Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible

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.

Author: Andrew S. Jacobs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 02/08/2024
Pages: 300
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.13h x 6.06w x 0.94d
ISBN: 9781009384612

Review Citation(s):
Choice 08/01/2024

About the Author
Jacobs, Andrew S.: - 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.