Who Was Jesus? : A Conspiracy in Jerusalem

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely brilliant
Review: A most brilliant work. Kamal Salibi is a truly singular and most original scholar. With his unique mix of breadth and depth of knowledge, he is able to see far beyond what others see. A very enlightning work.

Rating:
Summary: Review history outside the modern interference
Review: Before commenting the book I start my review with KAMAL SALIBI biography in order to show his education and cultural environments.

For those who do not know him, Kamal SALIBI is one of the greatest Arab scholars. Recently (2003) he published his autobiography that includes parts of the modern cosmopolitan Lebanese history and where he tells some stories of the American protestant and Methodist missions in Lebanon during the period 19th -20th century, since he was one of their students starting his primary education till his graduate studies.

While reading his autobiography you meet public modern figures from Bahrain and Kuwait who were his colleagues at the American university of Beirut. He takes us to London during Second World War. In London one meets Bernard Lewis who was his supervisor in his studies. Kamal Salibi is also an Arab and an Arab cultured person. He is a Christian who got the influences of both historical eastern orthodox and modern Christianity as viewed by American Methodist and protestant churches.

Unlike other biblical scholars KAMAL SALIBI worked on a lot of projects related to lot of Arab countries; projects ranging in space and time and topic; from cities dictionaries to old words of eastern Arabia. Recently he has been working, and still on the dialogue between religions.

For kamal SALIBI we cannot watch history of Palestine out of its real context in the geographical and historical means.

Unintentionally he applies what he knows and what he has touched through his life education and carrier.

According to this man all these issues ( bible, jesus , etc..) belong to the same content of cultures. babiloniya , Eastern Arabia, Palestine, Gulf of Oman have most of their stories details belonging to the common containers. For SALIBI, as for other Arab scholars [example: Fadel -Al-roubai3i] ( 3= the Letter ain in both Arabic and old CANANEEN scripts) the old Arabian oral traditions besides the Syrian and Palestinian ones compose a whole with multitude of versions and mutations. In this, indirectly, he meets with Thomas L. Thompson in his view of scriptures. This has lead him to other results; a geographical displacement. For Thompson this was not necessary.

These mutations go deeper than simple linguistic approaches. In his last autobiography he shows an example of discussion with western scholars for topics cited in southern YEMEN and coastal Phoenicia.

SALIBI wrote this book - about Jesus - in this context. Unfortunately the works of Fadel -al-rabi3i are not yet translated to English. His last book "Sisters of Quraish" published in Beirut shows lot of common roots and aphorisms to be compared to the bible details. The difference with the case of Judea area in Palestine was the canonization and fixing of these later traditions following the Greek models of fixation in the case of the bible. If some reader follows the details examples of names, food, marriage, drinks cited in oral Arab tradition he will not be surprised by the ideas of KAMAL SALIBI towards historicity of Jesus, regardless of whether it is true or false.

Following I give some examples used by KAMAL SALIBI in this book - that I read some years ago - : QURAN, taken as a literary book of the 7th century CE, describes Jesus as named 3issa while in the Arab language Jesus is Yesou3 or Yasou3. Christians are called NASSARA and not masi7iyeen. 3issa is from AHARONIC descendant and not Davidic. Mary mother of 3issa has delivered the baby near a palm tree. Also following QURAN Jews [ following of a religion ] [ YAHOUD] have different features compared to BANI-ISRAIIL [ Sons of Israel ] who were a people from old times similar to the people of MEDIYAN or 3ad. These examples proclaimed by QURAN were not shocking for the persons of Arabia of the period of the QURAN. In other words there was a different version, not only one, talking of all this stuff. Islam has fixed this and The "New" world history made of islam another religion.

Beyond Quran, SALIBI reviews Pauline documents, reanalyze gospels sources, he adds the Injil source cited in quran to the traditional views of scholars about the gospels. Among other points he focuses on why the historical Jesus is not the main in pauline document.

Jesus the "nassorei" is a historical figure; true. His objective was rather political than religious. Himself was follower of an israelite ( not jewish) sect that has its roots - out of Palestine - ( why not - do the reader know that some jewish tribes of Arabia - quranic times - have arabian roots and not palestinian.! )

Other examples cited by SALIBI are the oral stories that are still current till our era [ yes 20th century CE ] or fixed through Arabic historians of the Islamic periods, to express El-3iss God and its relation with the fecundity and moon tradition.

Away from SALIBI another Spanish modern author speaks of pre-Islamic religions not following the Hellenistic-Roman model that had ARIUS (4th century CE ) among its scholars.

