Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus

Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work on the Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores her most ambitious subject, the life of Jesus himself. Miracles and Wonder unfolds like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?

The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just Jesus comes to life, but his desperate, hunted followers as well. They were writing in wartime and under occupation, she reminds us, endangered for spreading the gospel of a man who was executed as an insurrectionist. Some of the most electrifying details in the Gospels, Pagels writes, may have been crafted by his disciples to avoid persecution and explain inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate; instead, his mother conceived by God. Jesus' body wasn't humiliatingly tossed into a common grave; he was seen alive and whole by his followers. He wasn't a failed messiah; his kingdom lives in us.

Drawing on a lifetime of study and Pagels' own personal journey, Miracles and Wonders beautifully depicts this lost world and captures Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract.