I know the BBC see it as their task to cater for a wide audience, which includes those who suffer from organised delusion. That is no reason however to quote an 'expert' whose comments are very unlike those of a scholar and very much like those of a propagandist.
Simon Gathercole, a new testament scholar at Cambridge University, said people were sceptical because they were not aware the origins of Christianity were anchored in real history.
Looking at biblical writings from a sound historical perspective is the realm of biblical criticism, which, unlike theology, is a serious discipline. Its study of the origins of among other things the New Testament is often reported by believers (and former believers) to be a powerful antidote to literalism, as it lays bare the fatal weaknesses of any suggestions that events must have taken place exactly as reported in the four gospels from the New Testament.
"Jesus was born while Augustus was emperor of Rome just before Herod died... we're talking about events that are anchored in real history not in ancient Greek myths."
There is solid evidence that Mohammed actually existed, and did at least some of the things the Quran reports he did (which includes some quite nasty stuff, as everyone knows or should know), whereas very little is certain about the life of Jesus, except maybe that he must have been a much nicer bloke. Should we therefore take the Quran as the Word of God™, just because it is more archored in history than the New Testament is?
"There's something in us that misses that connection with God that we sometimes feel our historical forebears had," he said.
We? Speak for yourself. The great lie of our time is that atheism would have existed only since Charles Darwin. Although On the Origin of Species delivered the death blow to theism, at least among those in possession of full mental faculties, there is solid evidence that the 'connection with God' has been tenuous throughout the ages, and religious beliefs had to be hammered into the flock, by force, by threats of force, or merely by lies and trickery. The many crackpot 'proofs' for God's existence by Thomas Aquinas and hordes of other 'thinkers' from the middle ages only show just how familiar the concept of not believing in a god was to many people. And those who genuinely believed may not have had the same 'connection with God' as some sufferers of schizophrenia quoted by BBC News.
Merry Christmas by the way.
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