The book, which immediately became an intellectual bestseller after its publication, presents the events described in the gospels in a new way. A careful reading of the narrative as a historical source in the context of Jewish history and culture leads the author to an unexpected interpretation of the story of Jesus. Chayam Maccoby (1924–2004) - English scholar, grandson of Rabbi Chaim Zundel Maccoby, known in the Jewish world as the "Magid of Kamenets", studied at Oxford with a degree in Antiquity, during the Second World War he served at the Royal Institute of Telecommunications and Radar. After the war, he continued to study Jewish and Christian religious tradition, first at Oxford and then at the University of Leeds, and became famous for his theories about Jesus as a historical figure and the historical origins of Christianity.