The gospels claim to be eyewitness accounts of real people and events. Yet many today think of them as made-up stories about a man called Jesus.

If the gospels are tales written long after the supposed events, Jesus and his teachings may be mere fables. But if they are accounts solidly rooted in the historical reality of the time, they should be taken seriously—because the likelihood is that they are, as claimed, God’s message to humanity.

This book addresses the claims of skeptics and offers evidence for those who seek an informed faith. It examines details and allusions in the gospel records through the eyes of secular historians, geographers, philosophers, politicians, poets and lawyers, from antiquity up to the twenty-first century.