On the Authenticity of Jesus

[Landlord]

Hey guys...I just finished a ridiculously long blog post that I titled "On the Authenticity, Reliability, Prophecy and Controversy of Historical Jesus". I made it mostly and loosely as a rebuttal to some naive high school girl's conspiracy theories, and as a reference apologetic for me to use in my own conversations with people in the future. Figured I would post it here and see if it could generate some debate Original link here. Here's the content, sorry about the length:

 

 

 

 

 

I’m going to start this post off with a number of disclaimers.

 

1.) Don’t take my word for it. For goodness sake, do your own research. What I am fighting more than anything, and what I desire to see more than anything, is that people stop actually listening to others on the internet (I am included in this) who can copy/paste whatever they want for any argument they want, and find out what they believe for themselves.

 

2.) I will try to be objective to the absolute best of my ability, not in presenting every single argument, but in accurately and wholly presenting the information that ends up making it into this post. This is NOT meant to be encyclopedic, exhaustive or all encompassing.

 

3.) I encourage people to ask questions or leave responses, but try your bets to be respectful and calm in doing so. I’ll still answer the nasty mail, but it’s easier for me to respond kindly if you’re not caps locking how much of an idiot I am.

 

4.) There will be certain times where I’ll write sentences that could be taken out of context, or taken in a different intent than I mean. I’ll try to remember to mark when I’m making observations, assumptions/guesses, opinions, and etc., so as not to avoid confusion.

 

5.) I will make mistakes. I’m only human, and since I can’t read Egyptian, Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic, I have to rely on translations, interpretations and secondary sources for a good deal of information. Even if I accurately and correctly knew and comprehended all the knowledge there is to know, there will still always be the problem of interpretation and personal slanting of things, it’s unavoidable. I can not stress enough that this is not meant to be encyclopedic, I do not want you to take my word for it, or dismiss my word for it, I want you to find out for yourself.

 

6.) It’s going to be LONG.

 

That’s all I can think of right now…so, let’s begin.

 

Introduction

 

Not a lot to say here. I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ of the Bible, I believe strongly in apologetics and felt this was long overdue. I suppose the tipping point, or biggest catalyst towards me writing this would be the post by “Bitch with a blog.”, which you can find here: http://l0nelystreetofdreams.tumblr.com/post/3848002827/every-single-problem-i-have-with-christianity-outlined I’ll try to keep this as organized and categorized as possible, no guarantees though. Going to start with the basics here, and work our way up to the more complicated stuff (I’ll get to my rebuttal of the linked post and the Jesus/Herod parallels later on).

 

Historical Accounts and Accuracy of Jesus Christ

 

The New Testament of the Bible centers around the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, a Jewish carpenter and rabbi, and later, his disciples. There is debate among scholars on pretty much every single aspect of that sentence, the most foundational of which being whether or not Jesus Christ even existed in the first place. There are a number of arguments claiming evidence for both sides. I was going to do a “Here’s the argument, here’s the counter-argument” section, but a lot of what I want to say for one side doesn’t match up well in that format, so I’m just going to freelance it as best I can.

 

1.) One thing people point to is the lack of “history” with Jesus. People argue there are no first-person narratives of him (as in, “Jesus and I did this.”), and none of the historians from that immediate period mention him. Obviously this argument assumes that the Bible and gospel books don’t count, which we can deal with for a moment. Putting that aside, we have a handful of other places to look at historical references to Jesus.

 

*******Hebrew Gospel*******

 

One such place is the “Hebrew Gospel”. Most scholars agree that Jesus, assuming he existed, was a Jew, as were his disciples. They were Torah-observant, thought of Jesus as a rabbi and worshipped at the temple in Jerusalem. As Jews, they would have adhered to the written law known as the Torah Shebiktav, and also to the “Oral tradition”, known as Torah Shebeal Peh. The Oral Law was a sort of legal commentary on the law, explaining how the commandments were to be carried out, since the Torah would only give a few examples of certain ways to carry out commandments. Therefore, the Oral Law was a tradition of, essentially, debating/interpreting/agreeing upon the commandments.

