Out this week, “Killing Jesus.” Full-page ads. “60 Minutes” interview Sunday. “Killing Lincoln” sold 3 million. “Killing Kennedy,” still on the List, sold 2 mil. How would Bill O’Reilly dare risk this new book?
“For one year, everything was examined. The Israeli government opened its archives and excavations to us. Researcher Martin Dugard viewed the discovery of Caiaphas’ remains. We studied Islamic history. I’m Roman Catholic, and I had to tamp down the Romans’ methodical records, which were anal. Look, I’m not one to censor.
“Roman sadists listed how long he was on the cross. How they got him down. How his body had no broken bones. Their execution squads’ brutality vis-à-vis Jesus’ love for humanity was stunning. The Nazis based their executions on the Romans.
“Jesus, most famous name ever, did it alone. No help. No money. No p.r. No government. No sports team. Imagine today, no infrastructure, someone becoming something all on his own.
“The Internet revealed obscure facts. Like Chinese astrologers following a comet at Jesus’ birth. We triple-checked all with religious experts. Then Ivy League scholars flagged anything not legit. Evangelicals will hammer me. Secularists dislike anything new said. You can’t mess around with Jesus.
“Matthew 15 says he ‘was called out of Egypt.’ He was then newborn. No bus. They couldn’t make it there. He’d have died. Using our own smarts, we figured he’d fled Bethlehem going southwest, which is toward Egypt — so we didn’t include that.”
And how came such a book idea?
“Jesus, always memorialized theologically, is never recorded in pop history. Middle of the night when I can’t sleep, I woke up with the idea.”
Odds & ends
Willem Dafoe inhaling an airport’s custom gourmet burgers (whatever those are) before grabbing a plane . . . Two Rollses, several Benzes and a Bentley outside Primola, while inside eight Saudis and five guards stuffed themselves . . . B’way’s “Big Fish” musical, starring Norbert Leo Butz, opens the Neil Simon Oct. 6. Rumor is big fish director Susan Stroman could pump in a little CPR.
Comics with a good cause
Seventh annual event “Stand-Up for Heroes,” in 10th annual Comedy Festival, founded by Caroline Hirsch’s Carolines comedy club, in its 30th annual year, is Nov. 6, Madison Square Garden theater.
The festival’s delivered 175 comedians — Kathy Griffin, Larry David, Bill Maher, Wanda Sykes, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Robin Williams, Whitney Cummings, David Steinberg, Ricky Gervais, Sarah Silverman, Conan O’Brien. This year’s stand-up comics will do stand-ups at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Beacon Theater, Carolines and 50 venues.
“Stand-Up for Heroes” fund-raises to help our wounded warriors. This year, it’ll have Bill Cosby, who says: “As a veteran of four years in the US Navy, I’m showing support of all the men and women who’ve signed their names and raised their hands to serve the United States of America.”
Happenings
Dina Merrill’s grandson Cole Rumbough wrote and sings his “Awakened” in the soon-due same-name movie . . . Reeve Carney, who quit flying around “Spider-Man,” returned to the old dressing room to clear out his guitar cases . . . Julia Louis-Dreyfus doing Barney’s . . . Liv Tyler once told Bernardo Bertolucci no exposing both breasts. “It’s exploitative nudity.” The compromise. Showing only one breast.
Blond ambition
Definition of one of our legally blond TV interviewers: So proud of an athlete who had an Olympic gold medal, she suggested he have it bronzed.
Sophisticated fab lady grabs a cab on 74th and Madison and says what a quiet morning it is and she’s surprised it was so unusually easy to find a taxi. Replies the well-dressed Nigerian cabbie: “Well, it’s Sukkot. The biblical Jewish holiday also known as the Feast of Booths.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.