Tributes have been paid to the biblical scholar Professor Geza Vermes, who died last week at the age of 88.

An obituary by Professor Martin Goodman, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, where Professor Vermes was an Emeritus Fellow, said that his work had "had a profound effect both among scholars and in the wider public".

Professor Vermes was born in Hungary in 1924 to Jewish parents. He was appointed Reader in Jewish Studies at Oxford University in 1965, and was awarded a personal chair there in 1989. He published Jesus the Jew in 1973, which depicted "Jesus as an individualistic holy man who operated at a tangent to the religious currents of the Judaism of his day", Professor Goodman said.

The Associate Professor of Religion at Duke University, Dr Mark Goodacre, described Professor Vermes as "a legend. It is rare for a scholar to make so massive an impact."

Obituary to follow.