His mother was a teenaged peasant girl who was not married to the boy's father, and the father had no hand in his day-to-day upbringing. Although uncommon in the day, the girl had received some religious education, which she shared passionately with her son.

While he was still an infant, his mother and a man who may have been his stepfather sneaked him into Egypt, fleeing persecution. Although the boy was trained in a trade, he never actually found a job doing that. Rather, he showed at a very young age where his true talents lay - in preaching. At the age of 30, this man left his community and went on the road to share his spiritual vision.

He wandered from town to town curing the sick, attracting crowds with his moral stories and deeds. He urged people to treat others the way they would themselves like to be treated. He advised the separation of church and state. He suggested that the poor and those who gave their wealth away were destined for paradise. But while preaching goodness, he nonetheless forgave people for violations of his moral code, if they chose to believe that he was who he said he was. The healer's message of repentance and redemption was further popularized by twelve men who had been picked from among his growing crowd of followers and to whom he had given special teaching.

When the travelling preacher refused to support the Roman military regime, they decided he was too high-profile to ignore, and he was condemned to a slow, painful death reserved for criminals, slaves and others of low status. Later claims indicated that his father had destined him for this fate since the beginning.

But his teachings touched the hearts of so many that the movement he started became an established religion that gave shape to our very civilization.

This charismatic social reformer and leader of the world's most famous apocalyptic movement, this advocate of personal and egalitarian social transformation, was