Introduction 1 1 The Early Books Written about Jesus 3 The Other Books 3 The New Testament Documents 6 2 Palestine at the Time of Jesus 13 3 The Rightful King 17 The Privileged Background 20 Public Recognition 21 4 The Secret the Church Forbade 23 5 The Council of Jerusalem 29 The Acts of the Apostles 30 6 He is a Prophet 38 The "Sons" of God 40 7 The Meaning of Islam 44 Notes and References 47 Bibliography 50 People have argued, have killed each other, have waged wars throughout the course of the last two thousand years over the way in which particular passages of the New Testament should be understood. In the past, when Church Fathers or other individuals were confronted with one of the various biblical ambiguities and contradictions, they speculated about its meaning. They attempted to interpret it. Once accepted, the conclusion of their speculation - that is, their interpretation - would become enshrined as dogma. Over the centuries, it then came to be regarded as established fact. Such conclusions are not fact at all. On the contrary, they are speculation and interpretation made into a tradition; and it is this tradition which is constantly mistaken for fact. We basically know what views are held by the major branches of Christianity, but how did they arrive at those doctrines? To completely understand Christianity and the Jesus of history, it is essential to examine all possible aspects. It is important not only to know what is taught by the Church, but also what is ignored, and to know why it is ignored. The Gospels give us an idea of who Jesus was, but the Gospels are documents of a stark, mythic simplicity. They describe a world stripped to certain bare essentials, a world of a timeless, almost fairy-tale character. The effect is like reading a biography of, say, Billy Graham which makes no mention of his friendships with presidents and other prominent individuals, no mention of Kennedy's assassination, no mention of the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, the transformation of values during the 1960's, or Watergate and its aftermath. Contrary to Christian tradition, Palestine, at the time of the Christian era, was not a fairy-tale kingdom. It was a real place, with real individuals, such as one might find anywhere else in the world at any other time in history. Herod was not a king of obscure legend. He was a very powerful book, in pdf format, by Robert Maude, one of the most important works on the New Testament. The author addressed a number of important questions and responded to them. The book begins by talking about the first books that talked about Christ, then the modern books, the New Testament, how Christ compared to the Old Testament, and then tells us about Palestine in the era of Christ. He talks about the secrets that the Church and the Council of Jerusalem forbade, and also deals with the question that Christ is the Son of God. The book concludes by talking about the meaning of Islam, هذه العقائ