Jesus Christ

Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish teacher and religious figure active in Galilee and Judaea in the early first century CE. The earliest Christian sources describe him as proclaiming the kingdom of God, teaching through sayings and parables, gathering disciples, healing and engaging in disputes over religious practice and authority. He was baptised by John the Baptist and eventually travelled to Jerusalem, where he was arrested and executed by crucifixion under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, probably around 30 CE.

Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, whose followers came to proclaim him as Messiah, Son of God and risen Lord. Historical study can establish aspects of his Jewish setting, public activity and Roman execution, but the surviving evidence is principally theological as well as biographical, and exact dates for his birth and death remain disputed. Claims concerning miracles, resurrection and divine status belong to religious belief and cannot be demonstrated or rejected by ordinary historical method in the same way as administrative or political events.

The linked novels and retellings approach Jesus through people around him rather than a single historical reconstruction. Robert Graves’s King Jesus offers an intentionally revisionist interpretation, while Margaret George’s Mary, Called Magdalene, Angela Hunt’s Magdalene and Jeffrey Archer’s The Gospel According to Judas reimagine Gospel events through named followers. Norah Lofts’s How Far to Bethlehem? treats the Nativity tradition, and Mika Waltari’s The Secret of the Kingdom explores the aftermath of the crucifixion.