Toto

Does anyone have more information about this:

<a href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=79&art_id=qw1035379260994B264&s et_id=1" target="_blank">New book says Jesus was short, unattractive</a>

The book is titled "The Eleven Commandments" and was written by Elisabetta Broli and Roberto Beretta, two journalists for the Avvenire bishops' daily paper.

However, it is dedicated to exposing the "equivocations and lies" contained in the Bible and traditional Christian teaching.

I suspect that it has not been translated into English yet, if in fact this article is not an internet spoof of some sort. The homepage does say "Reliance on the information this site contains is at your own risk."

I found some foreign language sites by googling the two authors' names. This <a href="http://www.ilnuovo.it/nuovo/foglia/0,1007,156605,00.html" target="_blank">Italian page</a> appears to discuss the book, but I can't read enough Italian to get much out of it.

Peter Kirby

SYSTRAN % lfish) translation:

From Eva to Jesus: it makes myths of the Christianity


A book of two catholics reconstructs Old and the New Testament, sfatando the common places. The Comandamenti is 11 and Jesus died to 40 years.


ROME - Eva did not eat the apple, Jesus not nacque 25 December and the comandamenti were not 11, but twelve. And still, Giuseppe was a child and it did not make the carpenter, in order not to speak about the crocifissione, where it makes myths would be to tens. Insomma, we have mistaken all. Or, at least, therefore they believe Roberto Beretta and Elisabetta Broli, than in an amusing book they reconstruct Ancient and the New Testament. And, under the supervision of Monsignor Ravasi, they swear that the Christians have mistaken quite a lot of things.

We begin from the Bible: according to the eleven Comandamenti (Piemme editions), Eva is not cited from the Bible like the woman who ate the apple, but a generic fruit, than later on it has been variously interpreted like apple, exactly, fico, orange. And, second the Muslims were not not even a wine fruit but glass. And if it is passed to the New Testament, it does not go better: Jesus would not be been born in the day of Been born them, and not even of night. L to star comet was not one comet and the magi not they were three, but four. Going to Saint Giuseppe, according to Beretta and Broli, this he was not vecchietto and not even a carpenter. And the doubts arrive also to Jesus, than it did not fall three times and when it died seems that it did not have 33 years. And that to say of the comandamenti, from which the also title it of the book? The Deuteronomio speaks about ten comandamenti, but it lists twelve and nobody is shrewed that Jesus added ' ' that you love uni the others, as I d to you ' '.

Giuseppe, when it married Maria, must have between the 18 and 24 years, and was ' ' carpenter ' '. Therefore not curved vecchietto on the table from carpenter who the historiography and the cinema have handed on to us. The evangelisti speak about the dressed ones tear you of Christ, and are probable that on the Cross it was remained knot. He did not die to 33 years, but according to calculations made from the experts, when he died, Christ must have an age comprised between the 35 and 37 years.

In the book, of approximately 200 pages, the authors analyze approximately one sessantina of false gossips on the Bible: Gianfranco Ravasi comments that in Italy the Biblical acquaintance is often one strange concoction between ' ' fondamentalistici elements '', and members of the popular tradition, nd folklore.

(22 October 2002)

best,
Peter Kirby