 

Once the second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D., it was necessary for the preservation of the Oral Law that it be written down in the Mishnah. Around this time there was an upheaval and scattering of Jews, after the defeat in the Great Jewish Revolt. One of Jesus’ disciples, Matthew (who was a Jew), was one of the scattered, and presumably wrote this book, referred to by several names, out of a necessity to preserve the teachings and discussions when the Oral tradition was no longer possible. It was written in Hebrew, translated to Greek (although that translation was lost), with the original being kept in the Library of Caesarea. This gospel, which has been called “Matthew’s Hebrew Gospel”, “Authentic Gospel of Matthew”, and “the Gospel according to the Hebrews”, among other names, was not included in the NT and is considered to be part of the New Testament apocrypha (books written about Jesus and his teachings that weren’t included in the Bible for various reasons). It’s authenticity is still being debated, but it does record Jesus’ life and share several parallel stories with the other gospel books.

 

******Josephus*******

 

Another source (probably most common referenced) is Josephus, a renowned Jewish historian born around 37 A.D. Three passages in his writings are referred to when claiming evidence of Jesus. The first one, and the most controversial, is the Testimonium Flavianum, in which he has very, very glowing remarks about Jesus, who was a “wise man”, a “doer of wonderful works”, and a “teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.” among other things. Those arguing against the historical evidence of Jesus would claim that this passage was proved fake a long time ago, but the fact of the matter is that the debate is still ongoing. Some scholars believe the entire text to be authentic; some argue that nothing written about Jesus is reliable and that this was written by a Christian or Christian apologist, and everywhere in between. Truth is, nobody really knows. There’s a pretty conservative likelihood that certain elements of this text are genuine while some are not, but once again, there has not been any factual proof either way. Geza Vermes offered a speculative reconstruction of the previously mentioned text, which has been the subject of several reconstruction attempts (note: this is not what the original supposed text says, it is only a guess as to what it was originally meant to say):

 

“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man…For he was one who performed paradoxical deeds and was the teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews [and many Greeks?]. He was [called] the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him…And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”

 

 

 

Besides the Testimonium Flavianum, Josephus has passages that make detailed reference to John the Baptist and James the Just, who Josephus describes as the “brother of Jesus who was called the Christ”, which in Hebrew means “the Messiah”, or “the anointed one”. Scholars generally consider the texts about James and John the Baptist to be authoritative and authentic, so even given that the texts referring to Jesus directly would be fake, we have accepted texts referring to two people very closely associated with Jesus in dozens of books in the New Testament and apocrypha.

 

 

 

*******The Talmud*******

 

Yet another non-Biblical text that refers to Jesus of Nazareth is the Talmud. Remember when we talked about how the Oral Law was collected and written down in the Mishna in 70 A.D.? Well over the next however long, additional oral traditions were added, called Gemara, and the resulting text became the Talmud, which is now considered authoritative by Orthodox Judaism. There are several passages referring to Jesus (very clearly the Jesus recorded in the Bible) in the Talmud. Most are controversial, being believed to be slanted towards an anti-Christian viewpoint. Some of the passages include:

 

 

“Our rabbis taught that Jesus the Nazarene had five disciples, and these are they: Matthai, Naqqai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah.”

 

“The master said: Jesus the Nazarene practiced magic and deceived and led Israel astray.”

 

“On (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover, Jesus the Nazarene was hanged and a herald went forth before him forty days heralding, “Jesus the Nazarene is going forth to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and instigated and seduced Israel to idolatry. Whoever knows anything in defense may come and state it.” But since they did not find anything in his defense they hanged him on (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover.”

 

 

 

Again, most scholars agree that his portrayal in the Talmud is harsh and biased, but still believe that they speak to several truths of there being a religious Jew named Jesus, from Nazareth, who was born to a Jewish carpenter and mother Miriam. They also point to his mother being accused of conceiving out of wedlock, him having a number of Jewish disciples, being executed on Passover, performing miraculous signs, etc.

