Bill O’Reilly says God told him to write his new book, "Killing Jesus: A History."
The Fox News anchor explains in an interview on CBS’ "60 Minutes" that one night he awoke with the title of the book in his head. He says he believes he got that message from the Holy Spirit.
O’Reilly says the book is a researched, historic account. Despite its de-emphasis of religion, he is using his special gifts from God in a positive way.
He says it’s all part of God’s plan for him.
I’m sure he thinks so. Actually, it is Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, who also co-authored "Killing Lincoln" and "Killing Kennedy" with O’Reilly. O’Reilly’s name is just so much bigger because God told the publisher that he talks to O’Reilly.
Is the shroud mentioned? The authors come close – and oh so far. Here is a quote:
[T]hey do make the extravagant gesture of coating the body in expensive myrrh and aloe, to overwhelm the coming smell of decomposition. Then they wrap the body tightly in linen, making sure to keep it loose around Jesus’s face in case he is not really dead but merely unconscious. In this way, he will not suffocate. Jewish tradition dictates that all bodies be examined three days after apparent death. Thus the tomb will be reopened and Jesus will be observed on Sunday.
But all this is merely adherence to ritual. For Jesus is clearly dead. The spear rupturing the pericardial sac around his heart left no doubt.
Nonetheless, the tomb will be reopened on Sunday. When death is formally pronounced, his body will rest inside the tomb for a full year. Then the bones will be removed from his decomposed body and placed in a small stone jar known as an ossuary . . .
Pericardial sac? Where do we think they got that?
There is this:
As the two Marys approach the tomb, they are stunned. The tombstone has been rolled away. The crypt is empty.
Mary Magdalene cautiously steps forward and looks inside. She smells the myrrh and aloe in which Jesus’s body was anointed. She clearly sees the linen shroud in which the body was wrapped. But there is nothing else there.
To this day, the body of Jesus of Nazareth has never been found.
Mary clearly saw the shroud? Did the AP not say, “O’Reilly says the book is a researched, historic account. . . he is using his special gifts from God in a positive way.”
Yup! Got to love this paragraphs from a review of the book by New Testament scholar Joel L. Watts:
. . . While promising a researched narrative they simply rely on a fanciful retelling of the Fourfold Gospel story. It is written, I believe, to appeal to the fundamentalist and the evangelical but fails miserably in the hype induced by Mr. O’Reilly’s comments earlier this year, that somehow Jesus was crucified because he a member of the Taxed Enough Already Party.