Christian Beginnings Revisited

About the Book

Although none of the author-editors of the four canonical gospels walked with Jesus, embedded clues point to written source materials emanating from disciples who did: particularly the found Gospel of Thomas, the lost Gospel of Q1 and an inferred lost Gospel of “Early John.” While used and changed radically by the later evangelists, especially Mark and John, embedded source elements permit a surprising new reconstruction of the life of Jesus. After his crucifixion by the Romans, three divergent streams of belief represented by Judas Thomas the Twin, James brother of Jesus, and Paul of Tarsus progressed and collided, culminating in the scriptural ascendancy of the Pauline viewpoint following the Roman-Jewish War.

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About the Author

William Mennie is an independent scholar in retirement from a 35-year socio-economic research career with the Government of Canada. He attended McGill University and the London School of Economics, and resides in Ottawa. Born into the United Church of Canada, he converted to Catholicism, but later separated himself from any particular religious tradition. His book, a carefully reasoned exploration of the historical evidence about Jesus, his disciples and the evangelists, offers some novel and challenging hypotheses.