I am reading 'Jesus the Man'- a 'supposed to be controversial' book by Barbara Thiering - an Australian author. I read in 'amazon.com', the reviews praising it as an authentic work with the backing of deep research which will topple down our views about Jesus and Christianity. The back cover of the book reads as follows:
"Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests. He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross. He married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64."
One of the critics claims that "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing, to the point where I have to admit that I probably need to re-read this immediately and I do confess to only really reading the narrative chapters at the start - which is very readable."
So, I opened the book with great expectations. It is really intriguing. The theory she proposed to explain the Qumran (and the Gospel) texts is really gripping - something very similar to Vinci Code. She introduces peshar technique - a kind of technique to unlock the 'submerged mysteries' beneath the Qumran and Gospel texts. I would say, it is original. I have never heard or someone used before.
I kept on reading expecting more. Then I came to page 33. I was completely lost... disappointed. She was giving her first example to explain pesher technique. The example she selected was the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine (according to Gospels!)
I put down the words of Thiering account of the miracle of Cana (God I have to type all of it.. give me patience!).
"According to a story in John's gospel, Jesus was at a wedding...When, however, a drink was drawn from them and taken to the steward of the feast, it had miraculously turned into wine. The steward's reaction was strange: he did not comment on the miracle at all, but merely complained that Jesus had saved the good wine until last, whereas it was more usual to serve the good wine first and the poor wine later."
I stopped reading there - the text in italics (the text is Thiering's but i've given italics to highlight it) - what has she done?
Because, I never ever heard that the steward "complained that Jesus had saved the good wine. " According to my memory, the gospel clearly stated that the steward didn't know about the source of the 'new wine'. Did my memory fail. I reached home and searched all available versions of Bible. I was happy that my memory still works perfect!
She was quoting 'a story in John's gospel'. In the very 33th page itself, how could she go wrong? Was she just going wrong - a human error. NO WAY. without that small twist, she could not have justified her pesher theory in that instant. That was the pivot.
But it was too much... in the very 33th page manipulating the Gospel text to prove 'a theory'. I didn't expect that. If this is the case of the very first example, what would be the case of the rest of her work... the authenticity! May be her critic would have been right "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing..." except the comments put in italics!
Anyway, I will continue to read the book, to hear her stories and theories!
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