I've been asked to talk to you about the Jesus of history.

And long-suffering Jake put up with a very long series of emails from me on this subject

as I attempted to ascertain just what was behind the question.

And I take it to be a number of questions, a tangled knot of questions that all can impinge on each other.

So do we, can we even say that there was a Jesus of history? Have we understood him? Has the

church misunderstood who Jesus is? Things like that. It's almost Christmas, and as we were discussing in the cab on the way from the airport,

you can count every Christmas and Easter on lots of magazines and TV shows revealing who the real Jesus is.

So this year, it was a National Geographic article, and that actually was the title, The Real Jesus.

I had to look at the article. It's actually not half bad, but the title is supposed to suggest that whatever you think about Jesus, it's probably wrong.

That some expert, some scholar or other purveyor of the esoteric is going to come along

and reveal to you the truth that's been kept from you.

And very often these pieces are sensationalistic and a little bit pathetic.

And the fact that the Discovery Channel and National Geographic and outlets like that do this so

consistently suggest that there's a reliable market for it. People have a deep-seated

sense that they haven't been told the truth about Jesus of Nazareth, and they want to find

out what that is.

I'm not sure where this comes from.

I mean, there have been some amazing archaeological discoveries

in the last century or so

that have given our understanding of ancient Judaism

and Christianity a real shot in the arm.

And that might create a kind of general sense

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