Heresy
Heresy by Catherine Nixey is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including The Economist, for a Consensus Score of 15 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedNixey's argument—that the historical Jesus emerged into a Roman world already crowded with virgin-born god-men, that the canonical gospels are a curated sliver of a much wider and stranger body of early Christian storytelling—is not new scholarship so much as a popularization of long-settled specialist consensus. That's both the book's appeal and its limitation: it reads faster and funnier than the academic literature it's drawing on, but professional historians have pushed back on some of its sharper claims as overstated.
In the press
“Enthralling.”
Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Economist | 0.95 | 0.70 | 1.00× | 0.67 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.67 → 15 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is Heresy on?
Heresy appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including The Economist.
What is its Consensus Score?
Heresy has a Consensus Score of 15 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.