3 Review(s)

How many books do you know that carry a pitch like the one above? Christianity was born nearly 2000 years ago in ancient Palestine. It has shaped the course of human history. Yet historians still cannot say how it really began. How did a 1st-century preacher called Jesus manage to spark a new religion? It is one of the biggest and most profound of all historical mysteries. This extraordinary book finally provides the answer. And it has been staring us in the face for over a century. This is the result of seven years of research from a brilliant art historian. It represents a breakthrough in our understanding of the past. It finally answers a fundamental question: what started Christianity? The answer has been staring us in the face. Traditionally, the birth of Christianity has been explained via the miracle of the Resurrection. After Jesus died he was raised from the dead by God and appeared to his disciples, telling them to spread the gospel. Once they saw the Risen Jesus nothing could shake their belief. Within a few generations Christianity had spread throughout the Middle East and Europe; within a few centuries it had taken over much of the world. Today this explanation looks increasingly incredible, and even many Christians cannot bring themselves to believe in a literal Resurrection. But this has left historians unable to account for Christianity’s remarkable success. If no one really saw the Risen Jesus, how were they convinced that he was their immortal Messiah? Art historian Thomas de Wesselow has spent the last seven years deducing the answer to this puzzle, and in doing so he has pieced together an entirely new picture of the birth of Christianity. Reassessing a familiar but misunderstood historical source and reinterpreting many Biblical passages, de Wesselow shows that the solution has been staring us in the face for over a century. The Shroud of Turin, widely thought to be a fake, is in fact authentic. And it holds the key to the greatest mystery in human history. About The Author Thomas de Wesselow is an art historian used to tackling "unsolvable" problems. He studied art history at Edinburgh University and at the Courtauld in London, where he worked successfully on the Guidoriccio Problem, one of the great mysteries of Italian art. Later, he became a Scholar at the British School in Rome, researching an even more complex puzzle, the so-called Assisi Problem. In 2002, he was appointed a Post- Doctoral Research Associate at King's College, Cambridge University, where he was later awarded a Leverhulme Early Career. He left in 2006 to write full-time Quite simply, the publication of The Sign will shake the roots of Christianity as we know it. The post release noise will just be earth shattering.