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.