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Summary: I'm disappointed after all the other reviews
Review: After hearing Archarya S on The Infidel Guy, I thought that this would be far more original, objective, and scientific. When I finally reached the chapter on the influence of astrology did I suddenly realize the author's intent in writing this book. Up until then my only criticism would have been her excessive reliance on and lengthy quotations from secondary sources. But after reading the chapter on astrology, I skipped to the last two chapters and read her premise of an ancient widespread civilization, and her conclusions on entering the "Age of Aquarius". Then, as an athiest/agnostic, I felt cheated. Maybe I'm simple, but in none of the earlier book reviews nor in the interview on The Infidel Guy did I ever see anyone mention her claim of astrology being a valid science or of her other "New Age" notions. Had I known this, I would not have wasted my money or time.
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Summary: The Key to the Door of Truth
Review: I deconverted in April, and came across this book on Amazon. As soon as I received it, I refer to it practically every day. I have alot to learn, and this book is certainly one of the best places to start.I have ordered many books on the subject, but always like to pick this one up to sift through and reread things. It is an important reference book for me. I can't imagine the whole world not wanting to grab this book and stand on street corners to share it with everyone. This is information that the world so desperately needs to hear! I can't believe our society has repressed the truth. I am only thankful that I have found it. I think Acharya S is brilliant! She is such a brave pioneer to expose the truth. I for one am indebted to her.
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Summary: THE GREATEST SCANDAL EVER EXPOSED
Review: Acharya S. calls the Christ conspiracy, the greatest story ever sold; I would call her book the greatest scandal ever exposed. It's a well known fact that very few believers read the Bible. And of those who do read it, they either don't understand it, or they understand it the way they are told. If you think the Bible is the product of honest men concerned with humanity's salvation, you are in for a rude awakening. There are a lot of people out there who make a living off the Bible's lies and deceptions, and they are going to protect and promote it any way they can. This is one of the few books, that tells you what the establishment doesn't want you to know: that the Bible is a fake, fraud and forgery, the product of power hungry, glory seeking priests and politicians. She names names and tells you how they pulled it off. Acharya lays it all out for you in a style that is easy to read and extremely well organized. Making a boring topic like Christianity understandable, informative, and interesting is a feat in itself. Early Bibles were intentionally written in Latin, so the illiterate masses couldn't read it. By the time it was translated into the English King James Bible, the general reader could make no sense of the Bible's arcane symbolism and twisted plots. To this day, the general public is still dependant on religious and academic sources to interpret the Bible for them. The problem remains that religious works are still in la-la land, and academic tomes are usually trivial, boring and obtuse. It's the modern substitute for Latin. To get around this establishment blockade, Acharya had to go to ignored and forgotten works. Critics call that her weakness, but if you go to any of the references in her extensive bibliography, you will find a trail of evidence that gets stronger as you get deeper into the subject. Whenever I checked with conventional sources, I found they bear her out. One of her references quotes extensively from the Catholic Encyclopedia. The Bible alone presents the best case against itself. Other criticisms I've read are equally laughable. Not scientific enough, not backed by actual evidence, doesn't dig deep enough. Considering the billions of words spent conjuring a supernatural God, 431 pages of pure enlightened truth is all it took her to lay it to waste. She covers Christianity's bloody history, the dearth of Gospel literature until the second century, its' conflicts with historical facts and lack of historical corroboration, the evidence for fraud and forgery, the canonization process, its pagan and astrological roots, copycat traditions and more. From this background, she provides an introduction to biblical interpretation. You would be amazed by how much the Jewish and Christian writers plagiarized their pagan sources. This is not just another me-too interpretation, Christ Conspiracy gives you the encryption keys to Christianity's sordid past.
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Summary: Okay so I'm a bit biased
Review: The only thing that might be considered to be a drawback to this book is that sometimes it's a little dry. That's a small price to pay for the information this woman has collected to present her point, a point which most of the world DUH has not realized yet, and a point that is not new by any stretch of the imagination. This book is extensively footnoted so that you can go and look it up yourself. Acharya S pulls no punches and makes no apologies for what she presents. I find this to be a wonderful departure from other skeptics who first say, "Oooh we don't want to offend you believers, but..." At least Acharya S is not afraid of the Establishment. We need more brave researchers like her.
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Summary: Breaking the Binding Chains, a Wake up Call.
Review: Leaving Christianity? Often wondered about the conflicting stories in the Bible? If so, this is the book for you. Acharya S indicts and exposes the erroneous and deceptive nature of the 2000 + years of entrenched Dogma. She also is unafraid to challenge that which should be challenged: the harmful, greedy, murderous history that the Church has/is inflicted/ing on the world. A voice cries out from the desert. Acharya S. Indeed, Visionary, Scholar, and Honest Free Thinker. Everyone should read this book, especially current Christians. It's a wake up call, a revival of truth that's long overdue.
