From this prize-winning and best-selling author comes a magisterial new project: a dual biography, weaving together the preeminent figures of Judeo-Christian civilization and overturning the conventional view of Moses and Jesus as humble men of faith.

Rooting the biographies of Moses and Jesus in their historical contexts, Rosenberg reads their narratives as cultural--rather than religious--endeavors. He charges that both Moses and Jesus were "educated" men, steeped in the literature and scholarship of their day. There were no old or new testaments for them, but rather a long history of...