If the question regarding the existence of Jesus came up in a court of law, the case would be dismissed within hours. All available evidence points to the fact that he was more likely to have been a mythical figure rather than an historical figure. Certainly the proof of his existence is not to be found in the Christian New Testament. It claims his birth was in Bethlehem in the Roman province of Judaea, where his family had gone for a census during the time of Augustus. But there was no census at the time stated and Judaea was not a Roman province at the time.

When a census was held in AD 7 it did not require anyone to leave their place of residence. Similarly, the New Testament locates Jesus's birth as in the time of King Herod, who died in 4 BC. Roman and Greek writers of the time make no mention of Jesus and a supposed reference by the Jewish-Roman writer Josephus is almost certainly a result of the imagination of medieval monks ( see Josephus, "The Jewish war", London 1981).

Even the first authenticated reference to Christians, by Tacitus writing in about AD 100, does not mention Jesus by name but simply uses the Greek "christos", used for any supposed messiah. The New Testament gospels are full of contradictory statements. In places, especially in Luke, there are powerful expressions of class hatred. For example, the rich man goes straight to hell, while the poor man, Lazarus, goes to the "bosom of Abraham" (Luke 18.19-26).

Jesus preaches, "It is easier for the camel to go through the eye of the needle than for the rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 16.24). And Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount declares, "Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger, for ye shall be filled....But woe unto ye that are full, for ye shall hunger (Luke 6.20-25).

By contrast, elsewhere the message is one of reconcilliation between rich and poor (For example, see Matthew 5.1 and 5.6; Matthew 25.14-30).