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

Description

A revolutionary account of one of the most famous and influential figures in world history The creation of the Christian Church is one of the most important stories in the development of the world's history, yet one of the least understood. 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.

Geza Vermes was born in Hungary in 1924. He studied in Budapest and Louvain, and was the first Professor of Jewish Studies at Oxford. He is one of the world's greatest experts on early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The subject is not exactly the Christian Church, which makes an appearance effectively only half way through the text; it is Jesus - what he was, what he said he was, and what Christians said about him after his crucifixion. For anyone puzzling over such questions, this is an exciting and challenging port of call, sweeping aside much of the fuzzy thinking and special pleading that bedevils the study of sacred scripture ... [a] courteously expressed and witty little book -- Diarmaid MacCulloch * The Times * This book represents the summation of [Vermes's] thinking about the early history of Christianity. It is a challenging and engaging book that sets out to retrace the route by which a Jewish preacher in 1st-century Israel came to be declared as consubstantial and co-equal with the omnipotent, omniscient only God -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman * A major contribution to our understanding of the historical Jesus * Financial Times * A magnum opus of early Christian history and one of the year's most significant titles * Bookseller * A very accessible and entertaining read -- Gareth Williams * Scotland on Sunday BOOKS OF THE YEAR *