Was Jesus Christ a Real Person in History?

Was Jesus Christ a real person in history, or was he a myth? Did the Jesus described in the New Testament of the Holy Bible really exist or was he a creative invention, a legend that developed over the years out of fiction and fable?

What The Real Historians And Scholars Say

 

What do experts on the matter of whether or not Jesus was a historical real life person say? Does professional non-Christian research, archaeology and scholarship agree that Jesus Christ really existed? 

“Most modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed,”  (Wikipedia: Historicity of Jesus)

“In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. page 285”

“Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200”

“Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more." in Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (Apr 1, 2004) ISBN 0802809774 page 34”

“The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, 1989 ISBN 0192132415 Oxford University Press, page 145 states : "Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed".”

The truth is that anyone who has any sort of professional credentials in the study of history and scholarship concerning the time of Jesus agrees that Jesus Christ absolutely existed. There is great debate over exactly what he did and said, but even atheists who have studied the history admit that the man described in the Bible’s New Testament really lived.

The historical evidence, even if you completely exclude the Bible and ancient (early) Christian writings, says that Jesus was a real man from Galilee, widely known as a teacher and healer, and that he was executed on a cross by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish religious leaders on account of heresy, because he claimed to be God. All this happened in the early part of the first century AD and was the cause of Christianity’s birth and rapid spread.

Evidence From Non-Christian Sources

There are records and writings from Roman officials, from Jews, from historians at the time, tons of writing from Christians, and even writing from people who hated and attacked the rising tide of Christianity. Even those people who wanted to kill all Christians admitted and believed that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person for which this new belief system, Christianity, was based. They did not, and could not deny the reality of Jesus Christ.

Josephus, a Roman-Jewish historian from the time of Jesus, mentioned him a few times in his historical work “Antiquities of The Jews”. It was written around 93-94 AD, less than a hundred years after Jesus’s death on the cross (around 30-35 AD), and the same time period as all of the Bible’s New Testament writings (the gospels, etc.).

Tacitus was a Roman historian and senator who wrote “Annals” around 116 AD and mentioned Jesus Christ as a real historical person in reference to both the Jews and the hugely expanding Christian presence throughout the Roman Empire. He hated and despised this “new religion”, but even he says Jesus was a real man from Judea who the Romans executed on a cross. Tacitus’ writing also agrees with a number of other things mentioned in the gospels, such as the fact that Pontius Pilate was the overseer of Judea at the time of Christ’s execution and officiated over it.

Josephus and Tacitus are the most obvious non-Christian sources of direct reference to the real life and death of Jesus, but many other references exist from that direct time period as well. Many references to Christ exist in quick passing as having been the originator and basis for Christianity, with Christ’s own disciples (the men who walked with and lived with Jesus for the five years of his ministry) being the founding fathers of the Christian church as a whole. All of these men, who were firsthand witnesses to Christ’s life, teaching, miracles, death and resurrection went out into the world spreading the gospel mere days after Christ’s death and resurrection, and ALL of them were killed for doing so. These men believed the reality of what they preached so strongly that they gladly faced death for the personal witness and testimony of Jesus. Some of them were even bringing jailors and fellow prisoners in jail to Christ days before being executed for preaching and spreading an “illegal” religion.

The Bible And Christian Sources

The four gospels of the Bible’s New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are firsthand accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, and have been shown to be incredibly accurate in almost every historical detail (even to the names and positions of officials like Pontius Pilate and religious leaders of the Jews at the time). These gospels, as well as tons of other pieces of writing concerning Jesus and Christianity all existed within a hundred years or less of Jesus’ life. No other historical figure in ancient history has as much written about him so soon after his life and death as Jesus. None! Yet we consider tons of historical figures to be authentic and real based on writings and references many hundreds of years removed from their origins, or based on a single fragment of writing or archaeology. The testimony of Jesus’ life and death overwhelms all other ancient historical figures in the proof of his existence, both in the miniscule time difference between the writings and life of Christ, and in the number of references to his historical life. Nothing else comes anywhere close! There was so much written about Jesus and so many references and quotes from the gospels and New Testament letters within the first few centuries after Christ’s life and death, that you could reconstruct most of the New Testament based on quotations alone.

