianity and Jesus Christ were created by members of various secret societies, mystery schools and religions in order to unify the Roman Empire under one state religion! This powerful book maintains that these groups drew upon a multitude of myths and rituals that already existed long before the Christian era and reworked them into the story the Christian religion presents today -- known to most westerners as the Bible. Acharya makes the case that there was no actual person named Jesus but that several characters were rolled into one mythic being, inspired by the deities Mithras, Heracles/Hercules, Dionysus and many others of the Roman Empire.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #188727 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 430 pages

Customer Reviews

Whoah! Information overload!
This is the densest book you will ever read. The facts-per-page count is extraordinary, and they keep coming with no let-up for the length of the book.

It is the type of book that is called 'scholarly', and there is no doubt that the author has done her research. But the result is pretty indigestible unless you're a computer, which I'm not. She just thinks of a chapter heading and throws in shovelfuls of data, hundreds of footnotes and countless quotations from other experts in the field. There is a logical thread, but it can be hard to follow.

Don't get me wrong: the book is very powerful and persuasive (a sort of data tsunami) but I would like to have seen a little more consideration for the average reader, which would include a gentle start that provided some historical background and presented the shape of the argument.

Having said that, I would still advise you to buy it. It's a lot of astonishing, mind-changing information for very little money.

right basic premise but poorly researched
obviously the bible is mythology, and obviously this mythology derives from earlier and contemperaneous mythology, be it Egyptian, Persian, Indian or Greek.
unfortunately the author uses too many poor and outdated sources, and includes bizarre elements like the freemasons.
this is frustrating, as the basic premise of the book is right, but the author puts too heavy a slant on feminism and solar worship.
not a very scholarly work, the Jesus Mysteries is a much better book on the same basic premise

Very well researched and written
I loved this book. It is VERY well researched, using a lot of different books, some Christian some not. The author hardly talks about "feminism" at all, and the sun-god mythology is really well developed and very credible.

I had questions about all this stuff, so I read her next book, Suns of God, which answered most of my questions and is even better researched and wirtten. In Suns of God, she discusses more about the masons and other brotherhoods, and it makes a lot of sense.

Some criticisms I've seen are just really silly.