Book excerpt: Christ 700 BC. One people, two kingdoms-one betrayed the other to total destruction. The Christ myth is ancient. The crucifixion account in the gospels relates to events that took place hundreds of years before the supposed time of Jesus. Such are the conclusions of this book which will revolutionise the way we see both Christianity and Judaism. The Judas War uncovers the story of a traumatic conflict in which a Judean king committed a desperate act that led to the annihilation of the sister kingdom of Israel. The surviving nation of Judah was racked by guilt, its population swelled by an enormous influx of refugees. To control a rebellious people, the king and priestly establishment centralised all religion in the Jerusalem temple. But the Judas War lived on through a dissident minority who preserved the bitter memory of the betrayal. The mainstream wrote the scriptures to deflect from their own shame. The dissidents told a very different story. The Judas War takes the reader on an epic journey to the real ancient Israel as revealed by modern archaeology as well as the original texts. It reveals a cosmos ruled by fallen angels; a religious worldview traced back to the Canaanite origins of the Jews. It shows how the unfolding tragedy on earth was explained by a tragedy in heaven: the divine king of the Jews, the Christ, had been crucified by the angelic rulers, the archons. He had been betrayed by the Jerusalem establishment who were represented by the fictional character of Judas Iscariot. After the defeat and exile of Judah, the Christ myth was expanded under a calendar of cosmic days ("the Almanac") to encompass all humanity. The Almanac set out the complete timeline of the world, past, present and future, as a symmetrical whole. It predicted that the Christ would be resurrected from the dead on "the third day" to defeat the archons and establish his new kingdom of heaven. Hundreds of years later in the first century, a female shaman announced that the time had come- Christ had appeared to her... The book reconstructs the Almanac from surviving sources and shows how it explains the gospel crucifixion account. From the strange timing of the crucifixion day to details such as the severed ear and the young man who has his sheet torn away, all come from the Almanac and the Judas War. Going further, the book uncovers a belief that Christ had come to earth three times in three different forms. And how as "the child of seven days" he revealed the shattering secret that would overturn the relationship between God and humanity. S.P. Laurie is the author of The Rock and the Tower and The Thomas Code.