The Gospel According to Renan provides a new and holistic interpretation of one of the non-fiction sensations of the nineteenth century: Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus (Vie de Jesu). Published in 1863, Renan's book aroused enormous controversy through its claim to be a historically accurate biography of Jesus. While Life of Jesus provoked the ire of the Catholic Church in hundreds of sermons and pamphlets, it also sold hundreds of thousands of copies, making a fortune for its author and his publisher.

Based on research into a huge range of print and...