The Jesus Mysteries - Was The Original Jesus a Pagan God?
by Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy
1999

“Whether you conclude that this book is the most alarming heresy of the millennium or the mother of all revelations, The Jesus Mysteries deserves to be read.”
-- Fort Worth Star -Telegram

What if . . .

• there were absolutely no evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus?
  * for thousands of years Pagans had also followed a Son of God?
• this Pagan savior was also born of a virgin on the twenty-fifth of December before three shepherds, turned water into wine at a wedding, died and was resurrected, and offered his body and blood as a Holy Communion?
• these Pagan myths had been rewritten as the gospel of Jesus Christ?
• the earliest Gnostic Christians knew that the Jesus story was a myth?
• Christianity turned out to be a continuation of Paganism by another name?

This astonishing book completely undermines the traditional history of Christianity that has been perpetuated for centuries by the Church. Drawing on the cutting edge of modern scholarship, authors Tim Freke and Peter Gandy present overwhelming evidence that the Jesus of the New Testament is a mythical figure.

Far from being eyewitness accounts, as is traditionally held, the Gospels are actually Jewish adaptations of ancient Pagan myths of the dying and resurrecting godman Osiris-Dionysus. The supernatural story of Jesus is not the history of a miraculous Messiah, but a carefully crafted spiritual allegory designed to guide initiates on a journey of mystical discovery.

A little more than a century ago most people believed that the strange story of Adam and Eve was history; today it is understood to be a myth. Within a few decades, Freke and Gandy argue, we will likewise be amazed that the fabulous story of God incarnate -- who was born of a virgin, who turned water into wine, and who rose from the dead -- could have been interpreted as anything but a profound parable.