Accepted Facts About Jesus

When it comes to the life of Jesus, I was interested to read on wikipedia that there is very little debate as to whether Jesus of Nazareth was a real person or not.  The verdict is in.  Jesus is a real historical figure.  Even though there isn't a ton of literature about him from the era in which he lived, there are key sources that mention him in addition to Christian writings.  The writings by Josephus are one significant source external to the Bible.  Based on conversations with friends who accept that Jesus lived but don't accept his divinity, I'm not too surprised to learn that people as a whole do accept that Jesus really lived.  However, there are some out there who don't think Jesus even lived, and I think it's worth pointing out that historians would tell such people that they are simply wrong.

I've also heard people state that they not only believe Jesus existed, but they accept that he was crucified as well.  They have no compelling reason not to believe this since it seems like a very reasonable way for Him to have died.  It seems those people I have heard say this are not alone, as many others accept the historical fact of Jesus' crucifixion as well.  (I plan to talk more about His crucifixion in a later post.)

One thing I did not realize, which I would like to address in this post, was that Jesus' baptism is also accepted as fact.  In the footnotes on the wikipedia entry on the Historial reliability of the Gospels, I find that "Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 page 339 states of baptism and crucifixion that these 'two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent'."  In my initial post, I outlined Jesus's existence, crucifixion, and resurrection as the three key alleged facts that I must believe as actual facts to consider myself a Christian.  It seems people find it pretty easy to accept the first two of these, but the baptism of Jesus is an additional "bonus fact" that was not on my original list.  Though I did not initially consider this "fact" to be a key tenant of Christianity, perhaps it is more important than I originally considered.

First, let's investigate the truth of Jesus' baptism a little more closely.  What convinces people that Jesus' baptism is a real historical event?

I found references to numerous books asserting that this baptism really happened.  Finding the exact reasons these authors believed this event yet did not believe others from the Bible that seem equally possible has proven difficult without having direct access to any of these books.  I hope to acquire access to at least some of these books for my next post, but I have found one interesting argument so far.

The argument I found was based on the idea that the baptism of Jesus could portray Jesus as being subservient to or depend upon John, the man who baptized him.  Why include mention of such an event that could be seen to counter the divinity of Jesus unless it actually happened?  The Gospel texts add bits that, if we accept them, show that Jesus was in fact divine, such as John recognizing Him as the Christ and a voice from heaven claiming Him as the Son of God.  Doubters of Christ's divinity would say those bits were added by Christians to attempt to explain that even though Jesus was baptized by John, such an act did not disprove His divinity.  But why would these extra bits, whether they are true or not, need to be added if Jesus was not actually baptized to begin with?  Wouldn't it have been easier just to not mention the baptism at all?  The fact that the baptism is mentioned in the Gospels at all, when it seems like it could have easily been excluded if the Gospels were pure fiction, makes people more apt to accept it as a historical fact.

What are some other reasons people accept the baptism of Jesus as historical fact and what are the implications, spiritual or otherwise, of this historical fact?  The answer to that will carry over into my next post.

What is Reasonable?

Is a belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and had divine powers that led to his resurrection from the dead reasonable?  Is faith in any religious doctrine reasonable?  Does "reason" only extend to definitely proven and non-debatable facts?

I think we can extend "reason" even to things that aren't completely provable.  For example, I'm a computer programmer and have what I would call "reasonable" opinions about what makes the code I write "good" or "bad".  Many of these "opinions" are very close to fact or could even be considered fact as they are shared by many in the industry and have statistics and/or logic to back them up.  Others are more of a matter of personal preference and are based on how I define "good" and "bad."  I have my own reasons for these preferences and I could explain to others why I have these preferences and my reasons would make sense.  Holding to the standards I have chosen is "reasonable," but someone else could have a preference that is different and still "reasonable."

Religion can be viewed in a similar yet different manner.  Multiple beliefs could be reasonable.  Certain beliefs can instead be unreasonable.  However, unlike my computer programming example above where there may not always be a definitively "correct" way to right a program, different religious beliefs are contradictory enough that they can't all be 100% "correct".  I think if a belief is "correct" it will be reasonable, but not all "reasonable" beliefs are necessarily "correct".

Take the question of "Is there a God?"  There could be arguments for answering this with either a "yes" or a "no".  We might say that either belief is reasonable (or at least I would say that).  But only one can be right.  Christians say the right answer is "yes".  I don't want to say that not believing in God is unreasonable.  I instead want to argue that belief in God is reasonable.  I can't convince you that it's also right; that's up to you to decide.  But I hope you can at the very least agree that God could exist.

Now if we take this to the level of Christianity and try to find the "reasonableness" of believing that Jesus Christ was God and rose from the dead, I agree that it starts to seem even less reasonable than belief in some generic God.  But because Jesus's divinity depends on an event (namely, His resurrection) really happening, there is more concrete evidence to find and examine than there is when it comes to "simply" believing in God.  To me, if it weren't for Jesus, believing that God exists would be harder, but because we have documentation from first hand witnesses about Jesus, this makes belief in God and in Jesus as the Son of God more reasonable.

I hope to write more in the next couple of days about that documentation of Jesus' resurrection and just how reasonable it is to trust it, and then get into evidence about Jesus that I haven't presented yet.  These first two posts have contained thoughts and reasoning about Christianity and what is required to accept it, but my intention is to start examining evidence soon.  I could start quoting from the Bible right now, but since not everyone accepts all of the accounts in the Bible as factual, I'd like to do some other research as well.

First Post

We might trust in what we don't see, but as Christians, we trust in the testimony about what others have seen.  We have a faith that is based in historical accounts of facts about what people saw happen thousands of years ago.  Even though a lot of time has passed, this still makes Christianity a faith in facts.  The Bible itself points out that "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (1 Corinthians 15:14).  Christianity is not based on some philosophy that someone just made up, but the heart of it's foundation is something that Christians consider a real, historical event.  Sure, there is plenty of philosophy that comes out of that event, but all of that is based on observations of what really happened and what this miraculous man who could overcome death had to say about our lives.

You might debate whether what I as a Christian call a "real, historical event" is truly "real and historical", and that's great!  That is exactly what you should be doing!  Don't focus on all the other details and side plots of Christianity, just ask yourself a few simple questions to get started:  

1. Was Jesus Christ a real person who really walked this earth?  
2. If so, did he really suffer and die via execution on a cross?  
3. If so, did he then rise again and appear to several witnesses who then attest to this in the Bible?  

If you answered "yes" to all of these things, you must then ask yourself, "What does this mean to me?"  If you answered "no" to any of these three questions, look at the first question to which you answered "no" and ask yourself, "Why is my answer no?" 

If you answered "no" to only the third question above, your reason might be something along the lines of "because that's impossible."  But how do you know it's impossible?  Just because you've never seen it happen yourself?  Thomas was the same way (John 20:24-29).  You need to do research for yourself and determine what really happened two-thousand years ago, and only then can you decide if you're going to believe it as truth, or dismiss it as false, but just saying, "It's impossible" without digging deeper is not acceptable.

The starting of this blog and this first post were inspired by a Bible study at my church about the eyewitness accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Though the phrasing is my own, the key ideas behind this post were pulled from that study.