A 15th-century European map of the known world includes this notation regarding Asia: Hic etiam homines magna cornua habentes longitudine quatuor pedum, et sunt etiam serpentes tante magnitudinis, ut unum bovem comedant integrum (Here also are huge men having horns four feet long, and there are serpents also of such magnitude that they can eat an ox whole.)
In the intervening 600 years, of course, we've filled significant gaps in our knowledge of geography, human (even foreign human) anatomy and zoology. But another void — the historical territory where verifiable fact and religious belief come together in an upheaval of Himalayan proportions — might still just as well be labeled "Here there be dragons." The view is obscure from across the span of ages. Source documents are rare and subject to varied interpretation. Physical artifacts still lie undiscovered beneath the dirt of the millennia. While speculation is ever-changing and debatable, dogma is established, entrenched, and protected by authorities, religious and political.
It's therefore not surprising that the mainstream response to Michael Baigent's The Jesus Papers has consisted of equal parts incredulity and outright dismissal. To offer up the hypothesis that Jesus did not die on the cross doesn't threaten the foundations of Christianity so much as it teases and bemuses a western world quite comfortable with 1,500 years of virtually unchallenged belief to the contrary. Baigent's critics don't rage, at least for the most part. Instead, they snicker, confident that Baigent is no David to their Goliath.
There are, of course, those who take the opposite tack and credulously accept the hypothesis as proven fact. Baigent himself is not among the pop-cultists, best represented by hopped-up devotees of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. Throughout The Jesus Papers (and the previous books he's authored and co-authored), he takes great care to separate speculation from known fact. Even as he leads the reader down a road of hypothesis, stopping periodically at signposts of verifiable truth, he cautions them: Think expansively, apply the reasonable to the known - but don't pretend to have the answers.
The title of The Jesus Papers refers, ultimately, to two documents purporting to be letters from Jesus to the Sanhedrin (the council controlling Jewish temple worship in first-century Jerusalem), defending himself against charges of claiming his own divinity. Baigent offers no proof for their existence, because he can't - he claims only to have seen them once, in the possession of a collector.
Obviously, this militates against simply accepting either the fact of their existence, or the accuracy of his description of their content. Baigent's problem, of course, is that not only are documents of that age and kind valuable commodities traded in what is in effect an underground "black market," but that considerable weath and power (such as that disposed of by, say, the Vatican) could (and has) been mobilized to keep potentially controversial finds of the type from public view. (See Baigent's own The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, written with frequent collaborator Richard Leigh, on the 40-year effort to suppress the contents of that trove.)
.jpg?t=20120209092158)
Article comments
1 - Idris
Dear Sir,
After reading Baigent et al's books, I think that the new hypothesis is just another hypothesis. Mr Sauniere would not divulge the secrets, but in order to conform, he had adapted a position which says that Jesus survived the cross. The question is: why did Judas have to die in that manner after the supposed crucifixion? I can smell the plot... who was on the cross after all?
2 - Ronald howard
I have read Mr. Baigent's books begining with "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and the recent "The Jesus papers". I believe that he has been quite fair and forthcoming in stating that we have no absolute proof of claims that are made. However, we do know for certain that the Gospels were written years after Jesus's death by men who did not know him; written for a largely Roman audience and by men who had an agenda...making Jesus more than a man. He very well could have been married and had children and whether or not he died on the cross is of little importance. He was a man, nothing more.Clearly the church has a vested interest in maintaining the myth of Christ. I doubt the truth would bring the downfall of Western civilization...only a reexamination of blind faith and the Church, both of which would be welcome by many of us who consider ourselves free thinkers.
3 - arthur
after having read the new testament, I have always suspected that jesus could hardly die on cross. there must have been someone else. so I do not believe that he was taken from the cross alive.
mr baigent, allegedly has the honor to read the letter jesus had written to the sanhedrin, nevetheless he failed to prove that this had been written by jesus or somebody else (by another messiah). Neither has he offered any clue whether this is or is not a forgery.
so his work is a well written hypothesis as all the rest. just a guesswork.
4 - Stella
I just read the book and I found it refreshing. I like the way Baigent tries to put a myth in perspective. As others has pointed out, he does repeatedly inform the reader of what is considered well established facts and what is hypothesis. I like this style better than books to purport to tell The Truth. Baigent gives food for thought, and lots of background that it's possible to research further by oneself, if one chooses.