Open Letter to Bill O’Reilly

(Note to my Readers:   When I started writing this occasional blog earlier this year, I promised to keep each entry 300 words or fewer (thus its title, Short Takes).  And I have kept that promise.  But today is the exception that proves the rule, because Bill O’Reilly has written a book that strikes a deep, personal cord in me and today I just have to vent.  I’ll be back to my 300-word-maximum promise when I resume writing Short Takes in early January.   Thank you.  -Skip)  

TO: Bill O’Reilly

FROM: Skip Johnson

RE: Your book Killing Jesus, A History

Dear Bill,

I just finished reading your book Killing Jesus, and I must tell you, Bill, the part of your book that is about Jesus is just not true.  It is a blatantly false account of the real story, and it does a serious disservice to anyone who reads it and expects to gain an insight into Jesus’ life and death.  You should be ashamed of your book, and of yourself for writing it.     

You say your book is a “fact-based” telling of Jesus’ life, but it is not.

You say you base the part of your book about Jesus on the Bible’s four Gospels, but you do not.

You say your book is not a religious book, but it most certainly is! 

I’ll get to those complaints in a moment, but first I probably should state my qualifications for saying them. 

Beginning in 1977, I became almost obsessed with learning all I could about Jesus the man (the reasons why don’t matter here).  The deeper I looked, the more fascinated I became.  There was so much more to this man and his life than I had ever imagined.  

I couldn’t stop searching.  I studied the Gospels intensely, a section at a time, often a sentence at a time and sometimes even one word at a time (such as the word “Word”). I took notes.  I bought books.  I underlined  extensively.  I gathered all I could find of the knowledge that modern scientific research into Jesus’ era has produced.  

To make a long story short, I spent more than 20 years researching Jesus’ life up close and personal, for personal reasons.  My intention was never to write a book about what I learned, but I’m a nonfiction writer and that’s what nonfiction writers do, so eventually I did.  

The book (The Gospel of Yeshua;  A Fresh Look at the Life and Teaching of Jesus) drew high praise from religious and secular reviewers alike, as well as just plain readers. 

And that’s why I feel I can say with conviction and some authority, Bill, that you do not know what you are talking about.  And because of that, your book  has caused -- and is causing -- damage. 

Let’s get back to my first two specific complaints -- that your book is not, as you say it is, a “fact-based” telling of Jesus’ life; and that it is not, as you claim it is,  based on the Bible’s four Gospels.  

Bill, If you understood the Gospels at all you would understand why I say that.  But since you plainly do not understand, let me explain.

When Jesus died, his followers thought the world was about to end so there was no need for anyone to write a book about him.  But fifteen years later, when the world was still here,  they began to rethink.  

Within the next five or ten years (it’s impossible to be certain), three writers wrote accounts of Jesus’ life and death that eventually made it into the Bible as the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke.  Each one wrote a factual account (by the standards of the time), and although they wrote for different reasons and for different audiences, they agreed so closely on most significant events in Jesus’ life that together they became known as the “Synoptic Gospels.”

And then came John. Twenty or so years after the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke were completed, John decided to write a fourth book.  He certainly was familiar with the first three books so he knew there was no need to reinvent the wheel.  Instead, he wrote his book specifically to persuade readers that Jesus was the Son of God.  He wrote a spiritual book, Bill, not a factual one.  He never intended it to be factual.    

And the result is that his book could not be any more different than the Synoptic Gospels.  Some examples:  

• John says Jesus’ ministry lasted three years and he cleansed the Temple at the beginning of it.  The Synoptic Gospels agree his ministry lasted one year and he cleansed the Temple at the end of it.  (I noticed you, Bill, say he cleansed the Temple at the beginning and the end of his ministry, although there is nothing in the Bible that even hints of that.) 

• John says Jesus performed such astounding acts as bringing a dead man back to life and turning water into wine.  The synoptics do not mention either of those events, although if they had known about them they surely would have mentioned them -- don’t you think? 

