“As an historian, I do not know for certain that Jesus really existed, that he is anything more than the figment of some overactive imaginations . . . In my view, there is nothing about Jesus of Nazareth that we can know beyond any possible doubt. In the mortal life we have there are only probabilities. And the Jesus that scholars have isolated in the ancient gospels, gospels that are bloated with the will to believe, may turn out to be only another image that merely reflects our deepest longings.” [Robert W. Funk, Jesus Seminar founder and co-chair]

Author: This statement comes from a Christian scholar who formed a large organization of scholars to vote on the synoptic gospels. They voted that only seventeen percent of the text was most likely what Jesus said or did. Seventeen percent! No wonder this man lives in great doubt that Jesus as a person existed. Living in doubt as he does must be a cruel punishment to him to have spent his adult life trying to find the real Jesus and instead coming up with a voting result that eighty-three percent of what was written of and about Jesus is most likely false.

Oh, you of little faith! as Jesus is reported to have exclaimed. Of course we know that Jesus existed. There is more certainty that Jesus existed than that most of us exist, given a core definition of existence as being recognized for ones life and values. New life is built from the reality of an individual, not from the imagination. Those of us who have practiced the teachings of Jesus in our daily lives understand directly the presence of this amazing wisdom teacher.
Let this be written on all the walls of the temples and churches: SI EGO FUTURUS, SIC OPEROR TOTUS QUI DONATUS MIHI VITA. If I exist, so do those who have given me life.

The fact that Jesus was a total failure in life, and that his mission, whatever its original purpose may have been, ended on the Cross, leads the evangelists in two contrary directions. On the one hand, with a vividness that makes their Passion narratives unrivaled for their poignancy, they depict Jesus as a figure of vulnerability who is purely the victim of the situation. He is betrayed by his best friend, forsaken by the others. He begs the Almighty to deliver him to deliver him from his fate, and at the end, even his Heavenly Father forsakes him. Only the family remains to take his body down from the Cross. Nor is it ever explained in realistic terms why this had to happen to Jesus. [A.N. Wilson, A Life - page 168]

Author: Since the Jesus Novel takes a realistic point of view, not necessarily Christian, most decidedly not Christian at points, the novel rests on the determinations of Jesus scholars like A.N. Wilson. These are the insights taught to most students of the ministry and priesthood, but which these new students do not pass on to their congregations when they assume them. Talk about the truth (not) getting out! The truth seems too radical to be accepted.

Thus the Jesus Novel reveals the truths determined by modern, scientific scholarship. As such it can be a helpful to educate the public, especially if combined with church discussion groups.