In 2005, an American polling firm asked a simple question to a sample of citizens: “Do you believe Jesus actually lived?” Over 90 percent said yes.
Not surprising, perhaps, in a country where Christianity remains dominant. But then came the follow-up question: “Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?” That number dropped.
Then: “Do you believe Jesus performed miracles?” Lower still. And so we are left with a paradox—a man whose existence is almost universally accepted, yet whose identity is anything but agreed upon.
This is the strange case of Jesus of Nazareth.
Somewhere between ancient manuscript fragments, Sunday school parables, Renaissance art, and Dan Brown novels, Jesus has become at once the most studied and most misunderstood figure in human history.
He is a man trapped between layers of theology, politics, and myth. To a believer, he is the divine made flesh. To a skeptic, he’s a compelling, if controversial, rabbi executed for stirring the political hornet’s nest of Rome-occupied Judea.