Josh McDowell is a Christian writer who was originally an atheist who went on a research quest during his university days to challenge and destroy the historical argument for Christ’s existence. He dug into the history of Christ and the church and found himself unable to deny its reality and authenticity. He ended up becoming a Christian based in part on the irrefutable historical evidence he found. Before his research, he’d assumed that the whole story of Jesus was a myth with little or no proof to back it up, and that most Christians were complete idiots for having been so completely hoodwinked by “fake religion”. When Christians at university challenged him to really look for himself, his life was changed forever.

In his book, “Evidence That Demands a Verdict” (1979), McDowell describes the incredible plethora of ancient manuscript copies of the New Testament and how nothing else comes anywhere close to comparing.

“There are now more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Add over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions [of the Biblical writings] and we have more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today. No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation. In comparison, the Iliad by Homer is second with only 643 manuscripts that still survive.” 

(To get the latest print of Josh McDowell’s book about the evidences for Jesus Christ, check out his more recently updated version, “New Evidence That Demands A Verdict”)

Another great source of information on the historical evidence for Jesus comes from another former atheist (Lee Strobel), a journalist who took on the challenge of studying the historical evidence for Christ and came away from it shocked and transformed. He too became a Christian upon researching this subject. Check out his two books about Jesus, “Case ForThe Real Jesus”, and “Case For Christ”.

If you want even more detail about this subject and the specific references and quotes mentioned in this short write up, check out “Apologetics Press – The Historical Christ: Fiction or Fact?”. 

 Jesus Was Real!

It is absolutely impossible to deny that Jesus Christ was a real man in history. What exactly he did and said, and whether or not he really was the Messiah and Son of God is another (though obviously very important) matter entirely. However as a real man in history, Jesus Christ is one of the most attested to historical figures of the ancient times. No one else comes anywhere close, yet this doesn’t stop us from believing those countless other important famous people of ancient history actually existed. Specific Kings, Queens, religious leaders, army commanders, and so many other people significant and insignificant from ancient history are all accepted as fact, and yet none of them compare to the hard factual proof and evidence (in number of different sources and the minimal time period between the sources and the man) that exists for the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus stands high above the rest.

The reason Jesus Christ gets ignored and denied by some people, is the fact that they either have no clue about the evidence, or they have a heavily biased agenda against Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity. In truth, the denial of Christ’s existence says far more about the mindset and attitudes of the deniers than it does about whether or not Christ really lived. These people need to take a step back and ask themselves why they, despite the overwhelming evidence, so badly want to reject Christ’s existence. It’s not based on proof or truth. So what is it based on?

Offend Islam, Cause Riots And Violence

YouTube: Egypt And Libya Riot Over US Film

"... It [the video] was produced by a real-estate developer from California who put its trailer on YouTube, something that very few people saw before a preacher from Florida, Terry Jones, started promoting it. The same preacher who's burning of a Koran last year triggered riots in Afghanistan. This latest film obviously caught fire with Islamists, with people in the part of the world where they don't just let things like that go, as they didn't with the caricatures of Mohammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005. That triggered a lot of riots, as we remember. Also as they didn't let go with a number of other incidents."

A couple weeks ago, on September 11 (the anniversary of the horrible Muslim extremist terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York that killed over 3000 people), Muslims across the globe showed their solidarity to combat terrorism by rioting and attacking US embassies, injuring many, ruining property, and even killing a US ambassador inside one of those embassies (in Libya). The entire eruption is being blamed on a short little video online that insults Islam, though the video has actually been around since 2009.

