This is the story of Joshua, a carpenter from the village of Nazareth who is called to preach the coming of God's judgment. This is the story of his ministry and its terrible end, seen through the eyes of his kinsman and closest friend, Noah the ironsmith. Noah, a pious man but one who understands the darkness of a world in which treachery and murder are the common currency of power, is prepared to risk his own life to save Joshua's. Sifting through the tangled contradictions of the New Testament, scholars have arrived at a consensus about these events and their meaning, but the man behind them can only be brought to life through an act of the imagination. The Joshua of this novel -- the Jesus of Christian faith -- is revealed as a man like other men, a very human hero whose defeat at the hands of his enemies imparts to him a tragic grandeur. The product of twenty years of research and a deep understanding of the ancient world, Nicholas Guild's The Ironsmith is a story for everyone who cares about the origins of faith and the mystery of God's relationship with man.