Conspiratorial fears and desires about biblical discoveries are amplified and contained within the covers of a formulaic fiction genre.
Accessible to general and academic readers, Gospel Thrillers interweaves close readings of key themes in a little studied fiction genre with 'real world' tensions over biblical vulnerability, evident in political and cultural debates over the Bible and in popular literature about the Bible and Christian origins.
Hardcover
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Summary
Conspiratorial fears and desires about biblical discoveries are amplified and contained within the covers of a formulaic fiction genre.
Accessible to general and academic readers, Gospel Thrillers interweaves close readings of key themes in a little studied fiction genre with 'real world' tensions over biblical vulnerability, evident in political and cultural debates over the Bible and in popular literature about the Bible and Christian origins.
Description
What if the original teachings of Jesus were different from the Bible's sanitized 'orthodox' version? What covert motivations might inspire those who decide what the text of the Bible 'says' or what it 'means'? For some who ask conspiratorial questions like these, the Bible is the vulnerable victim of secular forces seeking to divest the USA of its founding identity. For others, the biblical canon suppresses religious truths that could upend the status quo. Such suspicions surrounding the Bible find full expression in Gospel Thrillers: a 1960s fictional genre that endures and still commands a substantial following. These novels imagine a freshly discovered first-century gospel and a race against time to unlock its buried secrets. They also reflect the fears and desires that the Bible continues to generate. Andrew Jacobs reveals, in his authoritative examination, how this remarkable fictional archive opens a window onto disturbing biblical anxieties.
Critic Reviews
'an amusing and often entertaining sketch about the phenomenon …' Henry Wansbrough, Church Times
'An invaluable and unusually accessible book for readers at all levels … Highly recommended.' L. J. Greenspoon, CHOICE
'In this evocatively titled volume, Jacobs (Harvard Divinity School) has succeeded in producing, as few others have, a productive synthesis of erudition and entertainment … An invaluable and unusually accessible book for readers at all levels … Highly recommended.' L. J. Greenspoon, Choice
About the Author
Andrew S. Jacobs is Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Editor of the Elements of Religion in Late Antiquity (published by Cambridge University Press), and the writer and co-editor of five previous books, he is in addition author of Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity (2016), which in 2017 was awarded the Philip Schaff Best Book Prize from the American Society of Church History.
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