re: #338 Nyet

I think the probabilities of Jesus having existed and not existed are very close to each other, like 60/40 for existence. The evidentiary basis is just too poor to make strong conclusions. But yeah, it makes sense that some preacher guy existed.

Long before the Da Vinci Code came out and popularized the contradictory or apocryphal the aspects of Jesus’ actual historical record, I recall a 1972 novel by Irving Wallace, The Word, about a fellow who completed a convincing forgery of the “Fifth Gospel” of James. It also talked a lot about how the New Testament as we know it came to exist.

I also read several non-fictional accounts of the historical Jesus and how the Gospels came about, (Rescuing The Bible From Fundamentalism by John Shelby Spong being one of the best) which made me astounded that any educated person could think of interpreting the Bible in any literal sense.