"What if everything the Gospels sayabout Jesus... his words, his deeds, his plans... actually turn out tobe... true?" In this exhaustively researched new life of Jesus, award-winning writer Robert J. Hutchinson argues that Jesus wasnot an "apocalyptic prophet" who thought the world was about to end.Jesus was not a "zealot" revolutionary who wanted to kill the Romans.Jesus was not a Greek Cynic philosopher. Jesus was not an orthodox rabbi who accidentally got himself killed by causing a disturbance in theTemple. Jesus was not a world-hating Gnostic. Jesus was not a delusional fanatic who tricked his followers into following him.. Instead, the author says, recent research suggests that Jesus was just as the Gospels describe him: a fiery, courageous,charismatic populist who drew crowds by the tens of thousands andelectrified all of Palestine with his strange and exhilaratingannouncement of God's kingdom in their midst. Jesus reached out to themost wretched and despised people in society -- the demon-possessed, the deformed, those afflicted with horrible contagious diseases,prostitutes, even soldiers of an occupation army. Hutchinson shows that many of the negative ideas about Jesus paraded in the media everyChristmas and Easter are increasingly obsolete. These obsoleteportraits of Jesus, the author says, are based on assumptions, theoriesand unproven hypotheses that are more than a century old and that havebeen discredited by more recent research.. Written for skeptics and believers alike, Searching for Jesus reveals how the Gospels are truer than many people have been led tobelieve -- and Jesus of Nazareth, far from being less than is described in the Gospels, is actually much bigger... and far more interesting.
