Is Jesus History?

history (like life) is more fruitful if we start with an openness to human testimony.

The greater the number of manuscripts, the easier it is to detect a “variant” or mistake in one of the copies.

Study after study shows that we tend to make up our minds intuitively, and only then prop up our positions with rational argumentation.

People are interested in such extra-biblical writings because they see them as objective evidence for Jesus, whereas the New Testament is seen as subjective and tainted. That is not how specialists see the matter.

Such is the power of preference to shape what we believe!

the resurrection is not so much a historical problem as a philosophical and a personal one.

“Faith” is not the opposite of knowledge.

persuasion works, or doesn’t, because of a range of factors, not just the facts.

No one dies for a lie they know to be a lie!