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Summary: Entertaining, but not scholarly
Review: The author makes many astounding assertions in this book, and they would be believable if they were backed with actual evidence. Many times, she makes a claim, then quotes another author who believes the same thing. This is not proof, it's just a sign of agreement between two people. Further, she uses English words to bolster some claims, ignoring the fact that English was not the language of choice in the time Jesus (supposedly) lived, nor in the early centuries of the Christian church. She makes some glaring factual mistakes, too, that make the entire book come across as just silly. For example, she claims that the 12 disciples of Jesus were not real people, but based on the 12 signs of the zodiac. Then she starts to list the disciples and the signs to which they should correspond -- but she does not list all 12 of the disciples, and includes some, like John the Baptist, who were not disciples at all. In a later chapter, she claims that crucifixion was 'not an actual historical event, except that it happened many times.' Huh? She also dismisses much 'evidence' of the life & death of Christ based on certain criteria, but then accepts evidence of an early church conspiracy based on even lower standards. You really can't write a rational book when you change your standards every paragraph or so. Despite its flaws, I thought the book was entertaining from a conspiracy theory standpoint, but it certainly was not scholarly or the least bit convincing. If the author ever wishes to write a second edition, I would be happy to help weed out the superfluous parts and try to keep her consistent in her logic.
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Summary: There's a good thin book hiding in this mishmash
Review: As the old scholar said to the young one, after reading the younger scholar's manuscript: "Colleague, there is much in your book that is new, and much that is true. However, that which is true is not new, and that which is new is not true." If this book were subjected to scholarly review, it would probably emerge one-third the size with most of the nonsense gone. As it stands, it's an amateur effort which (unbelievably) cites Madame Blavatsky as a reliable source (!) while attempting to demonstrate that Christianity is a false religion. Many of the points are excellent, but the book fails because of its EXTREMELY poor use of secondary sources. Our author cannot distinguish between someone like Bowersock and someone like Blavatsky, so unfortunately any interesting points made in this book need to be verified elsewhere.
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Summary: Science?
Review: The Christ Conspiracy: by Acharya S, much like her website, is geared more for sales than science. Instead of her book I suggest: Why People Believe Weird Things, by Michael Shermer. It looks at religious belief, psychic phenomena, and other streches of the imagination that can not be scientifically proved. It also guides one in how to look at something scientifically without bias. And unlike Acharya's book, it reflects the standard of the industry reference citing.
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Summary: A Strange, Revealing Juxtaposition
Review: I bought this book from Amazon along with "Jesus and the Forgotten City." The latter book details the archaeological discovery and analysis of Herod's capital city of Sepphoris, located a mere 4 miles from Nazareth. This investigation was aided by sponsorship from National Geographic, because they wanted this discovery to appear as the Christmas 1999 cover story. The resulting perspective of this dig proved that Jesus' influences were not rural but more urban. The board of National Geographic eventually vetoed the idea of this story for Christmas because they found it too controversial. Why? Then, I read "The Christ Conspiracy" and what was always a suspicion was verified. True, Acharya S does get a little opinionated, which disturbs those who are looking for a more academic type book, but maybe she wants to get her subject in our face. And why not. The persecution of other groups of people, especially the Jews, based on some one who really did not exist, is an abomination. I have read books on biblical archaeology and Jesus studies for years. The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Q Document, the Nag Hammadi Library, books by Karen Armstrong and Elaine Pagels. This book condenses a lot of the studies into a single volume and reveals the evolution of our current religious milieu from our ancient archetypes. And as one of the other reviewers stated, "the truth will set you free." The combination of those two books produced an emotional response that did set my mind free. It was perfectly obvious why the board of National Geographic was against the article and why most of the major religions are not sponsoring archaeology digs in Israel. It is not that they are afraid of finding something that will refute the Bible; it is the fact that they will not find anything proving that Jesus existed, which has been the condition thus far. So, in Sepphoris, Herod's Galilean capital, within walking distance of Nazareth, nothing has been found placing Jesus in his supposed location. And, Acharya S' and other scholars' hypotheses are proven true. And the conspiracy continues to be bolstered, even by National Geographic.
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Summary: To the Enlightened Western Mind...
Review: The only reason I did not give this book a higher rating is because of the tone of the book...but it does not deserve the trashing that a couple reviewers gave it. While it is slanted and not really in the tone of scholarly academic writing, it still contains a gold mine of information, most by "New Testament" scholars, not new agers(By the way..New Age is a deceptive publishing category...it is typically used to catagorize all the religious traditions that have reemerged after Christianity lost its iron grip on spiritual teaching). It is ludicrous to accuse the Pagans of corrupting the Christian Religion when many of them were around millenia before the advent of Christianity and most centuries before even Judaism. This book helps document some of the evidence to this point but does not dig deeply enough, it leaves out evidence of the origins of other mythological characters in the Biblical Text, mostly the other side of the "grand cosmic" conflict, Satan. And how Extermist Rabbis made him up as out of composites of Pagan Gods to be a spiritual Bogey Man(in the 7th century BCE), but he was never "popular" in Judaism and not heard from again until Christianity needed a way to demonify its opponents(for a good book on this see "The Origins of Satan" by Elaine Pagels). It has a great deal of general information about the Gnostics and their role in actually creating the early Christian movement before Christ purportedly existed. The book goes in depth into the comparative religions side of things, dealing a severe blow to the belief that there is anything unique about Christianity(you could create a list of elements of Christianity and side by side find out exactly which earlier sources they plagarized from). It also goes into exactly what lengths the Church went into to propagate its stories over others and to smash all education so their deception could not be found out until it was almost too late. All together if you want all the info you will not find it all here, so buy this book to skim the surface, then search for more books on specific topics to dig more in depth (the bibliography is a good starting place). It is an excellent beginning primer for the enlightened Western Mind, and its presentation is powerful for what it can cover, but read more and free yourself from the box of your reality.
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