 

 

 

*******Thallus*******

 

Thallus was a Samaritan historian who wrote a three-volume work in Greek, recounting the history of Mesopotamia for several hundred years (until about 50 A.D.) His work details the crucifixion of Jesus, and acts as a witness to the story in Mark, written before the book of Mark.

 

There are other non-Biblical references to Jesus scattered around, some generally accepted, some hotly debated, and some dismissed. I encourage you to research this for yourself. I have personally found that there is little question as to the reliability of the number of different sources referencing a Jew named Jesus, referred to as “Christ”, who performed wondrous miracles, was from Nazareth and was executed.

 

Two more points I want to make on the subject of a lack of literature referencing Jesus. In 79 A.D., in Italy, Mt. Vesuvius (read: a volcano) exploded and killed thousands of people. You would think that such a huge event, which surely had widespread knowledge throughout the Roman Empire, would have several documented eyewitness accounts, at such a prosperous time, right? Apparently not, there is only one survived account, which was recorded 30 years after it happened by Tacitus, who got it from Pliny the Younger, who’s uncle was killed in the eruption. As Richard Carrier writes:

 

 

 

“First, we have no reason to expect any historical record of a historical Jesus. We are lucky to have any sources at all from that time and place, and those sources do not record every movement or its founder.”

 

 

 

The lack of text on Jesus (outside of the Bible, of course) is no surprise, and in my personal opinion, is no evidence of a lack of existence. Especially when you consider that he was a homeless, broke beggar who’s teachings went against what was being practiced at the time. Furthermore, even looking through all the texts and documents that do exist from that timeframe, it was a common theme in 1st century literature that there are very few historical markers or references to events.

 

The last thing I’d like to point to is the resurrection story. Let’s assume just for one second, that he did exist, and was crucified. We have text referencing his life, we even have text referencing his death, but we have nothing explaining away his missing body, which was guarded by a host of soldiers. Seems to me this Christianity thing would have been quenched pretty early on if the Pharisees or some other group came out with a verifiable claim for what happened to Jesus’ body.

 

Sorry, I lied, one more point. I was going to try to fit this in somewhere else but figure it would work best here. For some reason the Bible is in it’s own category when it comes to criticism and cries of inaccuracy and lack of historical trustworthiness. I say this because, essentially all of the other historical texts that we consider trustworthy and use as more or less ‘fact’ for similar time periods don’t seem to be evaluated the same way. Granted, the Bible was comprised (as in, when it actually started being written, not when events themselves happened) over 4,000+ years, and most other books over a period of 50 or less, so there is a significantly higher room for error and chance of corruption of the original stories either by folklore/oral tradition, falsified or altered copies or missing original manuscripts. A legitimate criticism, however, let’s keep taking a look at this.

 

If we look at the earliest existing documents concerning the history of the Roman Empire (Livy’s Roman History, which covers a time period of approximately 59 B.C. through 17 A.D.), we find that the earliest existing copy of this found was 900 whole years later, almost an entire millennium, and we also find that only ~20 original copies exist. However, Livy’s history has since been considered factual and authoritative. And that’s just one example. The writings of Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus and others are even worse!

 

Comparatively, if we look at just the New Testament of the Bible, we find a time period from 40-100 A.D. recorded, with partial original manuscripts dating to 130 A.D. and full manuscripts to 350 A.D., and we have over ~30,000 original manuscripts still in existence. The late professor Frederick Fyvie Bruce (who was not a Christian, but a Biblical scholar) had this to say on the matter:

 

 

 

“The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, especially when compared to the dates of academically accepted Historical documents such as those detailing Roman History. The last foundation for any doubt that the scripts of the Old and New Testaments have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of these works may now be finally established and proved, probably to be the most authentic historical documents known to man.”

