Gospel Fictions

Rating:
Summary: Misses the point entirely.
Review: Helms begins with the pre-supposition that the Gospels are fiction then uses minor variations in wording among the Gospels or similarity in wording to the Old Testament to conclude what he already believes - that the Gospels are fiction. Whether you do or do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, Helms' arguments do not follow logic and reason. Literary techniques do not belie the events. If you want a book that supports a lack of faith and you don't care if it is substantive, this is your book. For everyone else, it is a waste of time to read.

Rating:
Summary: Short and Succinct
Review: Helms wastes no words in this short but thought provoking book that details the motives and literary devices of the gospel writers. With clarity of purpose and dead accurate analysis, Helms presents an overwhelming argument as to the fabrication of much of the gospels and why the writers went to the fictive extent they did to boster their case of Jesus' divinity. Helms also successfully shows how the gospels were "stitched" (one upon the other) into a literary case for Jesus' messiahship by their use of old testament writings in the septuagint (LXX), thus guaranteeing a self fulfilling prophesy.
For those wanting an expanded companion to this book, I would recommend Robert Funk's "Honest To Jesus", or Burton Mack's excellent "Who Wrote the New Testament?". Both of these books essentially back up Helms conclusions with excellent scholarship and insight.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful explanation of the New Testament myth
Review: I found this book outstanding for two simple reasons. One, it explains the origins of a great number of the myths we find in the gospels as being anti-types of Old Testament stories that conform quite convincingly to their previous models. And secondly, it is short and easy to read; it can be read in a few hours.

Helms doesn't just point out the sometimes obvious and sometimes not-so obvious contradictions among the gospels, but he explains where the myths most likely originated and WHY the details of the individual stories change from one gospel to another. I didn't agree with him on a few of his explanations, as I was not completely convinced; however, on the whole his arguments are extremely persuasive and very logical. I had become aware of the absurdity of the stories as well as the contradictions, but only wondered how they had come about. Now I know, thanks to this book. I now understand what Paul means when he says in 1 Corinthians that he is revealing the gospel "according to the scriptures".

The book covers the nativity legends, numerous miracle stories, the crucifixion stories, and the resurrection myths. Things I had not seen before became obvious to me thanks to its elegant explanation.

I rate this book up with Thomas Paine's Age of Reason. If you find a copy, by all means purchase it.

Rating:
Summary: A Book So Good I Had Trouble Finishing It!
Review: Let me explain the odd title of my review...

Randel Helms makes his case in a compelling manner, and does it so clearly and effectively that before I was halfway through the book, I figured that he'd already completely vanquished the delusion that the New Testament is a history text.

While some parts are open to debate, the preponderance of evidence would be utterly devastating to Biblical literalists who actually read "Gospel Fictions" instead of tossing it aside the moment it makes them uncomfortable.

And it will indeed make them uncomfortable. In the course of the exposition, Helms provides examples of blatant contradictions in the gospels, doing so in an disarmingly off-hand manner, since that's not his main focus. (When I was younger, I studied the Bible intensely for nearly a decade and somehow missed all those contradictions. I wasn't looking for them; I wasn't told they were there; and above all I didn't WANT to see them.)

Before reading this book, the few Biblical criticisms I'd read struck me as somewhat circular. For example, "So-and-so must have written this after the fall of Jerusalem because the text predicts it will happen." That presupposes that the text is NOT inspired, so that line of reasoning did not strike me as rigorously logical.

However, when Helms demonstrates how the gospels took much material from the Septuagint -- including mistakes contained therein -- he takes things to a whole new level. He also clearly illuminates the themes that each gospel writer strove to emphasize -- and de-emphasize. This makes the provenance of each story much easier to understand. (I particularly enjoyed Helms's comment that Mark liked emphasizing the inadequacy of the disciples. Even when I was a Christian it struck me that those guys seemed like the stupidest people on the face of the planet. How many miracles do you have to see before you "get" that Jesus isn't just some guy?)

