Author and historian John Dickson will share his insights into the resurrection of Jesus with the North Shore community tonight.
The free event held at St Andrew's, Roseville will explore "The Resurrection Files: why historians take the resurrection of Jesus seriously".
Dr John Dickson says historical questions about Jesus are back on society's agenda and so Christians must be prepared to answer people's questions.
"I believe the evangelical church let its historical guard down 10 years ago when we became tired with historical apologetics. Also, a lot of us were saying that in a postmodern world, no one is interested in historical issues," Dr Dickson says.
"Yet in the last decade there has been much activity behind the scenes by secular scholars."
Dr Dickson says books like The Da Vinci Code, The Existential Jesus and The Gospel According to Judas as well as recent claims about the discovery of the tomb of Jesus means that Christians must once again address historical issues.
"There is so much historical nonsense about Jesus out at the moment. There is the John Carroll book, The Existential Jesus which ignores 200 years of modern biblical scholarship," Dr Dickson says.
"I have also read The Gospel According to Judas [by Jeffrey Archer and Francis Moloney]. Moloney is a well known biblical scholar but his theories on Judas and Jesus in this book could never get published in a peer-reviewed journal. So, what does he do? He helps write a "historical novel' for the general public."
Dr Dickson says the approach of Easter makes now the perfect time to talk about the resurrection.
"The Easter story is one a lot of people will be familiar with. However, modern historians are giving far more weight to the early Christian resurrection stories than the general public may realise. This talk seeks to explain why," he says.
"I'm not going to try and prove the resurrection but I will outline why scholars in universities around the world are still seriously exploring the resurrection traditions in the gospels and Paul's letters."
John Dickson says he also working on a new book based on these talks called The Resurrection Files.
"This talk is the beginning of my preparing a whole book on the topic which, Lord willing, I will finish by the end of this year."
The Christ Files
Dr Dickson has recently returned from an overseas trip filming scenes for the upcoming Christ Files documentary that is being produced by Anglican Media Sydney.
Dr Dickson visited Israel, the UK, Italy and Germany during a three week period that he calls "the trip of my life'.
"One day I was at St John's College, Cambridge holding an ancient copy of Josephus in my hands, then two days later I was in a boat in Galilee during a storm," Dr Dickson says.
"It was phenomenal having the opportunity to visit places like Jerusalem and Capernaum and get a sense of the space where Jesus lived."
The documentary, which is based upon Dr Dickson's book The Christ Files, is an analysis of the historical sources for the life of Jesus. The documentary is scheduled to be completed during the second half of 2007 and will be sold as a DVD resource and aired on network television.
