A new work published by Prometheus Books confronts Christianity with its greatest challenge in many a year. "The Making of the Messiah" by Robert Sheaffer differs from conventional works of Freethinkers by suggesting a radically different picture of the rise of Christianity. The book describes, to use Nietzsche's phrase, "The Birth of Christianity from the Spirit of Resentment." It tells why Christianity could only develop as it did, emerging from the envious anger of the lower classes. It shows how Christian writers altered historical facts to make the new religion "sell" better among those seething with resentment against Roman power and wealth. By looking at the chronological evolution of Christian writings and doctrine, exactly as skeptics investigate contemporary accounts of UFO abductions or psychic wonders, it is possible to infer the kinds of objections that the infant Church must have been struggling to meet, and from these long-suppressed objections deduce probable historical fact. This new perspective radically impacts Biblical criticism, in a manner that Humanists and Freethinkers will wholeheartedly applaud.

"The Making of the Messiah" presents a compelling argument that Jesus was never "crucified" by the Romans, or anyone else. The familiar Gospel account of Jesus' death is termed the "cruci- fiction story." Biblical scholars generally acknowledge that the confusing and contradictory Gospel accounts of Jesus' two trials make absolutely no sense from the perspective of either Roman or Jewish law. Resolving this dilemma, the book presents compelling evidence that Jesus was indeed condemned by the Sanhedrin as stated in Mark 14:64, stoned to death, and hanged on a tree until sundown: the inescapable penalty under the Mosaic law for blasphemers and heretics. All of the ancient Rabbinical texts mentioning Jesus' death are totally consistent in recalling that he was "slain and hanged on a tree." There are even a few passages remaining in the oldest books of the New Testament proclaiming Jesus to have been slain and "hanged on a tree" - for example, Acts 5:30 and Galatians 3:13. These passages are NOT metaphor: they describe the punishment Jesus MUST have suffered if found guilty of the charges he faced! (See Deuteronomy 13:10; 21:22.) How did the cruci-fiction story arise? Several decades after Jesus' execution, when the infant Church sought to recruit converts among the Gentiles, the tale of a Jewish prophet "slain and hanged on a tree" probably failed to excite or inflame the listener. But when the story was changed to have Jesus "crucified" by the Romans, the tale electrified the resentful throughout the vast Empire.

Another subject covered in great detail is Jesus' supposed "Virgin Birth." In recent years even many liberal Christians have been willing to question this highly-dubious claim. They quietly assume that Jesus must have been the natural son of Joseph. What they do not seem to realize is that it is absolutely clear (see Matthew 1:19) that Joseph knew the child was not his, and that he believed Mary to be guilty of adultery. This is abundantly confirmed by a number of other ancient texts, both Christian and Jewish. Therefore, unless Mary's pregnancy is of supernatural origin, she is an adulteress. Tracing the development of Christianity's various accounts of Jesus' origin, it becomes obvious that the "Virgin Birth" fable, which was not taught until nearly a century after Jesus was born, was invented as a "cover story" to mask the shameful reality of Jesus' illegitimate birth. The gospels of Mark and John say nothing whatever about Jesus' birth; the authors of those gospels must have assumed that the reader already knew of Jesus' illegitimacy, which intrudes upon the text in several places. The genealogies of Jesus given in Matthew and Luke differ because the former was obviously compiled by someone hostile to the new religion. It lists among Jesus' ancestors some of the most notorious disinherited kings and fallen women of the Davidic line. The problem was fixed in Luke, whose genealogy contains only respectable names. Because bastard children were treated extremely harshly under the Mosaic law, it is not surprising that Jesus chafed at the restrictions The Law placed upon him, claiming the inspiration of a "higher law" from above. Jesus' experience of being "despised and rejected" owing to an accident of birth shaped the very fabric of early Christianity, and drew together under that religion's banner all who chafed at living under The Law.

What set Jesus apart from other Messianic pretenders was the claim that he arose from the dead. The evidence offered in support of this claim is scrutinized in detail. When these accounts are examined in chronological order of composition, in light of long-suppressed Roman-era criticisms, a clear pattern emerges. The earliest accounts make the least-convincing claims of an actual, physical resurrection. Paul sees a vision of a risen Jesus, which is worthless as "evidence" for anything. As time progresses, Christianity's claims that people had sighted an actual, physical risen Jesus become more definite. Many ancient manuscripts of the earliest gospel, Mark, contain absolutely no sightings of a risen Jesus, whose resurrection is merely inferred because his body was not where it had been left. Mark 16:9-20, which describes such sightings, was written years later, to answer objections that nobody actually SAW Jesus after his supposed resurrection. The only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that the supposed resurrection never occurred.

Robert Sheaffer is the author of "Resentment Against Achievement" (Prometheus, 1988). Laissez Faire Books hails it as "a modern classic," comparing it to the works of H. L. Mencken, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ayn Rand. Success Magazine writes that "the book crackles with ideas that others have failed to perceive, or have been too timid to express." Sheaffer's first book was "The UFO Verdict" (Prometheus, 1981), a highly-skeptical analysis of UFO mania, about which Sky and Telescope magazine said, "if you're only going to have one book on UFOs, this is the one." He is a regular columnist for The Skeptical Inquirer.

