Testing 1-2-3, Testing 1-2-3, this is Testing 123.

This is Radio Free Mormon.

On the air, broadcasting behind enemy lines.

Tonight's episode, proof that Jesus existed.

You know, for the past 20 years or so, I have immersed myself in Bible studies.

I have learned the tools of textual analysis from the experts in the field,

and I'm going to be drawing on some of that knowledge and using some of those tools tonight

in my effort to prove that Jesus actually existed.

There has been ongoing debate about Jesus for the last 2,000 years, as you

might imagine. And initially, the debate was about whether Jesus actually performed the miracles

that are ascribed to him in the New Testament. That debate has definitely been going on for 2,000 years

and shows no sign of stopping. As an illustration of that

debate, Thomas Jefferson himself, no intellectual slouch, did believe that the words of Jesus had

great value, but also felt that the miracle stories did not actually happen. And so Thomas Jefferson

took all the sayings of Jesus out of the Bible, wrote them down in a very lengthy list, and the resulting publication has come to be known as the Jefferson Bible.

The Jefferson Bible is simply a collection of all the sayings of Jesus, without any of the narrative, without any of the miracles.

And once again, a reflection of this ongoing

debate as to whether Jesus actually performed the miracles that are ascribed to him. But more

recently than that, a new debate has arisen. And that debate is not just whether Jesus actually

performed the miracles that are ascribed to him, but whether Jesus as a person ever actually existed

at all. There are a number of scholars who have now come forward and are arguing that Jesus never

existed. He is simply a fictional creation and possibly an amalgamation of different messianic

...