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Rating: 
Summary: Likely Fiction ... But More Believable Than the Gospels
Review: An interesting analysis of the Passion story, this book is most valuable for the background information it gives about the state of the world where and when Jesus lived. The faked death by crucifixion notion seems a trifle far-fetched, but not nearly so outlandish as the story in the Gospels of the return from death and the invention of the notion of the Second Coming to cover up the historical fact that the Romans crushed the Jewish Messiah like a grape, and he did not save his people. Anything that pokes a few more holes in fundamentalism is worth the price of admission.
Rating: 
Summary: Let's Get Real
Review: As a Roman Catholic, Schonfield's idea of a Passover plot is intriguing and does not in the least threaten my Christian beliefs. Why should it? He doesn't suggest that Christianity is bad or evil, just that its beginnings are not exactly the way they were portrayed by the reporters of a later time. It's a theory, and a pretty good one at that! In his sequel THE PENTECOST REVOLUTION, Schonfield sheds even more light on this very touchy subject.
Rating:
Summary: Historical What-ifs
Review: In 1971, I was a public high school senior who had dropped out of the Catholic School system after ten years of Catholic indoctrination and an excellent high school education under the Sistine Jesuits. I took an English elective entitled, "The Bible as Literature." Our first reading was "The Passover Plot." I found the book to be highly interesting in its presentation of the historical facts of the time (history has always been my passion), and its subjective interpretation of the life of Jesus. Keep in mind that my background had been the religous indoctrination of the Catholic Church, which had been the preeminet spiritual and temporal leader of Europe until Martin Luther happened along. Also, keep in mind that Protestants are considered to be heretics of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Anyway, my take on the whole matter is quite simple. I am sure most of us remember the old school game where you wisper a message in someones ear and have that person pass it to ten people. At the end of the line you ask the last person to reveal the message, and your original message has been totally twisted around. The same with history. Here we are two thousand years later after Jesus' presumable death at the
"brutal" hands of the Romans whose empire is also dead, and, more importantly, still waiting for his "SECOND COMING" as Christian believers, and no one can really say with sound accuracy if he lived or if he was just a myth. The bottom line really is quite simple. Regardless of his existence, a religion was started, and our modern world is now caught up in the grips of a terrorist inspired JIHAD. The crusades revisited. Jews against Moslems, and Moslems against Christians---an age old story. Yet, all three religions claim to be descended from Abraham, but are killing each other against the precept of "Thou shallt not kill thy neighbor." The more lethal the weapon, the better. Oh, and now we have a movie, "The Passion," which is exploiting the violent side of our souls in order to get a message out or is it the old Hollywood story--to make a bigger buck and be the all-time money grosser. When will we as so-called educated, enlightened humans ever learn that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sorry, if this was not an exact review of the book, and more like a polemical takeoff of my feelings on the book...but,... In conclusion, the book does make an interesting read for someone who is open-minded enough to accept or reject the authors precepts. It should be read along with other books on the subject. Like the Constitution and the Bible, it is a matter of one's own interpretation. For historical research, I give it four stars, and for his "subjective" analysis and conclusion, I give the book three stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Apparently it's not supposed to be a fictional book
Review: In this book Hugh Schonfield delivers a theory that portrays Jesus as a deceiver who bent the rules in order to fulfill prophecy. According to Schonfield's story, Jesus planned His own resurrection, which was apparently foiled when He was accidentally pierced on the cross by a soldier. However, the disciples--what would a dead Jesus look like anyway? Schonfield asks--wanted so badly to believe in the resurrection that they mistakenly thought they saw Jesus and began what we today call Christianity. Pity the poor Christians today, Schonfield seems to be saying. Here they are, believing in a nonhistorical fairy tale. If his story is correct, then the Christian is truly the most pitied of all people, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:1ff. But if he is wrong, there is a terrible price to pay. Yet I believe that history shows the swoon theory, the wrong tomb theory, or even the spiritual resurrection theory as much more likely possibilities than what Schonfield has to offer. In effect, Schonfield is calling into question the integrity of both Jesus and his disciples. Was Jesus really a deceiver? Was He looking for popularity? If so, then why did He not accept the accolades of the people that He received on Palm Sunday and just become their political ruler? Certainly it could have ended no more tragically than what really took place. Jesus' popularity would have given Him an edge in trying to overthrow the Roman government in the Judean region, and perhaps He could have been more successful than the many other "messiahs" who, for the most part, were all unsuccessful and eventually lost their lives. But to claim that Jesus was in this for the power or because He Himself was under dillusional thoughts is not very historical at all. Another problem with Schonfield's theory is that there were many events not under Jesus' control for this theory to take place. Here is a man whose very birth was predicted in scripture (Isaiah 7:14; Micah 5:2). What He would say on the cross and other circumstances of His death were also very clearly predicted (Psalm 22, Isaiah 53). His life fulfilled these things. Despite His death and the "plot" wallowing in shambles, everything is supposed to work out just right? Are we to believe that Thomas really touches Jesus, but this really wasn't Jesus? (John 20:26ff) So why does Thomas take the gospel message to India and die a martyr's death? To make everything work, Thomas and the other disciples must have been complete dolts, which is the only possible way it would have worked. With Jesus out of the picture, there is no way in the world this could have fooled so many different people, including the more than 500 who saw Jesus at one time (1 Cor. 15:1-7). All in all, I believe that a person will have to own a lot of faith in order to believe The Passover Plot. If the author was not serious about his research, it would almost be a fun theory. But Schonfield shows how far off a person can get by reading into history and creating one's own "what if" theory. To me, believing in the many eyewitness accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances, the evidence of the power of changed lives because of this resurrection, and a tomb where no body could be found is a much better risk of faith than believing anything Schonfield has to offer. Unless you're curious to see how Schonfield explains his theory, I just don't recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Scholarship and speculation
Review: It was Schoenfeld's specualtion that Jesus faked his crucifixion that made this a hot best-seller in its day, but the virtues of the book lie in the meticulous and persuasive scholarship that underlie the sensational element. Schoenfeld is particulary good at explaining what it means to understand Jesus as a Jew, a fact given lip service but rarely understood by Christians. Also outstanding is his analysis of the differing theological conceptions and aims of the four gospel authors, and how their religious views shaped their versions of the story. His idea that Jesus deliberately set out to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies and become the Messiah is interesting and plausible. One needn't accept his highly speculative passover plot theory of just what happened on that first Easter to get quite a lot out of this excellent work.
