Jesus update

So, the man behind the man who blessed the world with an alternative to Harry Potter, namely Michael Baigent (who, for those of you who don’t follow such esoterica, claimed – unsuccessfully – that Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code was plagiarised from Baigent’s Holy Blood, Holy Grail), has revealed that Jesus and Pontius Pilate colluded in faking the crucifixion.

Being Easter, it’s a big news week for Jesus – and of course a good time to sell plenty of related books. This week also sees the publication of the hotly disputed Coptic Gospel of Judas, in which Judas is revealed as a loyalist who was guily of no more than following orders.

If Constantine and those that followed him were a bit more savvy, this ever-evolving plot-line could have spawned quite a profitable industry. Like the Vatican, for example, but a version which eagerly accumulates profit and quashes social evolution. Quite unlike the real Vatican, then.

By Jacques Rousseau

Jacques Rousseau teaches critical thinking and ethics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and is the founder and director of the Free Society Institute, a non-profit organisation promoting secular humanism and scientific reasoning.