Low-budget Amazon Prime documentary prompts explosion of interest in theory Jesus was a Greek man called Apollonius

It has often been said that to know Jesus is to know God.

But what if the Jesus the world knows was actually an ancient Greek man named Apollonius, born in what is now Turkey before his deeds were adopted by Christians to create a mythical figure of Christ?

That is the somewhat spurious claim made in a documentary called Bible Conspiracies, a 67-minute, low-budget affair available on Amazon Prime.

The film is peppered with dated computer animations and stock images in the place of interviews with experts or original footage, all accompanied by a monotone voiceover.

“What about this person, Jesus?” the narrator asks during the course of the documentary. “Was he real? Was he created? Was he an alien?”

The fact the film was released in 2016 and has been available on Amazon’s streaming service since at least November 2017 has done little to prevent its contents being widely publicised this week.

Media outlets in the UK and across the world picked up on the theory after it apparently first appeared on the Kremlin-backed Sputnik News website, filed under the headline: “Jesus wasn’t a Jew, bombshell documentary claims”.

The film states Jesus did not exist as a historical person and that the New Testament actually details the exploits of Apollonius.

In an attempt to provide evidence for this, the documentary suggests Apollonius had a number of monuments dedicated to him, while “no statues or temples were erected to Jesus.”

It claims early Christians suppressed details of supposed miracles performed by Apollonius, as they were concerned he would “usurp” the idea of Christ with his “own factual life”.

“Unlike Jesus, there is actually evidence to prove that Apollonius existed,” the narrator says. “Nobody can say with any conviction that Jesus was a real person.”

However, the assertion that Jesus was not a genuine historical figure, or that there is no evidence of his existence, holds little weight with experts.

Academics overwhelmingly agree Jesus was a real person, with debate more focused on whether the gospels offer an accurate account of his teachings and actions.

Simon Gathercole, a senior lecturer in New Testament Studies at Cambridge University, said Apollonius was a well-known figure in the ancient world, who often drew comparisons to Jesus.

However, he dismissed the idea Jesus was not a historical person, but a myth based on the Greek philosopher as “crackers”.

“There was no doubt in the ancient world or now over whether Jesus existed, there has never been any confusion over whether or not he actually existed,” he told The Independent.

“There are some very early sources for Jesus. Paul’s letters were written 20 years after Jesus died and part of the New Testament was also written by people who knew Jesus.

“We know the first of Paul’s letters were written in 50 AD and describe him as being born of a woman under Jewish law.

“There is no doubt in the evidence from the first sources that Jesus was Jewish and not Greek.”

In complete contradiction to the arguments put forward in Bible Conspiracies, Dr Gathercole said there was a possibility the first biography of Apollonius, who lived from around 15 to 100 AD, may have in fact borrowed from accounts of Jesus’s life.

“The biography of Apollonius by Philostratus was written almost 200 years [after the letters of Paul], when the gospels were very widely known,” he added.

“We are not certain, but Philostratus may have been borrowing stories from the gospels to show Apollonius as an equal or even superior figure to Jesus.”

Philip Gardiner is listed as the director of Bible Conspiracies, one of several of his films currently available on Amazon.

IMDB credits Mr Gardiner as the director of more than 80 documentaries, including 666: The New World Order, 2020 Nostradamus, A One World Agenda: The Illuminati and Alien Contact: Nasa Exposed.