Robert J. Hutchinson

Robert J. Hutchinson is an award-winning writer and the author of numerous books of popular history, including What Really Happened: The Lincoln Assassination and What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler (Regnery History), The Dawn of Christianity (Harper Collins), Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth (Harper Collins), The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible (Regnery), When in Rome: A Journal of Life in Vatican City (Doubleday) and The Book of Vices: A Collection of Classic Immoral Tales (Putnam). He has presented seminars and public lectures for large groups in the U.S., Germany, and France. Raised in the Pacific Northwest, Hutchinson attended a Jesuit high school and university, earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy, moved to Israel in his early 20s to learn Hebrew, and earned a graduate degree in New Testament Studies. In his recent talks and books, Hutchinson demonstrates that recent discoveries in archaeology and New Testament studies are challenging many of the older ideas about Jesus of Nazareth and early Christianity that have dominated academic scholarship for more than a century. He claims that these older ideas – for example, that Jesus believed the world would end in his lifetime or that he was really a violent revolutionary – have been largely set aside by top secular scholars working in the world’s best universities. Instead, Hutchinson says, the evidence increasingly shows that Jesus of Nazareth was very close to being just as the Gospels describe him: a fiery, courageous, charismatic populist who drew crowds by the tens of thousands and electrified all of Israel with his strange and exhilarating announcement of God’s kingdom in their midst. Hutchinson’s even-handed and fair approach to these scholarly controversies has been widely praised by both religious and secular experts, including such famous scholars as N.T. Wright, Craig Evans, Rodney Stark, Darrell Bock, Michael Bird, James Tabor and James Crossley. In addition to his lifelong research on early Christianity, Hutchinson claims that the unusual philosophical ideas found in the Bible provided the intellectual foundation for western civilization and the development of experimental science... and argues that much-maligned Biblical laws actually paved the way for limited government and the recognition of universal human rights. These arguments are made in his bestselling book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible. For most his adult life, Hutchinson has worked as a full-time professional writer. He has won numerous awards, and contributes essays and columns to such outlets as Fox News, The Blaze, Mercatornet, Newsmax, Catholic Exchange, Human Events, Christianity Today, and many more. An avid travel writer, Hutchinson is also the former managing editor of Hawaii Magazine and the former Hawaii Bureau Chief for The Hollywood Reporter. In his spare time, Hutchinson practices Japanese martial arts and studies foreign languages. You can contact him at: www.RobertHutchinson.com.