"This is not a third Issue, 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 of 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. To this he has dedicated his vacations and free time during his pontificate.

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 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 of the present, what Matthew and Luke tell at the beginning of their Gospels about the infancy of Jesus". The German Pope intends to put an end to the doubts that some have about Jesus' own historical existence: "Jesus was born at a precisely determined time".

He thus distinguishes the Gospels from mythical narratives, which never specify where or 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 the glory of God is manifested in humility, that true love is always humble and sacrificial. It could be summarized with the degree scroll of his first encyclical "God is love", Juan Vicente Boo has written. He thus takes advantage 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".