Rating: 
Summary: A Refreshingly Complete View
Review: Many will see the basic premise of "The Jesus Mysteries" to be the similarities between Christianity and the earlier Pagan Mystery Religions. This concept is not new and has been turned into a strawman and somewhat refuted by certain Christian Apologists.What makes this work unique is the completeness of the story, from the Pagan origins of the themes of Christianity, to the Mysteries' influence in the areas surrounding the first known Christian churches, to the earliest debates within the church over the "heretical" views of Gnosticism. Earlier works on this subject left many questions unanswered, but the complete story from Freke and Gandy leaves no stone unturned. Critics will attempt to knock out a few legs of their argument, but the completeness of the argument means it has a solid foundation that can handle a few valid criticisms. The criticisms I've seen so far, however, resort to ad-hominem attacks against the credibility of the authors (such as "they don't have a degree in Theology, so how could they write about Jesus", which would be like saying that the only ones capable of criticizing one of Bush's speeches is a life-time member of the Republican party), nit-picking about how hard it is to find the books they reference, or thinking that by refuting a single claim, one can refute the entire work. But none of the criticisms of the theory have convinced me that their basic premise is not entirely feasible -- at least as feasible as someone walking on water and raising the dead. The proposed "true" history of christianity from its roots as a hellenized mystery religion expressed through Gnosticism with the literal interpretation of the Gospels being only the "outer" mystery (and never intended to be taken as literal), followed by an enforcement of "orthodoxy" by later literalists is very much supported by what we know of the ancient times ... often from the very texts the church holds sacred. Certainly no fundamentalist myself, I had been introduced to the complete silence of the earliest Christians to any historical Jesus..., and have been open to finding the complete story. I suspect it is somewhere between Freke and Gandy's hypothesis and Doherty's. Although somewhat one-sided (and who isn't), I still give it 5 stars due to the completeness of the theory. Is it true? Maybe. Is it entirely plausible and supported by history? Definitely.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: This book agrees with and supports views similar to those I have held for many years as a result of my own studies, but it does so far more compellingly that I ever could. It is true that is written in popular and not academic style but this makes the work of many biblical scholars and historians available to me, the simple layman. In fact, I plan to reread this book carefully and follow many of his notes and references back to their source material. I consider it a very important work and I recommend it to anyone who has an open mind. It is not for the obedient and unquestioning follower.
Rating:
Summary: The Jesus Mysteries--Recommended!
Review: The church father Tertullian said the questions that make people heretics are these: Where does humanity come from, and how? Where does evil come from and why? He could have added, Where do religious beliefs come from, and what gives them their authority? In The Jesus Mysteries, authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy take on these heretical question with some surprising results. In an interview with Harpers, the authors had this to say about their new book: "During the centuries leading up to the birth of Christianity various cults known as 'Mystery Religions' had spread throughout the Pagan world. At the centre of these Mystery cults was a story about a dying and resurrecting godman who was known by many different names in many different cultures. In Egypt, where the Mysteries originated, he was known as Osiris, in Greece as Dionysus, in Asia Minor as Attis, in Syria as Adonis, in Italy as Bacchus, in Persia as Mithras. The more we discovered about this figure, the more his story began to sound uncannily familiar. "Here are just a few of the stories that were told about the godman of the Mysteries. His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin. He is born in a cave or humble cow shed on the 25th of December before three shepherds. He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism. He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony. He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honour him. He dies at Easter time as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. After his death he descends to Hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory. His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days. His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolize his body and blood. "On the basis of this and much other evidence we now believe that the story of Jesus is not the biography of an historical Messiah, but a myth derived from the Pagan Mysteries. The original Christians, the Gnostics, were Jewish mystics who synthesized the Jewish myth of the Messiah with the myth of the Pagan godman in order to make Pagan mysticism easily accessible to Jews. The origin of Christianity is not to be found in Judaism, as previously supposed, but in Paganism. Ironic don't you think? "Ironic indeed, but as a longtime student of mythology, philosophy and religion, their premise intrigued me immediately. I had long known of similarities between pagan religions and Christianity, but until The Jesus Mysteries I had not found a comprehensive source that tried to pull all these threads together and make a synthesis of them. Freke and Gandy take us on a wide ranging and well documented journey through numerous sources, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi library and Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy in an effort to show the mythical and philosophical antecedents of the Christian religion. Along the way they also survey the violent and contentious history of the early Christian church as it made its way from an outlawed sect to the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire. Not everyone will agree with their conclusions, but the authors thoughtfully provide hundreds of bibliographical references and footnotes so most anyone can review their research and make up their own minds. The book is provocative but compelling, and I rank it as one of the most important books I have read in the last 30 years.
