To determine whether Jesus is a myth or was real, we cannot rely on rhetoric or Bible quotes. We have to analyze the evidence. Let's start with the Bible. Then I'll look at non-biblical sources. Lastly, I will consider other evidence and issues before drawing a conclusion.

Using the Bible to decide if Jesus is historical or myth isn't easy. No original manuscripts remain. Apart from a fragment of the Book of John, there's nothing before c. 200 CE, with the earliest manuscripts for many books dating to the 3rd or 4th century. The Gospels are supposed to cover most of the known story of Jesus. Yet we are unsure who wrote them or when. Various dates are given, usually a range of dates. The earliest generally accepted date for one or two of the Gospels is around the mid 60s. It's hard to understand why writers waited more than 30 years before putting reed to papyrus, as it were, if Jesus was real and such an important person with so many miracles and other good deeds attributed to him.

Debate continues over which of the Gospels was written first and indeed who actually wrote them. Matthew probably didn't write his gospel. Luke may have written his. Mark probably wrote his, but whether he was a witness is pure speculation. They are far too close to one another to have been written by three independent authors. Yet there are some odd inconsistencies such as Jesus' ancestry between Matthew and Luke. John's book is regarded as an unreliable source of Jesus' life and may have been written by several authors, including for example Cerinthus in the 2nd century. Also, no non-biblical sources mention any gospel stories until the 2nd century.

Over the years, especially in the first few centuries, numerous changes were made to the original biblical manuscripts. There was much bickering among early Christians as to what was scripture, and various Christological issues were hotly debated. Many of the writings were chopped and changed amid followers accusing one another of corrupting text. Second century philosopher Celsus said that some of them "changed the original text of the Gospels three or four times or even more, with the intention of thus being able to destroy the arguments of their critics". A number of early church leaders worried about the extent of changes, including Tatian, Origen, Jerome, and Augustine.

The birth of Jesus was prophesied in the Old Testament. But if he existed as such a celebrated figure, exact dates of his birth and death would surely

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