Islam's response to insult is drastically different from the response of Christians. Christians will say how offended they are about something, but won't riot and physically attack people over it. Because of this, we get all kinds of blatant over the top crude and truely horrible insults against Christianity, God and Jesus Christ constantly. By and large, we get upset, but don't attack. We turn the other cheek. In fact, if we DO make much of a fuss about such things, we're told to shut up because it's all a matter of "free speech". Blasphemy is protected under "Free Speech" and the courts will side against the offended Christians on that basis. So we get absolutely heinous blasphemies all over the place, even in museums and universities and it's all labeled "art" and "free speech".

For example, I read a while back about a big name university (sorry, I forget which one and don't have the link) in the United States banning a small Christian group from showing Passion of The Christ on campus, meanwhile, that same university a few months later put on a production of "F***ing for Jesus", a play ridiculing and insulting Christianity, God, and especially Jesus. "F***ing for Jesus" is art protected by free speech...The list of examples likes this is endless and disgusting. But Christians, even if we make a bit of a fuss (noise) about something, are told to shut up.

Islam, on the other hand, goes into a violent rage whenever the religion is insulted, even a little. Muslims riot, protest, damage property, attack and kill people, threaten death on the blaspheming infidels, and pretty much go mad with exacting retribution. Don't get me wrong, this is by far a minority. For every 1 Muslim in the world that reacts violently to perceived insult, there are hundreds more that respond peacefully (if at all) much like Christians do. A classic example of this is if a Bible is burned by someone in a show of hatred towards the Bible or Christianity, Christians go, "That's not very nice. Now back to our lives we go." When the Koran gets burned you get riots, violence, injuries and death in the streets of Muslim nations. Death to the infidel!

Appeasement And Double Standard

What's shocking is how the Western World is responding to this sort of over reaction. Property is damaged, people are injured and even killed, and the media and government goes, "The violence is the fault of the people who insulted Islam, not the Muslims and their religion of peace..."

Everyone is blaming an anti-Islam short video for the latest rash of violence, but the truth is that there's always something. Cartoonists who make a joke about anything related to Islam get death threats, their houses are fire bombed, their families threatened, and some even flee for their lives. And that's in Western countries! In some Muslim countries if you dared say anything bad about Islam, there's a good chance you'll end up dead. Heck, just being a Christian in many of these countries is qualification for being attacked, raped or killed (your family included). Yet the bulk of the blame always seems to be pointed at the person "igniting" the flare up, the person who somehow insulted Islam, and not the people actually committing the atrocious crimes.

You know how I mentioned that Christianity has to take insult and blasphemy as "free speech" and not make a big deal out of it? Islam seems to get the opposite treatment. The White House actually told YouTube and Google to take the offending anti-Islam video down. That's right! The US government is actively trying to block content that might offend Muslims online... Government law enforcement officials even hunted down the makers of the movie to intimidate and "re-educate" them so that they won't produce such things again. Politicians are apologizing for the video's existence and saying how terrible it is that someone would make such a thing. Meanwhile, Muslims riot for justice and vengeance... Even more shocking is that Hollywood, the bastion of "freedom of speech" excuses for content that ridicules Christianity on a VERY regular basis, is in agreement with the government and mainstream media! Block the content! Stop the insults to Islam!... Talk about being monumentally hypocritical!

Conservative commentators have been talking about all this and through interviews with "people in the know" and from the words that Muslims across the world are saying every day, it's becoming clear that such angry violent responses are done with the full intention of making it illegal to insult Islam on a global scale. The idea is to scare and terrorize the world into submission. It's a coordinated strategy, and it's working.

Christians get "F***ing for Jesus" and told to shut up when we complain about it. Islam gets protection from insult under the law... That's right! Many Western countries have adopted or have been slowly adopting (or currently calling for the adoption of) laws that block free speech with regards to Islam, making it illegal to insult the religion or Muslims in any way. Even just the perception of insult or offense will get you in trouble with the law. It's been pushed forward under the banner of respect for religion, culture and people, and it trumps freedom of expression and free speech, just like how homosexuality trumps freedom of religion (or Christianity anyways) and free speech.

