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    The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity
    The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity
    The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity

    Written by James D. Tabor

    Narrated by James D. Tabor

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    About this audiobook

    Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian documents and recent archaeological discoveries, The Jesus Dynasty offers a bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. The story is surprising, controversial and exciting as only a long-lost history can be when it is at last recovered.

    In The Jesus Dynasty, biblical scholar James Tabor brings us closer than ever to the historical Jesus. He sheds new light on Jesus' relationship with John the Baptizer, the role played by his brother James, and how Paul's ministry transformed Jesus' message, into what would become Christianity.

    James Tabor has studied the earliest surviving documents of Christianity for more than thirty years. He reconstructs for us the movement that sought the spiritual, social, and political redemption of the Jews, a movement led by one family. The Jesus Dynasty offers an alternative version of Christian origins, one that takes us closer than ever to Jesus and his family and followers.

    This audiobook will change our understanding of one of the most crucial moments in history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateApr 4, 2006
    ISBN9780743554213
    Author

    James D. Tabor

    James D. Tabor is chair of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He holds a PhD in biblical studies and is an expert on Christian origins. He is the author of several books, among them The Jesus Dynasty. Visit him online at JamesTabor.com.

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    Reviews for The Jesus Dynasty

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      This was a strange book. At its core, this is a story about an historical Jesus who is a political rebel, convinced God will help him and his followers overthrow Rome and rule Israel. But it’s framed by the popular story of the discovery of the James ossuary, and the scandal does the book no favors. The dynasty is Jesus and his parents and siblings. The title kind of hints that this will be about Jesus‘s offspring, like something out of Dogma or The DaVinci Code. But for all that the claims here are much more pedestrian, they don’t feel proven. It’s not clear why the author chooses to take the New Testament sources at face value when he does and why he questions then when he questions them, except maybe on the way to his next point. When the gospels contradict each other, he chooses winners and losers. Maybe unsurprisingly since James is the star figure here, the heir apparent of this Jesus Dynasty, the author seems to find nothing worth questioning in the traditional accreditation of the epistle of James to James the brother of a Jesus.

      All told, I’d call this account plausible but not convincing. This would have been a better book if it had focused on the pre-Paul Jesus movement, since that seems to be its key. I suspect the publisher pushed too hard to make this about the bone box in the news.

      And since this is an audiobook… the author is not a bad narrator, but it would have been better to hire a professional.

      In sum: Neat ideas that I’d like to see explored and backed up.

