For those who read Freke's and Gandy's earlier book, The Jesus Mysteries, this work is the perfect companion piece. Whereas The Jesus Mysteries made a good case for the pagan origins of the Christian mythology and the Gnostic origins of the early church, Jesus and the Lost Goddess goes one step beyond in explaining-in considerable detail-the nuts and bolts of how Gnosticism works. In effect, Freke and Gandy have done nothing less than reintroduce the ancient religion to a broader audience in an attractive package that is sure to reach even into the dusty pews of the established churches. Whether this will prove to be a good or bad thing is yet to be determined.

In any case, Jesus and the Lost Goddess does a good job explaining precisely how Gnosticism works and how the Jesus story might be interpreted in the light of Gnostic mythology. In this, it presents a thought-provoking and fascinating look at a movement who's time has come and gone and, perhaps, come again. And, it manages to do this in a considerably more user friendly manner than most books on the subject, including Elaine Pagel's excellent work The Gnostics (which, while it does an admirable job explaining the history of the movement, does not do as well explaining it) and herein lies its greatest strength: it manages to bring the very complex and often confusing concepts within Gnosticism down to a laymen's level. While it can be on occasion a tedious read (Freke and Gandy sometimes slip in a few $25 words) and a bit obtuse at points, anyone who makes it all the way through should have a pretty good working knowledge of this ancient belief system that manages to seem both ancient and modern at the same time. I also found many parallels between the Gnostic's theology and that expressed in Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God trilogy, making me wonder if the three men ever read each other's work.

There are a few negatives however. First, the buyer should be aware that fully half of this book is composed of endnotes, making it a less substantial read than it might first appear. I also found the first appendix to be an unnecessary (and less concise) reiteration of information contained earlier in the book, and the second appendix on Islamic Gnosticism to be misplaced and not particularly useful (I also question their premise that Mohammed was a mystic. Historically speaking, he appears much more a conquering warrior/king than a closet Gnostic, but-oh well.)

But for anyone who is looking for an all encompassing and intellectually satisfying belief system that can stand up to the scientific and philosophical scrutiny of the twenty-first century and beyond, Jesus and the Lost Goddess is a good place to start. It sure beats anything else I've come across recently.

I'm not sure I believe much of what Freke and Gandy attempt to prove in their deconsruction of Christian Church. While there is not doubt that the early Christians were nothing like the Roman Catholic church of today, it's hard to convince this reader that the entire cult was based on a gnostic myth.

At the heart of this book, the writers try to display (as in their earlier writings) that Jesus never existed. The gnostics just imagined his story, and egged on by Paul, who never met the historic Jesus, they spread their story world-wide. And then the literatists turned myth into history.

It's hard to grapple with. While their description of the gnostics is wonderful and their slight brush with the goddess Sophia (who became the Virgin Mary as an object for veneration in the traditional church), the essential theme remains suspect.
Writers with better reasoning powers and closer readings of Jewish midrash and Gospel research (Spong and Pagels) have shown that the first Christians were both gnostic *and* that Jesus was a real person. They also point out theat another branch of original Christians, led by Jesus' brother James, practiced a highly Jewish form of Christianity, keeping the laws and demanding circumcision. If Jesus were just a myth, why would this cul even have come into existence?

When it comes right down to it, Freke's and Gandy's view is skewed, but makes some interesting reading. It just isn't convincing.

There are several very intelligent reviews of this book; so well done that there's not much I can add! What I will say is that this book, and its prequel have changed my life...I cannot for the life of me understand why the information in this book is not being made common knowledge. I guess it is far too radical of an idea for people to accept.

I find that staunch Christians are very threatened by this book, while those with a more open mind are intrigued, or, as in my own case, fascinated. I am not a Christian, and have not decided whether or not I feel a historical Jesus ever existed. To me it doesn't matter; even though I'm not Christian, his ideas were very valid and meaningful. If you believe that, then you should not find this book offensive.

This book is an excellent sequel to "The Jesus Mysteries" and I couldn't put it down. If you have a strong grip on your faith and are willing to listen to other people's ideas & findings, you may find that this book is interesting & maybe even life changing. READ THIS BOOK and find out.....
If you are like me and have looked beyond what you were taught in Sunday school, you will find your world changed forever (for the better)...

For developers involved with web-based projects, whether it be an online store for electronic commerce or an Intranet site for accessing and modifying company data, the powerful blend of JavaServer Pages (JSP) and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) technologies can really make life simple. Once you've mastered them, creating new components that encapsulate business logic, or new web interfaces to existing systems, is easy. The trick, for developers, is mastering the technologies.

Professional JSP is one way to get up to speed. Like many of the books published by Wrox Press, Professional JSP covers a specific technology in-depth, as well as the various ancillary topics relating to it such as databases, servlets, and XML. While not every developer will need every web technology covered by the book (and there are many), the book works both as a tutorial to cover the basics and a reference for technologies that you may encounter later.