Maybe Muslims have their strategy right. Maybe it takes violence to stop people from insulting your religion of choice... No, probably not. If it was Christians behaving this childishly and violently, it would be the Christians that get squashed by the law, not the people insulting them in the first place. It really wouldn't matter what we do. Somehow Christianity is absolutely free game and Islam is off limits, and both stances are protected under law.

Secularism Saves, Religion Destroys?

There's a common falsehood that is popular among many atheists and secular speakers out there that secularism is the answer to a harmonious civilization whereas religion inevitably leads to extremism, holy wars, murder and oppression (even hatred) in the name of god and kingdom. Such thinking is entirely inaccurate, as are other beliefs that tend to go along with such an idea.

Secularism is by no means any better than mainstream (or otherwise) religious or spiritual belief systems that exist throughout the world. Somehow these atheists and secularists have gotten it in their heads that secularism and atheism are NOT belief systems akin or comparable to religion. This is absurd because secularism and atheism are very much belief systems that shape an individual's life and viewpoint of the universe, the world, mankind, and the individual within it all. So to pretend that there's a gross difference between secularism and religion is to wear very thick blinders. Both are philosophical ideologies at their core and how they effect a person stems directly from that foundation. Secularism is humanism, a "religion" based on the idea that naturalism is all there is and mankind is an accident of nature and little more than a highly evolved animal. Secularism also wishes to eliminate religion from places of education, public discussion, government (and other authority), even entertainment. For a group that loves to preach about tolerance and diversity, they are actually quite intolerant to ideas that do not jive with their own.

Much is said these days in secular circles about religious extremism. The biggest culprit of religiously motivated or inspired terrorism is found within certain sects of Islam, and this has been true for more than two decades now. However non-religious (or vaguely spiritual) people see this and pin the terrorist (or ticking time bomb) on ALL organized religion. They'll point to historic tragedies such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, both taking place during cultures heavily dominated and invested in either Roman Catholic Christianity or Islam. Clearly religion and belief in god is a great inspiration of horror and evil in the world, right? And so non-religion, such as secular atheism or humanism, must then be the salvation of mankind and the end of human on human violence!... Such a belief or statement could not be more wrong.

The problem of extremism or ideologically motivated violence is by no means restricted to religion. It broaches all kinds of belief systems, all stripes of political bents and ALL viewpoints. Christians can easily understand this because we understand that the broken human condition that causes all of this is sin, which permeates and infects EVERYONE no matter who they are. Sin is like a poison. Left unchecked, it is catastrophically destructive and cruel. Secularism and atheism do not even believe in the existence of sin, believing that morality is in large part a social construct and little else. So who is better prepared to address the corrupted human soul? The ones who reject the existence of both soul and sin, or the ones that know it for what it is?

Is secularism the answer to moderating and regulating religion to prevent catastrophic violence between human beings? No. At best it's no better than religion in this matter. However, it might actually be even worse, because it holds no solid moral foundation or absolute truth. The atheist likes to point to tragedies in history connected (loosely or closely) to religion, things like the Crusades and Inquisition. In the secularist mindset, theocracy (government and power held by organized religion) is inherently corrupt or easily corrupted, mere steps from extremist evil. Yes, those particular horrors of history were awful, but religion is by no means the only factor for such occurrences. Neither is theocracies, or political conservatism. Most wars are not religiously inspired or motivated, merely using religion as an excuse for the real reasons for the war, such as greed and power.

