The Birth of Christianity, Reality and Myth, Joel Carmichael

Title:  The Birth of Christianity – Reality and Myth 

Condition:  VERY GOOD 

Author/s:  Joel Carmichael 

Edition/Year:  1992 

Publisher: Dorset Press 

Pages: 228 

Format:  Hardback 

About the Book: 

In the year 6 A.D, the Jews launched a movement against the Roman Empire.  This movement, which used the words ‘Kingdom of God’ as its code, swelled into the Jewish rebellion of 66-70AD. 

In Birth of Christianity: Reality and Myth, Joel Carmichael argues that Jesus was executed by the Romans in 32 AD as a rebel against the state.  It was only after his execution that he was hailed as the Son of God, a fact that has been widely misinterpreted by both Jews and Christians. 

Carmichael maintains that it was St Paul , after the death of Jesus, who provided the organizational structure, the meaning and the drive behind the Christian movement.  It was his vision that triggered the exaltation of Jesus, and after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD, his letters and papers that became the core of Christian doctrine.  In centuries since, the ‘Kingdom of God’ has become a hazy ideal and metaphor.