Why read The Crown of Thorns?

Book cover of The Crown of Thorns

Book description

Jesus' Crown of Thorns has become one of the most ubiquitous features of Christian religious art, but was the crown of history anything like the crown of popular medieval art and piety? The image that springs to mind is that of a bloodied, beaten Jesus, wearing a cruelly fashioned, woven…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Crown of Thorns as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jonathan Harris

Author

There are some images that are fixed in our minds when we are very young and remain there all our lives. Jesus’ Crown of Thorns is a good example: the spikey branches sinuously entwined which were brutally forced down onto his head, to be left there as he died on the cross. This book shows how the Gospels describe something rather different and that the familiar image in fact developed much later.

From Jonathan's 3 favorite reads in 2025.