An entertaining, sociopathic hoax

Why was I expunged from the new edition? I demand restitution, Saxon barbar!

"The Archko Volume" was first published in 1884. This re-print is based on an revised edition from 1887. Actually, the history of the volume goes back to 1879, when a reverend from Missouri, W.D. Mahan, published a sensational document about Pontius Pilate he claimed to have discovered (?) in the Vatican library. Mahan's booklet was modestly succesful, which prompted him to publish even more sensational documents in 1884, and that book became known as "The Archko Volume". Unfortunately for the enterprising reverend (who actually lived in a town namned Boonville!), one of the "documents" in his book was quickly exposed as a hoax. Apparently, Mahan had plagiarized it from the novel "Ben Hur". The offending material was expunged from the 1887 edition.

And now the real shocker: all other "documents" in this book are also frauds! Mahan wrote everything himself, and one wonders whether he even visited Rome and Constantinople, where he claims to have found reports about Jesus written by Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, and Caiaphas. The hoax is transparent, so transparent that one wonders if Mahan was a sociopath, who filled his "documents" with ridiculous statements, just to see how much he would get away with. Apparently, he *did* get away with it: some people still believe that "The Archko Volume" is real (see some of the other customer reviews on this product page).

Even so, "The Archko Volume" is highly entertaining. You don't have to be a scholar, theologian or textual critic to realize that *something* is wrong with it. One of the documents claim that Joseph and Mary fled to Mecca after the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem! Even stranger, the document places Mecca in Jordan rather than in Arabia, and the author also seem to think that Moab and Ammon are the same region. Strange, if the document was really written by Gamaliel, as Mahan asserts. The three Magi are never named, but two of the names traditionally attributed to them, Balthasar and Melker, show up in other parts of the story. One of the Jewish priests is named "Jose B. Talmud", and both Herod the Great and Herod Antipas constantly refer to the Jews in third person, as if they weren't Jews themselves! Did Mahan think they were Romans?

At several points in the "documents", the Jews who meet Jesus consult the Talmud in written form - in reality the Talmud wasn't written down until AD 200. Caiaphas calls God "Jehovah", and the name of the Sanhedrin is consistently misspelled as "Sanhedrim", and in his foreword, Mahan seems to think that Midrash is an ancient document. The volume even contains contradictions, so instead of Bible difficulties, we now have Archko Volume difficulties. In one document, Jesus is swarthy and hook-nosed, and is even described as "an old-fashioned Jew", in another he has golden hair and beard, while the Jews are swarthy and black-bearded!

Occasionally, the "documents" are completely incomprehensible. Here is a real gem, supposedly written by Melker, Priest of Bethlehem: "It is, however, most satisfactory to see and hear that the divine grandeur and authority of the sacred oracles are in no way dependent on the solution of carnal critics, but rest on an inward light shining everywhere out of the bosom of a profound organic unity and an interconnected relation with a consistent and united teleology; overleaping all time, the historical present as well as the past, and all the past brought to light in these two events that have just transpired". Doesn't sound like Talmudic causistry, LOL. And this is how Caiaphas comments on the crucifixon of Jesus: "But when he yielded up the ghost he proved to all that he was hypostatical (that is, a human body), and the lodi curios had come from the iclandic covenant, and his trinitatis unitas was all a sham".

What on earth could have prompted Mahan to write a book like this, passing it off as real, ancient documents? Profit-hunger, perhaps. But another reason was noted already by Goodspeed in his classic "Strange New Gospels" (available on the web). Mahan seems to have been worried by the lack of independent, historical evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. After all, if Pontius Pilate had Jesus crucified, shouldn't there be a record about it in the Roman archives? Shouldn't there be records about the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin? Since no such records have been preserved, Mahan decided to forge them himself. The success of "Ben Hur" might also have inspired him. Personally, I noticed that Mahan mentions Tischendorf several times in his foreword. Was the reverend of Boonville jealous at the famous Tischendorf, who made sensational manuscript finds during this period?

It's also interesting to speculate about the theological tendency of "The Archko Volume". Joseph and Mary are constantly denigrated, Joseph in particular. The spirit is said to be better than the physical body. Pilate wants to save Jesus already before his arrest by the Jewish temple guards, and considers him to be a great moral teacher, like Socrates. Was this also Mahan's position? Caiaphas is portrayed as a well-meaning leader who sincerely belives that Jesus is a heretic and a threat to the Jewish Commonwealth. In the most sensational part of the book, the resurrected Jesus appears before Caiaphas and forgives him, which makes Caiaphas resign his position as High Priest and become a Christian!

At least Mahan wasn't anti-Semitic, LOL!

Finally, I just can't stop myself from quoting the following gem from "Gamaliel's interview with Joseph and Mary" (he found them at Mecca, remember?).

"Joseph is a wood-workman. He is very tall and ugly. His hair looks as though it might have been dark auburn when young. His eyes are gray and vicious. He is anything but prepossesing in his appearence, and he is as gross and glum as he looks. He is but a poor talker, and it seems that yes and no are the depth of his mind. I am satisfied he is very disagreeable to his family. His children look very much like him, and upon the whole I should call them a third-rate family."

Gee, what a mindjob.

Recommended. In a way.