Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. But there could be a fourth option - legend.

My students sometimes ask: what is a fundamentalist? I give them a very simple definition. A fundamentalist is no fun, too much damn, and not enough mental.

The search for truth takes you where the evidence leads you, even if, at first, you don't want to go there.

I have such a fantastic life that I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for it. . . . But I don't have anyone to express my gratitude to. This is a void deep inside me, a void of wanting someone to thank, and I don't see any plausible way of filling it.

[P]eople need to use their intelligence to evaluate what they find to be true and untrue in the Bible. This is how we need to live life generally. Everything we hear and see we need to evaluate—whether the inspiring writings of the Bible or the inspiring writings of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or George Eliot, of Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, or the Dalai Lama.

Jesus existed, and those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda that this denial serves.

The problem then with Jesus is that he cannot be removed from his time and transplanted into our own without simply creating him anew