Do historians still have something to say about Jesus of Nazareth? The flood of books about the life of this Galilean Jew who lived 2,000 years ago continues unabated, as evidenced by the editorial output of the last two years, from Le Jésus des Historiens. Entre vérité et légende ("The Jesus of Historians. Between Truth and Legend") by researcher Pierluigi Piovanelli and A Quest for the Historical Christ by biblical scholar Anthony Giambrone, to The Life of Jesus by Vatican expert Andrea Tornielli and the re-edition of Le Fils de Dieu ("The Son of God"), by Dominican exegete and translator Etienne Nodet – to name but a few French-language works.

Many international universities, both religious and secular, hire researchers who study the historical Jesus. Some meet at conferences organized regularly by academic networks, such as the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS, Society for New Testament Studies) in Cambridge, the Réseau de Recherche en Analyse Narrative des Textes Bibliques (RRENAB) for the French-speaking world, the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense, at the University of Leuven in Belgium, or the large American fair of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), which brings together thousands of biblical scholars from all over the world.

On the face of it, this is hardly surprising. Jesus is probably the most famous person on the planet. He is revered by 2.5 billion Christians, who see in him the "Christ" (from the Greek khristos, "anointed one, messiah," designating the savior announced by the Hebrew Bible and whose return is foreseen at the end of time), but also by two billion Muslims, who consider him a prophet with an eschatological dimension.

You have 91.99% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.