Published in The Advertiser on 30.3.16
Responding to a flood of Christian letters on the “Meaning of Easter”.
Dear Letters Editor,
It’s amazing how Christian ‘faith’ can diminish the power of ‘reason’ in otherwise intelligent people (Letters, The Advertiser, 29/3/16).
How many of these letter writers have ever had the courage to seriously challenge their beliefs and investigate contemporary research of original material on the existence of Jesus?
There’s a phalanx of historians and biblical scholars who provide meticulous evidence that will shock most Christians.
We know conclusively that 7 of Paul’s 13 Epistles are forgeries; so too are large sections of the Gospels written decades later by ‘anonymous’ writers. And all heavily edited over centuries.
None of the alleged eyewitness accounts of a ‘resurrected’ Jesus stand up to scrutiny. And there are at less 5 reasons for the alleged ’empty tomb’.
A charismatic preacher may well have existed but ‘divine’ he certainly was not. A good point to begin your research would be historian Dr Richard Carrier’s “On the Historicity of Jesus”. It provides fastidious detail and references to all the current specialists in this field of research.
It’s time for wide public debate of these inescapable facts, rather than perpetuating the Easter and Christmas myths that have masqueraded as fact for centuries.
Brian Morris
Director, Plain Reason
Plain Reason: promoting science, reason and critical thinking.