Jesus of Nazareth: The Real Man and his Message

This book treats Jesus of Nazareth as an ordinary person who had an important message which his disciples did not fully understand. That message was wilfully distorted by Paul of Tarsus and early Christian writers. The first part of the book examines the nature of the man and his message, with particular reference to the Gospel of Mark. The second part speculates about what Jesus would now make of the modern world and what he would believe in today. Jesus’s message was centred on the Kingdom of God which looked to the future of life and humanity. This message is here interpreted from an atheistic and humanistic viewpoint. Eliminating God from the equation enables us to make better sense of what Jesus was saying and thus get to the root of his message, before the gospel writers distorted it with later subjective material. He is the common man who struggles with life like the rest of us. We can identify with him when he is seen not as an impossibly divine being but as a man who suits the times in which we live. The development of his idea of the Kingdom of God refers to everything that is worthy of life and humanity which will boost our future prospects. The result is a post-Christian view that is holist and therefore capable of embracing all religious and non-religious outlooks.