Professional JSP starts by covering the basics of Java Server Pages, and how they relate to other web technologies. Embedded in HTML pages, JSP provides an easy mechanism for creating interactive web interfaces that draws on server-side components, known as Enterprise JavaBeans. While the presentation logic is written in JSP, the processing occurs within these JavaBean components. The book takes a balanced approach, covering both JSP and its syntax, as well as how to write and interact with JavaBeans to perform useful tasks, like accessing databases through JDBC and using other Java technologies. However, if you've read other Wrox titles, you may find there is some overlap in the topics covered.

One of the nice things about Professional JSP is that, in addition to covering theory, it goes further and examines practical applications of JSP, and issues for programmers like security and debugging. Like other titles in the Professional series, there are case studies of real projects using JSP and related technologies. My favorite would have to be the case study on porting Active Server Pages to JSP -- something that is extremely important for developers with "legacy" web systems. On the whole, Professional JSP is an excellent book for web developers wanting to get up to speed with Java Server Pages, web development, and Enterprise JavaBeans. However, developers with less of a web presentation focus and more of back-end server view may also want to consider the excellent Professional Java Server Programming title, which also covers JSP. -- David Reilly, reviewed for the Java Coffee Break

This book covers the chapters in a very structured way. It starts with a concise description of the JSP Basics with a detailed explanation of the concepts. It explains all the concepts in a very clear and simple words supported by an equally clear Comments and examples. Any body with a little of Java experience can become very familiar with the JSP syntax and concepts by reading first few chapters. It covers all the necessary JSP syntax for building a small web application to a very large distributed Application. It also explains about the way the JSP pages are processed by different web servers. For example it explains about the various methods available to maintain a persistence session and their merits and demerits. This is the first book in JSP series that explains not only the concepts of JSP and how effectively one can use them with the help of this book. It also covers various other topics like EJB, JNDI, JDBC, XML, XSLT and WML in very detailed way. Overall I feel this is the greatest JSP book ever published so far. I could build a simple and robust JSP Web application by reading the first few chapters in a short period of time.

This books lives up to its title in that it provides both real-world JSP techniques (through 7 very informative case studies chapters), as well as JSP background information that serves as a quick start guide. I rank it as one of the top 2 JSP books currently available (the other one is Web Development With JavaServer Pages by Messrs. Fields and Kolb).

After the JSP fundamentals are out of the way (which I am sure any JSP newcomer will appreciate and can benefit from), the book picks up pace with discussion on JDBC connection pooling, and the best practice for data access from JSP. Then comes the chapter on custom tags. My favorite chapters are the ones on debugging JSP's and implementing the MVC design pattern in JSP/servlets.

The case studies are very comprehensive and closely correlated to the earlier chapters. In one case study the design methodology is clearly explained with UML diagrams, which are very helpful to someone who is currently architecting an enterprise Java Web application. Other case studies cover such a wide area of topics such as JSP in combination with LDAP, EJB, XSL, and WAP.

For ASP developers, this books has two enormously useful chapters to get them started on JSP right away. One is a case study showing how to port an ASP app to JSP, and the other compares and contrasts the object model and syntax between ASP and JSP.

Having said all the above, this book does suffer from certain weaknesses. One is typical of any multi-author book, i.e., repeat of the same topic in different chapters. This is the case with JDBC, which shows up in both chapters 4 and 7. Another problem is the lack of the use of a standard servlet/JSP container, which will help new users to run all samples under the same software setting (although there is an appendix on setting up Tomcat server). Finally, a few chapters seem to be out of place in term of the logic flow of concept, such as the ones on dynamic GUI's and JNDI.

Finally, this book is still thin on heavy-duty J2EE topics, such as EJB, distributed transactions, message service, and interoperability with CORBA. This is why I consider it as an intermediate level book, not an advanced one. Hopefully we will see another Wrox book in the near future that addresses some of these issues.

The book is yet another giving us additional insight into Hillary Rodham. I question the need to dissect such people. There willingness to place themselves into the arena of political public humiliation in the name of leadership says far more than any analysis. At the same time, are we so blind to believe what keeps her with her husband, a husband who betrays the vows of their marriage almost beyond what he promises the nation? She helps ease the burdens of greatness, whether that greatness turns into a heroic legacy, infamy of deeds without excuses or just plain becoming a national joke. In any and all events, Hillary has stood by and eased his burden by sharing it. They raised a fine young woman and for all the faults, allegations and innuendoes it is hard to argue that bad parents raise bad children, Chelsea is a product of something, any all critics must admit, it may be the bonds of the marriage of Bill and Hillary. This does not excuse all of the lies, misinformation or abuse of power, bad like life no one is all bad all the time. Good reading so long as you read all books about Hillary.

I just had to reread, The First Lady ,to try again to understand what makes this very intelligent woman tick. Why does she stay with this guy, The President? The Flaherty boys open a window to the opportunistic soul that seems to drive our first lady. Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, et al. all make a little more sense after this window has been unlocked and opened. A great quick read!