Beyond Mere Christianity (H/B)

Comparative Religion

1996 expanded and revised edition. This book examines Jesus as a prophet teaching the Unity of God, and the historical collapse of Christianity as it abandoned his teaching. The author sketches the dramatic picture of the original followers of Jesus who affirmed Unity. What emerges is that “Christianity” is the fiction that replaced their truth. A work that covers the Gospel of Barnabas, the Gospel of Hermes, the Shephard, early and later Unitarian Christians, Jesus in the Gospels and in the Qur’an and Hadith. The author clearly shows the idea of Jesus as part of a Trinity was a Greek Pagan idea adopted by early Christian mission-aries to gain converts among the Greek, and did not become a widely accepted Christian doctrine until after the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• The Beginning
• A Different Religion?
• The Interest Arises
• The Opposition
• The Way Out
• This is it, But!
• The Urge is Strong
• Another Move
• One More Move
• The Big Move
• The Slavery to Allah Alone
• But They will Come!
• References

In his objective study of the texts, Maurice Bucaille clears away many preconceived ideas about the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Qur’an. He tries, in this collection of Writings, to separate what belongs to Revelation from what is the product of error or human interpretation. His study sheds new light on the Holy Scriptures. At the end of a gripping account, he places the Believer before a point of cardinal importance: the continuity of a Revelation emanating from the same God, with modes of expression that differ in the course of time. It leads us to meditate upon those factors which, in our day, should spiritually unite rather than divide-Jews, Christians and Muslims.

As a surgeon, Maurice Bucaille has often been in a situation where he was able to examine not only people’s bodies, but their souls. This is how he was struck by the existence of Muslim piety and by aspects of Islam which remain unknown to the vast majority of non-Muslims. In his search for explanations which are otherwise difficult to obtain, he learnt Arabic and studied the Qur’an. In it, he was surprised to find statements on natural phenomena whose meaning can only be understood through modern scientific knowledge.

He then turned to the question of the authenticity of the writings that constitute the Holy Scriptures of the monotheistic religions. Finally, in the case of the Bible, he proceeded to a confrontation between these writings and scientific data.

The results of his research into the Judeo-Christian Revelation and the Qur’an are set out in this book.

In The Cross and The Crescent, Dr. Dirks, a former ordained minister (deacon) in the United Methodist Church, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and with a doctorate in clinical psychology, reaches out to the Christians and the Muslims for an interfaith dialogue. Drawing on his seminary education and thirty years of interaction with Muslims in America and overseas, the author digs deep into the roots of Christianity to bring out obscure information that highlights what was once common between Christianity and Islam. He envisioned that, “In writing this book, I would like to touch the lives of those Christians who have not been given the knowledge that I have gained both about Islam, from my direct contact with Muslims, and about Christianity from my seminary education. I want to share with those Christians, who are willing to listen, what is so often known by their clergy and church leaders, but seldom finds its way into their knowledge of their own religion. Likewise, I would like to reach out to the Muslims, in order to help them understand the religious commonality that they share with Christians”.