The activities of Jesus before the start of his ministry at the age of thirty have been the subject of much speculation for two millennia. Did he travel beyond Palestine in his search for wisdom knowledge? Where did he acquire the great learning that amazed those who heard him teaching and enabled him to cross swords in debate with the Scribes and Pharisees? Legends suggest that Jesus traveled to the British Isles with Joseph of Arimathea, who worked in the tin trade. Beginning with those legends, Strachan uncovers a fascinating network of connections between the Celtic world and Mediterranean culture and philosophy.
Taking the biblical image of Wisdom as the master craftsman, Strachan explores the deep layers of mystery knowledge shared among those of the Judaic-Hellenic world and the northern Druids from the secret geometry of masons and builders, which Jesus would have encountered in his work as an artisan in Palestine, to the "gematria, " or number coding, of the Hebrew and Christian Testaments of the Bible.
"Jesus the Master Builder" formed the basis for the documentary film "And Did Those Feet, " which screened in 2010 at the British Film Institute in London."