The Ghost in the Gospels

Judas and Jewish leaders. Continually tried and condemned for Jesus' death. This book exonerates them and ends the longest running witch trial in history. The search for the true circumstances of Jesus' death is an intellectual detective story. The clues are all in words in the texts of the well-known Gospels and they're in the prejudices that blinded us to the obvious answer. This is not a tale about intrigue in the antiquities market. Nor is it about looking for secret documents buried in a cave. This is rather a tale about scholarly self-deception in reading the Gospels, Jewish history, and themselves. If the historical, Jewish Jesus has been buried at all, it is beneath our prejudices and fears. Uncover these and he stands before you, hidden in plain sight. That may not be the usual sort of detective story but it is as genuine a mystery as ever there was. It's worth solving.

If you're dying to know the complete solution, it's all there in a nutshell in Chapter 5. If you feel a need to wade into this more slowly, start with Chapter 1. I'll meet up with you again at the end of the book.