Editing Hugh J. Schonfield (section)

==Works==

Schonfield wrote over 40 books including commercially successful books in the fields of history and biography as well as religion. In 1958 his non-ecclesiastical historical translation of the New Testament was published in the UK and the US, titled ''The Authentic New Testament''. This aimed to show without idealised interpretation the meaning intended by the writers while maintaining the original structures. A revised version appeared in 1985 titled ''The Original New Testament''. In 1965 he published the controversial ''[[The Passover Plot]]'', a book the thesis of which is that the [[Crucifixion]] was part of a larger, conscious attempt by Jesus to fulfill the Messianic expectations rampant in his time, and that the plan went unexpectedly wrong. According to Steve Turner, this was one of the books John Lennon was reading when he commented that the Beatles were "[[More popular than Jesus]]".

Schonfield followed ''The Passover Plot'' with a sequel in 1968, ''Those Incredible Christians''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Fiske |first=Edward B. |date=21 July 1968 |title=The Villain is Paul; Those Incredible Christians |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/07/21/archives/the-villain-is-paul-those-incredible-christians-by-hugh-j.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=13 June 2023}}</ref> This was also described as controversial,{{cn|date=November 2021}} but had less impact than the earlier book.<ref name="Lunn2004"/>{{not in source|date=November 2021}}

An additional aspect of his work was the revision of the [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] writing system.<ref name="SchonfieldianScript"/> In ''The New Hebrew Typography'', published in 1932, he argued for a significantly revised version of the [[Hebrew alphabet]] modelled after the [[Latin alphabet]], including a capital-lowercase distinction, no final forms, a vertical emphasis, and serifs. This alphabet has not been adopted.