My Bookshelf
From the Publisher:
"The cross may be the most powerful and recognizable symbol in the history of Western civilization. But what are the historical origins of the cross, and what happened to it after Christ's crucifixion? In a church outside Rome, a small fragment of wood, neglected for hundreds of years, may hold the answer to these questions and prove fundamental to understanding the real genesis of Christianity." "Thiede and d'Ancona - best-selling authors of The Jesus Papyrus - have written a revisionist work. The Quest for the True Cross explores the long-ignored fragment of the Titulus Crucis, the inscribed headboard of Christ's cross." Their claim is a radical challenge to the modern view that all supposedly holy relics are fakes. Thiede and d'Ancona have amassed evidence that this fragment dates from the time of Christ and was brought to Rome by Queen Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. According to legend, Queen Helena found the cross in Jerusalem in A.D. 326, on the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands.
From the Critcis:
Daily Telegraph: Important and riveting-a book every inquiring Christian, and open-minded sceptic, should read.
Publishers Weekly : When did Christians begin to venerate the cross of Jesus? Thiede and d'Ancona, who stirred up controversy about the dating of the Gospels in The Jesus Papyrus, challenge the prevailing scholarly opinion that the cross became a central symbol only after the emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. According to legend, Constantine sent his mother to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where she excavated and brought back to Rome the Titulus Crucis, or the headboard of the cross on which was written the words "King of the Jews." Using philological, literary and archeological evidence, the authors argue against this legend, claiming instead that the earliest Christians must have begun a tradition of venerating Jesus' cross. For example, they find the Chi-Rho symbol in papyri from the second century, and on a shard from Bethsaida from the first century. In their view, such discoveries support the claim that the cross functioned as a key symbol in pre-Constantinian Christianity. In addition, the authors discover the Titulus Crucis in a church in Rome and use the same tools to suggest a "plausible if unprovable" chronology of the life of this relic. Unfortunately, the book's tone is often arrogant and condescending to any scholars who hold beliefs other than the authors'. Moreover, it is plagued by so much repetition that it would have been more appropriate as a journal article. Overall, the authors' case appears rather thin, using scanty evidence to make definitive assertions about the True Cross. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews: An examination, sure to provoke controversy, of Christianity's most powerful symbol. Does wood from the cross on which Christ was crucified exist in the world today? Many parishioners of Rome's Santa Croce in Gerusalemme church would say yes. In its recesses, write Swiss papyrologist Thiede and English journalist d'Ancona (Eyewitness to Jesus, 1996), is housed a 25.3-by-14-centimeter section of the titulus, or headboard, that, three of the four Gospels aver, bore mocking words in three languages stating "This is the king of the Jews." Examining the board without the benefit of dendrochronological and palynological tests, which they urge be undertaken, and arguing instead from linguistic and scriptural evidence, Thiede and d'Ancona assert their belief that the Santa Croce titulus dates from the time of Christ even though other scholars have held it to be a forgery. Their argument, they acknowledge, is in no way definitive, but it at least restores the fragment of wood "to its rightful place in the spectrum of historical probability"-a worthy enough goal given the importance that Christian scholarship places on history and chronology. Of more interest to general readers of biblical and religious history is the authors' survey of the legend of the cross, bits and pieces of which were traded and fought over even in antiquity, and much of which, it is said, disappeared when the Frankish army that carried the cross as a talisman lost it in battle against the Sultan Saladin. Traditional scholarship holds that the cross itself became a symbol of Christianity only after the Roman emperor Constantine adopted it as his standard, but Thiede and d'Ancona counter, convincingly, that this view is basedon questionable evidence and that Constantine (and his mother Helena) simply rediscovered a symbol already widely used by early Christians. Revisionist history, albeit inconclusive, that's interesting, well-made, and should attract much attention.