Jesus in books

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Introduction

Jesus has probably inspired more books and biographies than anyone else in human history. But which of them are worth reading if you’re exploring the life of Jesus for the first time – or even for the second or third times?

 Divine recommendations

In these pages, we look at just a few of the books currently in print about Jesus and the Christian faith, plus some novels where Jesus is one of the main characters.

The books include a range of views about Jesus from within the mainstream Christian faith, but there are also books here which have become famous for challenging the orthodox portrait of Jesus – at least one of them brought Christians out onto the streets in protest. We think it is worth including the more contentious books because they help readers come to their own conclusions about Jesus.

“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus once asked his followers. Here are books which help as we try to answer that question for ourselves.

Jesus: his life

Conversations with Jesus of Nazareth by Simon Parke
Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict
Jesus by Marcus Borg
The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren
The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey

The Christian faith and the Bible

Simply Christian by NT Wright
Tokens of Trust by Rowan Williams
The Orthodox Way by Kallistos Ware
The Bible from Scratch by Simon Jenkins

Novels and narratives

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
The Shack by William Paul Young
The Last Temptation by Nikos Kazantzakis
The Shadow of the Galilean by Gerd Theissen

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