ChristianCrunch: Zietgeist Unraveled

Have you ever had your faith get so challenged you just wanted to shut out the things you heard?

Recently I watched a powerful film on YouTube.com called 'Zietgiest'. A look into the truth of our society, the creators have put together a masterpiece. From the Federal Reserve to 9/11 to the Egyptian god Horus, 'Zeitgeist' stands to challenge the very things you put faith in.

Despite being a much-appreciated work to seek truth, several comments were made that could not go unchallenged. At one point, the creators state that:

"Jesus Christ was a myth. He never existed...there is no historical proof that Jesus existed."

Being an optimist, I figured that the creators were well-intended but quite mistaken. Could hundreds of millions of believers from the last 2 millennium and all over the world be simply misled?

Since they were asking us, the viewers, to uncover the truth behind our world view, I took them up on the challenge.

My goal was to find any, even 1 sliver of historical evidence that Jesus called the Christ at least existed on the earth. The evidence needed to be from a non-Christian or anti-Christian source, the author had to be alive very near the time (no more than 5-10 years difference) so that his or her account was reliable, and it had to identify Jesus by name.

With a quick Google search I found that there were, in fact, many historians who mostly fit the criteria and affirmed that it is a fact that Jesus Christ did exist.

The most popular was Josephus the Historian. Whether or not he was a devout Jew or an informant to the Romans regarding the First Jewish-Roman War is unclear. What IS clear is that he was not a Christian.

Yet, Josephus acknowledged the fact that Jesus Christ existed and even confirmed many events that occurred in the Bible (bringing some added validity to the accuracy of the Bible.) In fact, Josephus mentions Jesus Christ in Book 19 AND 20 of the Jewish Antiquities.

There are others which are worthy of being researched for your own edification, but I would like to come back on task.

How accurate and reliable can 'Zietgiest' be as a factual analysis of society when it makes such a definitive statement ("there is no historical record that Jesus ever existed") and an average person like me can find proof with the least amount of research?

The answer is: not much. It is not much more reliable than any other fiction conspiracy theory. Though it is well made and the creators frame their position as that of reliable authorities, it cannot be trusted as such.

But, if the creators do not believe that Jesus existed, they would also not believe that the devil is in the details, huh?