Rating:
Summary: Once It Was a Bombshell
Review: When _The Passover Plot_ first came out back around 1965, it hit like a bombshell. Right away Schonfield tells his readers that the book is "the outcome of an endeavor which has extended over 40 years to discover who the 'man' (quotes mine) really was. However, rather than publishing this in a scholarly book, Schonfield aims his writing toward the general public in a commercial enterprise. What this means is that the author gets to make unsubstantiated assertions and does not have to field points of view contrary to his own. So for Schonfield, Jesus became a Galilean who was caught up by his times. There was a great deal of messianic expectancy in Galilee and the Scriptures were reinterpreted to pertain to current events. One can find this same technique in the Dead Sea Scroll pesharim. For the pious in Israel, Rome was the archenemy,
the Fourth Kingdom foretold by Daniel 7. Jesus came to believe that he was the Messiah endowed with the spirit of wisdom. According to the Scriptures, he would die on the cross and then be resurrected. This would save Israel from the Romans. With meticulous detail Jesus plans his own execution and resurrection. Yes, there would be torture, but that was predicted by Scripture. But crucifixion was not always fatal. Josephus records an interesting story about some who were saved after being crucified. Jesus planned to stay on the cross for only a few hours. He would try to appear dead. The vinegar on the sponge was supposed to be a drug. Then he would try to get into the hands of some close, trusted friends who would resuscitate him. The plan would have worked had not Jesus been thrust in the side with a lance. For a short period of time on Saturday night Jesus regained consciousness and then succumbed. I have a few objections to Schonfield's book. For the moment I will grant that he was writing as a historian and not as a theologian. Among other things, this allows him to not consider anything which might be known as miraculous. My first objection is that Schonfield has to account for the formation of the early church. He does this by quickly sketching in a few post-resurrectional stories. The angel at the tomb is really the young man who gave Jesus the vinegar at the cross. The man encountered by Mary in the garden is a Jesus imperson-ator as are the man encountered by the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. All of this was supposed to have been planned by Jesus at least some of which was planned on Saturday night when Jesus regained consciousness for a short period of time. Proposing these posthumous manipulation of events stretches credulity. Moreover the whole theory proposes that there were the Twelve Disciples and then there was an inner circle closer to Jesus. One would think that later traditions would know something more about them than an obscure comment. My second objection is that Schonfield writes that the Romans were the enemy of the pious of Israel. But on page 143 Jesus manipulates the situation so that the Chief Priests were forced to move against him. Then on page 145 the Chief Priests have bring "strong pressure" on Pilate so they pack his courtyard with their own henchmen. This sounds like Jesus had another opponent than Rome. Now I will get back to the idea that Schonfield was writing as a historian rather than a theologian. Schonfield is a Jewish Nazorean. He starts out his book with a question that he asked of his "Christian friends" if it would not be enough if they believed in One God and believed in Jesus as his messianic messenger. On page 141 he points out that early Nazoreans knew nothing of Trinitarianism. He concludes Part 1 of his book with a short homily about "the young Jew, there was the Man." So on the contrary, Schonfield permeates his book with his theology. This book should never have made the explosion that it did.
Rating:
Summary: 4 stars because it took some real testicular fortitude to
Review: write this book in 1965, and to try and provide the thesis with scholarly support. Schonfield does exactly that. I'm not sure I can buy into all of what he is saying, but there certainly exists an aura of plausibility. Indeed, if one reads the Koran and some of the Indian texts that exist, Schonfield's book isn't so revolutionary. Specifically, Indians to this day claim that Jesus is buried in there country. Is it true? who knows, but we do know that contemporaneous writings from immediately after the crucifixtion refer to Jesus in India. Who knows, maybe it is all bunk. I think one thing is for certain--that Gospels as published today, don't match up with their original Greek manuscripts. I suspect that perhaps the truth is somewhere in between the Gospels and Schonfield's view.
Rating:
Summary: 4 stars because it took some real testicular fortitude to
Review: write this book in 1965, and to try and provide the thesis with scholarly support. Schonfield does exactly that. I'm not sure I can buy into all of what he is saying, but there certainly exists an aura of plausibility. Indeed, if one reads the Koran and some of the Indian texts that exist, Schonfield's book isn't so revolutionary. Specifically, Indians to this day claim that Jesus is buried in there country. Is it true? who knows, but we do know that contemporaneous writings from immediately after the crucifixtion refer to Jesus in India. Who knows, maybe it is all bunk. I think one thing is for certain--that Gospels as published today, don't match up with their original Greek manuscripts. I suspect that perhaps the truth is somewhere in between the Gospels and Schonfield's view.
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