In this historical and theological novel, Pontius Pilate is enfleshed as a historical person, a man of contradictions, and a religious atheist who superstitiously evokes the Roman gods. Pilate ingeniously arranges to have some time alone with a wandering Galilean and illiterate religious teacher named Jesus. In their often heated verbal exchanges and arguments, Jesus finds his most deeply held religious beliefs challenged, as Pilate too wrestles with his own assumptions and prejudices.