Nick Page

‘He was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures’ When it comes to the resurrection accounts, there is a tendency to look down on the first Christians, to dismiss them as superstitious, credulous, simple folk who didn’t know any better. But they were far better acquainted with [...]

One of my favourite artists is Jordi Savall, the Catalan viol player, who compiles wonderful CDs around historic themes, and packages them with gorgeous, fascinating books. (I’ve just got his new one – The Forgotten Kingdom – about the Cathars in the south of France) His album Jerusalem is a wonderful evocation of the history [...]

Chagall: White Crucifixion. Chagall painted this astonishing picture in 1938. The Nazi pogroms had started, two years before Guernica had been bombed. Although he was Jewish, Chagall frequently painted the crucifixion. Indeed, the Jewishness is what is remarkable here: Christ is clad, not in a loincloth, but in a Jewish prayer shawl; surrounded by images [...]

I’m a big fan of maps. Maps don’t just tell you where places are, they tell you where it’s possible to go. They can give you the direction, in all sorts of ways. On the Thursday and Friday of the last week of his life, Jesus, according to the accounts in the gospels, made several [...]

Today I chipped a tooth on a hot cross bun. It was, admittedly, a bit old, a bit hard and stale, but even so, it’s not the kind of thing you expect to happen with a bun. Perhaps I should have gone for the creme egg option. Or one of the many other treats that [...]

1940 years ago, the Romans burned the Temple in Jerusalem. They arrived around this time of year – in the spring of 70 AD and allowed thousands of pilgrims into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, but then refused to let them leave. So the city was hugely overcrowded. Inside the city conditions were appalling, a situation [...]

This Easter, why not take a walk through the events of Holy Week? The Longest Week Live will help you to recreate the events of Holy Week right where you live. The idea is simple: during Holy Week you celebrate the events at the time they actually occurred, according to the gospel accounts, at the [...]

I recently picked up a copy of Edmund Wilson’s book To the Finland Station. The book itself is a bit of a curiosity these days, the author’s 1930s hero-worship of communism looking decidedly naive. But this edition contains a wonderful foreword by Louis Menand, which explores the use of the imagination in writing history. Here’s [...]

Just in time for Lent, The Longest Week is out in paperback. You can get it at Amazon, of course, but it’s cheaper at eden.co.uk. Better still buy a copy at your local independent bookshop or Christian bookshop. Actually, better still, buy several copies at your local bookshop. There’s a reading plan to accompany the [...]

I’m speaking tonight about The Longest Week at the Salisbury Arts Festival. (More info here). Tickets still available if you’re in the area. (Actually they’re stil available even if you’re nowhere near, but you know what I mean…). Here’s the blurb: What really happened? Nick Page talks about his book The Longest Week reconstructing the [...]