The creation of the Christian Church is one of the most important stories in the development of the world's history, but also one of the most poorly understood.

With a forensic, brilliant re-examination of all the key surviving texts, Geza Vermes traces the evolution of the figure of Jesus from the man he was - a prophet fully recognisable as the successor to other Jewish holy men of the Old Testament - to what he came to represent: a mysterious, otherworldly being at the heart of a major new religion. As his teachings spread across the eastern Mediterranean, hammered into place by Paul, John and their successors, they were transformed in the space of three centuries into a centralised, state-backed creed worlds away from its humble origins. This is the captivating story of how a man came to be hailed as the Son consubstantial with God, and of how a revolutionary, anti-conformist Jewish sub-sect became the official state religion of the Roman Empire.

This fascinating book is Vermes's masterpiece, pulling apart the many myths and legends to focus on the true figure of Jesus and the birth of one of the world's major religions.

Geza Vermes studied in Budapest and in Louvain where he read Oriental history and languages and in 1953 obtained a doctorate in theology with a dissertation on the historical framework of the Dead Sea Scrolls. From 1957 to 1991 he taught in England at the universities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1957-65) and Oxford (1965-91). He is now Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, but continues to teach at the Oriental Institute in Oxford. Professor Vermes is a Fellow of the British Academy, the holder of an Oxford D. Litt. and of honorary doctorates from the Universities of Edinburgh, Durham and Sheffield. His first article on the Dead Sea Scrolls appeared in 1949 and his first book, Les manuscrits du désert de Juda, in 1953. It was translated into English in 1956 as Discovery in the Judean Desert. He is also the author of Scripture and Tradition in Judaism; Jesus the Jew; The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective; Jesus and the World of Judaism; The Religion of Jesus the Jew; and The Essenes According to the Classical Sources.