Letter: The real Jesus

Sir: I have taught RE to sceptical and often cynical sixth-formers who were ready to pick holes in the Gospel accounts.

Keith Hopkins makes much of the Gospels' incompleteness and even their occasional contradictions in minor detail. I found my pupils usually took the point that those very variations in the books of the canonical New Testament do more to inspire confidence in the overall truth of the Jesus story than if the accounts had been subjected to editing by "church power", which could certainly have been done once the Church became the state religion of the Roman Empire.

C P FRIEDLANDER

Llangollen, Clwyd