David Skribina’s *Jesus Hoax* is a very important, highly readable, but incomplete book, which everyone should be aware of.

Skribina builds an excellent framework for thinking about the historicity of Jesus, the original and real nature of the Christ movement, and who really "invented Christianity."

I say that his book is incomplete in the sense that Skribina takes Nietzsche's insight and intuition from *The Anti-Christ* and fleshes it out, but then leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

In essence, the actual Jesus, if he existed, was something altogether different than the icon of Jesus that came to be known over the past 2,000 years.

Nietzsche admired Jesus, as a pure-of-heart mystic. Skribina is more inclined towards the "Rebel" or "Zealot" theory, which Reza Aslan recently plagiarized in a book by that title. Jesus was likely crucified as a revolutionary—a wannabe Jewish king, not a rabbi or peacenik.

The key thing is that everyone involved in original Christianity was a) Jewish and b) possessed by a seething resentment of Rome, much as Jews loathed every expression of Aryan dominance and greatness throughout world history.

Judaism marks a kind of "Jahwehist supremacy." According to the Bible, a roving band of slaves, malcontents, liars, and fanatics were "the chosen people" and, indeed, the wicked god they worshiped invented the universe! It's comical and grotesque when looked at with clear eyes.

Paul's Christianity marks a development from this basis: the meek shall inherit the earth—and their savior is a Jewish god-man. It's a universalist, leveling, anti-Roman creed—but one which centers on (and protects) Jews and Judaism.

Christianity was thus a conscious strategy on the part of Paul. In the wake of the absolute failure of the Jewish revolt on Rome—which led to the destruction of the Temple and crucifixion of the rebel known as Jesus of Nazareth—a "third way" had be found.

Paul thus invented the leveling, world-rejecting religion that would soon take humanity by storm. Uncovering the actual message of Jesus thus becomes a difficult task; we're dealing with scraps of evidence and one must, by necessity, use intuition and take interpretive leaps.

I say Skribina's book is "incomplete" in this sense. He features plenty of quotations from the Old and New Testaments, revealing the utterly Jewish and overall heinous nature of these creeds.

That said, Skribina doesn't fully explain the system behind Christianity: how did it have, and continue to have, such popularity, influence, and power? Just saying that it valorizes the weak and ugly and promotes equality isn't enough.

It's true, on one level, that Christians have always misunderstood their own religion. But on another level, they have understood it all too well. How exactly does this process of crypsis and influence and mystery operate?

Mark Brahmin's upcoming book—REM—touches briefly on the "historical Jesus" question. But its main benefit is its discussion of the means by which Judaism and Christianity influence art and media and the overall psyche of Western man.

*The Jesus Hoax* and *REM* are different books, but they seem to be signposts pointing out a new path for Western man—one in which we can achieve a destiny beyond the bounds of Jahweh and Christ.