Rating:
Summary: After this I just might reread the New Testament
Review: Thanks to Freke and Gandy for this clear and scholarly work on the similarities between Catholicism and Paganism. I have first hand experience with both. I have called myself a Pagan for 22 years now. The first half of my life was, however, spent in Catholic schools and churches. I had given up hope in the ability of Christianity to speak to my heart and soul. I was tired of the oppression of women and the failures of the church to address pressing issues. Reading "The Jesus Mysteries" has made me question that. It helped me remember my early attendence at Passion plays and how moving they were. It brought back fond memories of the deeply meaningful taking of Bread and Wine "in Christ's name." I can now understand why these things moved me so, despite their link to the illogical and mysogynist organized church. I am not about to return to Catholicism but, it sure is nice to reclaim Jesus and his Mother as part of the pantheon that helps me to understand who I am and the world in which I live. I can also now share with my children the gnostic view of Christianity without contradicting their embrace of paganism. Thank you to the authors!
Rating:
Summary: Brave Enough!
Review: The authors are brave enough to write such a book in Christian world. Just put your belief aside for a while and read the book. Love your neighbors--inclouding those who have different opinions.
Rating: 
Summary: Enlightening and Annoying.
Review: 'The Jesus Mysteries' is both very enlightening and very annoying at the same time. Among the irritations are the authors pretensions (they repeatedly claim that they started out with no particular agenda when it is quite obvious that this is untrue) and the book's tabloid style (they tend to use a lot of exclamation marks as though they are astounded by their discoveries). Despite these annoyances, the authors' argument - that there is no evidence for a historical Christ and that the Jesus story was cobbled together from elements of Platonism and contemporary Mystery cults - is extremely persuasive. So much so that this book, despite its tabloid style, demands a serious counter-argument from theologians.
Rating: 
Summary: A well written book
Review: I liken this to any good work of fiction, and as fiction, it is excellent. However, if you are expecting some sort of an accurate non-fiction documentary, skip this one and keep looking. Throughout the book, the author's use very well known ploys that are successful marketing and lobbying tactics. Take irrelevant and non-correlated data points, and then weave them together with a tapestry of fiction to try and make them appear as if they are connected. The attempts to try and correlate the Gospel message and life of Jesus Christ with other pagan religions are an example of "spurious correlation's". It makes for some interesting reading, and conspiracy junkies will love it, but it ultimately falls well short of demonstrating anything other than the amount of data the authors studied. It also ignores the vast majority of places where the Bible does not correlate with these other "pagan religions". Was it accidental that this was left out? No, of course not, its just part of the scheme. One glaring example of this type of spin was the section titled "Gospel truth". The authors claim that since the Gospels have contradictions, they must be false. Huh? The authors fail to mention that this was apparent to anyone who has read them, including the Council of Trent, where they were included in what we have as the New Testament, so if the stories were falsified, why not correct them into one cohesive, non-contradicting story? First, one must assume they were included in their original message, despite the contradictions, because they were true. The reason is obvious to any forensic psychologist: stories, which do not contain differences and contradictions, are deemed less valid and more likely to be collusion. Put it this way, if 4 people witness a car accident and they all describe what happened differently due to their unique perspective, would we conclude the car accident didn't happen? This is the conclusion the authors are implying, again falsely. I give the book three stars because of its exhausting research, and that it is indeed an entertaining work of fiction, but the premise and conclusions are merely the biased and slanted agenda of two men, and fail to hold up under even the most casual observations. Anyone looking closely with an open perspective can see through the lobbying easily, so why does it work so well for so many reviewers here? The same reason that the tobacco companies are successful at spinning all the health risks away as part of some elaborate scheme by do-gooders or the government. People buy it because they want to. Only those people without a vested interest in the fictional premise here, or those who want to wish away accountability and ignore truth are buying it. Which one are you? Hint, if you bought the premise of this book ask yourself WHY you wanted to be so fooled so much that you chose to ignore the obvious flaws of logic.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the most ridculous books ever written
