The Big Questions About Jesus 预览

Was Jesus a Real Historical Figure?

Recently, I was interested to read the results of a survey in the United Kingdom showing 40% of adults don't believe Jesus was an actual historical figure. This is interesting because qualified historians, whether Christians or atheists, almost universally agree that Jesus did exist. It just goes to show the power of popular culture myths.

The evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth is both long-established and widespread. In addition, it's early, detailed, and able to be corroborated – basically everything you'd look for if you were trying to find reliable historical evidence.

Of course, you'd expect surviving eyewitness accounts written by Jesus' friends, and that's precisely what we find. You may come across someone saying you have to discount the written gospels in the Bible because they're biased. Certainly, they are biased! The eyewitnesses wrote about Jesus because they were impressed by him. You must have some reason for putting things down on paper; otherwise, no one would ever write anything. You'd have almost nothing left if you discounted any writings from history on the basis they were for or against their subject! The argument about the gospels written by Christians doesn't stand up and should be discounted. You have to evaluate each piece of evidence on its merit.

The first writings about Jesus were written around 25 years after his life, with his detailed biographies dating from around 15 years after that. These writings are full of verifiable historical details, written down within a few decades of the events themselves. Anyone among thousands of people who lived through the events could have objected and said, "That story about Jesus of Nazareth, it's all made up! It's a load of rubbish. I know. I was there!" But that never happened.

It's a striking fact of history there was never any debate in the ancient world about whether Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure, not even among his opponents! The Jewish rabbis denounced Jesus for various reasons but never doubted his existence. The same was true for the pagan writers like Celsus, who wrote against Christianity. There's also plenty of hard evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ that comes from people who were biased against him—from the Jews themselves, including the historian Josephus, to pagan writers and historians like Pliny and Tacitus.

Even if you wanted to throw out all of the irrefutable evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth as a person of history, you would still have to deal with the fact that something seismic happened in the southeastern corner of the Roman empire in the first third of the first century. Whatever it was turned the world upside down, conquering the Roman empire and profoundly shaping civilization as we know it today.

Take away Jesus, and you have nothing; nothing with which to explain the history of the last 2,000 years. All you have is a "Jesus-shaped hole" in history.

Of course, one question always leads to another. If Jesus did exist, then you can't rule a line under that and say, "Okay, that's it. Yes, he existed." At least, not if you are a rational person. You see, I believe the implications of the existence of Jesus Christ lead you to recognize who he is and accept him as Lord and Savior.

– Eliezer Gonzalez