A simple fact of History - Jesus

About this time of year lots of atheists and agnostics will write that Jesus never existed, never died for our sins and doesn't rule and reign today from the throne.

Here is the most inconvenient truth of all. He lived, he died for our sins, and now he rules and reigns.

So when all the pagans are trying to justify their paganism, I like to post a good article to stir them up. This year's is from Grant Jeffrey.

Throughout history many people have examined the evidence regarding the life of Jesus of Nazareth. To any unbiased observer who is willing to evaluate it without prejudice, the accumulated evidence regarding the Gospel record is truly overwhelming. As an example, Otto Betz, a respected scholar, stated in his book, What Do We Know About Jesus? that "No serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus."

However, some writers have suggested that there is little historical evidence regarding the life of Jesus. For example, the writer Solomon Zeitlin wrote, "Even Paul's epistles have awakened the question, Does he speak of a real historical personage or of an ideal? The main sources for the historicity of Jesus, therefore, are the Gospels." However, Zeitlin then dismisses the Gospel historical accounts and concluded: "So we are right to assume that even the Gospels have no value as witnesses of the historicity of Jesus. The question therefore remains: Are there any historical proofs that Jesus of Nazareth ever existed?" Another critic Salomon Reinach has contemptuously declared that he refused, "to consider writings founded upon the memory of a collection of illiterates as historical evidence for Jesus." Scholars such as Zeitlin and Reinach also casually dismiss the strong extra-biblical historical evidence from both Pagan and Jewish sources that validates the Gospel accounts about Jesus. The real reason to reject the evidence is that it contradicts the opinion they tenaciously hold that rejects the Bible's accuracy. If liberal scholars applied the same arbitrary standard of rejection of all historical evidence to other ancient historical personages, such as Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great, they would be forced to reject all history as myth.

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Socrates taught for 40 years, Plato for 50, Aristotle for 40, and Jesus for only 3. Yet the influence of Christ's 3-year ministry infinitely transcends the impact left by the combined 130 years of teaching from these men who were among the greatest philosophers of all antiquity; yet, some of the finest paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci received their inspiration from Him.

Jesus wrote no poetry; but Dante, Milton, and scores of the worlds greatest poets were inspired by Him. Jesus composed no music; still Haydn, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, and Mendelssohn reached their highest perfection of melody in the hymns, symphonies, and oratories they composed in His praise. Every sphere of human greatness has been enriched by this humble Carpenter of Nazareth.

Read the whole thing.