Jesus of Nazareth: A Realistic Portrait

I look at the New Testament with the eye of a dramaturge. I think that is a good way to sense which details, transpositions, metaphors and storylines have been applied for the sake of the composition. It is not very daring to state that the Holy Scripture is just as much a form of entertainment. The Bible also wants to please the audience. How do I keep the reader on track? How can I win the listener over to my vision? In this way, the New Testament has become the result of centuries of Christian 'spin', of editing, additions, obfuscations or simply 'erasure'. I have now immersed myself in this subject for more than twenty years, always with the same starting point: what remains if you remove this 'spin' and the narrative techniques of the evangelists? Or, put differently: who was Jesus in reality and what did he stand for?

Jesus of Nazareth is the result of a lifelong obsession. Some of Verhoeven's startling conclusions:
1. It is plausible that Mary was raped by a Roman soldier during the Jewish revolt in Galilee in 4 BC, and that Jesus was therefore an illegitimate child;
2. The 'cleansing of the Temple' took place at the beginning of Jesus' preaching and certainly not at the end, where the Synoptics have interpolated the scene;
3. Jesus visited Jerusalem several times, and not just once as the Synoptics would have us believe;
4. After Jesus was baptized by John, he began to baptize on his own initiative, much to John's anger;
5. The purest expression of Jesus' idea of ​​the kingdom of God is found in his parables, especially in The Good Samaritan and The Prodigal Son;
6. The exorcisms were much more physical than the descriptions in the Gospels suggest. There was terrible screaming, including by Jesus, who often stabbed the 'possessed' in the ears, mouth or eyes
spat;
7. Jesus thought his successful exorcisms were proof that God's kingdom had already appeared on earth. He was wrong;
8. Instead, the authorities turned on the "political agitator" Jesus and wanted to bring him to justice. Jesus escaped and hid in the desert. The Sanhedrin sentenced him to death in absentia;
9. Jesus advised his disciples to sell their cloaks and buy swords. In doing so, Jesus transformed himself into a revolutionary;
10. Jesus was betrayed, but not by Judas Iscariot. We do not know the name or identity of the betrayer. Judas was merely an apostate. He left the Jesus movement because he did not believe in the Resurrection of Jesus;
11. If the tomb of Jesus was already empty, then Mary Magdalene stole his body;
12. The kingdom of God that Jesus expected in the very short term – a 'breaking through' of God into the reality of Palestine – never came. That is why Christians later made not the historical Jesus, but the biblical Jesus – the crucified and risen one – into that kingdom.

Paul Verhoeven discusses this and much more in this solidly substantiated and well-written book, which he himself sees as his life's work, in addition to his extensive film oeuvre. 'Out of personal curiosity, but mainly in the knowledge that Christianity has determined our culture for some two thousand years.'