This book is not a easy, breezy read, but it is well worth the effort. Just as "Who Wrote the Bible" (by Richard Elliott Friedman) helped me understand the provenance of the Old Testament, so too does this book help me understand the evolution of the New Testament.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Place To Start For Inter-Faith Reconciliation!
Review: Randel Helms has written a very good book detailing how scriptures in the New Testament are often contradictory among themselves as well as those in the Old Testament. This not only occurs in a religious basis but in historical context. He points out that the Gospels were not written until 40 to 100 years after the death of Jesus Christ. There can be no question based on the scant detail of written historical evidence that indeed much of the New Testament has been misinterpreted by men, scholars and religious zealots. The same can be said of the Old Testament as well. For example, in Genesis XLII 33 the story of Joseph, Joseph orders his brothers to take corn for their house in the days of famine. Yet, we now know that could not have happen at all, why? Because Corn was only found in the New World and not discovered until 1492 by Columbus at El Salvador. Does this error in Jewish Scriptures make the Torah a flawed document too? This is just one example of misinformation in the Old Testament similar to what is pointed out by the author in the New Testament. Another example is in Exodus XXV 2-11, where Moses insist on pure gold to surround the Ark of the Covenant, among fine blue, purple and scarlet linens and valuable oil, spices and incense. Why would a God so powerful who performed so many miracles and deeds need opulent garments, precious metals and other riches to be on display before the people? The sanctuary was to be the fountain for the congregation of Israel not a dwelling place of a God in need of having to be surrounded in wealth. Even seal skins were ordered to be dyed red, yet where did seal skins come from in that time? Seals live in cold seas not the climate of the Middle East! It is just as obvious that these instructions were man made based on the same logic Mr. Helms uses in his book. Men interpreting God's words in error and with consequences that forced Sons and Daughters of Abraham to be hounded, crucified and killed throughout history. This is why this book is not just worth reading, but a must read for all regardless of faith. Too often men of God claim they know God's ways through their interpretation of God's words and then determine destiny regardless how such scriptures are used against people instead of helping them. The author has researched this area of mistranslation well and you won't regret spending the time to read it. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Sharp and Concise
Review: Randel Helms' book is an excellent response to claims of gospels' historicity. It clearly shows how most of the gospel "events" were invented by the evangelists to draw a parallel with established OT myths. These, indeed are facts which have been pointed out by many authors, and in fact any unbiased reading of the NT narratives makes them quite obvious. Helms points out how the vigin birth narrative in Matthew and Luke is based on a misunderstanding of the OT passage from Isaiah. Another fact is that the evangelists' source was the Greek version of OT, Septuagint, where the passage is mistranslated to refer to "virgin", while the Hebrew original uses the word "almah", meaning maiden or a young woman. Another case in point is that the entire episode of Jesus' 30-year exile in Egypt is invented to justify Hosea's "prphecy", "...and from Egypt I called my son". However, Hosea reads: "When Israel was my child, I loved him, and from Egypt I called my son", clearly speaking of the exodus of Jews from Egypt.
As I said, such misunderstandings are very well known by now, so what's the point of another book elaborating on them? Well, at times when the evangelical psychopaths are waging a deepening culture war at home, any well-written challenge to the basics of their ideology is, in my opinion, welcome. I did not agree with Helms on all issues. Helms believes that there still existed a historical Jesus, based on the fact that the stories of his crucifiction as well his baptism by John the Baptist were too inconvienient to early Christians to be invented. This is very doubtful, and I refer the reader to the excellent works by G. A. Wells, particularly the book "Did Jesus Exist?", for an alternative view. As Wells shows, Jesus crucifiction stories were based on doctrinal statements by Paul in his epistles (the earliest NT documents), and parallel with Jewish Wisdom or Logos mythologies, according to which Wisdom incarnate was sent down to earth in human form, lived a life of obscurity, suffered a shameful death and returned to heaven. Now, to early Jews there was only one "shameful" way to die, - being hung naked on the tree in front of God,- in short, cricifiction. Contrary to what many today believe, such execution was not introduced by Romans but had long been practiced by Jews against the worst violators of the Mosaic law. Dead Sea scrolls, in particular, contain writings of the Essene community in Qumran (quite possibly the early originators of the Jesus myth), referring to their enigmatic Teacher of Rigteousness (possibly a leader of their community of around 80 B.C.) being executed in such a manner by his equally enigmatic arch-rival The Wicked Priest (possibly the ruthless Maccabean king and High Priest Alexander Janaeus). G. A. Wells shows that Paul's complete lack of knowledge of and his utter disinterest in the historical facts surrounding Jesus' ministry and execution are very difficult to explain if one's starting assumptions is that they were in fact recently occured factual events. Paul may well have been the original source of the crucifiction ideology, basing it on pre-existent messianic and apocalyptic ideas of certain Jewish sects, and the gospel histories were, like all others, invented later on to give substance to these myths.
As for Jesus' baptism, it is now widely accepted that the (very numerous) followers of John the Baptist during the second half of the 1st century were initially at odds and in an ideological conflict with the early Christians. The baptism stories, then, were invented by the evangelists in order to smooth these differencies and bring the Baptist followers into the mainstream Christianity. The oddity and inconsistency of gospel accounts of the baptism (first John annoints Jesus and declares him to be the messiah whom he is unworthy of baptising, then later (!!!) he sends his disciples to Jesus to find out whether Jesus is indeed The One), can only be explained by the fact that these are clumsy insertions into the original narrative.
All that being said, Helms' book is highly recommended as an excellently written account of mythmaking and its role in the sotry of Jesus.