 

 

 

If this logic is accurate, we have two choices. Either accept the Bible (or at least New Testament historical perspectives) as authoritative and accurate, or submit to not knowing anything concrete about anything historical before the Middle Ages. Even the most conservative viewpoint would likely admit it to be obvious that there was a man from Nazareth named Jesus who performed miraculous deeds and was the subject of a great deal of controversy, and founded the Christian religion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.) There’s been a lot of talk (mostly thanks to the web) about Jesus’ similarities to dozens of other savior figures and the parallels between his story and all the rest. I’m not sure if this is an exhaustive list, but the other savior figures that are generally compared are Zoroaster, Thor, Tammuz, Osiris, Orpheus, Mithras, Krishna, Horus (I’ll devote an entire section to him later), Hercules, Dionysus, Deva tat, Beddru, Balder, Bacchus, Baal, Attis and Adonis. This list was made popular by Brian Flemming and his movie “The God Who Wasn’t There!” Here’s a list of most of the aspects of Jesus’ story that Flemming believes are shared with other savior figures:

 

 

 

· Born of a virgin on December 25

 

· Stars appeared at their births

 

· Cast out demons

 

· Performed miraculous deeds

 

· Healed the sick and lame

 

· Betrayed for silver

 

· Rode donkeys into the city

 

· Transfigured before their followers

 

· Turned water into wine

 

· Visited by magi from the East

 

· Went to Hell

 

· Resurrected on the third day

 

· Killed on a cross or tree

 

· Celebrated communion with bread and wine (flesh and blood)

 

· Went to heaven and sat beside Father God to become a divine judge

 

 

 

Now, in my experience, when looking to disprove something, it’s easy to construe or stretch the language or meaning of something to fit into what you want it to. This is most definitely the case with a lot of these “parallels”. For example, if it was claimed that one of the savior figures was “born of a virgin on December 25”, then that should be pretty clearly what the text would say, not something like “born miraculously”. Now the following is my own research, and you can certainly bring up any disagreements you have, I might be mistaken on a lot of these, but I went back through that list, paying close attention to semantics and generalizing, and checked which one of the savior figures lined up with each of the parallels:

 

 

 

· Born of a virgin on December 25 – Nobody. Jesus wasn’t even born on Dec. 25

 

· Stars appeared at their births - Krishna

 

· Cast out demons – Krishna, Buddha

 

· Performed miraculous deeds - Lots

 

· Healed the sick and lame – Asclepius and a few others

 

· Betrayed for silver - Nobody

 

· Rode donkeys into the city – Nobody..Dionysus rode a mule though, close.

 

· Transfigured before their followers - Nobody

 

· Turned water into wine – Dionysus…kind of (just filled up an empty jug)

 

· Visited by magi from the East - Nobody

 

· Went to Hell - Dionysus

 

· Resurrected on the third day – Attis (evidence doesn’t pre-date Christ)

 

· Killed on a cross or tree - Nobody

 

· Celebrated communion with bread and wine (flesh and blood) - Nobody

 

· Went to heaven and sat beside Father God to become a divine judge – Nobody. Osiris and Mithras become judges, but not besides a “Father God”

 

 

 

Like I said, this is just my own interpretation and research of these stories and the supposed parallels, I’m not saying this matter of factly, only that I find them to be reaching stretches and generalizations. I encourage you to look it up on your own.

 

 

 

3.) Very closely related to the previous section, one of the most popular claims against Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the notion that the entire story of Jesus presented in the Bible is merely a rehashing of previously existing stories (which we have discussed), of which critics point to the story of Horus more than to all the others combined.

 

The particular critical viewpoint I’ll be addressing here is found in the “Zeitgeist” documentary (I’ll also address the sources that the film itself uses) movie available on Google Video, as it was the primary fuel for the blog post that I am loosely countering this towards. The documentary has three parts, detailing conspiracies and underpinned truths behind religions (and Christianity in particular), 9/11 and the Federal Reserve and International Bankers, respectively. I won’t spend much time talking about the film itself, although I have watched it, but I have a number of quotations from critical reviews of the piece (which are kept in context to a reasonable extent, I feel) which, at least for me personally, speak towards the lack of reliability found in this video:

 

 

 

“Breaking new factual ground is not what Zeitgeist is about, however. Rather, the video is a powerful and fast-acting dose of agitprop, hawking its conclusions as givens. Unfortunately, like most propaganda, it doesn’t play fair with its intended audience. At times, while watching it, I felt like I was getting Malcolm McDowell’s treatment in Clockwork Orange: eyes pried wide open while getting bombarded with quick-cut atrocity photos.” – Jay Kinney

 

 

 

“It is full of doublespeak, wild assumptions, and crazy socialist propaganda. It also put in more about how religion is bad. I am convinced this thing was specifically made to stop the liberty movement from achieving anything. It puts in just enough truths that we believe in to trick people into following the wrong path.”

