Hugh J. Schonfield

Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield was a British Bible scholar specializing in the New Testament. He was born in London, and educated at the University of Glasgow. He was one of the founders of the pacifist organization Commonwealth of World Citizens. A Jew who termed himself a "Nazarene," meaning that he believed Jesus Christ was the Messiah, he believed that Jesus did not found Christianity, that St. Paul did, because he was mentally ill and thought he was himself the Messiah.

Schonfield wrote commercially successful books in the fields of history and biography as well as religion, and he translated the new testament as The Authentic New Testament. In 1965 he published the controversial book The Passover Plot whose thesis is that the Crucifixion was effectively a public relations campaign that went wrong. He followed it with a sequel in 1968, Those Incredible Christians, that was also termed a "shocker" but had less impact than the earlier one.

Works:

• (trilogy)
  • Jesus a Biography
  • Saints Against Caesar
  • The Jew of Tarsus
• Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls
• The Bible Was Right
• The Song of Songs
• A Popular Dictionary of Judaism
• The Passover Plot
• Those Incredible Christians