Three Areas Of Historical, Prophetic, And Personal Evidence That Prove Jesus Existed - Part Two Series

PART 2

B. CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE

Christianity dramatically grew within the first 100 years or so after the death of Jesus. The early Christian writers included those who learned directly from the original Apostles and told of what they heard directly from those who met Jesus personally. Their biographic letters and papers record details about Jesus' life, death, and the fact that they believed He rose from the dead.

The historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth is both long-established and widespread. Within a few decades of His life, He is mentioned by Jewish and Roman historians, as well as by dozens of Christian writers. Compare that with King Arthur, who supposedly lived around AD 500. The major historical source for events of that time does not even mention Arthur, and he is first referred to 300 or 400 years after he is supposed to have lived. The evidence for Jesus is not limited to later folklore, as are accounts of King Arthur, and other people that hare purported to have lived.

The historic church has had the complete written "logos/graphe" Word since before AD 100. The New Testament Scriptures (27) were compiled into one book in AD 144 by Marcion of Sinope (AD 85-160), the son of the Bishop of Pontus. There are nearly 5,700 copies of the Greek manuscripts that were made very close to the time of the originals, and they all agree with each other with 99.5% accuracy. The .5% variation would include textual misspellings or minor word alternations. There are also over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages, bringing the total supporting New Testament manuscript purity to over 24,000 copies. There are only 10 manuscripts of Caesar's Gallic War, and so-called 'scholars' don't doubt their credibility, veracity, or accuracy. Originals or autographs aren't needed because we can construct the whole Bible through different potteries and lectionaries, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, which contained text from the Old Testament that was 1000 years older than the previous one. There were just a few negligible discrepancies.

None of the copies of the original manuscripts or the autographs exist. The most commonly translated and copied book of antiquity was the Bible, and it was the most sought-after to be destroyed, so it is a miracle that the Bible exists. The Bible has been translated many times in a one-step process from the original languages into multiple languages throughout history. However, it has never been rewritten.

Intellectually honest Bible Scholars have developed the science of textual criticism. They have examined manuscripts by the thousands and determined that there are so few discrepancies in the textual variants. The only actual variance seems to be misspellings or changes/variations of spelling words or something not anything of significance that would alter the meaning of a text itself.

God the Father, just as He spoke in the past in the Old Testament, continues to speak to His people today through the New Testament by using His own Words spoken to Jesus, who then spoke to His Apostles, who wrote them down, which made up the New Testament (Luke 10:16; John 13:20, 17:17-20). The writers of the New Testament constantly appealed to the Scriptures alone as their base of authority in declaring what was and was not actual Biblical teaching (Matthew 21:42; John 2:22; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 1 Peter 1:10-12, 2:2; 2 Peter 1:17-19; Acts 17:11).

1. EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS (Circa AD 40-157)

Virtually all scholars who have investigated the history of the Christian movement find that the historicity of Jesus is effectively certain. Honest historians confirm that existing documents support the conclusion that Jesus was known as a historical person by Christian writers within twenty years of His death, and by non-Christian writers 40 to 157 years after His death.

Didache (Circa AD 50-70)

The Didache was a collection of writings that were used in the early church as a discipleship manual on how Christians should act. It recites some of Jesus' teachings and lays out instructions for celebrating communion and remembering Jesus' death and resurrection.

Clement

Clement was the leader of the first Century church in Rome. He wrote a letter to the church at Corinth (Circa AD 70-96). He also wrote on the teachings of Jesus (13:1), His death (21:6), and resurrection from the dead (24:1).

Papias

Papias (Circa AD 95-110) wrote that he learned about the teaching of Jesus directly from those who had heard Him in person.

Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius wrote a letter to the Smyrnaeans (Circa AD 110) in which he stated that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch (Chapter 1), and had suffered "all these things for us, and He suffered them really, and not in appearance only, even as also He truly rose again" (Chapter 2).