 

 

 

“In the case of Part I of “Zeitgeist,” the majority of its source material is derived from the New Age author, Acharya S,’ book, The Christ Conspiracy… Unfortunately, the narrator rarely quotes from primary sources. An example of a primary source would be samples of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, inscriptions on pottery, religious texts, etc. The Christ Conspiracy, however, is a secondary source and Acharya S fails to identify the primary sources that she relies on.”

 

 

 

These are a few examples of some of the critical points made against the reliability of Zeitgeist. It should be noted that there are supportive claims as well, such as the presentation of some legitimate info and solid questions regarding 9/11 and the Federal Reserve, but these praises are far outnumbered by the criticisms stemming from the movie using The Christ Conspiracy as a main source, and not the Egyptian Book of the Dead or other ancient manuscripts themselves, marketing and arguing it’s assumptions and guesses as givens and facts and the lack of sources or context with it’s quotations.

 

 

 

As far as The Christ Conspriacy, Richard Price, who is far from being a Christian (is another noted “Christ Myther”, and generally much more respected, as far as I can gather), had this to say on Acharya S.’s book:

 

 

 

“Those of use who uphold any version of the controversial Christ Myth theory find ourselves immediately the object not just of criticism, but even of ridicule. And it causes us chagrin to be lumped together with certain writers with whom we share the Christ Myth butt little else…”

 

 

 

Price’s other main criticism I have found in my own research is that Acharya uses very dated sources, ranging from the 18th and 19th centuries, who Price referred to as “eccentrics” among other things.

 

 

 

The most notable, and the main source of Acharya’s The Christ Conspiracy is Gerald Massey, who was an English poet who lived in from 1828 til 1927, who had an interest in Egypt and was the first (that I have found, there might be views that precede his) to claim that Horus was the first Jesus, and that the story in the Bible was a cheap imitation. His main source was the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which I have read the majority of, so I have familiarity with it (and would also encourage people NOT to read it… one of the most boring pieces of literature I have ever set eyes on, although if you insist it is available to read online). Massey’s claims for this were very similar to the previous list we looked at, with a number of elements being parallels present in both stories. After reading through the New Testament and most of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and also reading what other people have had to say on the subject, I’ve found that Les Jenkins, who runs http://stupidevilbastard.com , and is an atheist (notice the trend of all the criticisms towards these anti-Jesus arguments by people who aren’t even Christians, people on the “same side” consistently find them to be lacking arguments), has done a lot of the same research and has come to nearly the exact same conclusions that I have. Here is a reference to his post titled “Ending the Myth of Horus” on his blog, refuting the different points Massey made:

 

 

 

“Claim #1-Horus and Jesus are born from a virgin. — Horus’s mother is Isis. Isis was married to Osiris. We do not know for what length of time, but presumably the marriage was consummated. Whether it was or wasn’t doesn’t matter though. After Osiris is killed, Isis puts him back together again (he was hacked into 14 pieces) except for his penis which was tossed in a river or a lake. Iris fashions a substitute penis for him, humps him and here comes Horus. There is nothing virginal about that.

 

 

 

Claim #2-Both Horus and Jesus were born to a Mary and Joseph. (Seb) — As noted Isis is Horus’s mother’s name not Mary. In addition, Seb is not Horus’s father, Osiris is. Seb is Osiris’s father. Further, Seb is a distinct name from Joseph. Putting them side by side does not make them synonyms, and that appears to be what was done here.

 

 

 

Claim #3-Both were born of royal descent. — This is accurate.

