Arthur J. Droge praised its bold reconstruction, while Richard Wightman Fox found it left readers unsure about the historical basis of the Jesus dynasty.

Critics like Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte accused it of generating controversy rather than disseminating knowledge, whereas Jeffrey Bütz appreciated it as a valuable contribution to historical Jesus studies.

Tabor produces many supporting statements from the Bible and New Testament apocrypha, which escaped excision by the later Church fathers, intent on selling the Pauline message at the expense of Jesus' dynastic one.

The argument produces a portrait of a real man in a tumultuous time, who really believed that his actions would accomplish the end of the Roman occupation and a return of the Jewish kingdom.

In a back-jacket endorsement Arthur J. Droge, professor of New Testament and early Christian literature and director at the University of California at San Diego, writes "James Tabor presents what may be the boldest reconstruction yet of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth.

Working with the surviving evidence like a CSI detective -- especially the testimonies concerning Jesus' family and the Jerusalem Nazarenes -- Tabor succeeds in reinscribing what has been lost (and in some cases erased) from the historical record.