  Resentment Against Achievement

Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1988, Cloth, $27.95. ISBN 0-87975-447-8.

From SUCCESS Magazine, November, 1988, p. 4:
Editor's Note by Scott DaGarmo

Resentment Against Achievement - A Motivational Tour de Force   "Wealth is crime enough to him that's poor." -Sir John Denham (1615-1669)

Those who hate achievement have made their mark throughout history.
Angry mobs inflamed by envy destroyed the magnificent works of ancient civilization. In their insane riots, these madmen even dismembered the statues we still treasure for their beauty, despite their missing limbs.
Today we see the hatred of achievement in slashed tires, vandalized classrooms, and sabotaged office machines.
We see it in a hostile suspicion toward "greedy capitalists," who are depicted as exploiters rather than what they really are - the creators of jobs and wealth.
We see it in a surly animosity toward managers and owners, who are reviled as enemies despite the fact that they would like nothing better than to inspire the resentful with a desire to achieve. Instead of seeing employers as powerful economic allies, the resentful scorn their values, then blame "the system" on their not being able to find work.
We see it among intellectuals, who seethe with jealousy at the sight of individuals less educated than they making bigger incomes.
We see it in lower-class toughs, whose poverty is "an inevitable consequence of the achievement-hating values they preserve and (forcibly) transmit."
All this and more makes up the thesis of a new book by Robert Sheaffer entitled "Resentment Against Achievement". Subtitled "Understanding the Assault Upon Ability," the book crackles with ideas that others have failed to perceive, or have been too timid to express.
The rhetoric of resentment is highly polished, and achievers are often left speechless in its onslaught. Within this book is a reply to virtually every defense made for the resentful. For example, says the author, people do not steal because they are poor. (A fatuous notion when you note that what is stolen today are not loaves of bread and beans but luxury items like jewelry and stereos that are fenced for drugs.) Rather, they are poor because they steal. Sheaffer makes a rational - rather than moralistic - case that the "upper-class" values of honesty, reliability, self-discipline, and respect for property are integral to success for anyone.
Similarly, Sheaffer asserts that what is needed in education is nothing less than an assault on lower-class culture. Sheaffer is not talking about genocide, but about a "benign cultural imperialism" allied at recruiting lower-class members into the upper classes by teaching them how to succeed.
Don't mistake Sheaffer for a bigoted arch-conservative. He is a libertarian, with a powerful belief in individual liberties, free trade, and open opportunity. He has articulated a philosophy for a complex, urban, high-tech, competitive, entrepreneurial society - a philosophy that affirms a new-age morality based on accomplishment.
This book will offend those with rigidly conventional religious views, and I suggest they do not read it. On the other hand, those who thrive on the elixir of fresh insights will be delighted as the author excoriates religion for romanticizing, and hence perpetuating, economic incompetence. Sheaffer urges the impoverished to break away from a slave morality that encourages passivity, and embrace a new morality based on the pride of achievement.
Today, you don't need to be born wealthy to be perceived as a member of the higher classes, says Sheaffer. "Those who adopt higher-class values and ethics will find themselves gradually accumulating so much money that no one will doubt their status any longer."
He urges everyone to experience the joy of being achievers, those fortunate people who "create because of an inner fire urging them onward."
For all its harsh denunciation of the resentful, this book is a positive call to action not to harm people but to help them succeed. Some will see this work as mainly political. But the author has also written a valuable tour de force of motivation with a message for us all:
Harboring resentment is self-destructive. It keeps you from succeeding.

All the above books are still in print. They can be ordered from your local bookstore, or directly from Prometheus Books at 1-800-421-0351

Books To Which I have Contributed Papers

Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand

I contributed a chapter on "Rereading Rand on Gender in the Light of Paglia." Other contributors to the volume include Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Camille Paglia, and Joan Kennedy Taylor.

Edited by Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1997

An outstanding collection of papers, many of them reprinted from The Skeptical Inquirer, containing up-to-date and reliable information on many famous UFO claims such as The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, written by authors like Philip J. Klass, Joe Nickell, James Oberg, Gene Emery, Robert A. Baker, etc. I contributed an article on the Gulf Breeze UFO Photos.

I contributed the articles The Philadelphia Experiment and Unidentified Flying Objects. In fact, I wrote everything that begins with the letter "U".

Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia

Norma H. Dickey, Editor-in-chief. Funk & Wagnalls, Inc., 1984.

I contributed the article Unidentified Flying Objects, in Vol. 27, on p. 159.

I contributed the paper An Examination of Claims that Extraterrestrial Visitors to Earth Are Being Observed. Other contributors to the volume, taken from papers presented to a Conference at the University of Maryland, include Freeman Dyson (Jim Oberg and I had lunch with him), Sebastian von Hoerner, Ronald Bracewell, Jill Tarter, and the late Cyril Ponnamperuma.

This was the now-famous conference organized by John Mack, Budd Hopkins, David E. Pritchard, and David Jacobs. I contributed the paper A Skeptical Perspective on UFO Abductions, on p. 382. When C. D. B. Bryan wrote up his account of this conference, Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind, so beloved of pro-abduction UFOlogists, he somehow forgot to mention my paper, as well as several others he apparently didn't like.

Major Articles I Have Written

Truth Abducted

Psychic Vibrations

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