 

 

 

Claim #4-Both births were announced by angels and witnessed by shepherds. — I can find nothing that mentions that the birth of Horus was announced by an angel or witnessed by shepherds. I have found that Horus was born in a swamp, which is a pretty unlikely place for shepherds. In addition Acharya mentions that Horus was born in a cave. Massey makes no mention of this, although he does represent that Mithra was born in a cave.

 

 

 

Claim #5-Both were heralded by stars and angels. — There is no star that heralded Horus’s birth nor is there any angel announcing it. Archarya in a footnote in The Origins of Christianity indicates that that there are three stars named the three kings in Orion and then relates this to the birth of Jesus. When we look to the stories regarding Horus, we find no star or angel announcing his birth. To the extent that Acharya S relies upon Massey and Massey relies upon what is depicted in the panels at Luxor see (from an atheist) further regarding virgin birth and pronouncement by angels http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/carrier_luxor_inscription.htm

 

 

 

Claim #6-Both had later visitors (Horus-3 deities and Jesus-3 wisemen.) — There is no indication that there ever were 3 wisemen. The bible never mentions the number of wisemen, nor is there any document that reflects 3 deities at the birth of Horus. See the website referenced in Claim #5.

 

 

 

Claim #7-Both had murder plots against them. — There is mention that Seth did want to kill Horus, and Herod wanted to kill Jesus. so this is accurate.

 

 

 

Claim#8-Both came of age at 12, were baptized and their baptizers were executed. — There is no indication that Horus was preaching in a temple when he was 12. In fact, Massey indicates that Hours the child was depicted as a “weakling.” That doesn’t jive with story of Jesus preaching in the temple. Again this appears to have been a confabulation from Acharya and repeated by others. Horus was never baptized in any of the Horus stories. In addition, Acharya mentions that John the Baptist is actually Anup the Baptizer. This individual is never mentioned anywhere in any Horus account. There is not even a footnote in Archaya’s on-line work The Origins of Christianity to support this. There is nothing.

 

 

 

Claim #9-Both had 12 disciples. — According to the Horus accounts, Horus had four semi-gods that were followers. There is some indication of 16 human followers and an unknown number of blacksmiths that went into battle with him. Horus did not have 12 disciples. Jesus reportedly did. Acharya failed to give a footnote to support this. Massey points to a mural in the Book of Hades in which there are twelve reapers. Horus is not present in this scene. For Massey to make this connection he goes to a different scene within the same mural. In this scene there is a picture of a god whose name is the Master of Joy. Horus is never depicted although in other murals the artists do depict Horus. Had the artists ascribed 12 reapers in any relation to Horus all they had to do was put Horus at the scene. They did not.

 

 

 

Claim #10-Both walked on water. — Horus didn’t, or at least there is no record that I can find that he did. Massey does not maintain that Hours did. Massey uses wild conjecture to connect the story of fish man, Oannes, not Horus, to Jesus. Oannes came out of the sea during the day, and went back into the sea at night. Massey makes the two analogous because by his calculations, Jesus walked on water during the day. As to Acharya, she as usual provides nothing to substantiate this.

 

 

 

Claim #11-Both performed miracles. — This is true although the miracles were different in scope and nature.

 

 

 

Claim #12 - Both exorcised demons and raised Lazarus. — The actual claim is that Horus raised Osiris from the dead and that the name Osiris morphed to Lazarus. It doesn’t matter because Horus did not bring Osiris back to life. There is no mention of this in any document regarding the story. Horus did avenge Osiris’s death, but that did not raise Osiris from the dead.

 

 

 

Claim #13-Both held a Sermon on the Mount; both were transfigured on a mountain, died by crucifixion along with two thieves and were buried in tombs where they paid a quick visit to Hell and then rose from the dead after 3 days time, both resurrections were witness by women, and both will supposedly reign for 1,000 years in the Millennium. — These are the most damning claims if they were proven true in my opinion. Yet, I can locate none of this. No sermon, no transfiguration, certainly no crucifixion w/ two thieves, no trip to hell and no resurrection. There was an incident in which Horus was torn to pieces and Iris requested the crocodile god to fish him out of the water he was tossed into, which was done, but that’s it. I am at a loss to refute this because I can not find anything to support it.”