Rating:
Summary: A microscopic dissection of the Gospels....
Review: The first of the Gospels (Mark) was written some 40 years after the death of Jesus (about 70 A.D.). Some thirty years later, Luke and Matthew separately updated, expanded, and edited the first document (using another unknown source as well). And after that, an anonymous writer put together the "Fourth Gospel", that of John. In Gospel Fictions, Randel Helms painstakingly, parable-by-parable, verse-by-verse, even word-by-word, analyzes the four Gospels. His thesis is: "The Gospels... are largely fictional accounts concerning an historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth, intended to create a life-enhancing understanding of his nature," A simple instance: After reading this work, one will not only be reminded that each Gospel quotes Jesus's last words on the cross differently, but -- one will have a better idea why each writer put different words into His mouth. This book will disturb those (like myself) who assumed that the Gospels were substantially historical, with minor differences of fact and emphasis. Helms paints a compelling picture of the exact opposite: almost none of the parables happened in fact, many stories were borrowed from the Old Testament, and the authors had little interest in leaving any record of facts. The only way to grasp the scope of Helm's challenge is to read this book. It will leave you a more informed person, if a somewhat disillusioned one.

Rating:
Summary: OT embellishment of NT
Review: The theory behind this book is this: the gospels vary quite a bit because they were for specific christian sects and were never meant to be compiled together. Each gospel was written for a particular audience with its own religious oral history and take on the OT [when the OT no longer was the "Tanakh" but a complication of predictions or signs about the future messiah Jesus]. Each author was trying reconcile disparate pieces of information that was available at that time. Hence some dissatifation with the early "Mark" gospel and its subsequent embellished by "Luke" and "Matthew" and the abandonment of "Mark" by "John". Helms draws interesting comparisons (some old, some new) between the gospels as well as with situations and phrases (in greek) from Isaiah, Elijah, later prophets, Psalms, and Daniel as well as the occasional pagan and Buddhist references. It is the comparisons between the Greek in the OT vs. NT that allows this book to stand out.

I have read a few books already on this type of topic so I'm a bit jaded. Its too bad about the author's title choice and emphasis of "fictional narrative" of the gospels otherwise he would have a larger readership. However this is not a bad book for its 150pgs and I have learned new things about the NT's relationship with the Greek OT.




Rating:
Summary: Devastating Critique of Gospels' Historicity
Review: This immenseley fascinating book will hold your attention from the first page (where Mr. Helms describes what one thinks is Jesus of Nazareth only to learn it is actually the life of Apollonius of Tyana) to the last. Unlike most freethought books, which are often heavy on bombast and weak on documentation, this book uses literary criticism to show that most of the alleged events described in the four canonical Gospels most likely never occured. Mr. Helms does not merely assert that the miracles did not happen, much more importantly, he shows where the Gospel authors likely got the material to compose them. In nearly all cases, the material was taken from the Old Testament (particularly the Greek Septuagint).