Here is nothing of a plot or modern conspiracy as reviewed by one reviewer. Here, with this book, is simply a wider approach not usual for the western reader who is used to millenistic scenarios that has the east most limits of the world geography located on the east coast of Jordan river.









Rating:
Summary: A Plot-theorist attacking scriptures.
Review: I am not really into religion and religious debates, but knowing the author as a recognized, objective and accurate historian, I decided to purchase this book and have a look. What I found out was far beyond what I expected. Basically, the author tries to analyze the historical existence of Jesus. Many have attempted that before, but his perspective is indeed both innovative and unique. In fact, the author proves (however using circumstantial evidence) that the Gospels and the scripts left by Paul were based on a "lost" bible which he tries to prove existed (mainly comparing the texts in the Gospels and other Christian resources). What impressed me was the author's usage of Aramaic (the language Jesus is believed to have spoken) as well as Arabic, Hebrew and Greek. The author's main argument is based on the question: Why did Paul go to Arabia rather than Jerusalem following his revelation. Indeed, this remains a most interesting question which the book attempts to resolve. As a critical researcher, I find his work convincing as well as interesting (but not necessarily convincing all the way through). Yet, since Salibi has pursued an innovative scientific' approach in this study, I now find myself seeking two other controversial books of his, both he argues have furnished the writing of "Conspiracy in Jerusalem", namely "Secrets of the Bible People" and "The Bible Came from Arabia". Salibi warns, however, both at the beginning and end of his book that if one is looking for a religious scandal, "Conspiracy in Jerusalem" is not the kind book he should be looking for. Bourdillon's words "The mind has a thousand eyes and the heart but one" are most appropriate in identifying Salibi's work, but one indeed needs not to have his faith in question before he starts reading the first book. A most remarkable and insightful work by all means.

Rating:
Summary: Very fascinating book
Review: It is a must read esp. if you were familiar with his other books about the bible. It is very well written.

Rating:
Summary: A Plot-theorist attacking scriptures.
Review: Salibi is no stranger to controversy and has now come up with an elegant way for attacking Jesus and the Bible. What is odd is that the author claims no particular expertise in Greek or Aramaic but still wish to tackle linguistic issues related to the scriptures!

He seems to have a particular problem with St-Paul and his journey to Arabia. Further the church stands accused of destroying the "real Gospel." All that without proof or evidence and a mediocre linguitic skill in semitic languages.

A plot theory par exellence.

The book was a waste of time and money. Thumb down. Way down.

Rating:
Summary: Way to go Salibi
Review: This book is amazing for many reasons. Those who are involved in religious debates are either devout Muslims or devout Christians. Both parties speak out their minds in total bias hanging on to their beliefs and refusing to admitt to new ideas. What Salibi did was amazingly brilliant.
Non-semitic tongues might face a problem assimilating all the information which is highly dependent on ancient Near Eastern Linguistics. Those who will be most impressed, however, are the Hebrew speakers who know Arabic or the Arabic speakers who know Hebrew. Unfortunately you will find a handful of those dual-language semitic speakers. When Salibi takes the New Testament words from their original Aramaic or Hebrew tranlation and put them against their Arabic language background, the reader will be struck.
It is a must read book for all those whose faith is independent of historical truths.

Rating:
Summary: A revolutionary perspective
Review: With absolute confidence, Kamal Salibi presents solid evidence in order to argue that Christianity as we know it, is the brainchild of Paul the Apostle, and is way different from the main teachings of Jesus, whom Paul never met but claimed to have seen in a revelation.
The book is based on Salibi's original hypothesis of his book The Bible Came from Arabia.
Who Was Jesus starts with a description of the soiopolitical status quo of the Jewish kingdoms of Judea and Israel prior to the arrival of Jesus. Salibi draws historical parallels and argues that Jesus, coming from a royal Jewish line in Arabia, the seat of Jewish historic events, came to Palestine to lay claim over his sovereignty over the Jewish people. He said that by the time of Jesus, Jews had considerably emmigrated from Arabia and established a prosperous community in Palestine.
Jesus' bid, however, disturbed the status quo of the Jewish establishment and made the influential among them demand that the Romans crucify him.
Not aware at first of the original story, Paul started preaching his line of Christianity, which eventually made him fall out with the rest of Jesus' closest followers. Salibi concludes that Paul's version of Christianity ultimately prevailed and contributed to shaping the religion in the way that we know it today.