Gareth O'Callaghan: What if everything we thought we knew about Jesus was wrong?

Gareth O'Callaghan explores controversial theories about Jesus’s life, questioning accepted narratives while examining evidence, faith, and enduring historical uncertainty

A tomb found in Talpiot opens the possibility that the resurrection of Jesus had never happened. File picture

Speculation is a dangerous pastime. When I was six, I made the mistake during catechism one day of asking if Jesus was married. I can still see the revulsion on my teacher’s face. I was guilty of heresy and given two sharp swipes of the cane.

This man called Jesus has never ceased to fascinate me. Thirteen years after my faux pas, that in March 1980 in a courtyard on Dov Gruner Street in East Talpiot, three miles south of the Old City in Jerusalem, a construction crew laying the foundations for an apartment complex uncovered a tomb.