Was Jesus a real person?

The New Testament

The 27 New Testament books claim to be written by authors who either knew Jesus or received firsthand knowledge of him from others. The four Gospel accounts record Jesus’ life and words from different perspectives. These accounts have been heavily scrutinized by scholars both inside Christianity and outside it.

Scholar John Dominic Crossan believes that less than 20 percent of what we read in the Gospels are original sayings of Jesus. Yet even this skeptic doesn’t dispute that Jesus Christ really lived.

In spite of Crossan’s views, and those of a few other fringe scholars like him, the consensus of most historians is that the Gospel accounts give us a clear picture of Jesus Christ. Whether the New Testament accounts are trustworthy is the subject of another article (see “Jesus.doc”), so we will look to non-Christian sources for our answer as to whether Jesus existed.

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This is an excerpt from Y-Jesus Magazine. Click here to see Y-Jesus Magazine.