Judas of Nazareth

“Yet again, Daniel Unterbrink is stepping where others fear to tread. Clearly, lucidly, with a forensic attention to detail, he has amassed a wholly plausible narrative linking Judas to the Christ of our mythologies of the Christ of Paul’s fantasies. If you want to stick with your belief system, you are welcome, but you have to understand that it has no historical basis. If you want to understand the truth behind the history, this is the place to start.”

“This carefully documented tour-de-force demonstrates that many stories and teachings attributed to the ‘Gospel Jesus’ are derived from very similar biographical details from the life of the historical Galilean messiah, Judas of Galilee, a famous first-century Jewish rabbi and freedom fighter, probably executed by Roman authorities on charges of sedition.”

“Combining some of my ideas--such as Paul as Herodian and Josephus’ “Sadduk” as John the Baptist--with his own theory, Dan Unterbrink suggests a new and much earlier timeframe for Christian origins, claiming that the historical Jesus was actually Judas the Galilean, a rebel leader who came on the scene in 4 BC with the beginning of the Zealot movement.

“As he sees it, Christian scholarship as a whole has been searching for characters such as Jesus and Paul in the wrong places. Not only does he claim that Jesus was a literary stand-in for Judas the Galilean, but that Paul may have been an active participant in the composition of the Gospel of Mark.

“Detailing the similarities between the gospel Jesus and Paul’s own life and teachings, Unterbrink claims the former to have been simply a clever blend of Judas the Galilean and Paul. In so doing, he gives his readers much to consider while at the same time challenging what they have always taken to be ‘the Gospel Truth’ and their traditional views.”

“Judas of Nazareth is an engrossing read for any Jesus sleuth. Daniel Unterbrink’s latest restatement of his thesis that Jesus of Nazareth is the disguised and rewritten tale of Judas the Galilean is well worth time and attention. Yes, there is the predictable plethora of parallels but more crucial to the Unterbrink thesis than the multiplicity of Judas/Jesus similarities is the complete remodelling of the apostle Paul. The apostle is no less of a fabrication that the saviour himself, argues Unterbrink. He also draws attention to an obscure secondary source, Christian interpolations within the Slavonic edition of Josephus's War, and presents a welter of argument that appear, at least at first sight, to have great explanatory power. There is much to muse over here.”

“ I love Daniel Unterbrink’s analytical style in Judas of Nazareth! His experience as a forensic auditor really shows through. Having been a record keeper and auditor myself for some of the world's largest corporate retirement plans, I can appreciate that level of detail as I watch him weave through a maze of deception while excavating a mountain of covered-over facts. Ultimately he digs up several kernels of truth hidden deep beneath the surface, but those kernels are huge in terms of their significance.”

“As I continue to put my Jesus puzzle together with other historical characters, I feel certain that my Judas the Galilean piece has been solidly inserted into place thanks to Dan Unterbrink!”