I am a Christian, but my belief in scripture is pretty loose, and I mostly just think Jesus was a neat guy. I fully acknowledge that the Bible can be odd and problematic, and I really love to learn about the history of Christianity and how the stories we have come to literally call the gospel truth were formed.

I was initially really interested in this book because I was very fascinated by the many narratives of Jesus I had never heard (even the less savory ones). I wish that had been more of what this book was, but it was also a bit of a meandering chronicle of Christianity, the persecution of non Christians, and how the narrative of Christian persecution was developed and sometimes skewed. Which is a story worth telling…but I just wanted more of how the book started. There were so many moments were I was, like, “UMMM, IS THAT REAL” and had to Google for further information, and I will always give a book credit for that. But I got a bit bored with what was in between. With that said, I totally acknowledge my own personal failings. If you are more academic and have more patience, you may be fine with it!

DNF at 40%
I applaud this author for bringing so many fringe texts and beliefs together. It could not have been easy to dredge up heresies and forgeries that should have been lost to time. History tends to forget losers, but this author doesn’t.

Naturally when you hang around losers, one feels sympathetic. They may have been dealt a bad hand, or been oppressed. However for most of the false doctrines regurgitated in this text, they were lost because they were wrong.

The distinction between Orthodox and heretic is not as subjective as the author wants you to believe. She does not give any charity to the fact finding, evidence based, careful analysis and hermeneutics that created modern day Christianity. She consigns it all to some power struggle where the mighty are only right because they are mighty.

Ex Catholics like this author would greatly benefit from attending catechism again. That way they’d avoid lumping together sacred scripture with obvious forgeries. The snide, irreverent language in this book pretends to hide behind the power of “choice.” She acts like agency and power should be the highest ideal, even higher than truth.

I find her arguments lacking and done in bad faith, no pun intended. I doubt any believer would be converted by this text, and anyone else in her agnostic echo chamber would do better to read from her books sources instead. This book is offensive at worst, and pathetic at best. No stars.

I was all on board at the beginning of this read. As a Christian, it’s important to keep an open mind and always question things. Thinking I was diving into a realm of stories of different beliefs and different ways Bible stories are told, different origin stories for Bible stories, etc sounded intriguing and I was really enjoying the different perspectives and stories.

As the book went on, though, it began to feel a bit dismissive of Christianity as well as often generalizing Christianity. I’m all for challenging my faith and exploring viewpoints but I personally didn’t care for the turn this book took of clumping different denominations together to represent Christianity and then speaking against it in many ways. Instead of expanding my mind to different stories at views that I was excited to “chew” on I felt almost bored as everything shifted into a breakdown of beliefs and why the author doesn’t agree with them.

I genuinely believe that Christianity is not black and white, the Bible is full of both goodness and so many horrors in its historic tellings and that not all denominations (if any!) fully embody Christianity. There are sooo many parts of Christianity that we’ll never understand, that isn’t logical and that explains why we have faith, this trust in God. So this book leans more on wanting all the answers and I don’t think as a Christian, we’ll ever have all of them.

I highly recommend reading the first third or so of this book, though. Some really interesting stories in comparison to Bible stories!

I enjoyed books kurtikin religion.This was an interesting look at jesus and how people have perverted christianity.

Heretic: The Many Lives and Deaths of Jesus Christ covers a lot of territory. The overwhelming majority of the book was brand-new information, and I imagine would be so to most readers, even ones raised in a Christian environment. The only reasons I couldn't quite give it five stars are: (1) lack of historical record (something that isn't really Catherine Nixey's fault. She really does an amazing job with what little has survived.); and (2) the title and blurb. Heretic: The Many Lives and Deaths of Jesus Christ deals with so much more than just "the many, diverse variations of Jesus who thrived in early Christian traditions." Heretic: The Many Lives and Deaths of Jesus Christ is really about the many, diverse variations of early Christian traditions, as well as the world in which they existed. I would call it a must-read for many different groups.

I know a lot of Christians who could never accept Heretic: The Many Lives and Deaths of Jesus Christ. It's not so much that they would decry it as the work of Satan. (Gen X, make sure you hear and picture Dana Carvey's Church Lady on that last sentence.) These people couldn't even get that far: circuit blown, total blackout. For those who can get past all that, who can accept the historical record, I think those Christians most of all need to read Heretic: The Many Lives and Deaths of Jesus Christ. This is their history.

Catherine Nixey was raised in a Christian household, although admits to atheism as an adult. That said, she is not overly mocking or critical of the early Christians. Oh, she can be snarky when it is deserved (and Lalla Ward's droll narration was spot-on), but it is obvious that countless hours of research have gone into Heretic: The Many Lives and Deaths of Jesus Christ, and Catherine Nixey wants it to be scholarly as well as readable to a lay audience.

I would like to thank HarperAudio for allowing me to experience this NetGalley audiobook.

"I was expecting just a book about Jesus' contemporaries or different early sects of Christianity, but this was so much more than that! Adding cultural context of the ancient world (wherever possible), rhetorical arguments made against Jesus and Christianity, the beliefs and practices of Christian sects (and how some of them ""died out""), and so many other topics that were written in an engaging way! I was already interested just from what I thought I knew about this, but everything else just made it even more fascinating to learn about!"

I'll start of by saying that I loved this book. Who wouldn't love a rompy retelling of Jesus's weirdest deeds—wielding a magical wand to multiply fish, consorting with dragons, and murdering his childhood friends? Not to mention all the other stories of his contemporary rival magicians performing their own set of healing tricks—raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, and doling out water-turned-wine and fresh loaves of bread like they're opening up a restaurant. The premise of Heretic can be summed up thus: present-day Christian canon is only a small sample of the wide-ranging set of beliefs, myths, and stories available in Jesus day. Similar stories of God's chosen are sprinkled throughout the region and our current understanding of it is a watered-down consolidation of what the Catholic church deemed canon. (The rest, it is posited, were destroyed or labeled "heretical" over a long-term propaganda campaign.)

On its face, this argument not only makes sense, it's also pretty common knowledge—not to me, but to historical scholars, as mentioned by this lovely review(https://historyforatheists.com/2024/05/review-catherine-nixey-heresy-jesus-christ-and-other-sons-of-god/), who have told the story "before and better." Whole religions don't just pop up outside of the context in which they were formed. It's important to understand the origins of religion, especially if you've decided to spend your entire life dedicated to it. Because of the aforementioned review, I can see now that this is perhaps not the most original piece of work (though Nixey grants it just enough flair to distinguish it), but to the masses (that's me!) I do think most of this book will be new information.

This book was a total mix of fascinating tidbits and "wait, really?!" moments. It’s like being handed a curated platter of historical curiosities rather than some grand historical feast, you know? It covers all these wild and obscure takes on early Christianity, which were super intriguing at times but also kinda overwhelming. Like, some of the claims felt a little extra and left me wondering if they were digging for drama over depth.

That said, the tone was light and snarky enough to keep me turning pages, even when it felt like the author was trying a bit too hard to make certain arguments stick. There’s a lot here that’s been said before by others, but if you’re into juicy factoids and don’t mind a little historical speculation, it’s worth checking out.

Big thanks to NetGalley for this audiobook in exchange for my honest thoughts!