Universal salvation in a universal language? Trevor Steele's Kaj staros tre alte

Abstract

Extensive secularisation in Europe and several other parts of the world in recent decades has not diminished the attractiveness of Jesus as a theme in contemporary fiction internationally. Fictional biographies of him continue to appear in many languages. Among the novelists who have tapped their imaginations to fill in gaps in the canonical gospels and construct a Jesus who fits their own agenda is the Australian Trevor Steele. His work of 2006, Kaj staros tre alte, presents Jesus as essentially a supernaturally gifted healer but also as a teacher of universal brotherhood. Steele argues that the effectiveness of Jesus was severely limited by contemporary notions of Jewish apocalypticism and Messianism. Steele’s literary device for providing extra-biblical information about Jesus is a manuscript purportedly written by a Roman tax officer who was stationed in Caesarea approximately a decade after the Crucifixion. Discovered in 2001, this Greek text forms the fictional basis of Kaj staros tre alte