The Washington Post has a special disdain for Christmas. Not only did the publication attack the Virgin Mary during the season of Advent, they also published a hit-piece gas-lighting Christians over the very existence of Christ.
The paper published their “Jesus isn’t real” piece way back in 2014; for some reason — perhaps to start their own holiday tradition — WaPo decided to republish the piece on Christmas 2017.
The article reads little as a historical treatise and more as a jab at Christians for believing in Christ at all.
Here’s how the author Raphael Lataster frames those who promote the idea of a “historical Jesus”: “Numerous secular scholars have presented their own versions of the so-called ‘Historical Jesus’ — and most of them are, as biblical scholar J.D. Crossan puts it, ‘an academic embarrassment.'”
The rest of the piece attacks the Gospels, using arguments that could have been copy and pasted out of a Richard Dawkins pamphlet. We’ve heard them all: the Gospels were written long after Christ’s death, not all the authors identify themselves and only a few secular sources affirmed Christ’s existence.
Lataster mentions nothing about the fact that more historical evidence exists for Jesus than for Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. He also makes no mention of the fact that Christ’s apostles were all-too-eager to die horrific deaths for what he calls an “invented” belief.
Worse still, the republished article was already skewered as counter-factual after its first publication, by Lataster’s own “history of Jesus” lecturer.
After WaPo republished the piece and shared it on their Twitter account on Christmas, people quickly took notice and labeled it a cruel gesture.
Publisher of Encounter books and author, Roger Kimball, said the tweet shows “Really, all you need to know about that pathetic publication.” James Woods tweeted, “Why is this necessary today? Why insult people of a certain faith on the day they most cherish? It’s not a matter of being right or wrong, it’s a matter of simple courtesy. #Rude”.