What You Weren't Taught In Sunday School

In What You Weren't Taught In Sunday School, Dr. Jerald Dirks, a former ordained minister (deacon) in the United Methodist Church and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, kicks open the door and reveals some of the skeletons hidden in the closet of Biblical and Christian history—skeletons that raise disturbing questions. How is it that the various Christian denominations have never agreed on what and how many books are to be included in both the Old Testament and the New Testament? Did St. Paul attempt to murder St. James and corrupt beyond recognition the actual teachings of Jesus? Just how completely was Paul at violent odds with the earliest form of Christianity as taught by the Jerusalem Church of St. James and the actual disciples of Jesus? How thoroughly are the concepts of Holy War and genocide embedded in the Bible? Does the Bible claim that two different people killed Goliath? Did Moses have a Nubian wife long before he married Zipporah of Midian? Was "Doubting" Thomas the actual brother of Jesus? Which Jesus was crucified, and which Jesus was freed? Where and when were various Biblical passages altered by either addition to or deletion from the original Biblical text? How is Jesus portrayed in Jewish and Islamic literature, and how do those portrayals differ from that found in the New Testament? How badly does the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation distort the actual historical facts? These are just some of the questions raised. As troublesome as these questions may be, their answers are sometimes even more disturbing.

DR. DIRKS received his B.A. and M.Div. degrees from Harvard University and his M.A. and Psy.D. degrees from the University of Denver. He is the author or co-author of over 60 published articles in the behavioral sciences, over 140 published articles on the Arabian horse and its history, and over 220 published articles or formal presentations on religion and current affairs. He has lectured about religion nationally and internationally at 20 different universities and colleges, and he has been interviewed about religion on television or in the print media in six different countries. He is the author of six previous books on religion and religious history.