Interpreting Jesus draws on traditional teaching and the best scripture scholarship to construct a Christology which centers on the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. The aim is to explore and clarify what Christian belief in the risen Jesus as Son of God and Savior of the world originally meant and now continues to mean.

Special features include an excursus on the theological implications of the Shroud of Turin and a return to a theme which contemporary Christology has widely neglected, the blood of Jesus and its redemptive symbolism. The book ends by linking belief in Jesus with the non-Christian world.

Father O'Collins has previously written many articles and shorter works on Jesus Christ. This Christology represents a mature climax of those earlier publications.