Recently, UNC Professor Bart Ehrman wrote a book, “Did Jesus Exist?” that discusses whether the man and mortal Jesus actually lived or is just a myth. He wrote it as a response to a group called mythicists, who claim that not only is there no Messiah/God named Christ, but that the man Jesus never lived either.
Ehrman, a former evangelical and now agnostic, shows the evidences for a real Jesus living in Jerusalem.
Now, Professor Larry Hurtado (Univ Edinburgh) blogs on the issue. One interesting thing he notes is this:
“Before posting this, I spent a bit of time perusing my copy of H. G. Wood, Did Christ Really Live?, which was published in 1938. In it, Wood cites various figures of the early 20th century who had claimed that Jesus of Nazareth was a fiction, and patiently and cordially engages the specifics of evidence and argument, showing that the attacks fail. So in one sense I think I’m not alone in feeling that to show the ill-informed and illogical nature of the current wave of “mythicist” proponents is a bit like having to demonstrate that the earth isn’t flat, or that the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth, or that the moon-landings weren’t done on a movie lot. It’s a bit wearying to contemplate! “
Not only do Mormons have to do apologetic work over and over again, but so do those in Bible studies. There are still people out there who think that Spaulding wrote the Book of Mormon. One must come to finally realize that there are always a group of people who insist on proof that the “earth isn’t flat” and still are not satisfied when you show them the evidence. Apologetics are not for such people, but to show the truly open-minded student that these things have been considered and basically settled by the evidence.