      Edit: I notice the end piece says this book is abridged. Maybe that’s the source of some of the trouble?
    • 4/5
      As an atheist, I found this interpretation of Jesus to be fascinating. If you are open to looking at his life and death from an angle different from that preached in Christian churches, it's worth a read.
    • 5/5
      This is the best known modern historian of Jewish Christianity. He talks about the family of Jesus.
    • 5/5
      So much about the gospels is difficult to reconcile. So much of the gospels make little sense. Was Jesus a radical opposing Roman rule? A leader of Judaism's counter-culture? God's emissary on earth? If Joseph wasn't really the father, why the emphasis on a genealogy connecting Joseph with David? Tabor, I think, is on to something. For those of us who have trouble believing in the supernatural, Tabor's approach is the only one that makes sense. There are surprises galore - including some that are write in front of us as we read the gospels. A worthwhile read, and this reader has become a convert to this secular approach and in doing so comes to admire Jesus even more than before.Or might he have been the leader of an effort to restore Israel's royal dynasty to power and reclaim the Davidian throne as leader of the Kingdom of God - a real kingdom made up of God's chosen people, the Jews?Tabor makes a compelling case for the latter. And the more I read the gospels, the more I'm convinced that his argument is the one that seems to reconcile what otherwise would be irreconcilable.
    • 3/5
      Since the phenomenal success of "The DaVinci Code," with its provocative storyline about clues to a fantastic secret about Jesus Christ with clues buried in plain sight, others have rushed to tap into this interest. From the box office hits in the "National Treasure" series to other novels, people have tried to capture the blending of treasure hunt and history so prominent in Dan Brown's novel.Particularly interesting have been the attempts of scholars to tie into these new-found (or at least newly profitable) historical interests. Numerous books about religious truths covered up over the centuries, but with clues in plain sight, have appeared in the last ten years -- several of them tied to the Knights Templar, the Renaissance, long-ignored stories about this historical Jesus, and other facets of Brown's novel. None has been more brazen in its theory, though, as James Tabor's "The Jesus Dynasty," which argues that the archeological and literary evidence suggests that Jesus of Nazareth was trying to establish an earthly Jewish kingdom.Tabor, a professor of religious studies, ties into the revelation of the so-called "Jesus' family tomb," which is an ancient tomb in Jerusalem recently discovered to have several ossuaries (stone boxes for storing the bones of the deceased) inscribed with names such as James, Mary, and most astoundingly, Jesus son of Joseph. Leaving aside the issue of how a Jesus' ossuary would affect a faith which professes an unburied, resurrected Jesus, Tabor addresses a key historical problem with associating this tomb with Jesus of Nazareth -- why would such a family burial site be in Jerusalem? The literary evidence shows that neither Jesus nor his family lived in Jerusalem, at least until after his crucifixion.Contemporary family tombs were usually located in ancestral places; as such, the burial location of Jesus' family (assuming they were buried together in a family tomb) should be somewhere in Nazareth or perhaps Bethlehem. Tabor's solution is as elegant as it is provocative -- Jesus' family believed itself to be the restoration of the Jewish monarchy, led first by Jesus and then by his younger brothers, James and Simon; as such, they would choose to be buried in the royal city of Jerusalem.The book is designed to support this thesis. Drawing heavily from the gospel narratives, Tabor culls various clues that suggest Jesus believed himself a new king, especially after the death of John the Baptist. Many of the clues Tabor points to have long been recognized by serious students of the New Testament texts, though Tabor relates them in new ways. Like many seekers of the historical Jesus, Tabor believes that the Gospel writers, in their attempt to bring meaning to the story of Jesus of Nazareth, mischaracterized many of the historical facts, even as they preserved them. The scholar's job is then to discern the real meaning of these facts and present them anew in their proper context. The problem with this endeavor, though, is deciding which facts are historical facts and which are interpretations, a challenge highlighted over a century ago by Albert Schweitzer in his critique of "The Quest for the Historical Jesus." Tabor gives little insight into how he separates the proverbial wheat from the chaff in this book. Given that it is meant to be a popular history, this slighting of methodology is to be expected (unfortunately), but Tabor offers little justification for many of his decisions, including his odd reliance on the Gospel of John, frequently believed in such circles to be the least historical of the four canonical gospels.Some of Tabor's insights are intriguing, offering new approaches to age-old interpretation problems, such as his presentation of the differing genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, and his inclusion of some of Jesus' biological brothers in the twelve named disciples. And Tabor is to be commended for his bold stance that Jesus' apocalyptic worldview and consistent references to the throne of David might not be metaphorical. Still, for all of the fun that the book is to read -- and it is fun, particularly for someone versed in this material, to see Tabor push his argument into uncharted territory -- it is also immensely frustrating, because Tabor seems to cherry-pick his facts to suit his argument, virtually ignoring a wealth of other data that likely contradicts it. These reservations exist even before one considers the sharp criticisms that have faced the archaeology behind the "Jesus' family tomb" since this book's publication, leading most to believe it's a fraud.It would be wrong to label Tabor's book a fraud, even for its disappointments and shortcomings. There is real scholarship behind it and in it, despite its rather over-the-top thesis. It merits consideration by those intrigued by the latest quest for the historical Jesus, alongside other recent books and articles. But others would do well to leave it alone.