Review: This book suggests that Jesus never existed. Almost every historian knows that Jesus was a real person based upon evidendence which includes other writtings from his time besides the Bible. The question should really be if you believe he is the Messiah or not. Not a question of his existence. This alone proves to me that the authors have no credibility whatsoever. Amen
Rating:
Summary: New Title, Same Old Story
Review: We've seen this before - "The Passover Plot", "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", and now "The Jesus Mysteries" - another attempt by some young paganists (especially Freke, who is a teacher of Tai Chi Chuan per his website) to try to attack fundamental Christian concepts that have withstood 2,000 years of similar attacks, yet survived. So, so, so many books like this have come and gone, all of which sound convincing on the surface, but after the authors get your money and you compare their work with actual facts - the attacks never hold up. As justification for this work, the authors pretend to desire the unification of all religions, and make outrageous claims such as "Baptists hate Methodists and Methodistst hate Catholics". These claims are undocumented, unfounded, and silly. In truth, "observant" Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, are experiencing renewed alliances in joint outreach programs throughout the United States. No, in reality, it is non-observants who hate observants. Watch any movie or television show to see how observants are treated, and you'll see for yourself. I personally was baptized Baptist, have a Catholic father, and have attended Methodist church for 10 years - so I guess, if this book is to believed, I must hate myself. Well, I don't, but I sure hate that I wasted my time and money on yet-another wild goose chase. Do yourself a favor and purchase a different book, like "Hollywood Vs. America" by Michael Medved, or "Their Blood Cries Out" by Paul Marshall.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating subject - poor book
Review: If the question to be asked is 'are there pagan influences in Christianity?' the answer is 'of course there are'. No one denies this. But to go further and claim Jesus never existed and is a fictional contruct from pagan myths is to place oneself way out on the fringes of opinion. To hold your own you need to present a water tight case. This book fails because its authors are engaged in polemic instead of scholarship. Rather than objectively present the facts from their sources they selectively and inaccurately quote to make their point. For instance, the authors miss out Justin Martyr specifically saying in about 150AD that no pagan Godmen were crucified and instead claim, based on later sources, that they were. They could have tried to explain away Justin's comment but to miss it out completely when he is freely quoted on other matters is unforgivable. Likewise, they claim that 'no serious scholar' believes Josephus's passage on Jesus contains any genuine material. This is untrue and the authors must know it. Michael Grant and John Dominic Crossan are extremely serious scholars and certainly not conservative Christians. Rather than quote real scholars, they often use books that no academic would be seen dead with. These include Ian Wilson (who still thinks the Turin Shroud is genuine) and GE Wells (who didn't believe Jesus existed at all). Many other books that are quoted are so ancient that even univeristy libraries do not seem to have them. Any chance of using up to date scholarship? Often in this book perjurative and aggressive language is used instead of the measured prose of academia. This is intended to outrage the reader against the wrongs done by various early Christians. No counter examples, balance or context is supplied at all. For instance, the authors allege widespread torture or execution on the basis of one or two judiciously chosen quotations admitted by historians to represent unique events (like the awful murder of Hypatia). They explain how only seven of Paul's letters in the New Testament are genuine (arguable but reasonable) and that Acts is written too late to be reliable (ditto). But they then quote from some of the spurious letters (Ephesians and Colosians) and Acts to help make their own point that Paul was a gnostic! This is invalid and quite possibly dishonest. In short, this book is intended as polemic against historical Christianity. No doubt many arguments can be made against it but to lace your prose with falsehoods, double standards and polemic shows you are not serious about scholarship and only interested in scoring points and selling books. I'm afraid no serious scholar would use their precious time to even read this book, let alone review it.
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