Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30-325

With a forensic, brilliant re-examination of all the key surviving texts of early Christianity, Geza Vermes illuminates the origins of a faith and traces the evolution of the figure of Jesus from the man he was - a prophet in the tradition of other Jewish holy men of the Old Testament - to what he came to represent: a mysterious, otherworldly being at the heart of the official state religion of the Roman Empire. Christian Beginnings pulls apart myths and misunderstandings to focus on the true figure of Jesus, and the birth of one of the world's major religions.