The Logical Christ Hypothesis

1. Why this book

“Did you like it?” Adele asked Lawrence as we left the cinema.
“I can’t understand why some subjects have to be so heavily fictionalized,” he answered.
“Then, you didn’t like it?” I suggested.
My wife Lucia and I, with Lawrence and his wife Adele, had attended a typical Easter movie portraying Jesus’ passion. I couldn’t blame Lawrence for his remarks, as I was thinking the same thoughts.
“The actors did their best,” Adele offered in defense of the film. “And although you said the subject wasn’t worked out to the best, it was still good.”
“I have no argument with the actors’ skills,” Lawrence remarked, “what I mean is that some topics should be tackled as they are originally written—or it is better to leave them be. I agree that some touch up might be allowed to put a little spice in the story, but only light touches. They shouldn’t get to the point where whole new situations are created just to entertain the public. Think of the viewer who knows the matter in depth. He or she would feel let down—wouldn’t they?”
I had to agree with Lawrence. There were scenes that clearly showed how the imagination might carry one far away from the real story.
This episode gave me the opportunity to talk to my friends, Lawrence and Adele, about a project I’d been working on for more than a decade. This project was my answer specifically to the way Jesus is portrayed by some writers who, not knowing Him, create stories around Him of supposed lovers or mysterious travels in eastern countries in order to grasp some mystical powers and so on. I briefly explained to them the many hours I had spent on it, my passion for it and my need for help to organize my work. Hearing this, they immediately agreed to help me, as they dropped Lucia and me at our home.
Some days later we gathered at our house, where I had tidied my study as the theatre of operations. Given the importance and the thoughtfulness of the subject, I didn’t hide from them that the endeavor would require some time.
“I would greatly appreciate,” I opened, “if you could join us in a weekly discussion to explore the arguments for and against the belief in Jesus as God’s Son and Messiah, the Bible and our place in His plan.”
My wife Lucia nodded in agreement, exclaiming, “I feel like I have been his only audience for so long, it will be wonderful to have the two of you to take some of the burden!”
We all laughed.
“What an opportunity!” Lawrence said, assuring me that he and Adele would put in their best effort.
I thanked them and, moving from behind my desk to face my friends, sat on my chair.
Although my study was not large, there was enough room for a wall-to-wall bookshelf that I had built myself. The room had one door opposite the bookshelf on the left side, and my desk sat between the bookshelf and the door. A large window in front of my desk provided a view of the outside world, and Lucia’s desk sat close by, in the corner between the window and the door. Two small armchairs filled the remaining space near the window, half-shadowed, half-lit as the light filtered through curtains that had small decorative shapes woven into their design.
I tackled the matter at once.
“What kind of feelings would Leonardo Da Vinci have if he were among us today and found himself in front of 560 tons of aluminum, titanium, steel, carbon fiber and plastic—taking off in the shape of an Airbus 380-900. The four Rolls Royce engines giving a total thrust of 300 Kilo-newtons, making it capable of carrying a payload of 656 passengers, plus freight at an altitude of more than 30,000 feet [10,000 meters] and at a cruising speed of more than 500 miles [900 kilometers] per hour?” I paused momentarily, encouraging reflection. “Think also on top of it that its fuel tanks hold 98,000 gallons [372,000 liters] of fuel. This would fill the tanks of 7440 cars each flight.”
“Good grief!” Adele responded to the figures.
“Amazement? Wonder?” Lawrence answered, “Da Vinci would love to see his dream come true, even though it was far beyond his wildest imagination.”
I knew I would hook Lawrence; he was an enthusiast of applied sciences, studying the mechanics of nature’s behavior.
“And yet,” I went on, “at the beginning of the 18th century, when technology was more advanced than in Da Vinci’s times, one of the early pioneers of human flight, Sir George Cayley, expressed regret that ‘he could not persuade the scientific world to take the idea of mechanical flight too seriously—neither then nor at any time during his long life.’ Still, the author goes on to say, ‘in the background must be left most of the dogged sceptics and disbelievers—some of them able scientists, who should have known better—who continued to preach the impossibility of mechanical flight, even after it had been accomplished.’”
“Why such a blindness?” Adele asked.
“Simple,” Lawrence responded, “those enlightened members of the human race knew nothing about the laws of aerodynamics that would explain how machines heavier than air could fly like birds.”
“The example of Galileo Galilei,” I added, “with his heliocentric theory, is also typical.”
Lawrence nodded eagerly, turning to his wife to explain. “As you know, besides putting the Sun, not the earth, in the center of our solar system, Galileo also suggested that our planet was spherical not flat, as believed by the leading authorities of his day.”