The author exposes how the Gospels are fictional mythologies created by different communities for various purposes and are only distantly related to the actual historical Jesus. Mack's innovative scholarship'which boldly challenges traditional Christian understanding'will change the way you approach the New Testament and think about how Christianity arose.

A excellent book to anyone that has serious and not based on faith interest on the Bible. Yes, there is some dose of speculation but how to investigate these times without some assumptions. And Mack knows how support his thesis with clever clues, building a consistent construction.
The amazing chapters about Paul's Gospels analysis give us a impressive idea of Paul's character showing him as a compound of sincerity and charlatanism, common characteristics of a Mythmaker. ( )

Certainly Mack's book should take its place in the front rank of the many fine introductions available to students of “New Testament” in both academic and non-academic settings. It is a comprehensive synthesis of New Testament scholarship that is nevertheless popularly accessible. That will make it a particularly useful introductory text in an area where such texts are in great demand. But it is more than an excellent introduction to “New Testament.” As the subtitle suggests, it is also a critical account of the making of the Christian myth—an invitation to critical reflection on the social construction of a foundational epic that has shaped (and been shaped by) the history and behavior of “the West” since Constantine. That makes it an introduction to mythmaking that is more than a colonial criticism or classification of other people's myths: it is an invitation to cultural self-criticism, an invaluable contribution to liberal education that is a potentially important corrective to triumphalist practices as tempting in our multicultural age as they were in the multicultural matrix out of which Christian scripture emerged.

Group J1