Wow! Great blog and website! I, too, am very interested in the obvious contridictions that are found right in the Bible and the common, well-known, christian beliefs -- so I can't wait to read your book. It sounds very exciting. I will get your autograh at one of your readings, I hope. Best of luck with your new book! I hope you don't get flogged too badly by religous zealots...

I am headed out to the bookstore to see if it's made it way here. Glad to see this is NOT a DaVinci code ripoff!

Hmmmm...I've been labeled a "liberal, progressive Christian". Why haven't I gotten wind of this book until now? This book may be the sleeper of summer, but from what I've read, that may change before the end of August.

MB Mendocino County CA

Tucker, you are anything but a "profoundly dull" person.
You are a highly spiritual person, gifted with many incarnations of interest in and attraction to the issues of the Spirit. Many have found the Gnostic Gospels spellbinding, and it is the ongoing influence of powerful forces within the traditional Christian hierachies that continue to suppress the knowledge contained within these texts. In the conventional teachings I was raised with, Thomas is not a disciple who had great understanding, not known to be highly discriminative or closest to Jesus. Paul was clearly hung up over sexuality, and reflected this in all his writings. It is my personal belief that Jesus attempted to heal Paul by allowing him close insights into his relationship with Mary Magdalene, but the attempt was unsuccessful and created considerable jealously between Paul and Mary. I look forward to reading your book, and will continue to comment on these ideas and issues as I do so.

There are a number of books and attention seekers, and who purport to know the truth of the ages. If any of these were true it wouldn't have taken 2000 years to figure it out. Those who attended the Council of Nicea would have brought these things up for purposes of debate and vote.
Instead, all of a sudden, we have people who want to talk about the alternative when they don't even know the truth, which can be had by simply reading most any Bible be it KJ, The Book, NAS, or most of the rest. There is a basis for fundamental truth and then a number of areas where interpretation is allowed. The fact that Jesus the Messiah died on the Cross for our sins and has been raised from the grave and is with the Father in Heaven is not open to interpretation. Many have died for this truth. If any of the Mary's in the Bible had been more that what they were, one of the authors of the Bible would have mentioned it in passing, or Paul would have said something. Instead quite the contrary. Just read your Bible and check out the truth.

Tucker,
Your path to this understanding of God and the bias of the organized religions sound as if I could have written it. It is amazing. Mary Magdalene has become a beacon to help us usher inthe goddess energy to bring peace to this planet. I am going out today to purchase the book. I can not wait to read it. Thank you for your passion to this work.
Peg

Ahhhhh - so THIS was the reason I woke at 3:30 & started 'surfing'!
Thank you. For your eloquent words here on your site. I so look forward to your book. I, too, have been 'searching' from as far back as I can remember. Asking. Wondering. Punished by the nuns, sent out of the confessional without absolution for questioning doctrine...looking for a place to 'belong'. And a place for women to belong in faith. Through pain and depression, reading and traveling. Watching. Listening. Seeing that others faiths are equally valid, and equally seeking. Sitting in monasteries and wandering India. Finally I found 'IT' - within. Just as so many wise men - and women - have always said. "Be still and know". Ah. I wish I could sit with you & talk for hours! Many blessings in your work.

A very interesting novel. I'm moved by your comments, "Characters came to life. Their conflicts and loves and betrayals gripped me;" as this is what I've found in writing screenplays and adaptations. Sometimes the characters seem to be telling one what to write.
The website is very nice, and an interesting place to visit. I hope your novel is highly popular and wish you success in all your writing.

Intersting blog (is the first I visit).
I hope your book will help us in understanding why religion belives leads to war between people, why reality is transformed in fiction and used by priest to mislead believers and conduct them by other ways. But in fact I hope that when I will read your book your fiction will make us travel on the past and have fun.
How come you posted your blog on the 23th July and got comments on it dated 20th of july, is that also part of your mistery?

What in your research for the book and your life prior to having the idea for the book led you to believe that the Church leaders were (and are?) the bad guys?

Socrates fought the con artists who invent false teachings for profit. They have always been a problem. Do you expect to make a profit from this book? Why should we trust you?

Two evils have my people done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns, that hold no water.

Jer. 2:13

I have just came to your site, via a NY Times advert today as what appears as a successor to "DaVinci' and was rather surprised to read that SONY's marketing on DaVinci did not get to you. Surely you must have at least heard of "Holy Blood Holy Grail". You have to accept the idea that many of us see Ressurection as a successor of DaVinci and as such expect a similar literary genre. Gnostism seems to have trived in Egypt and fell off favour as an underlying tradition with the fall of the Egyptian Church but I think it rather hairy to give these Gnostic works precedence over the accepted four. The 'Judas' find further complicates the issue as we now have a third contender to the title of 'the diciple Jesus loved'. The reason for Christianity today is Jesus - truely man and truely God. I don't see how a Gnostic Jesus (as per Judas and Thomas) could have such a great impact

The first thing I want to tell you is: I love you! Thank you for giving us the possibility of reading these gospels. Since a very long time I think catholic religion has fooled us with lies and used Jesus in a different way He would have liked. This is probably just a question of power over the populations and it's hard to forgive. It's about time thruth come to live. For sure I will read your book.

I thought that in the 4 Gospels and in Acts we see, for the first time in history, women finding equality with men in society! That was part of the redemption of Christ - not only of our relationship with God but our relationships with eachother (things broken apart by the fall).