Secularism and atheism have a human death count in the multiple hundreds of millions in just the last 100 years alone. The crusades and inquisitions were centuries ago and killed far fewer people on the whole. The inquisitions for instance may have killed a few thousand in all. Secular communism, however, is a very modern social and governmental construct, and it's slaughtered hundreds of millions in far shorter a time period than all religions combined for all of history. Stalin and communist Russia, communist China, and Germany's Hitler and the Nazis in World War 2 were all heavily influenced and inspired by humanism, secularism and naturalistic Darwinism (evolution). In this way you could almost say that communism is the secular version of a theocracy. Germany was the breadbasket of Darwinist thought and evolution inspired eugenics were the heart and soul of much of the Nazi mentality. They rounded up Jews, people of colour, and the physically and mentally disabled for death because they were considered inferior humans, a detriment to the betterment of more highly evolved mankind. These people were relegated to a sub-human status, and murdered and brutalized because of it. Communist Russia and China killed hundreds of millions in the name of preserving their government control and destroying all opposition and alternate belief systems, especially against Christianity. These were and are heavily atheistic and secular driven belief systems and mentalities that dominate in these large scale modern death camps. Secularism and atheism is in no way harmony and innocence. It's hands are as bloody or worse than mankind's biggest and longest lasting religions, and it's happening today right along side Islamic terrorism. The only difference is that it's institutionalized and government sanctioned. The only difference is that all this genocide is done in the name of man and at the cost and eradication of freedom (freedom that Christianity has been a strong supporter and creator of the world over).


The Real Problem

The problem is not religion, or even politics. The problem is mankind's heart in general. The problem is our eagerness and easily corruptible fallen sinful nature. Secularism and atheism don't even have a "higher power" to answer to or provide them direction, instruction, correction or meaning. To them, we're evolved animals, a cosmic accident of chemistry and physics.

True Christianity is based upon salvation, mercy, love, repentance, and compassion. Jesus Christ came and died on the cross when the Jews wanted him to rise up and become a holy warrior king and save them from the Romans. He refused. He came to save our lost souls, to show us a better way, to lead us back to God through love and mercy. The value of a human life and compassionate love are two monumental core tenets in Christianity. Yes, Christians or people who have claimed to be Christian or do things in the name of God have done terrible things in the past and even the present. But so have secularists, humanists, atheists and Darwinists. Examples of this are the Columbine school shooting in the USA (the two young men considered themselves to be cleansing society of religion and being an instrument of natural selection, one even wore a shirt that said exactly that as he shot his fellow classmates dead) and the murder spree a couple years ago in Norway where an avowed evolutionist shot dead 100 teenagers and government workers in the name of attacking Islam and the tolerance of it. The problem is NOT religion. The problem is strong over the top ideology combined with a lack of loving merciful compassion and the heartfelt knowledge that every life is exquisitely valuable.

Secularism is not salvation for the ills of society. It could be better described as oblivious unintended suicide. To eliminate the God given value of human life, of the soul, and to reduce us all to cosmic accidents and lucky-to-have evolved and survived animals in an entirely cold and callous universe is to beg for the de-humanization of all mankind. Human history both ancient and modern paints us a large scale picture of the evil and cruelty that mankind is capable of. Atheism and humanist secularism are at best no better than religions when it comes to these large scale sins. It's because the problem is not religion, or God, or faith, holy scripture, or even politics. The problem is mankind's ability to twist and warp any and all ideologies and philosophies into dark and destructive tendencies for fortune, fame and power. The problem is sin, something we are all guilty of to one extent or another.

Thankfully there's a means of redemption, forgiveness and salvation found through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are all His and He loves each and every one of us. That's a heck of a lot more positive and inspiring than, "We're stuff that stars burped out and that chemistry and physics accidentally patched together into complex animals." In Christianity there's a true possible solution. There's an understanding of the existence and potential of evil and wrong in all of us. Compassion, love, and deeply valuing all human life is the only cure. Those principles go hand in hand with salvation through Jesus Christ.


UPDATE

Added links to a few articles giving more detail and information on the topic.

Whitewashing Darwinism's Ongoing Moral Legacy  (EvolutionNews, Darwinism's influence taboo to discuss)

Slouching Toward Columbine: Darwin’s Tree of Death  (http://blog.beliefnet.com)

James J. Lee, Hostage-taker and Darwinist  (EvolutionNews, Discovery Channel shooting in Maryland, plus a summary of other similar incidents)

From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany  (Amazon.com)