Here is the ultimate way to take Christ out of Christmas: deny that he ever existed.
That is the claim that has been made from time to time and resurfaced this October with the fresh promotion of an old book, called Caesar’s Messiah: the Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus, along with an accompanying lecture at Conway Hall in London.
The Daily Mail described the author, Joseph Atwill, as an ‘American Bible scholar’ who made the discovery of the non-existence of Jesus through his study of Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian. The Daily Mail reports that Atwill ‘does not believe that this is the end of Christianity, but hopes his work will give half-believers a reason to “make a clean break”’. Richard Dawkins was quick to circulate a link to Atwill’s press release to his 777,000 Twitter followers.
Comedy, free speech and warnings from the past
Hannah Arendt was a Jewish philosopher who grew up in Nazi Germany. Eventually she had to flee to France and, …