The Liars' Gospel

Notes on Sources

This is, of course, a work of fiction. Much of it is made up, especially the personal lives of public figures, which tend not to be recorded. However, many of the most surprising parts of this book are based in fact. So, a few brief notes on some of the things that are true. Insofar as we know what is true. My main sources have been the works of Josephus, the Talmud and the Gospels themselves.

Miryam

“When his family heard about it, they went out to lay hold on him, for they said: ‘He is out of his mind.’” —Gospel of Mark 3:21

“Then his mother and brothers came to see him and, standing outside, sent someone in to call him.…And he answered them saying, ‘Who is my mother, or my brothers?’ And he looked about on those who sat around him and said, ‘These are my mother and brothers!’” —Gospel of Mark 3:31–35

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XVII, 10, contains an account of the rebellion at the festival of Shavuot (The Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost) in around 4 BCE, along with the result: “The number of those that were crucified on this account was two thousand.”

Iehuda from Qeriot

“A follower said to him: ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him: ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.’” —Gospel of Matthew 8:21–22

“And in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table there came a woman with an alabaster flask of pure spikenard, very precious. And she broke the flask and poured it on his head. And some disciples were angry and said, ‘Why waste this perfume? It could have been sold for a very high price and the money given to the poor.’…Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles, went to the priests to betray him.” —Gospel of Mark 14:3–10

Caiaphas

“Seven days before Yom Kippur [the Day of Atonement] we sequester the High Priest from his house…we even make sure there’s another wife for him, because what would happen if his own wife died?” —Talmud Yoma 1, 1

“And the priest shall write these curses in a scroll, and he shall wash them out in the bitter waters. And he shall make the woman drink the bitter waters that cause the curse.” —Numbers 5:23–24 (the whole ritual is recounted in Numbers 5 throughout)

The massacre in the square by plainclothes soldiers is recounted in Josephus, The Jewish War, II, 9.

Bar-Avo

Sicarii mingle with the crowd and kill people with daggers concealed in their cloaks in Josephus, The Jewish War, II, 13.

Epilogue

“[Titus’s soldiers] caught every day five hundred Jews; some days they caught more…they nailed those they caught, one in one way and another in a different way, to the crosses for a joke. Their multitude was so great that there was no room for all the crosses.” —Josephus, The Jewish War, V, 11 (Titus’s speech here is also largely taken from Josephus)