Jesus: The Unauthorised Version

For most of the 2,000 years of Christianity, we have known Jesus through the canonical gospels of the New Testament. But in other gospels, very different 'Jesuses' emerge. Using these gnostic and unauthorised sources, this book creates a remarkable biography of Christ. "The Da Vinci Code" asserts that the Holy Grail is a two-thousand-year-old secret - that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus and had his child, whose descendants live in France. There have been countless references to their union and these have been explored endlessly by modern historians. Yet it is not mentioned in the Bible. Much of Jesus's biography was written out of the New Testament by the Church. In the years after his death numerous accounts of his life and teachings circulated amongst his followers. Over time, many of these texts were deemed heretical, and banished. Some were destroyed or lost; others hidden away for centuries. Thus, the Bible only represents a tiny proportion of what was written about Jesus in the early years of the church. Some of these gospels survive and are among the earliest Christian records. Here is Jesus's life story, as told through these gospels and other early Christian writings. It uncovers the truth about Mary Magdalene and goes to the very heart of Christian beliefs, challenging assumptions underlying western civilization.