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The Exodus Sect: The True Origins of Christianity by Eugene D. Mertz

Initially for me, this was a very frustrating book. My purchase of it was triggered by his article, The Quest For The Mythical Jesus (Free Inquiry, Volume 40, No. 3 – April / May 2020). I found myself fascinated by how Mertz tied together findings from archaeology, mythology, ancient history, linguistics and extensive biblical scholarship to support of his hypothesis that Christianity originated from an ancient Hebrew secret society, one of many 'mystery cults' that were common throughout the Middle East during that time. Even more intriguing is his argument about how that unique history was actually key to the evolution of what we know as Christianity into the largest religion in the world.

An example of just one of his lines of argument, excerpted from the The Quest For The Mythical Jesus:

The primary mystery rite was a passion drama held at the spring equinox. The son of god was condemned to death by the god of the underworld or his exemplar. He voluntarily sacrificed himself on the condition that his death would ensure eternal life for his followers. Initiates underwent a ritual death and rebirth through baptism to demonstrate their acceptance of the gift of redemption. In the original Egyptian drama, Osiris was dismembered. In most of the successor faiths, the method of execution was crucifixion. The body of the son of god was interred in a cave, which represented the underworld, and at the climax of the drama he emerged triumphant to signify his resurrection.

In his book, The Exodus Sect, in twenty-two chapters he goes into far more detail of each aspect of his research – from ancient Egypt, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, Jewish and Greek religious rites, Roman rule through to modern understandings. An excerpt that illustrates the type of detail Mertz provides:

In order to distinguish her from the Mary of the New Testament, the original's name is spelled “Miriam” in English translations of the Old Testament. The use of the letter “i” is an obvious artifice, because the ancient Phoenician script used to write the earliest books of the Bible did not have any vowels. The Hebrew name Mary is written (from right to left) in letters equivalent to “Mrym,” and is pronounced Maryam. In Greek, the name does not end with a consonant and is pronounced Maria. So Miriam, Maria and Mary are the exact same name.

This level of detail can be fascinating in small doses – but overwhelming if it feels like that is all there is throughout an entire book. Though I gave the book a four star rating in Goodreads, what I'd really like would be an updated version of the book that surrounds the detail in each chapter with an introduction and/or summary similar to what Mertz provided in his Free Inquiry article. That would be well worth five stars!

#100daystooffload Day 7 (written with StackEdit)