Customer Reviews http://www.amazon.com/NazarethGate-Quac ... B019G90BGI
5 stars
Archaeology and the Wizard of Nazareth
By Ferenc on January 21, 2016
This book is a real eye-opener! It not only confirms all the claims made in Salm's first book (
The Myth of Nazareth), it reveals all the shenanigans of the religiously motivated biblical archaeology apologists and the Israeli tourist industry trying to keep gullible Christian tourists coming to the "holy sites" in Galilee. The firm determination that the famous "Caesarea Synagogue Nazareth Inscription" was a hoax perpetrated by the nefarious evangelical apologist Jerry Vardaman is stunning.
While I have for a long time been skeptical of all the Franciscan claims from Nazareth, I had never questioned the authenticity of the Caesarea inscription. It seemed to be the only archaeological anchor placing early Nazareth in time. The fact that Vardaman was arrested by Israeli authorities ON THE SAME DAY he came up with the Nazareth fragment is absolutely mind-blowing.
Archaeological apologists must now come to a terrifying realization: ... there could not have been a Jesus of NAZARETH if there was no Nazareth at the turn of the era when he and the holy family should have been living there.
5 stars
New book by Rene Salm confirms that Nazareth did not exist at the time of Jesus
By Peter Aleff on January 26, 2016
Format: Paperback
After Rene Salm published in 2008 "
The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus", defenders of the Faith (and of tourism revenues) wasted no time to try and contradict his documentation. Four days before Christmas, 2009, the Israel Antiquities Authority held a major press conference and media blitz to announce the excavation of a 'house from the time of Jesus' in Nazareth by Yardenna Alexandre, as well as her find of some allegedly "Hellenistic" coins in 'Mary's Well'.
However, in his latest and just published book "
Nazarethgate: Quack Archaeology, Holy Hoaxes, and the Invented Town of Jesus", Salm meticulously debunks this alleged evidence and shows that the 'House from the Time of Jesus' was in fact a wine making installation from later years. For instance, one of the walls on which the archaeologist Yardenna Alexandre based her claim to have found the 'house from the time of Jesus' was hidden inside a later and thicker wall from the Mamluck era, but she confidently asserted its unseen and unverified presence and also its alleged dating to the time of Jesus just because this is what her narrative required.
Similarly, the "Hellenistic" coins used to assert the occupation of the area "during the time of Jesus" had none of the designs the numismatist Ariel Berman claimed to have seen on them. These coins were so abraded and corroded that no designs at all could be discerned on them; they could just as well have dated from Ottoman times.
These are only some of the most salient of the pious frauds Salm exposes among the desperate efforts to keep the belief in Jesus' Nazareth alive and, of course, in Jesus of Nazareth who was said to have been brought up in a town that did not exist in his time. A revealing read that may make you think twice about many other claims by the Catholic Church and by the Israel Antiquities Authority!