Heretic

Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God

By: Catherine Nixey

Narrated by: Lalla Ward

""A brilliant book...illuminates a forgotten world."" —The Times, Best of the Year

""Heretic tells a moreish intellectual story and shakes up your understanding of Western history. At the same time, somewhat improbably, it supplies at least one good joke per paragraph; you have to keep turning back to enjoy them again."" ―The Economist, Best of the Year

From a celebrated classicist and author of The Darkening Age (“[a] ballista-bolt of a book”—New York Times Book Review), a biography of the many, diverse variations of Jesus who thrived in early Christian traditions—and how they were lost until just one “true” Christ survived.

Contrary to the teachings of the church today, in the first several centuries of Christianity’s existence, there was no consensus as to who Jesus was or why he had mattered. Instead, there were many different Christs. One had a twin brother and traveled to India; another consorted with dragons. One particularly terrifying Christ scorned his parents and killed those who opposed him.

Moreover, in the early years of the first millennium there were many other saviors, many sons of gods who healed the sick and cured the lame. But as Christianity spread, they were pronounced unacceptable – even heretical – and they faded from view.

Heretic unearths the different versions of Christ who existed in the minds of early Christians, and the process of evolution—and elimination—by which Jesus became the singular figure we know today.

“Heretic has the mother lode of tales too hot for Christendom. Nixey has carefully wrung out a number of apocryphal texts for scandal.” —Harper's Magazine

Excellent exploration of the early Church

I enjoyed this book and it reflected perspectives that I recall from working under early Church historians when in graduate school. The story is fascinating and will certainly be fascinating for anyone who has never explored the history of the early Christian Church. That said, I felt that Nixey could have better structured the monograph.

Lalla Ward's reading was superb. I will confess to crushing on Lalla Ward when I was in high school and was thrilled to discover that she read works other than Doctor Who and Richard Dawkins. I would welcome some other fiction and non-fiction read by her.

Absolutely fascinating

To understand today it only makes sense to understand Christianity and you cannot truly do that without understanding its history and how it was shaped. This book is absolutely pivotal in understanding it all.

Eye opener!!

So many interesting things. Highly recommended. The history covered was especially interesting. This book confirmed much of what I’ve learned in my research.

The past is so big

So many influencing stories can be forgotten. So much of our history is gone and the bits we have left over I figured had the whole story. Then people find more and the story gets bigger and just makes me wonder about the unknown unknowns.

Excellent scholarship

I found the book well researched and very engaging. It is about the beginnings of Christian beliefs and how quickly there were major differences and groups formed. The real question is can we identify what the original Followers of the Way believed?