This looks like it will be a good series from the BBC and starts on Sunday evening on BBC1.
Richard writes:
‘I want to commend the forthcoming ‘Miracles of Jesus’ thoroughly. It deserves a very wide audience within the church as well as outside it. The BBC has responded to a request from church leaders for a new style of programme, which asks questions of meaning rather than science. It is a bold experiment which I think works well, giving Christians a valuable opportunity to talk about our Christian faith in natural conversation. It will also provide excellent material on video for discussion groups of all ages too.
Rageh Omaar, the presenter says, ‘As a Muslim I am fascinated by this man Jesus. Jesus has changed the lives of millions of people, so lets try and ask the question why?’
This could generate a lot of questions and give lots of opportunity for dialogue.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 
On 30th July 2006, the BBC is broadcasting a series of three pogrammes about the miracle stories of Jesus.The miracle stories of Jesus are literary creations, plagiarised from the miracle stories in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.This can be detected as easily as we can detect that some A-level students have copied their coursework from the Internet. Whole sentences are copied out. For example, when the author of Luke rewrites the story in 1 Kings 17 of Elijah raising the son of a widow he met at the gate of a city , to become a story of Jesus raising the son of a widow he met at the gate of a city, Luke copies out ‘kai edoken auton te metri autou’ from the old story. Luke also copies other phrases from the Elijah story when writing his story about Jesus.In 2 Kings 4:42-44, Elisha has a great many people to feed with only a few loaves of barley bread and a little other food. He delegates the task of feeding. There is a complaint that the quantity is too small. The feeding continues and everyone is fed. There is surplus bread left over. This older story from Kings has exactly the same plot as the feeding of the 5,000 – only the numbers are different.More plagiarism of the Old Testament miracle stories can also be found in other stories about Jesus.The stories are not historical. They are not even original to Jesus.There are more details at Miracles
StevenClearly we will not agree here. As a Christian who believes in, and has expereinecd, miracles and you being an atheist who does not it will be hard, probably impossible to come to agreement.I did, however, feel the programme was balanced andf that the miracles did actually happen and that Jesus was deliberatly making personal claims through those miracles.Please feel free to make comments, but I would prefer that they were comments rather than cut and pastes of youe entire posts from your blog which does not quite seem right.Your theory that the gospel writers just copied the miracles of Jesus ‘A level’ style from the Okld Testament is a possibility, although if we tke th evidence around the writings I find that difficult to believe.Yes … people could cheat and copy, but would people cheat and copy and then hold true to that lie while they were being executed? That I find difficult to believe.i think if we take things in isolation it is easy to disprove, discredit or get the wrong idea. Too long bits of the Bible have been looked at in isolation. The writings need to be looked at in a more systematic way so that we can hearthe whole good news and not just apart of it.But, again, thanks for your comments.
‘Yes … people could cheat and copy, but would people cheat and copy and then hold true to that lie while they were being executed? That I find difficult to believe.’Not this old nonsense again. It is amazing how many Christians trot this out, as though they actually did think there was something in it! Name just one person who was killed for preaching that Jesus fed 5,000 or walked on water.How did the Gospel writers die? Were they killed for writing made-up stories about Jesus? Paul was there, and he makes clear in Galatians 6:12 that early Christians were persecuted on the issue of circumcision, and that Christian leaders were prepared to compromise their beliefs on circumcsion , and by doing so, they avoided persecution.Naturally, Paul, being there, makes no mention of Jesus being a miracle worker.How could he? He was there. Of course he is not going to say that Jesus worked miracles.And why did Joseph Smith die for a lie?
again good points but I think you miss the real question stated by Rageh Omaar: ‘Why has Jesus changed the lives of millions (axctually billions!) of people?