James, the Brother of Jesus

The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls

By: Robert Eisenman

Narrated by: Bob Souer

James was a vegetarian, wore only linen clothing, bathed daily at dawn in cold water, and was a life-long Nazirite. In this profound and provocative work of scholarly detection, eminent biblical scholar Robert Eisenman introduces a startling theory about the identity of James - the brother of Jesus - who was almost entirely marginalized in the New Testament. Drawing on long-overlooked early church texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Eisenman reveals in this groundbreaking exploration that James, not Peter, was the real successor to the movement we now call "Christianity". In an argument with enormous implications, Eisenman identifies Paul as deeply compromised by Roman contacts. James is presented as not simply the leader of Christianity of his day, but the popular Jewish leader of his time, whose death triggered the uprising against Rome - a fact that creative rewriting of early church documents has obscured.

Eisenman reveals that characters such as "Judas Iscariot" and "the Apostle James" did not exist as such. In delineating the deliberate falsifications in New Testament documents, Eisenman shows how - as James was written out - anti-Semitism was written in. By rescuing James from the oblivion into which he was cast, the final conclusion of James, the Brother of Jesus is, in the words of the Jerusalem Post, "apocalyptic" - who and whatever James was, so was Jesus.

©1998 Robert Eisenman (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Indispensable!

This book is indispensable for understanding the ideas and the personalities that were in play in first-century Palestine. The book is over forty hours long, but is so densely packed with information that you always have to pay attention. However, this is not difficult as the narrator is truly excellent and the information is fascinating. Yes, as one reviewer said, I think a section or two of the book is repeated, but I didn't mind this at all, as it only served to help me absorb the material. This is certainly one to listen to more than once, as I have not seen any Bible scholar who's been able to dive so deeply into the subject matter. In my opinion, extremely brilliant and highly recommended!

A must for theological research & biblical insight

Perhaps as educational and insightful as there could be in regards to James and his importance to Christianity as it rationally discusses why and how this biblical correction should be understood. Although this is a long, it gives validation to the efforts of their digging out the truth from frequently and sometimes obvious intentional altering of the New Testament.

enjoyed a fascinating theory

I love this narrator. fast paced. the book also goes quite deep into various chunks of history for the period. so I managed to listen to the entire book and kept coming back to it.

Thought Provoking

This is a long book - but it’s also a testament to the author’s exhaustive research into “extra-biblical” texts. The book builds a solid case for the idea that the histories of Jesus, his biological brothers James, Simon and Judas, as well as the histories of Paul and early Christianity itself, have been corrupted and re-written. It took me several weeks to get through it, but it was well worth the effort. The narration was excellent - which was a big help.

Fantastic information.

This work was very informative. Thank you for sharing such an indept and well researched document.