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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Logical leads to ancient questions about Christ, January 7, 2002
By A Customer
The author, Ian Wilson, must truly be commended for investigating, and furthermore putting together a book about the proof and lack of proof for the numerous aspects of the life of Jesus Christ, which has no bias in it. Normally such books relating to Christian matters with the word "evidence" in the title tend to be nothing more than biased, mindless and self-indulgent in their own beliefs. As an atheist/agnostic, I was glad to find that the author kept an open mind on both ends, leading neither towards skepticism nor theism, leaving the reader of the book to discover their own answers about the "evidence" for Christ.Although many reviews will say that this book allowed them more evidence for the proof of Christ's existence and divinity as God, I would have to say that the text leaned rather the other way. While it does establish that Christ was more than likely a flesh and blood human being who lived and taught in the first century, many references, scientific pieces of evidence, and even passages as stated from the Bible which are brought forth tend to take Christ off the pedestal that modern day Christianity has stuck him upon. After reading this, my questioning of Christianity and my lack of belief has only been fueled even more. Chapters such as "The Fallibility Of The Gospels", "Did Jesus Even Exist?", and "Man Of Miracles" establish some basic scientific, historical, and modern leads to show that Christ was a teacher and a devout Jew who was only trying to put a new twist of forgiveness on his religion, not trying to start a revolution or whole following. Christ's miracles are also explained through various processes of hypnosis and other mind-body connections, showing that Jesus was more of a magician and hypnotist rather than a miracle worker being guided by the hand of God. For the Christian reader seeking evidence of Christ, this book will only go so far to show that he probably existed as a human being. As an atheist/agnostic, I have never doubted the existence of a human and physical Jesus Christ in history. However, the fact that he was God in human form has always seemed ludicrous to me, and this book has not proved me wrong or changed my mind about the matter. Historically this is a great piece of work though, outlining how the various evidence was discovered, and thankfully stating the fact that the Bible has numerous flaws and historical errors in it, many of them serious ones, which many modern-day Christians don't like to accept in their weak minds. I would recommend this for either side of the debate, skeptic or theist. But the theist had better be prepared to see that Christ wasn't necessarily all he was made out to be, and the full-blown skeptic might have to accept that humanly, Christ was real. God will not be proven or disproven. That is why the subject is a debate and not scientific fact. However, in my mind God has been everything except completely disproven. Either way, the author must be commended for presenting the evidence without bias and altogether writing a great book.
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