Judas, My Brother: The Story of the Thirteenth Disciple is a 1968 historical novel by Frank Yerby. The novel provides a narrative attempting a demythologized account of the events surrounding the life of Jesus and the origin of Christianity.
Plot introduction
Written from the viewpoint of Nathan ('the Thirteenth Disciple'), the heavily footnoted book presents an adventure and romance storyline against the backdrop of the 1st century Roman Empire. Nathan's travels lead him to Rome to fight as a retiarius, and on his return to Palestine to become involved with the Apostles, the Zealots and the Essenes. He loves Shelomith (the disciple Salome, depicted in the novel as a prostitute), who does not return his affections due to her unrequited love for Yeshua (Jesus).
Main themes
This story is simultaneously used as a vehicle for Yerby's examination of the historical personalities and Christian beliefs through the ideas of critical theological writings. The book is written from a strongly skeptical viewpoint: For miracles he offers alternative physical explanations, such as mistaken identity, discrepancies in traditional Jewish and Essene calendars, and other explanations of varying plausibility. On the frontispiece, Yerby warns "those emotionally dependent upon the Christian Religion" to read no further. The sleeve notes continue:
This novel touches on only two issues which, in a certain sense, might be called controversial: whether any man truly has the right to believe fanciful and childish nonsense; and whether any organization has the right to impose, by almost imperial fiat, belief in things that simply are not so. To me, irrationality is dangerous; perhaps the most dangerous force stalking through the world today. This novel, then, is one man's plea for an ecumenicism broad enough to include reasonable men; and his effort to defend his modest intellect from intolerable insult,
Though Yerby is skeptical of Biblical accounts of supernatural 'miracles', he presents the character 'Yeshua' as a man of strong moral character, deep compassion and keen insight into human nature, with a remarkable ability to inspire loyalty in his followers. Nathan finally concludes that the true miracle of Christianity is that a man could inspire such love in his disciples that they refuse to let him die; by sheer force of love they resurrect Him in their minds because they cannot live on without him.
Faced with this realization, Nathan becomes himself a disciple and devotes his life and wealth to the propagation of his new faith.
Related Research Articles
The resurrection of Jesus, or anastasis, is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writings he was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God. He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of proclaiming the Gospel of eternal salvation through his death and resurrection, and ascended to Heaven.
The Last Supper is the final meal that, in the Gospel accounts, Jesus shared with his apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper is commemorated by Christians especially on Maundy Thursday. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "Holy Communion" or "The Lord's Supper".
Messianic Judaism is a modern syncretic Christian religious movement that incorporates some elements of Judaism and Jewish tradition with Evangelical Christianity. The movement emerged in the 1960s and 1970s from the Hebrew Christian movement and the Baptist organization Jews for Jesus founded in 1973 by Conservative Baptist minister Martin Rosen.
The Passover Plot is a 1965 book by British biblical scholar Hugh J. Schonfield, who also published a translation of the New Testament from a Jewish perspective. The book was adapted into a film, The Passover Plot (1976).
The empty tomb is the Christian tradition that on the morning of the first day of the week female followers of Jesus went to the place where he had been buried and found the body gone. The story is recounted in the four gospels, but beyond this basic outline they agree on very little. Mark is the earliest, and in its original ending the women see a young man at the tomb and flee when he tells them that Jesus will meet the disciples in Galilee, telling no one what they have seen; Matthew introduces guards and a curious doublet whereby the women are told twice, by angels and then by Jesus, that he will meet the disciples in Galilee; Luke changes Mark's one "young man" to two, adds Peter's inspection of the tomb, and deletes the promise that Jesus would meet his disciples in Galilee; John reduces the number of women to the solitary Mary Magdalene and introduces the "beloved disciple" who visits the tomb with Peter and is the first to understand its significance.
In Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God and in many mainstream Christian denominations he is God the Son, the second Person in the Trinity. He is believed to be the Jewish messiah who is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, which is called the Old Testament in Christianity. It is believed that through his Crucifixion and subsequent Resurrection, God offered humans salvation and eternal life, that Jesus died to atone for sin to make humanity right with God.
Jesus Barabbas is a figure mentioned in the New Testament, in which he is an insurrectionary held by the Roman governor at the same time as Jesus, and whom Pontius Pilate freed at the Passover feast in Jerusalem, while keeping Jesus as a prisoner.
Yeshu is the name of an individual or individuals mentioned in rabbinic literature, which historically has been assumed to be a reference to Jesus when used in the Talmud. The name Yeshu is also used in other sources before and after the completion of the Babylonian Talmud. It is also the modern Israeli spelling of Jesus.
