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.
Click here to read page 5 of 10 about "Was Jesus a real person?"