A controversial new book claiming Jesus didn't exist has received considerable media attention, but Christian apologists have dismissed its research as inconsistent with the weight of modern scholarship.
Paulkovich's claims have been picked up by national and international newspapers including the Daily Mail, but apologists maintain that his research is inconsequential.
Simon Edwards, RZIM itinerant speaker and assistant chaplain at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, says that despite many people "at a popular level" doubting the claims of Christianity, "very few serious historians doubt Jesus' existence and his remarkable effect on human history."
In fact, scholars are in almost unanimous agreement that a Jewish man named Jesus did live in the early first century, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
"Biblical scholars Gary Habermas and Michael Licona have collated and analysed over 3,400 scholarly works and articles that have been written on the historical claims surrounding Jesus' life since 1975, so as to determine what are the minimal facts of history which all serious historians agree on," Edwards explains.
"Their work demonstrates that virtually every serious historian, whether Christian, atheist, agnostic or otherwise acknowledges the following three minimal facts about Jesus Christ: (1) that he died by crucifixion, (2) that his disciples genuinely believed that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them on a number of occasions; and (3) that the early church exploded in numbers soon after Jesus death." Paulkovich may convince some that Jesus symbolises nothing more than "plenty of hoax and fraud perpetuated along the ages". However, says Edwards, the view that Jesus Christ never existed is "entirely against the weight of modern scholarly opinion."
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