 

 

 

Congrats if you made it through all that (this is just getting absurdly long, isn’t it?) Suffice to say, in my personal research and conclusions, I have found very, very little to support these claims and criticisms dismissing the story and life of Jesus of Nazareth, specifically in the case of claiming the story is a cheap imitation of that of Horus. All I have found between the two is that they were both of royal descent, they both performed miracles and people wanted them killed. If people find that the explanations quoted by Les are unsatisfactory, I will be more than happy to make a separate post expounding on all of the different claims and more in-depth rebuttals against them.

 

 

 

Messianic Prophecy

 

The last major point I would like to make in defense of Jesus deals with Messianic prophecy. If you’ve gotten this far, I’m going to spend this time assuming that Jesus was a real person, and that the main elements of his story are accurate. If you don’t feel like assuming these truths just for a moment, then feel free to skip this part. I’m going to use this to point toward what I feel to be evidence that, assuming Jesus of Nazareth existed, that He was the character portrayed in the Bible, fully God and fully man, sent to Earth to die on the cross and be the savior of man-kind.

 

 

 

Messianic prophecies are those in the Old Testament, recorded by prophets, regarding the coming of the Jewish Messiah. This Messiah character was believed to be a future king, meant to bring salvation and, essentially, global piece. There are a number of prophecies in the Bible referring to this character. Christian apologists lay claim to there being over 360 messianic prophecies that foretold the coming of the Jewish Messiah (this number is more than likely inflated), and the most conservative of guesses still place the number over 100. These predictions were written by multiple authors, in numerous books, wrote these predictions over a period of more than 1,000 years. Naturally, for one person to fulfill even the vast majority of even 100 prophecies would be a statistical near impossibility.

 

 

 

Christians point to Jesus being the fulfillment of these prophecies. There have been, and always will be, tons of debates as to which prophecies were actually messianic, which were prophecies at all (as opposed to descriptions of previous events, as one example), which were and were not fulfilled based on interpretation, and etc. I’m not going to argue any of that, as it would be never-ending. This area, more than any of the others, I think needs to be explored by each person on their own, because so much of it has to do with personal interpretation. Instead, here is a small, non-comprehensive list of some of the most noted and most accepted prophecies about the Messiah, considered to have been fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth (I’ve put the prophetic passage first, and the passage that speaks to it’s fulfillment second):

 

 

 

1. Born of a virgin, Isaiah 7:14 – Mathew 1:21-23

 

2. A descendent of Abraham, Genesis 12:1-3; 22:18 – Matthew 1:1; Galatians 3:16

 

3. Of the tribe of Judah, Genesis 49:10 – Luke 3:23, 33; Hebrews 7:14

 

4. Of the house of David, 2 Samuel 7:12-16 – Matthew 1:1

 

5. Born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2 – Matthew 2:1;, Luke 2:4-7

 

6. Taken to Egypt, Hosea 11:1 – Matthew 2:14-15

 

7. Herod killing infants, Jeremiah 31:15 – Matthew 2:16-18

 

8. Anointed by the Holy Spirit, Isaiah 11:2 – Matthew 3:16-17

 

9. Heralded by the messenger of the Lord (John the Baptist), Isaiah 40:3-5; Malachi 3:1 – Matthew 3:1-3

 

10. Would perform miracles, Isaiah 35:5-6 – Matthew 9:35

 

11. Would minister in Galilee, Isaiah 9:1 – Matthew 4:12-16

 

12. Would enter Jerusalem as a king on a donkey, Zechariah 9:9 – Matthew 21:4-9

 

13. Would be rejected by the Jews, Psalm 118:22 – 1 Peter 2:7

 

