"This is not a third volume, but a portico of entrance to the two previous volumes on the figure and message of Jesus of Nazareth". With these words Benedict XVI begins the prologue to the book on the early years of Jesus. It is also a "Christological meditation", not a life of Jesus, as he himself has written. Why would an octogenarian Pope devote the best of his energies to writing a book on Jesus? Because he thinks that the most important task of his ministry is precisely to speak about Jesus as the Son of God. This is what he has devoted his holidays and free time during his pontificate to.

In Jesus of Nazareth sample a "real, historical" Jesus, a "historically sensible and convincing" figure. He also proposes that the Gospel is not only a story of the past, but that it challenges us in the present. Benedict XVI invites readers to ask themselves: "Is what is being told true? Faith, reason and history united in the same vision: "Here I have now tried to interpret, in dialogue with exegetes of the past and present, what Matthew and Luke tell at the beginning of their Gospels about the infancy of Jesus". In this way, the German Pope intends to put an end to the doubts that some people have about Jesus' own historical existence: "Jesus was born at a precisely determined time".

In this way he distinguishes the Gospels from mythical narratives, which never specify where and when the events narrated took place. The book is also a story of love and, more specifically, of the love of a God who becomes a child for us. The four chapters of the book show that God's glory is manifested in humility, that true love is always humble and sacrificial. It could be summed up with the degree scroll of his first encyclical "God is love", writes Juan Vicente Boo. He thus makes the most of the harsh poetry of the moment. On page 38 of the manuscript, he writes: "Mary wraps the child in cloths. Without sentimentality, we can imagine the love with which Mary prepared for that moment and how she prepared for the birth of the Son".