The Jesus Dynasty

The basic theme of the book is that Jesus was not the son of God. He was a man who wanted to find a way to get rid of the Romans.

Some of the main points of the book:

The Shroud of Turin is a fake and dates to 1300 AD.

It discusses the burial box of James, the brother of Jesus.

Roman leaders wanted to wipe out anyone who was considered of the House of David. Both Jesus and Mary were of that lineage.

Mary, the woman who ended up the wife of Joseph, was pregnant before they ever got married or had relations. It was probably by a Roman soldier. She was 14 at the time.

Using a name such as 'Jesus son of Mary' in those days indicated a child born out of wedlock. Otherwise he would be known as 'Jesus son of Joseph.'

Jesus may have had four brothers and two sisters.

Joseph, already an old man when he married, probably died early on since there is no reference to him at all after the initial birth of Jesus story.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, might have married Joseph's brother. A widow marrying her husband's brother was not unusual in those days.

Jesus' family was poor.

Jewish people discussed the Torah a lot.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus baptized people.

The author believes that Jesus read certain passages of the Scriptures and applied them to himself. Along with John the Baptist and others they became involved in a Messianic Movement which belived that the Kingdom of God was due soon and the Romans would be driven out.

The execution of John the Baptist threw the group following Jesus into confusion. That was one thing they didn't expect. (Whey they would not expect that is hard for me to figure out since the Romans had made an established policy of killing anyone who they might suspect were behind a movement against Rome. The Romans certainly had no problem killing people. Lots of people.)

The book discusses whether it was the Romans or the Jews who were behind the killing of Jesus.

After Jesus died, his brother James took over the movement only to be later stoned to death. Paul had a great deal to do with the form of Christianity practiced today.

There's also a whole lot of other material in this book. If you believe the traditional story of the resurrection of Jesus then you might not like this book but if you are open to other possibilities then this book is for you.