A different take on the story of Jesus and whether he really existed. An intriguing read you will not be able to put down.

This book is easy enough to read, given all of the religious and historical detail and terminology, and is great if you are looking for history of primarily the first several centuries after Jesus walked the earth. How one feels about this book will likely have a lot to do with your worldview, faith values, and context going in. For that reason I would not recommend it, and labored to finish it. When I agreed to preview the book, courtesy of Netgalley, in return for an objective review without commitment it was a little misleading. The promotional paragraph read that the author would reveal Jesus in "a new vision that neither asserts divinity nor dismisses him as an entirely secular phenomenon". Now that I read that again, I see where I was the one that erred as it clearly says the author had no intent to assert Jesus' divinity. Yet, in my mind I was expecting a more objective approach. That was settled in the first several pages where statements are made such as "Jesus was not a god", "his miracles were not supernatural", "he intentionally goaded the Romans into killing him". As a Christian who has a trusting relationship with Jesus, it is likely pretty obvious - as I do believe Jesus was 100% God AND 100% man, that his miracles would not be called miracles if they could be explained away with natural science or logic, and that he was obedient unto death but in his humanity hoped for another way as he travailed over that very question in the garden of Gethsemane. Streiber also calls faith a 'confident yearning toward enlightenment' where I ascribe to the biblical definition that it is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. There is lot of valuable history later in the book about the persecution of Christians during governmental changes in leadership in Rome and a lot of time spent on the Shroud of Turin. "Not only the condition of the Shroud suggests that (the resurrection) happened, but also the actions of Jesus after he emerged from the tomb." Most Christians do not hang their faith on the authenticity of the Shroud, but it may strengthen the readers faith to see how it was so protected over time and to know that what it reveals does show that something unexplainable happened to whomever it covered. I believe one of the statements the author and I fully agree to is the last one of the book. "Belief or faith or none, it does not matter: Jesus is there."

I can't quite decide what to think about this book. It seems very scholarly yet I am unable to find anything to substantiate the author's credentials. Clearly reflects extensive research and, from what I know of the subject, has a lot of good information. Gives a tremendous amount to think about yet leaves substantial questions open (which he acknowledges up front). In many ways it is just a tribute to the Shroud of Turin - that was not advertised. Like the rest of the book, that isn't automatically bad, but I am not fully comfortable with his legitimacy.

Bottom line: it was approachable, readable, and interesting. I definitely learned things reading it and am not sorry to have spent the time on it. But I never found a full comfort level with it.

This book places Jesus of Nazareth in historical context, describing him as a teacher, a genius, a mystic, a religious ecstatic, and a faith healer who transformed the concepts of morality in the Western world. It rejects the idea of miracles, describing them instead as natural phenomenon we may not yet understand.

I like that this book is comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, talking instead about possibility, laying out the evidence without drawing conclusions. The one area where it fails to do this is with the Shroud of Turin, which it seems to present as the undeniable burial cloth of Christ. That part of the book stands out as an anomaly and doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the text.

IMO, the most important arguments in the book have to do with Christ preaching spiritual growth rather than religious dogma. The book shows how the teachings of Christ are relevant in a modern world that may reject the more mystical aspects of Christianity.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received.