Author | Guy Thorne |
---|---|
Country | England |
Language | English |
Subject | Religion |
Publisher | G.P. Putnam's Sons |
Publication date | 1903 |
Pages | 412 |
ISBN | 978-1-4373-6429-3 |
Text | When It Was Dark at Wikisource |
When It Was Dark: The Story of a Great Conspiracy (1903) is a best selling Christian novel by English author Guy Thorne, in which a plot to destroy Christianity by falsely disproving the Resurrection of Jesus leads to moral disorder and chaos in the world until it is exposed as a fraud. [1]
The title is a reference to the bible verse John 20:1, "The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre." (King James Bible), which describes the account of Mary Magdalene witnessing the absence of Christ's body in the sepulchre.
A wealthy and powerful English Jew, Constantine Schuabe, a known adversary of Christian clergy, plots to destroy Christianity by falsely disproving the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He exploits the financial situation of English Biblical expert Sir Robert Llewelyn, and coerces him to plant an inscription upon an ancient tomb entrance. This inscription, supposedly written by Joseph of Arimathea, stated that he took the body of Christ after his death and concealed it there. There ensues a decline in morality in the world before the plot is exposed, thereby postulating the state of a world without the religion of Christ.
After its publication, the Bishop of London preached about When It Was Dark at Westminster Abbey. Calling it "a remarkable work of fiction" he said it depicts how the world would be if the Resurrection were proved to be a gigantic fraud. ". . .you feel the darkness creeping round the world, you see . . . crime and violence increase in every part of the world. When you see how darkness settles down upon the human spirit, regarding the Christian record as a fable, then you quit with something like adequate thanksgiving, and thank God it is light because of the awful darkness when it was dark."[ citation needed ]
When It Was Dark has been criticised for its stereotyping of Jews and their portrayal as intent on destroying what Thorne viewed as the most valuable element of British life - the Christian faith and the spiritual values associated with it. [2]
Christopher Hitchens called the book a "piece of trash novel which makes 'The Da Vinci Code' or the 'Left Behind' series seem like Proust or Balzac or George Eliot." [3]
In 1919 the novel was made into a silent film When It Was Dark directed by Arrigo Bocchi.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is considered to be the holiest site for Christians in the world and has been the most important pilgrimage site for Christians since the fourth century.
Mary Magdalene was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurrection. She is mentioned by name twelve times in the canonical gospels, more than most of the apostles and more than any other woman in the gospels, other than Jesus's family. Mary's epithet Magdalene may be a toponymic surname, meaning that she came from the town of Magdala, a fishing town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in Roman Judea.
The resurrection of Jesus is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writing, Jesus was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God. He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of forgiving sin and baptizing repenters, and ascended to Heaven.
Antisemitism and the New Testament is the discussion of how Christian views of Judaism in the New Testament have contributed to discrimination against Jewish people throughout history and in the present day.
The Olivet Discourse or Olivet prophecy is a biblical passage found in the Synoptic Gospels in Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. It is also known as the Little Apocalypse because it includes the use of apocalyptic language, and it includes Jesus's warning to his followers that they will suffer tribulation and persecution before the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God. The Olivet discourse is the last of the Five Discourses of Matthew and occurs just before the narrative of Jesus's passion beginning with the anointing of Jesus.
A Bible conspiracy theory is any conspiracy theory that posits that much of what is believed about the Bible is a deception created to suppress a secret or ancient truth. Some such theories claim that Jesus really had a wife and children, or that a group such as the Priory of Sion has secret information about the true descendants of Jesus; some claim that there was a secret movement to censor books that truly belonged in the Bible, etc.
Noli me tangere is the Latin version of a phrase spoken, according to John 20:17, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after His resurrection. The biblical scene has been portrayed in numerous works of Christian art from Late Antiquity to the present. The phrase has also been used in literature, and later in a variation by military units since the late 18th century.
In Christianity, a disciple is a dedicated follower of Jesus. This term is found in the New Testament only in the Gospels and Acts. In the ancient world, a disciple is a follower or adherent of a teacher. Discipleship is not the same as being a student in the modern sense. A disciple in the ancient biblical world actively imitated both the life and teaching of the master. It was a deliberate apprenticeship which made the fully formed disciple a living copy of the master.
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 gospel or good news is a theological concept in several religions. In the historical Roman imperial cult and today in Christianity, the gospel is a message about salvation by a divine figure, a savior, who has brought peace or other benefits to humankind. In Ancient Greek religion, the word designated a type of sacrifice or ritual dedication intended to thank the gods upon receiving good news.
The stolen body hypothesis posits that the body of Jesus Christ was stolen from his burial place. It theorises that 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.
Lazarus of Bethany is a figure within the Christian Bible, mentioned in the New Testament in the Gospel of John, who four days after his death is restored to life by Jesus. This is seen by Christians as one of the miracles of Jesus. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lazarus is venerated as Righteous Lazarus, the Four-Days Dead. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic traditions offer varying accounts of the later events of his life.
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel Angels & Demons. The Da Vinci Code follows symbologist Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu after a murder in the Louvre Museum in Paris entangles them in a dispute between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus and Mary Magdalene having had a child together.
Matthew 28:15 is the fifteenth verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse is part of the resurrection narrative, providing the story on how the unbelievers treated the facts.
Jerusalem's role in first-century Christianity, during the ministry of Jesus and the Apostolic Age, as recorded in the New Testament, gives it great importance, both culturally and religiously, in Christianity. Jerusalem is generally considered the cradle of Christianity.
This is a glossary of terms used in Christianity.
Jesus's interactions with women are an important element in the theological debate about Christianity and women. Women are prominent in the story of Jesus. According to the resurrection story, the resurrected Jesus was first seen by women.
Guy Thorne was the pen name of Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull, a prolific English journalist and novelist best known for his novel When It Was Dark: The Story of A Great Conspiracy (1903). He also wrote under the names C. Ranger Gull and Leonard Cresswell Ingleby.