Everyone loves a good story, and this collection of ancient parables, allegories and other tales from around the time of Jesus is inspiring as well as entertaining. Few have been previously published in a form accessible to the general reader. Two of them, which almost certainly originated with Jesus, are not found in the canonical gospels.

John Davidson shows how a universal spirituality is depicted in these ancient tales. As in The Gospel of Jesus, part of his purpose is to present the ancient teachings of early Christianity, previously inaccess-ible to all but a few specialists, in a form which is both clear and enjoyable.

John Davidson has had a life-long interest in mysticism. Graduating in 1966 from Cambridge University with an honours degree in natural sciences, he took a post at the Uni-versity's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, where he worked for seventeen years. In 1984, he left the University to pursue independent interests and since then has written a number of books, including a series on science and mysticism and the ground-breaking work, The Gospel of Jesus - In Search of His Original Teachings. Read more about him at his website, www.johndavidson.org