With painstaking comparisons, Helms demonstrates that when the Gospels write of the activities and miracles of Jesus they often use the very words of earlier incidents in the Old Testament. For example, many of the miracle stories are merely rewrites of the miraculous activities of Elijah and Elisha described in First and Second Kings. For instance, of Elijah's miracle of the cruse of oil and barrel of meal being sustained in the woman of Zarephath's scarcity, we read these words "He arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city" (I Kings 17:10). Of Jesus healing in the city of Nain we read in Luke 7:12 "Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city..." Helms notes that the city of Nain has since been excavated and there was no gate to this city. But that is irrelevant. The Gospels are not historical documents and were never written to give one objective, historical data; they were written in order that you might believe (St. John 20:30-31). If a gate was not actually present at the edge of the city of Nain, it was necessary that the Lukan evangelist invent it since the purpose was to emphasize how the Christ story "fulfilled" or was an anti-type to the earlier one. In essence the New Testament stories are pawning off of the credibility of the widely respected Septuagint. Peter's walking on water is remarkably similar to a nearly identical story from Buddhism that would have been known to First Century residents of Palestine because of the presence of Buddhist missionaries in Alexandria.

Christians of the conservative stripe (and perhaps some who are more liberal) will not like Helms' book. In fact, their reviews of "Gospel Fictions" tell us little about the book itself and a great deal about their sense of anger and disgust with being challenged with something they cannot refute. When a situation like that occurs all intellectual and spiritual honesty has gone out the window. I have heard there exist Christian refutations of "Gospel Fictions" but if they are anything like the work of most apologetics ministries they are most surely ad hominem attacks and smears against the writer. They frequently attempt to dispose of literary criticism by saying they want "real" evidence not literary techniques as if the gospels constitute any kind of serious evidence themselves that would stand up in a court of law. These Christian critiques of the critiques usually boil down to childish pouting. You need to read this book regardless of where you fall in the divide between faith and skepticism. The argument that the gospels are the supreme, literary fictions of our culture cannot be easily dismissed.

Rating:
Summary: Very well written, a revelation
Review: This is a short simple little book. Anyone who is familiar with the Christian Gospels knows that they vary from each other in various details. This book provides and explanation why and in the process explains how they came to be written.

The first Gospel to be written was that of Mark. It however from a doctrinal point has some problems. There is no mention of the Virgin birth, Mark in quoting a number of prophecies in the Old Testament misunderstands and misquotes them, the description of Jesus?s Baptism suggests that he only becomes the Son of God at that point and not at his birth and lastly the women who observe the resurrection tell nobody.

Helms suggests that the Gospel of Luke attempts to deal with these issues by providing details about the birth, it quotes correctly from the Old Testament and it tries to make sense of the baptism of Jesus and gives a different account of the resurrection. The process of working out the events of Jesus life rather than coming from a historical narrative are often constructed by looking at Old Testament prophecies and then creating events which mirror these prophecies. Helms gives as an example of this Mathew?s use of a prophecy in Isa 7:14-16 to predict the Virgin Birth. It is clearly a passage which illustrates a suggestion that King Pekah of Israel will not reign for long. Mathew has misunderstood the nature of the prophecy.

The writing of the Gospels has thus not come about from an inquiry into the historical Jesus but rather as a result of the Gospel writers creating a legend that fits in with their communities view of the personality and nature of Jesus. Helms refers to the large number of other Gospels which were in circulation `such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Phillip, the Secret Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene which have been disregarded from the Cannon. The survival of the current Gospels reflects their acceptance by the church as reflective of acceptable doctrine.

The chapter on the biblical miracles is perhaps the best in the book. A number of these, especially the raising of the dead are borrowing?s from the Old Testament. Again it is shown how Mark presents a view of Jesus using clumsy magic like tricks whilst in the later Gospels the magic is replaced by Godlike power. However there is a discussion about the story of Jesus arrest and the cutting of of the ear of the servant of the high priest. This starts off as a simple story but the later Gospels tease out a miracle with the curing of the ear.

The source of the miracles is shown clearly to be a number of Old Testament stories which have been copied closely. This book also shows the different treatment of miracles in the Gospels. In John they are proof of supernatural power and a reason to believe. In the other Gospels they are the result of the faith which Jesus inspires in people,

Unlike some authors, Helms believes in the existence of a historical Christ. He believes that the crucifixion and the baptism by John the Baptist were both inconvenient stories whose inclusion can only be explained by the fact that they happened. He suggests that a good deal of work has been undertaken by the writers of the Gospels to incorporate these stories in such a way that it fits in with Jesus divine nature. The story of the Baptism is the clearest example. Baptism was aimed at removing sin from a person. Why then was Jesus baptised? The later Gospel writers have incorporated dialogue from John the Baptist suggesting to Jesus that his Baptism was unnecessary as a means of dealing with this dilemma.

All in all an easy to read and interesting little book