Who was
Jesus really? The Swedish author Jonas Gardell set out to find the answer to
this question. Was Jesus really the same person who he as a child imagined him
to be, growing up in a believing home, belonging to the Swedish Baptist Church?
Or was
the sitz-im-leben of first Century Palestine so fundamentally different that we
must revise our image of Jesus – and what image are we then left with?
Jonas
Gardell soon realised it is impossible to write an objective book about these
questions, since everyone’s portrait is painted from the perspective of its
author. Therefore, Gardell decides to hold his ground: he is a believer. But he
does not want us to believe him – he wants us to set our own questions and try
to find our own answers.
Reading
this book gives us much food for thought, not least because the author does not
see the question as only theological but constantly relates it to our own
lives, our own society. And at the same time, we follow the exciting journey
from the birth of Jesus to the early Christian communities.