Heresy. Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God. Catherine Nixey

Contrary to the teachings of the modern church, in the first few centuries of Christianity there was no consensus about who Jesus was or why he mattered. Instead, there were many different messiahs. One Christ had a twin brother and traveled to India; another communed with dragons. Another, a particularly terrifying Christ, despised his parents and killed those who opposed him. In addition, in the early years of the first millennium there were many other saviors of humanity, many sons of gods who healed the sick and raised the bedridden. But as Christianity spread, they were deemed unacceptable, even heretical, and they disappeared from view.

The book Heresy offers an introduction to the different versions of Christ that existed among early Christians, and to the process of evolution and elimination of the “superfluous” that made Jesus the only significant figure in Christianity as we know it today.