Who was – and is – Jesus Christ? Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth – and How They Confirm the Gospel Accounts by Robert J. Hutchinson explores this question. The book is heavily researched and covers a wide variety of topics, from how early followers of Jesus came to see Him as divine, to whether the Church invented the idea of a suffering Messiah, to Jesus’ ancient lineage. The end of each chapter contains book references for further study.

One of my favorite chapters was “Are the Gospels Forgeries?” which discusses the discovery of New Testament manuscripts, and talks about ancient manuscript research conducted by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research and the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. Several years ago, I attended a lecture where someone from latter center spoke about how they preserved and digitalized New Testament manuscripts, so it was interesting to read more about this. I also liked reading about “The Four Proven or Minimal Facts Argument,” which discusses the four arguments for Jesus’ resurrection, which was proposed by the Christian scholars William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and Michael Licona.

You can read more about Searching for Jesus here.