This might be my favorite project. The first half of it critiques the fictions, forgeries, films, and fragments of pop culture. The second half of the book discusses the sociology of marriage in Second-Temple Jewish life. I am told that this book is assigned reading for the class "Jesus in Film and History" at UCLA.

This is a weird one. I wrote this as a workbook (companion) for Jerry Sumney's introduction. I never wrote one for the first edition. So this workbook was first published as a "second edition." It's a wild and woolly world. That said, this is packed with ancient texts that never made into the Bible. The idea here was to shed light on the cultures of the authors.

This book has been used in classrooms at Yale University, University of Wisconsin, Ohio Wesleyan University, etc. I tinker with topics like perception, memory, and propaganda in my quest for a plausibly historical Jesus. Once upon a time, this little book made me a heretic resulting in my dismissal and loss of income. I suppose it's sort of a badge of honor now. But very few badges of honor make up for the loss of regular paychecks. On the bright side, every two years I get a royalty check for $1.78. Also, who doesn't want their name framed in hot pink?

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Update: this book has be translated into Korean.

This book is in One World's "beginner's guides" series. I introduce Jesus (both as man and concept) along five paths: Jesus the man, Jesus the literary figure, Jesus in pre-modern imagination, Jesus in scholarship, and Jesus in pop culture. This book has been translated into Portuguese under the title "A história de Jesus para quem tem pressa."