The Jesus Illusion relentlessly poses just one question; who was Jesus of Nazareth?
For too long the story of the human Jesus has been all but abandoned by both independent and religious scholars. Tony Sunderland, in his new book, challenges the reader to join him on a new quest to find the echoes of Jesus's lived existence that can still be heard nearly two thousand years after his death.
To find any semblance of 'Jesus the Man', Sunderland argues that we must strip away the supernatural aspects of the Christ story, disregard the institutional constructions that arose after Jesus's death, and try to see the very human story hidden beneath the myth: A story of someone born in poverty and raised in obscurity, who dedicated his brief life to being a voice for the oppressed and abused.
We come into this world helpless and armed only our instinctive yearning to survive; and all of us leave it the same way! Jesus, like the rest of us, lived and died a very 'human' life. Sunderland takes the reader on a journey to discover the historical Jesus in a way that does not depend on a leap of faith. Surprisingly, what he discovers, will be uncomfortable for some; but also, enlightening for many.