The gnostic gospels, saying things to women like "you must become like a man" in order to find favor with God sounds quite demeaning... Though the church has historically missed this, the scripture (as the Church's true authority) never does... women and men, equaly in their differences, together reflect the whole image of God.
This was most certainly the case in the early church as reported to us in the book of Acts... (Paul's close friendship with Priscilla is just one example), though "popular culture" is bent on telling us that this is not so.

Some things occur for reasons we don't often understand. Like my coming to a blog the first tiime. The subject matter is intriguing for those who are seeking meaning to life. I believe it is good to seek honestly, trying to find in our time the Jesus of history. Does this presume Jesus is history. For many of us he is not. He is present with the Father and present to us now. Ahh to know Jesus, not about Him but to know Him and be in relationship, perhaps for many that would answer many many questions. And they all knew Him, Mary Magdalene, Judas, Thomas, Peter, Paul and on and on...and he knows them and us.

JESUS LOVES YOU.

I read your blog, Tucker, and found it fascinating that you consider the Gnostics "tolerant of other religions and of women". Certainly knoweldge of self was important in Gnosticism, but valuing women? And other religious movements? In fact the Gospel of Thomas, which you cite in the blog, ends with this: "Simon Peter said to them, 'Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life'. Jesus said, 'I myself shall lead her in order to maker her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.'"

Your book looks like a fascinating read, and I trust you've found some new insights into truth through your explorations of the Gnostic texts. But please, let's not make Gnosticism into something it isn't. It isn't tolerant of other people, religions or women. It denies the value of the created world perhaps more than any other religious movement known to humankind. While it's a hip idea to contruct an "ancient alternative" to "the Christianity the world has come to know", we must be true to the texts, and honest with ourselves about what we're creating.

Hello: I too came here by a circituous route while not knowing you also exist somewhere on this planet..the recent hoopla about finding a "Grail child" led to dissapointment realizing this is just publicity hype...which led me to your book, which seems a more sincere and well thought out endeavor. OK...I'll buy your book too...am dashing off to amazon.com for my copy..I wish you all the best and great success with this effort. I see you are a sincere person in search of truths. Aren't we all!
Best wishes,
Sue

I recently viewed your book because I saw a tiny scroll on my New York Times and I became intriged by the hiddengospels.com which brought me here. The reviews you have recieved are all approving. Great blog.. I am sold!

I was raised a Catholic. I once read that this religion was started 100 years after Christ's death. I believed christianity was created by man and yes, the imperfectness of mankind, cause many religions to sprout up. My faith is in mostly the goodness in my heart. Am very happy with myself. Am 63 years old and from experience,and the constant fighting in the world over religious issues. So,When I die,I look forward to nothing.

OOOPs...what is this last name? Malarky? Surely thou jest?

Dear Tucker: I find it a pity that the catholic religion you've been taught is so different from the one I know. It would have spared you lots of search and trouble. Not that the catholic faith I know is not about search, but I mean search with a light, and not a search in the darkness with no other lights that those that dazzle us and leave us even blinder than before.
One of the most striking differences between your understanding of catholic faith and mine, is that about the dignity of women and their role in the history of Salvation. A faith that has taught me that a woman is the Mother of God, the Lady and Queen of all Creation, the universal intermediary of all goods and graces, that the only and right path to Jesus is through Mary, it can hardly be considered as "demeaning" to the female. Like another commentator said, Gnosticism is what is truly demeaning to female, since it places the femenine value only in its capacity of becoming male, unlike the catholicism I knew, which places the femenine dignity in something that is intrinsically femenine: motherhood.
The second striking difference is about the figure of Mary of Magdalene. Apparently, the faith you knew taught you that Mary the Magdalene was just a mere sinner. The faith I know teaches me that, asides the fact that we are all sinners, Mary of Magdalene is one of the greatest saints in the Catholic church, the one that Jesus himself praises as somebody who really know what real love is. And I am not talking, of course, of any sexual meaning, since it's clear to anybody who has known the same faith I have that the guarrantee for purest love can be found in maternal feeling. Mary Magdalene is among the really few privileged people, with just John and Mary the mother of Jesus, to witness the death of Jesus, and the first one to whom the resurrected Jesus appears.
I find amazing many things, but the most amazing one is the charge against catholic teaching of being mysoginist, and even more, the charge of relegating or obscuring the image of Mary Magdalene, when it has been the Catholic Church the one that has put her in the altars, in the name of its churches, and as a model of what a real christian should be. Amazing!

The reason that there are so many contradictions in the Bible is simply because the very stuff that you are writing about was censored. I would encourage anyone who really wants to understand Christianity in depth to read the book.

Tucker,

Over the past couple of weeks I have read 4 fantastic books. I just finished the fourth, Resurrection. The other three were: The Grail Conspiracies by Michael McGaulley; Sign of the Cross by Chris Kuzneski to be released this fall; and The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan.

I have been on a quest for about seven years now and found myself getting into the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Nag Hammadi scrolls. I have found them fascinating, looking for a way to meld them into my own novel.

I am the shipping/receiving "department" at the Barnes & Noble Bookseller here in Yuma, Arizona. I saw your case of books come in last week before I went on vacation. However, I did not know its subject until Michael McGaulley told me to check it out in an email Thursday morning. Beings how I had to meet one of my customers/friends at the story I decided to check it out Friday morning. What a wonderful surprise it was.

Thanks.

Jim "Cowboy" McMullen

PS: I planning on writing a review for the Barnes & Noble website. I'll let you know when I have it posted.