The deluded rabbi

Was the story of Jesus entirely made up or actually based on a real person? Christopher Hitchens believes there is evidence for the latter, precisely because the story itself is so riddled with inconsistencies and fabrications. What follows is a summary of his argument:

One of the many prophecies made in the Bible is that the son of God will be born in the house of David, in the line of David and in the time of David. In other words, he must be born in Bethlehem. But Jesus of Nazareth was born in...well, Nazareth. What follows is a huge fabrication in order to get him to Bethlehem.

A census is proposed by Caesar Augustus but no such census ever took place. The people of the region were not required to go back to their home town to be registered. The gospels say that Corenius was the governor of Syria at the time, but he was not. None of the nativity story is true in any detail.

But the fabrication says something, for if it had all been made up and there never was such a person, there would have been no need to bother with the Nazareen business. Jesus could have just been said to have been born in Bethlehem.

So the very falsity of it, the very fanatical attempt to to fabricate the story does suggest there was some charismatic deluded individual wandering about at that time.

Furthermore, most of the witnesses of the resurrection are hysterical, deluded, illiterate females who would have had as much chance of being heard in a Jewish court then as they would have in an Islamic court today.

What religion that wants its fabrication to be believed is going to say 'you have got to believe it because we have got some illiterate, hysterical girls'? It is impressive that the evidence is so thin, so feeble, so hysterical and so obviously and strenuously cobbled together because it does suggest that such a character did in fact exist.

I hope you found that interesting, because I can't give you the time it took for you to read it back to you. Sorry!