Jackson's thesis sits in the opening line of the description with no cushioning at all: nothing is new or original in Christianity. That sentence is the whole project of this audiobook, and the copy calls it demonstrated rather than argued, which tells you the posture before you press play. Six hours and sixteen minutes of continuous case-building follow, credited to Richard Webb, released by Echo Point Books and Media in June 2024. The description closes by tracing the text to a 2002 American Atheist Press edition, so the recording is a late audio life for a book that has been circulating in print for decades.
Comparing Horus, Krishna and Zoroaster to Christ
Polemic is the register, and the listing makes no secret of it. The copy describes Christianity as a beast threatening the liberties and rights of citizens in a secular republic, and it ends on an exhortation that every atheist needs to know what the book contains. Publisher copy this heated is unusual, and it is genuinely useful, because it tells a shopper exactly what temperature to expect. Nobody arrives here by accident. What the copy does not do is describe the method, and the method is the reason to listen: a comparative sweep through older religions looking for the components that later turn up, rearranged, in the Christian story. The listing also declines to say when the book was first written or who Jackson was, so a shopper meeting the name for the first time receives a thesis and a temperature and nothing at all to place them by.
Comparison of that kind lives or dies on specifics, and this is where the written column earns its keep. Horus, Krishna and Zoroaster are the figures singled out there as useful to scholars and non-scholars alike, alongside a complaint that the treatment never goes into great detail. Both halves of that verdict describe the same quality. A survey that crosses several traditions in a single sitting is going to move fast, and anyone wanting a single tradition examined at depth will feel that speed as thinness. That balance of praise and complaint is worth borrowing wholesale, because it names the trade honestly: a great deal of material, and comparatively little apparatus for testing any of it.
Webb Tracks Proper Nouns Across Many Traditions
Horus, Krishna and Zoroaster are the kind of names that carry a lot of freight, and the interesting thing about this book is who has found it persuasive. One five-star, writing in 2021, reports having cited the book in a work of their own and names it in the response. Another, writing in June 2019, describes coming to it from inside a religious Christian family and wanting a practical, logical view of the accounts of Jesus Christ, then recommending it to anyone with the same questions. Those are two very different readers arriving at the same page, which is a better argument for the book than the description's own volume level.
Webb has a specific problem to solve that most nonfiction readers do not. Names arrive from several older traditions at once, and a listener cannot flip back three pages to check which figure belonged to which. Continuous argument with a heavy load of proper nouns is the hardest shape of nonfiction to follow by ear, and the runtime carries no chapter-by-chapter apparatus that the record discloses. Anyone planning to use this as source material rather than as a listen should expect to take notes. Length works differently on cumulative material, too, and this argument builds rather than repeating itself, so ten drifting minutes cost you a link in a chain instead of a scene you can guess at.
Nineteen Pages Can't Explain Six Hours of Audio
Nineteen pages is what one written response says it holds. The September 2019 four-star reports it as really a journal article rather than a book, running to nineteen pages. Set that against a recording of six hours and sixteen minutes, which at any human reading pace is worth well over a hundred pages, and the two cannot describe the same object. Somebody in that column is holding a slim printing while the file is built on something much longer. The record itself never names an edition, a page count or an abridgment status.
Brattleboro, Vermont is where the copy places the publisher, and the same paragraph credits a 2002 press run to a different house, so the provenance chain is at least three deep before you reach audio. The dates deepen it: the oldest written response was filed in September 2010, nearly fourteen years before this recording appeared, and every other entry also predates it. Not one person in that column could have heard Webb read a word. Their stars grade a text, and a very old text at that. Confirm which edition the file was made from before you pay for it.
Treat This as History, Not Live Scholarship
Atheists and free thinkers are the audience the copy names outright, and readers already interested in comparative mythology will find the fastest return here. If the claim that Christian symbolism has older sources is new to you, a first pass at this length is a reasonable investment, with the caveat that this is one voice making one case rather than a survey of the scholarship. A 2010 response asks the right question about that: whether the material withstands the sands of time, given that discoveries and patterns of thought change over the years. The question gets sharper once you notice that the copy dates the text no further back than a 2002 press run and says nothing about when it was first composed.
Believers looking for a fair-minded discussion of their tradition will not find one, and the description says so before you buy. Listeners who want current scholarship should treat the recording as a historical document of a particular argumentative tradition rather than as a literature review. And anyone who needs to quote this material will want the printed text alongside the audio, since names, dates and sources arrive faster by ear than any listener can hold them.
Before You Press Play
- Narrator: Richard Webb carries a name-dense comparative argument alone, and the record offers no chapter apparatus to help a listener keep the traditions apart.
- Subjects: Comparative religion, origins of Christian symbolism, secularist polemic
- Tone: Combative and dense
- Bottom line: Persuasive company for readers already curious about pre-Christian sources, provided you accept a single loud argument instead of a survey.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this audiobook a full-length book or a short essay?
The file runs six hours and sixteen minutes, which is far more text than an essay carries. No page count, edition note or abridgment status appears anywhere on the record, and one written response describes a much slimmer printing. If exact contents matter for study or citation, ask the seller which edition was recorded.
Does the audiobook argue a case or survey the debate?
It argues. The description states the thesis as demonstrated, calls Christianity a threat to secular liberties and closes by telling every atheist to know what the book contains. Expect one sustained case built from comparisons with older religions, not a balanced account with counterarguments given equal room.
Where does the text of this recording come from?
The description credits a 2002 American Atheist Press edition and names Echo Point Books and Media, an independent bookseller based in Brattleboro, Vermont, as producer and publisher of this version. The audio itself was released in June 2024, so the recording is recent while the argument inside it is not.
