New Zealand journalist Bryan Bruce has come up with some "amazing" findings in his latest and most ambitious investigation to date - who killed Jesus Christ?
Bruce travelled to Jerusalem and Bethlehem to make the documentary about what he calls his "coldest case" of all to be aired on TVNZ on Sunday night.
The documentary is based on a book written by Bruce which was released about a year ago.
He said one of the two biggest surprises of his research was the discovery off a link between the crucifixion of Jesus and Nazi death camps.
The other was that the person historically blamed for sending Jesus to his death, his fellow disciple Judas, played no part in the evil doing at all.
"I think Judas is the most maligned person in history," he told NZPA
"The only person that I can find definitely, for sure, absolutely that was involved, was Pontius Pilate. Was he there personally? I don't know. Did he issue the order (to crucify Jesus)? Absolutely."
Trial judge Pontius Pilate was widely believed to have reluctantly handed down the death sentence to Jesus, according to gospel accounts from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
However, Judas, if he even existed, would have played no part in betraying Jesus, Bruce argued.
Jesus was sentenced to death because he was seen as a "troublemaker" and would have been held up as an example by Pontius Pilate to others who might question the Roman rulers, he said.
The misnomer that Jews betrayed Jesus, according to Bruce, can be placed squarely on the Christian writers of the bible and other historical religious documents, who were trying to appease the Romans and not be oppressed like the Jews.
"What happens in the first and second and third century in Rome is that the Christians begin to separate themselves (from the Jews).
"They write into their own writings anti-Semitic stuff. They cosy up to the Romans."
Bruce partially blames the gospels for inciting one of the worst horrors of wartime history -- the Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed by Nazis.
It was the bias that was cemented into Christian teachings that influenced people such as Adolf Hitler, he said.
"It wasn't a singular thing that led his Nazi party to do those terrible things, but in a sense it legitimised it."
Hitler and his military commander Heinrich Himmler were able to use those teachings to justify their actions, he said.
His conclusions have generated criticism, mostly from the conservative sectors of Christianity.
"The liberal Christians have no problem with my book at all because it's all about historical Jesus and liberal Christians don't have their faith tied to a literal interpretation of the gospels," he said.
"It's the Evangelicals and the conservatives that have issues with my book because it...takes the gospels apart and asks how reliable they are.
"I think the hardest challenge for Christians...is the way that anti-Semitism of the gospels led to the Nazi death camps. How do you account for the fact that the theology of hate is built from a gospel of love?"
Bruce hoped that after seeing the documentary Christians would start to debate what happened to Jesus.
"Because every Easter Christians tell a story that isn't true, and they have to comes to terms with that."
