An interesting theory about the acts and teachings of Jesus, based on the idea that Jesus was of Davidian descent and was adopted into the Levite tribe at the time of his baptism by John. The object was that he could serve as the priest/king whose proclamation would announce the beginning of the restoration of Israel by God's angelic forces. The arguement will not convince the orthodox since it complete derides any idea that Jesus thought of himself as divine, that he intended his message to reach the Gentiles, that he regarded the Pharisees as enemies or that he intended to overthrow Mosaic Law.
Graves' analysis of the ressurection is particuarly intersting since he can claim an intimate experience of having been put aside as dead in a World War I dressing station, then regaining consciousness almost 30 hours later. He proposes that Jesus was similarly not dead, but in a deep coma, and was freed from the tomb by the guards who intended to steal the expensive ointments left near the body. Finding Jesus alive they let him depart and later claimed that an earthquake had rolled the stone aside and the disciples had taken the body. Since Jesus was still under sentence of death he left Roman controlled territory. Graves used many of the ideas in this book in fictional form for his novel _King Jesus_. The book is difficult to find, since only 4000 copies were published in 1953. A new edition was issued in 2011, but it sells for around $80, so is not likely to be a casual purchase. If you look for the book be sure to get the full edition with the method and commentary, not the Part III only which contains only the "restored text" not the explanation for the changes.

Graves' Hellenic scholarship meshes with Podro's Judaism to construct a version of the synoptic Gospels in which Jesus is a Jew trying bring about the apocalypse by fulfil the Messianic prophecies to free the Jews from Roman dominion and is executed under Roman law. Although there are few formal citations, there can be little doubt about the authors' expertise and, although their thesis that the early Christian Church was a house divided fell into disrepute soon after the publication of this book, more recent research favours their view that the followers of Peter (who self-identified as Jews) and those of Paul (who saw themselves as adherents of a new religion) were in conflict. The Petrine faction emphasise Jesus' humanity; the Pauline see him as a Hellenistic god. Graves and Podro argue that the gospels reflect the Pauline tradition by minimising the political significance of Jesus to sanitise him for an imperial Roman audience. The thrust of their reconstruction is, therefore, to remove what they consider to be later 'supernatural' distortions. ( )