• John shows Jesus declaring his Messiahship at the beginning of his ministry and repeating the claim so often it almost becomes his mantra.  Matthew, Mark and Luke all show Jesus going to great lengths throughout his ministry to specifically avoid being identified as the Messiah.  (He did that for two reasons.  One, he could be executed if people started believing him; and two, if people started thinking he was the Messiah, they would pay more attention to who he was than what he was teaching, which was his real purpose.)

John and the Synoptic Gospels even differ on matters of emphasis and style.

• The Synoptic Gospels place extreme importance on Jesus’ baptism, temptations, transfiguration and the events in the Garden of Gethsemane.  John doesn’t even mention any of them.

• The Synoptic Gospels depict Jesus as using parables and short proverbs as his primary teaching tools, but they never show him speaking in long allegories.  John depicts Jesus as never using parables and rarely using short proverbs, but often speaking in long and complicated allegories.

Therefore, Bill, getting back to my original point, with all the wild differences between John and the Synoptic Gospels, how could you possibly claim it is both “fact-based” and follows all four Gospels?  It cannot be done.    

But actually, Bill, you don’t really follow the four Gospels at all.  You base your “fact-based” story about Jesus almost entirely on the Book of John, with rare cherry-picking dips into the Synoptic Gospels.  Every story you tell is either unique to the Book of John or, when the four Gospels tell the same story, you follow the Book of John’s version.  And yet -- again, Bill -- the Book of John was written as a spiritual book and was never intended to be taken as factual.

So, fact-based?  Based on the four Gospels?

Not even close, Bill.    

Which brings me to another complaint.  You say repeatedly, both in your book and in subsequent interviews, that your book is not religious.  Well, yes, Bill, it most certainly is religious.  Since you base virtually all of your book on John, and John says he wrote his book “so you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God” (John 30:31, NRSV), how could any book based on John not  be religious?

How could any book about Jesus not be religious, for that matter? 

Those are my major objections, Bill, but there are other little inaccuracies -- minor by themselves, perhaps, but put together they bolster my argument that you don’t know what you’re talking about.  

In one place you say the Court of the Gentiles is separate from the Temple, and  another place you say Jesus “leaves the Court of Gentiles and walks toward the Temple itself.”  Bill, the Court of Gentiles is a part of the Temple.  It is not  separate from it.  

You say Mary Magdalen was a prostitute, although the Bible never says that. 

You refer to Jesus as the Christ and also as the messiah.  Why do you capitalize one and not the other?  They are the same word in different languages, Bill.  They both mean “the chosen one.”  Why do you discriminate?

Perhaps the most revealing part of Killing Jesus , though, is your “Note to Readers,” in which you say the four Gospels “sometimes appear to be contradictory” (sometimes?  appear to be?); or “we will tell you when we don’t know what happened or if we believe the evidence we are writing is not set in stone” (you rarely do); and, of course, that it is a fact-based, non-religious book.

But for sheer arrogance, your closing line in your “Note to Readers” takes the cake.  You say that “the incredible story behind that lethal struggle between good and evil has not been fully told.  Until now.”

Until now?  Bill, thousands of us have told that story (in varying degrees of accuracy) for nearly 2,000 years.  Yours was not the first by any stretch of the imagination.  You just joined a long, long line of us who have tried.

I could go on, Bill, but I hope you get the point -- which is, in essence, that you have spread significant falsehoods to millions of readers about “the most beautiful story ever told,” and by so doing you have greatly damaged the understanding of who Jesus was and what he actually did on earth. 

You should stick to politics, Bill.  Or better yet, entertainment.

Sincerely,

-Skip

PS -- If you want to read my book, The Gospel of Yeshua; A Fresh Look at the Life and Teaching of Jesus (Corinthian Books, 2001),  you can find it at Amazon.com or at any eBook source.  I suggest you begin at Chapter 5 where the narrative of Jesus’ public life begins.  The rest is background.

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