This is another book that offers a "defense" against JRM. Although the authors intent is written about 6 million times (that, of course, it is Christian ignorance and hatred of Jews)... but it offers valuable information into detailed accounts of the evidence brought against the Jews in the past.
"In this important study, features of late second-millennium B.C.E. culture are critically examined in order to define the complex social boundaries of the early Iron Age and reconstruct the diverse material world of Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, and early Israel."
CR: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/biblical-peoples-and-ethnicity-ann-killebrew/1112920701?ean=9781589830974
"The Hebrew Bible portrays King Manasseh and child sacrifice as the most reprehensible person and the most objectionable practice within the story of 'Israel'. This monograph suggests that historically, neither were as deviant as the Hebrew Bible appears to insist. Through careful historical reconstruction, it is argued that Manasseh was one of Judah's most successful monarchs, and child sacrifice played a central role in ancient Judahite religious practice. The biblical writers, motivated by ideological concerns, have thus deliberately distorted the truth about Manasseh and child sacrifice"
CR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1105820.King_Manasseh_and_Child_Sacrifice
Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue follows the interaction between Jews and Christians through the ages in all its richness, complexity, and diversity. This collection of essays analyzes anti-Semitism, perceptions of the Other, and religious debates in the Middle Ages and proceeds to consider modern and contemporary interactions, which are marked by both striking continuity and profound difference. These include controversies among historians, the promise and challenge of interfaith dialogue, and the explosive exchanges surrounding Mel Gibson’s film on the passion. This volume will engage scholars, students, and any reader intrigued by one of the longest and most fraught inter-group relationships in history.
The author tries to "debunk" the blood libel accusations but ends up giving us 1st hand knowledge of the accounts of court proceedings during the trials of the heretics... I mean "innocent Jews". - Readers Opinion
"Alan Dundes, in this casebook of an anti-Semitic legend, demonstrates the power of folklore to influence thought and history. According to the blood libel legend, Jews murdered Christian infants to obtain blood to make matzah. Dundes has gathered here the work of leading scholars who examine the varied sources and elaborations of the legend. Collectively, their essays constitute a forceful statement against this false accusation.
The legend is traced from the murder of William of Norwich in 1144, one of the first reported cases of ritualized murder attributed to Jews, through nineteenth-century Egyptian reports, Spanish examples, Catholic periodicals, modern English instances, and twentieth-century American cases. The essays deal not only with historical cases and surveys of blood libel in different locales, but also with literary renditions of the legend, including the ballad “Sir Hugh, or, the Jew’s Daughter” and Chaucer’s “The Prioress’s Tale.”
These case studies provide a comprehensive view of the complex nature of the blood libel legend. The concluding section of the volume includes an analysis of the legend that focuses on Christian misunderstanding of the Jewish feast of Purim and the child abuse component of the legend and that attempts to bring psychoanalytic theory to bear on the content of the blood libel legend. The final essay by Alan Dundes takes a distinctly folkloristic approach, examining the legend as part of the belief system that Christians developed about Jews.
This study of the blood libel legend will interest folklorists, scholars of Catholicism and Judaism, and many general readers, for it is both the literature and the history of anti-Semitism."
"Originally a pamphlet published in 1853, The Two Babylons is Hislop's most famous work. In this book he argues that the Roman Catholic Church is nothing more than pagan cult, with roots in Babylonian mystery cults, which have a bank of secret knowledge only available to those who have been formally accepted into the cult. Roman Catholics, Hislop argues, are descendants from early Christians who adopted the Roman religion descended from the worship of Semiramis, the wife of the founder of Babylon. By discrediting the true Christianity of Catholics, Hislop hoped to bolster the legitimacy of the Protestant and Scottish Reformations. Students of theology and those interested in the complex history of Christianity will find Hislop's arguments provocative enough that they may be moved to further research of their own. Scottish minister ALEXANDER HISLOP (1807-1865) became an ordained clergymen in the Free Church of Scotland in 1844."
CR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/750676.The_Two_Babylons?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=dvJcEO5mCg&rank=5