The Last Christian

About the Book

What source material outside of the Bible was used by the authors of the  Gospels? How does “patch-stitching” work? How might religious terminology commonly used in ancient Israel be filtered and given a different meaning by a Gentile, pagan audience? What implications did this hold for the rise of Christianity?

How were the crucifixion scenarios constructed? Were all of the sources used in their construction Biblical? Did the writings of Josephus influence the written Word?

How did Jesus evade arrest? How did he operate a supply and intelligence network which reached into the palace of Herod the tetrarch and into the temple ? Details of its operation such as departmentalization and recognition signals are noted. How did Jesus send a message to Herod along this grapevine?

What were the circumstances of his arrest? What was Judas’ role? The evidence holds out the intriguing possibility that his role as traitor may not be accurate.  What were the charges? Based upon the Gospels, was Jesus sentenced to death for blaspheming?

According to the Gospels, was a terrorists a member of Jesus inner circle? If a criminal profile was put together for Jesus, using the Gospels as our source, what would it look like? What would it “tell” the law enforcement personnel of his day about him?

What was his mission from God? How did he fulfill his role? Why did he have to die? How has his message and its implications changed the world in positive ways and ways not so positive? How did he radically redefine western culture? How does the world still grapple with the implications of what he said and what he was about?

About the Author

Growing up in a missionary family, it was natural for the author to have both a keen interest in as well as an opportunity to explore the basis of his Christian faith. The Last Christian is the product of his lifelong effort to discover whom Jesus was.

The quest was begun with the intent of accepting the Jesus of faith as found in the Bible. Only when or if the investigation and evidence led in some other direction were alternatives proposed and the reasons given for arriving at some other conclusion.

The author has written and published two other books, How Would You Like Your Balut? and Telling On Texas. Both books are a thinly disguised autobiographies based on the authors experiences and that of his family. The former is a relating of his family’s experiences in the Philippines from 1945 to 2004. The latter is a recounting of high school and college life in north Texas during the turbulent period of the civil rights movement and Vietnam War era. It is a saga of coming of age, of two young men who return to the Texas of their birth, only after having spent their childhood and early teens in Asia.

These two works, along with The Last Christian, form a trilogy. They are a quest of discovery. Being the product of a mixed cultural heritage, the author tries to discover who he is. They are the attempt to define major aspects of his environment by noting the effect of the Jesus of faith in shaping him and his world. The Last Christian tries to extend the search further by defining whom the Jesus of faith and history was and is.