First of all, who is Father Thomas Williams? Well, according to Amazon.com’s author information blurb, Father Williams has some pretty good theological creditials:

Thomas D. Williams, LC, ThD, is Vatican Analyst for CBS News and a professor of theology at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome. He has also worked extensively for NBC News and Britain’s Sky News, covering church and ethical issues, including the final illness and death of Pope John Paul II, the 2005 papal conclave, and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. Father Williams also regularly appeared in the MSNBC series The Ethical Edge and is author of several books and dozens of articles, both scholarly and popular.

Father Williams has written a new book defending belief in God against atheist arguments. The book is called Greater Than You Think: A Theologian Answers the Atheists About God.I have not read or seen this book, so I cannot say anything about its contents. However, Father Williams recently gave an interview on Zenit.org which explores some of his views (thanks to Atheist Under Ur Bed for alerting me to this interview). There is a lot that could be said about this interview, but for now this snippet really takes the cake:

Dawkins writes that it is possible “to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all.” For his part, Christopher Hitchens states that Jesus’ existence is “highly questionable.”

Obviously, none of us was present to empirically verify that a man named Jesus in fact lived in Palestine 20 centuries ago. Yet the same skepticism could be applied to any historical event, since history, as a science, is based on trust. Everything we know about the past is handed down to us as a tradition, which we accept on faith in the testimony of others. The existence of Socrates, Caesar Augustus, Genghis Kahn and Abraham Lincoln is supported by historical evidence — documents and testimonies — but then again, no more so than the existence of Jesus Christ.

What? Did he really say that “The existence of..Abraham Lincoln is supported by historical evidence..but then again, no more so than the existence of Jesus Christ?” Yes, he did. The existence of Abraham Lincoln is as equally supported by historical evidence as the existence of Jesus.

What’s known about Lincoln’s life? Well, quite a bit, obviously. He served twice as President of the United States and presided over the Civil War, after all. And hey - we even have actual photographs of Mr. Lincoln! The earliest surviving images of Jesus, however, come from the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. The earliest is “Healing of the Paralytic, Dura Europos” from roughly 235 CE. Here Jesus is depicted as a teacher dressed in a tunic and wearing sandals. His hair is cropped short and he wears no beard. These early images, like all images of Jesus, are drawn from the imagination, not from any historical descriptions of Jesus (of which there are none).

Anyway, what can be historically known about Jesus’ life? Not much. The earliest surviving “accounts” of Jesus life are, of course, the four New Testament gospels. But these were written anonymously decades later by anonymous individuals and are often inconsistent and historically dubious. What about his trial and crucifixion by the hands of the Romans and Pilate? Only happens in the gospels. No Roman records record any such dramatic event. Even the earliest Christian writings - the letters of Paul - mention very little concerning the historical Jesus.

To say that the existence of Jesus is as well attested as the existence of Abraham Lincoln is an insult to history and the historical method. There is simply no other way to put it.

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