14. Die a humiliating death, Psalm 22; Isaiah 53, including…

 

a. Rejection, Isaiah 53:3 – John 1:10-11; 7:5, 48

 

b. Betrayal by a friend, Psalm 41:9 – Luke 22:3-4; John 13:18

 

c. Sold for 30 pieces of silver, Zechariah 11:12 – Matthew 26:14-15

 

d. Silence before his accusers, Isaiah 53:7 – Matthew 27:12-14

 

e. Piercing his hands and feet, Psalm 22:16 – Matthew 27:31

 

f. Being crucified with thieves, Isaiah 53:12 – Matthew 27:38

 

g. Praying for his persecutors, Isaiah 53:12 – Luke 23:34

 

h. Given gall and vinegar to drink, Psalm 69:21 – Matthew 27;34; Luke 23:36

 

i. Buried in a rich man’s tomb, Isaiah 53:9 – Matthew 27:57-60

 

j. Would rise from the dead, Psalm 16:10 – Mark 16:6; Acts 2:31

 

 

 

I tried finding a good source talking about the odds of one man fulfilling all of these plus more, but for the longest time all I could find were cheap Christian propaganda websites, which obviously would be scoffed at by critics. However, I found a study done at MIT (I lost the link, I will post it if I can find it again) that suggested (after some assuming and stretching, admittedly) that the statistical likelihood of one man fulfilling even eight major Messianic prophecies (since many of them were beyond human control) to be near 1:1,000,000,000. The chance of any one man fulfilling upwards of 40+ prophecies would be closer to 1: 10157, and it’s accepted by many (Christians and non-Christians alike) that Jesus fulfilled a very, very large amount of these prophecies, some depending on favorable interpretation. This is not an authoritative or definitive claim that Jesus is the Messiah, but look at the numbers. Better yet, look up the supposed Messianic prophecies and their corresponding fulfillment prophecies and make your own decision.

 

 

 

That’s essentially all I have. I know I should have a really good closing paragraph or whatever, but quite frankly I’m exhausted. I was just really disappointed with all of the blindly positive responses I saw to l0nely’s blog post. Not because of anything in the post itself, but because people were accepting her words as absolute truth when they shouldn’t have been. She would likely agree, those people should do their own research and make their own decisions; even if every single thing stated henceforth on her blog was 100% factual and truth, people still shouldn’t just accept it as such. Please, don’t accept this as truth. Find the truth on your own. God bless.

[muzicman0]

Great information! I actually made it through the whole thing. Well done.

 

mm0

[zoogs]

The chance of any one man fulfilling upwards of 40+ prophecies

 

How in the world do you quantify something like this?

 

I hope it's not something like <number of people who have fulfilled _____> / <number of people ever>.

[huskerjack23]

Weren't all the gospels written like 60 years after the death of christ? Is it possible that the writers were writing from a biased agenda that benefited from christ fulfilling these prophecies? You can't be the messiah without doing so, right?

[Blaze1up]

There are many parallels to the Christ story in other faiths, some of them predating Christianity by thousands of years. The Hindu god, Krishna, was conceived by a virgin and his birth was attended by angels, wise men and shepherds. Buddha was also the result of a miraculous birth and visited by wise men bearing gifts. Why are there so many versions of the Christ story across the world and how many are real ?

[strigori]

Weren't all the gospels written like 60 years after the death of christ? Is it possible that the writers were writing from a biased agenda that benefited from christ fulfilling these prophecies? You can't be the messiah without doing so, right?

The Bible as it stands was assembled and edited together about 600 AD. Something that is very rarely taken into account.

[Landlord]

There are many parallels to the Christ story in other faiths, some of them predating Christianity by thousands of years. The Hindu god, Krishna, was conceived by a virgin and his birth was attended by angels, wise men and shepherds. Buddha was also the result of a miraculous birth and visited by wise men bearing gifts. Why are there so many versions of the Christ story across the world and how many are real ?

 

 

Did you even read the original essay?

[huskerjack23]

There are many parallels to the Christ story in other faiths, some of them predating Christianity by thousands of years. The Hindu god, Krishna, was conceived by a virgin and his birth was attended by angels, wise men and shepherds. Buddha was also the result of a miraculous birth and visited by wise men bearing gifts. Why are there so many versions of the Christ story across the world and how many are real ?

 

 

Did you even read the original essay?

Your original essay doesn't mention any of the similar messianic stories that are basically the same...virgin births, etc. It's a valid statement.