Two names and a variety of titles are used to refer to Jesus in the New Testament. In Christianity, the two names Jesus and Emmanuel that refer to Jesus in the New Testament have salvific attributes. After the crucifixion of Jesus the early Church did not simply repeat his messages, but focused on him, proclaimed him, and tried to understand and explain his message. One element of the process of understanding and proclaiming Jesus was the attribution of titles to him. Some of the titles that were gradually used in the early Church and then appeared in the New Testament were adopted from the Jewish context of the age, while others were selected to refer to, and underscore the message, mission and teachings of Jesus. In time, some of these titles gathered significant Christological significance.
Most scholars who study the historical Jesus and early Christianity believe that the canonical gospels and the life of Jesus must be viewed within their historical and cultural context, rather than purely in terms of Christian orthodoxy. They look at Second Temple Judaism, the tensions, trends, and changes in the region under the influence of Hellenism and the Roman occupation, and the Jewish factions of the time, seeing Jesus as a Jew in this environment; and the written New Testament as arising from a period of oral gospel traditions after his death.
The miracles of Jesus are proposed miraculous deeds attributed to Jesus in Christian and Islamic texts. The majority are faith healings, exorcisms, resurrection, and control over nature.
Jesus, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christians believe he is the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited messiah, prophesied in the Old Testament.
The stolen body hypothesis posits that the body of Jesus Christ was stolen from his burial place. His tomb was found empty not because he was resurrected, but because the body had been hidden somewhere else by the apostles or unknown persons. Both the stolen body hypothesis and the debate over it presume the basic historicity of the gospel accounts of the tomb discovery. The stolen body hypothesis finds the idea that the body was not in the tomb plausible – such a claim could be checked if early Christians made it – but considers it more likely that early Christians had been misled into believing the resurrection by the theft of Jesus's body.
In one sense, faith in Christianity is often discussed in terms of believing God's promises, trusting in his faithfulness, and relying on God's character and faithfulness to act. Some of the definitions in the history of Christian theology have followed the biblical formulation in Hebrews 11:1: "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen". As in other Abrahamic religions, it includes a belief in the existence of God, in the reality of a transcendent domain that God administers as his kingdom and in the benevolence of the will of God or God's plan for humankind.
The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in the canonical gospels are reported to have occurred after Jesus' death, burial and resurrection, but prior to his ascension. Among these sources, most scholars believe the First Epistle to the Corinthians was written first. Most Christians point to the appearances as evidence of his bodily resurrection and identity as Messiah, seated in Heaven on the right hand of God. Others, including Liberal Christians, interpret these accounts as visionary experiences.
Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of Christianity. Christians believe that he was divine, while Islam considers him to have been a prophet, messenger and the Messiah. Since the time in which he is said to have lived, a number of noted individuals have criticised Jesus.
The term Bible fiction refers to works of fiction which use characters, settings and events taken from the Bible. The degree of fictionalization in these works varies and, although they are often written by Christians or Jews, this is not always the case.
Traditionally in Christianity, orthodoxy and heresy have been viewed in relation to the "orthodoxy" as an authentic lineage of tradition. Other forms of Christianity were viewed as deviant streams of thought and therefore "heterodox", or heretical. This view was challenged by the publication of Walter Bauer's Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum in 1934. Bauer endeavored to rethink Early Christianity historically, independent from the views of the current church. He stated that the 2nd-century church was very diverse and included many "heretical" groups that had an equal claim to apostolic tradition. Bauer interpreted the struggle between the orthodox and heterodox to be the "mainstream" Church of Rome struggling to attain dominance. He presented Edessa and Egypt as places where the "orthodoxy" of Rome had little influence during the 2nd century. As he saw it, the theological thought of the "Orient" at the time would later be labeled "heresy". The response by modern scholars has been mixed. Some scholars clearly support Bauer's conclusions and others express concerns about his "attacking [of] orthodox sources with inquisitional zeal and exploiting to a nearly absurd extent the argument from silence." However, modern scholars have critiqued and updated Bauer's model.
There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by some scholars to be references to Jesus. The name used in the Talmud is "Yeshu", the Aramaic vocalization of the Hebrew name Yeshua.
The historicity and origin of the resurrection of Jesus has been the subject of historical research and debate, as well as a topic of discussion among theologians. The accounts of the Gospels, including the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus to his followers, have been interpreted and analyzed in diverse ways, and have been seen variously as historical accounts of a literal event, as accurate accounts of visionary experiences, as non-literal eschatological parables, and as fabrications of early Christian writers, among various other interpretations. It has been suggested, for example, that Jesus did not die on the cross, that the empty tomb was the result of Jesus' body having been stolen, or, as was common with Roman crucifixions, that Jesus was never entombed.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
