Catherine Nixey

Journalist Catherine Nixey tells the stories of the many Jesuses and says that far from ‘In the beginning was the Word’ there were in fact many different saviours who faded from view because they were deemed unacceptable.

The opening words of the Gospel of John are central to Christian teaching. Nixey says there was not one word after the death of Jesus nor was there any consensus about who he was. She describes the many Jesuses including the aggressive one who scorned his parents and crippled those who opposed him, the Jesus who sold his twin into slavery and the Jesus who had someone crucified in his stead. Nixey says there were many saviours who healed the sick in the early years of the first millennium but they were deemed unacceptable and even heretical by early Christians and they faded from view.

Nixey is a journalist at the Economist. Her first book, The Darkening Age, won a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award.