The Bible's greatest, most important riddle is solved. The Mystery of the Beloved Disciple: New Evidence, Complete Answer reveals the unnamed eyewitness behind John's Gospel. The undeniable answer awaits you.

"A stunning new gospel--in the words of Jesus' beloved disciple, a woman."--Dust jacket.

The story of Jesus and the Beloved Disciple is a beautiful and intriguing love story, well worth being treated as serious literature and appearing between covers of its own. For this version of the story, editor Tobias Skinner has chosen to believe, for reasons set forth in the preface, that it was Lazarus who first wrote this version of the gospel. Who would be more inclined to write of Jesus as God in the flesh, as the incarnation of Logos, as infallible, as a worker of miracles—something the author of this gospel does far more often than the authors of the other three—than a man who believes Jesus saved him from death and who is so comfortable in his love relationship with Jesus that he can confidently and repeatedly refer to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” and at the end as “the disciple whom Jesus sincerely loved”? Skinner here presents a readable alternative text for this ancient story of love.

Follow the author on his worldwide adventures as he learns the mysterious identity of the Emissaries of Light, an ancient community of spiritual masters said to have existed for thousands of years.

The Authority of God¿s Word ¿All scripture is given by inspiration of God¿ (2Ti. 3:16a). Therefore, the record of scripture is true, and ideas that are contrary to the facts in scripture must be false. Nevertheless, the Bible lets us know that the traditions of men can deceive people into believing ideas that are not in the word of God. In the Bible ¿the disciple whom Jesus loved¿ is identified as the writer of the fourth gospel, he had access to the palace of the high priest, he was the first one who ¿believed¿ after Jesus¿ resurrection, and some thought he would not die. Scripture never identified this unnamed disciple as John, but tradition has convinced people that he was John ¿ in spite of the biblical evidence to the contrary. The truth in this case of The Bible vs. Tradition is found in scripture, so it will be the only source quoted herein. Integrity demands a hearing for the biblical evidence. But submitting to the authority of God¿s word on this issue reveals more than just the truth about this disciple. For, what this insight teaches us about relying on scripture is the key to a better bible study method.

Here, Griffith-Jones (Master of the Temple Church, London; The Four Witnesses: The Rebel, the Rabbi, the Chronicler, and the Mystic) takes a trendy Da Vinci Code topic and provides the scriptural and historical background that gave writers like Dan Brown license to cast Mary Magadalene as Jesus's presumed wife. Following a Gospel survey paying special attention to John's treatment of Mary, Griffith-Jones turns his focus to Gnostic works of the second and third centuries, and herein lies the work's primary strength. Unlike Susan Haskin in the impressive cultural history Mary Magdalene: Truth and Myth, Griffith-Jones here situates Mary in the canonical Christian scripture and then demonstrates Gnosticism's imaginative use of Mary as a site of incarnational theology, sexual dimorphism, and Sophia/Wisdom in creation. In the last chapter, he considers her evolution in aesthetic and cultural terms, with illustrations charting her evolution from repentant prostitute into an eroticized sexual figure embodying physical intimacy with the risen Christ. In Mary, claims Griffith-Jones, we glimpse our fundamental striving to understand what it means to be an embodied human being. An accessible read whose greatest usefulness is its Gnostic analysis; recommended.--Sandra Collins, Byzantine Catholic Seminary Lib., Pittsburgh Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This is the new official Schonfield Trust edition of the Passover Plot which is probably one of the most controversial books on the role of Jesus the Messiah. Yet to say that, might detract from its scholarly attention to detail and its furnishing of new insights into the character of the Man who changed the world so radically. Thus it is a ‘must read’ for who are seeking a better understanding. Schonfield’s aim in life was to build a bridge between peoples and he hoped that by digging into the facts behind the origins of Christianity, he would be able to uncover the real Messiah, misrepresented since time immemorial. His sincere desire was that this understanding would bring together those who had so long been divided. Whilst his thesis that Jesus plotted his own crucifixion may seem far-fetched or even offensive at first, seen in the light of John’s Gospel and the thinking of the times it provides food for thought to those with an open mind.