This major book may be regarded as Gerd Lüdemann’s magnum opus, summing up as it does the result of 25 year’ study of Jesus of Nazareth. It is dominated by the question: what words and actions attributed at an early stage, and what can in all probability be regarded as genuine?

Here is no secondary survey of the work of others, nor a thematic approach. Rather, all the extant traditions of Jesus from the first two centuries are retranslated, after which their historical value is investigated - in a way that even those without a technical training can follow.

After an introduction describing the approach of the book, four chapters deal with the New Testament Gospels. Then come chapters on the Gospel of Thomas and Jesus traditions outside the New Testament. The book ends with a brief life of Jesus. There is an index of all the authentic words and actions of Jesus.

In this way Gerd Luedemann seeks to give guidance about the contradictory pictures of Jesus in both scholarly and popular literature. He is convinced that people living within a culture shaped by Christianity should have good historical information about the roots of Christianity in Jesus, whether they are believing Christians or not.