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Controversy erupted over Christmas week when the Washington Post tweeted out an opinion article by Raphael Lataster they had published in 2014. It claims to show that the existence of Jesus as a historical figure is likely no more than a myth. Critics questioned the timing of the tweet as a slap in the face to Christians preparing to celebrate one of their holiest days.Possibly more importantly, many seized on the reaction to the 2014 publication. Historians, including a professor who had taught Lataster in a class about the historical Jesus, demolished the claims. Its ideas were described as...

I just watched "Killing Jesus". To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I found it unbearable. I understand adding pieces between the lines to flesh out the story for TV, but totally re-writing the Bible is beyond the pale. The stories of John the Baptist death, the trial before Pilot, and especially Judas and the 30 pieces of silver are totally rewritten, and the original was much better. I saw no one in this film worthy of worship, much less praise. Sorry, O'Reilly - You missed the mark on this one.

Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are “mythologized history.” In other words, they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity. At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. In this...

Norman Barker performed a duet with Judy Garland in the 1948 film “Easter Parade.” His son, Dan, became a pastor, before falling away from his Christian faith in 1984. In 1990, Dan Barker, by then a devout atheist, published an essay, which he titled “An Easter Challenge For Christians.” And he has reissued his transparent attack on Easter every year since then. This year, his challenge appears on a blog hosted by the so-called Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist hate group, based in Madison, Wisconsin, for which Barker and his wife serve as co-presidents. In his anti-Easter essay, Barker...

Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853)   Simon Greenleaf , one of the principle founders of the Harvard Law School, originally set out to disprove the biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was certain that a careful examination of the internal witness of the Gospels would dispel all the myths at the heart of Christianity. But this legal scholar came to the conclusion that the witnesses were reliable, and that the resurrection did in fact happen.   I n examining the evidence of the Christian religion, it is essential to the discovery of truth that...

EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST A Challenge for Skeptics [ NOTE: For a response to the book The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (Prometheus, 2005) by Lowder / Price see the free 500+ page E-book This Joyful Eastertide: A Critical Review of The Empty Tomb  (PDF) by Steve Hays, et al (c) 2006 ] A reasonable challenge to the skeptic is this: If it can be proved that Jesus really rose from the dead, will you believe in him? For if he really rose, that validates his claim to be divine and not merely human, for resurrection from...

However, there are at least half a dozen non-Christian (that is to say Roman or Jewish) sources that refer to Christian origins. These are sufficient to provide some confirmation of the historical picture that is painted by the Bible. Some of the most important of these sources are: Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, The Babylonian Talmud, Josephus, and the letter of Mara Bar-Serapion.

Christ, Lunatic or God? If reason alone were all we had to establish the existence and essence of God, we might feel curiously dissatisfied. If God is a Supreme Spirit, omnipotent and of total benevolence, the origin and end of us all, why does He not speak and re-assure us? The Christian claim is that, in fact, God has spoken to mankind first in the prophets of the Old Testament and last of all through His Son made man. The historical existence of Christ is what we are now concerned with and also with His claim to be the Son...

Dear ..., To thank you for your continued support of The Teaching Company, we have commissioned two free, 30-minute lectures on "Fact and Fiction in The DaVinci Code" from biblical expert Professor Bart D. Ehrman of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of our most popular professors, Professor Ehrman (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is a 15-year teaching veteran at UNC and winner of several teaching awards. These lectures are a free gift to you. You may access these free lectures online any time between now and Labor Day, September 6, 2004. Click here to access the free...

By now, more than a month since its release, Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ has elicited countless reactions from Catholics, Jews and fundamentalist Christians. Millions of viewers have so far contributed to the movie's nearly $300 million in gross earnings. Film critics and cultural commentators have weighed in on it in large numbers. Scientifically flavored responses, however, have been relatively sparse. Here's mine. Even about modern day mega-stories we're often clueless. Forty years ago in the full glare of the modern media, John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and we have only a hazy idea of the motivation of the...