Bookworm report for October 2014: The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors

By Russell Pizer

This Bookworm Report  is regarding a paperback reprint dated 2007 from an original book dated 1875.  Whereas it might be intriguing for Humanists, it would probably be shocking for Christians. 

The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors was written by Kersey Graves who was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania on November 12, 1813. The rear cover states: “His parents were Quakers. As a young man he accepted the observances of his parents then later, moved to a different wing of Quakerism. He was disowned by his Quaker meeting group due to his neglect of attendance and also setting up a rival group.”  

That disownment was, no doubt, also a result of the many ideas he must have acquired through a book titled: The Anacalypsis by Sir Godfrey Higgins dated 1833. Mr. Graves used much of that book’s contents for the basis of his 1875 publication.

I have read many books about what would be called “anti-Jesus literature” but this was incredible. I thought I knew a lot of the incongruities that exist in The Bible, however, this is full of additional and surprising revelations.

Beginning on page 33, Graves begins: “The following considerations exhibit some of the numerous absurdities involved in the story of the miraculous birth of Jesus . . .”  He then gives, by actual number, 17 items.  Here are the first three:

 “1.  The evangelical narratives show that Christ himself did not claim to have a miraculous birth.  He did not once allude to such an event; while if, as Christians claim, it is the principal evidence of his deityship, he certainly would have done so. . . 2.  His parental genealogy, as made out by Matthew and Luke, completely disproves the story of his miraculous conception by a virgin. . . .  3. [H]is own disciple (Philip) declared him to be the son of Joseph . . .  [This] is still further confirmation of the conclusion [that he did not come to earth via a virgin birth] . . . ”

The next excerpt begins on page 39. “There is much evidence that the Christian Savior was a black man, or at least a dark man . . .  And that evidence is the testimony of his disciples who had nearly as good an opportunity of knowing what his complexion was as the evangelists who omit to say anything about it. In the picturers and portraits of Jesus by the early Christians, he is uniformly represented as being black. . . [T]he only text in the Christian bible quoted by orthodox Christians, as describing his complexion, represents it as being black.  Solomon’s declaration, “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. . . .” (Sol. I.5) . . .”

Mr. Graves goes on to speculate . . . “Let us suppose that, at some future time, he makes his second advent to the earth, as some Christians anticipate he will do, and that he goes to . . . one of our fashionable churches . . .   Would the [usher] show him to a seat? . . .”

This next except is especially amusing.  It appears on page 46.  “. . . observe the absurdity in Matthew’s story, which teaches that the wise men followed the star in the east, when they, coming from the east, were, as a matter of course, traveling westward, which would placed the star at their backs. . . .”

Chapter XXXII is titled: “Three Hundred and Forty-Six Striking Analogies Between Christ and Krishna.”  (Krishna’s birth is given as 3228 B.C.E.)  This shows, if the book’s contents are true, those ghost writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, borrowed almost all of their material for the story of the man the Christians call Jesus of Nazarus from the life and teachings of The Lord Krishna of India.

Needless to say, there are some vociferous criticisms of this book to be found on the Internet.