In writing this profoundly moving and illuminating account of Jesus Christ, his ministry and his death and Resurrection, David Lewis has drawn primarily on Mark, the earliest Gospel writer. He has endeavoured to fill in the chronological gaps in Jesus’ life, and in painting a portrait of him as a living, breathing, drinking sociable being, has relied on non-canonical scriptures and other sources, as well as his own vivid imagination.

Our initial meeting with Jesus places him in our minds as a man. Yet he was chosen by God, says the author, to demonstrate in practice what God’s eternal nature and purpose is. So we come face to face with a man of tremendous charm and charisma - and humour - who electrifies people with his words, his gifts and his healing powers. His words, even in printed form, clutch at the core of one’s emotional and intellectual being. The modern English phrasing reveals the author’s own gifts as a former preacher. It lifts the veil.

Theologically, ‘The Real Jesus?’ presents an interesting conundrum. Jesus, it claims, was not God, nor merely man. He was the Messiah, chosen by God and not part of a mysterious triple identity, as the Christian Church later resolved at Nicea and Chalcedon. He was simply unique. In these pages we meet a very special man indeed, a man of God, whose death and triumphant Resurrection proclaimed God’s kingdom for us all.