"That Jesus was born a few years before the beginning of the era that starts with his birth is one of the minor curiosities of history."
Page 11

"In the first century Mediterranean world, Jews and Gentiles agreed on a lot of things. Most of them believed in supernatural beings, and worshiping God (or the gods) by sacrificing animals, and in various kinds of rites and purifications."
Page 33

"Since the law was written, all literate Jews could read it, and the non-literate heard it read and discussed in the synagogue."
Page 43

"When Jesus was executed, his followers fled or hid, but their hopes were renewed when they saw him alive again."
Page 58

"I share the general scholarly view that very, very little in the apocryphal Gospels, could conceivably go back to the time of Jesus. They are legendary and mythological."
Page 64

"The more parallels there were between Jesus and...