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I usually steer clear of books that debate or discuss theology, and I can't really remember why I selected this one (although I have a hunch that the selection of review books on offer was not inspiring, and this may have been the best available). This book basically argues that the fourth gospel was actually written by Lazarus, not John, and that Lazarus was therefore the ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’. I am sceptical of any author who claims to bring a new interpretation of the Bible. After all, there is a long tradition of this - Joseph Smith and Mary Baker Eddy spring to mind – and these new interpretations generally contradict mainstream Christian theology. If John really didn’t write the fourth gospel, why has this ‘error’ persisted? And what difference does it make to the central truths of the Christian message?If I had read to the end of the book, I might be able to answer these questions. But I didn’t, partly because I felt there were gaps in the author’s logic. As an example, one of the author’s early pieces of ‘evidence’ is that when John is referred to by Jesus in the other three gospels, it is as one of the ‘sons of thunder’, which contradicts the idea that John didn’t name himself as the author of the gospel because he was too humble. The fourth gospel was not (obviously) written during Jesus' lifetime, and one of the central beliefs of Christianity is the power of God to change hearts and minds, as He did with Saul/Paul. Is it too much to believe that John, son of thunder, could have learned humility later in life? Equally, it is possible that John was always a humble man and that the ‘son of thunder’ refers to his father, Zebedee, as being like thunder. However, the main reason I couldn’t finish the book was that in reading it, I felt what can only be described as a check in my spirit, the feeling I get when something is wrong. So, I stopped reading, and went to look at the other reviews on Amazon. There were a lot of five-star reviews, including one by the author (which is a big no-no on Amazon), and the author was refuting some of the one-star reviews (which, in my opinion, is another no-no). Many of the five-star reviews have an unusually large number of ‘helpful’ votes, the reviewers have no other reviews (which is often the sign of a fake review), and several of these reviewers referred to themselves as ‘Bereans’, making me wonder who the Bereans are. Out of curiosity, I Googled the term. Apparently, there are two separate Berean denominations. One, the Berean Fellowship, appears to be a Baptist denomination. But this is not the one that the author is aligned with. Instead, it appears that he is a Berean Christadelphian. Christadelphians seem to place the teachings of two early leaders ahead of the teachings of the Bible (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berean_Christadelphians) and may reject the doctrine of the Trinity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereans, although this is contradicted by http://www.angelfire.com/bc2/Bereans/what_christadelphians_believe.html). Phillips appears to be a Berean Christadephian, placing the Bible above the teachings of the early leaders, but I am not convinced that this author represents mainstream Christian thinking, so would not recommend this book. Thanks to BookCrash for providing a free ebook for review.