...asking “Did Jesus exist?” is naïve and off target, more a question for the History Channel than a question to be channelled through history. Jesus, whether a historical figure or not, exists for us only as a literary character in a series of polemical exchanges. Even if he existed, his actual purposes, whatever they might have been, are marginal to the development of Christianity as a religion.

Do You Know Jesus?

 Adam Gopnik

The New Yorker

March 31, 2025