In this highly anticipated volume, N. T. Wright focuses directly on the historical Jesus: Who was he? What did he say? And what did he mean by it? Wright begins by showing how the questions posed by Albert Schweitzer a century ago remain central today. Then he sketches a profile of Jesus in terms of his prophetic praxis, his subversive stories, the symbols by which he reordered his world, and the answers he gave to the key questions that any world view must address. He then sets out in fascinating detail his own compelling account of how Jesus himself understood his mission: how he believed himself called to remake Israel, the people of God, around himself; how he announced God's judgement on the Israel of his day, especially its Temple and hierarchy; and how he saw his own movement as the divinely ordained fulfilment of Israel's destiny. Wright offers a provocative portrait of Jesus as Israel's Messiah who would share and bear the fate of the nation and would embody the long-promised return of Israel's God to Zion.