Paul Johnson is a unique biographer. He boils down the essence of a person into a short, manageable book with a wide appeal. I’ve read his books on Churchill, Mozart and Socrates among others, and they are all helpful in giving a basic understanding of the person.

His book Jesus: A Biography from a Believer is especially unique in the library of books about Jesus. Johnson does not get into the debate about how reliable Scripture is, and not much into the question of whether Jesus was a mere man. He gives slight attention to these issues and instead asserts no human being of Jesus’ era had so much written about him by first hand witnesses. Not even the Caesars.

It’s a powerful statement, but the book is not likely to be well received by the skeptics or pure historians. Nevertheless, like his other books, Johnson takes the materials he has and creates a brief but fascinating insight into the subject. Jesus comes across as a changer of world history, a model we can aspire toward, and a person both fully human and fully God.

I liked this book. In part because I agree with it. It’s not a book to recommend to those who struggle with the accuracy of ancient texts. As Johnson says in his title, it’s a book by a believer.