Welcome to Theologetics

Did Jesus exist? Ok so there’s tons of debates on whether he existed or not. Some will say we can’t authenticate who the actual Gospel writers were, Jesus didn’t leave any writings, and the writings occurred hundreds of years later. Those are fair and valid arguments. I want to argue against that using a much simple approach of common sense. Please note, I want to limit this to only the historical Jesus and not whether he performed miracles or not and the claims around him (that’s reserved for a different time). My purpose is to show why its more reasonable to believe that a historical Jesus “should” exist and how reasoning dictates that.

Here’s what we do know as a fact using science and history that MOST if not all scholars do agree on:

We have the writings attributed to Mark, John, Luke, Matthew, Peter, James, Pauline epistles; we also have the early church father writings such as Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Origen, and Justin Martyr. But hold your horses real quick. Let’s say that we cannot know for certain that those men were the actual authors. However, scholars ALL agree that it was written prior to 300 AD even as early as 125 AD (John Ryland Fragment) from their dating methods. Because they all had different hand writing styles, we can infer that it was written by different men. Keep in mind, were going to dismiss the identity of those men, pretend to be clueless, and as a bonus we are going to say that it was written hundreds of years later and stretch it out as 200 years later)

Moving on, we also know that Jews and Gentiles were converting. The Jews were abandoning their own faith, apostasy, and having a belief strong enough to override their belief that they could go to eternal damnation.

Furthermore we have outside credible sources such as Cornelius Tacitus (55 – 120 A.D.) Tacitus was a 1st and 2nd century Roman historian and Pliny the Younger (61AD -112AD), was a Roman lawyer and magistrate who records how Christians were being persecuted and dying for their faith because they refuse to accept and worship the Roman government’s gods. We have the persecution under Nero’s ruling who blamed the Christians for a fire in 64AD. These Christians were burned to death and used as evening lights for the city. They were also covered in animal hide and some cases crucified. Then we have the Great Persecution under the reign of Diocletian in the 4th century. Over 20,000 Christians were killed in ways such as throwing them to the Colosseum with wild animals. Over a few years after that, we have another incident of over 1000 Christians killed in Persia under Terving King Athanaric.

So what can any reasonable person know so far without a reasonable doubt? Here’s what we do know so far:

• We have the copy of the texts and they exist. You can physically see and touch them. We aren’t arguing if those texts do exist but only arguing as to who wrote them.
• Even though were assuming that we don’t know the authors we do know that it was written by different men based on different writings styles, diction, etc. We have hundreds of copies and tons of volumes claimed to be written by the early church fathers as well.
• All the writings claim a divine by human figure by the name of Jesus Christ. Unlike other religions, they claim that Jesus ate, drank, and hung out with them like an ordinary person.
• Jews and Gentiles were converting to this new religious idea
• These Christians were dying for their belief

So far I have given you undeniable facts that Christians and non-Christians agree on. You can’t argue the facts I made above. Christians, let’s put the apologetic books away and non-Christians, just hear me out. From this point, this is where the application of common sense and logic should come in. My question is:

Why would all these men (educated and illiterate peasants) from Jewish and all other religious backgrounds assemble and conspire together to embellish and write volumes upon volumes of books with sooo much elaborate details about this guy named Jesus? I mean these guys wrote about his childhood, ministry, and death. On top of that these men would then die by the hundreds and thousands to refuse to convert to any other religion? WHY???  Even more their made up religion successful survived and surpassed their contemporaries and became compelling enough to fool thousands and thousands of more people, have devout Jews abandon their faith and ardent Pagans to leave their religion as well to all jump on board together to this religion? Last, all of this was done with nothing in return to receive. What did early Christianity for the first 300 years (before it was Romanized) ever demand from its followers besides love your neighbors and God? They didn’t even use force like Muslims did. They had more to lose by being Christian than they had to gain. That seriously needs some evaluation and even a common folk can see that there has to be something more than that. For what is the purpose for all this?

Now we aren’t talking about some simple Hale Bopp event where a few followers invented some idea and then died for that belief. No, we are talking about something that goes beyond that and Hale Bopp doesn’t even compare on the scale. We are talking about thousands and thousands of opposing beliefs (Jews and Pagans) all unifying into one religion and then writing tons and tons of in-depth details about this character named Jesus and then dying for that belief by the thousands from the pressures of their government. This Christian religion would continue today.

But then I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking “people die in the name of Islam all the time and that doesn’t mean Islam is true”. But that’s the very point I’m making. Its because Mohammed actually existed. Remember, we’re not here to argue about miracles contained in the Bible but only if the person named Jesus “should” exist using common sense. Also Islam and Christianity has different claims. Christianity is unique because the early Christians claimed and reported to have seen the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. It was enough for them to die for that belief. It contest human reasoning to invent an eye witness testimony and choose death for that lie.

What would be the purpose to invent Jesus? Yes you can say that “men invent religions all the time for whatever purpose”. That’s true but in the case of Jesus, why would all these men collaborate to go as far as spend countless hours on volumes of books on Jesus especially if there is no monetary value involved? You don’t see books and commentaries by the volumes that talks about the entire life and biography of the Easter Bunny with such precise detail. Even more, you don’t see people dying in the name of the Easter Bunny when their government issues an ultimatum of death or conversion like the Romans did. Religions with those conflicts die off, not get stronger and build momentum. It is not in the nature of man to purposely and selfishly design an elaborate hoax to that extent and then die for it. These new converts would face death and persecution at the hands of Jews and Romans. With all these convenient religions to choose from such as Judaism, Mithraism, or some other form of Roman cult it would make no sense to formulate a complicated religion just to risk your own life.

I even hear about sarcastic remarks on the floating around the web how one should construct a story of purple unicorns or such and see how far the story can reach and how many people will believe that. They believe that is the case of the New Testament writers, a bunch of fables that reached the 4 corners of the world. That is pure non-sense. Stories served many purposes back then: (1) for monetary gains (2) to teach a life lesson (3) to explain a natural phenomenon. However we see a different style of the Gospel writers. For one, we see the book of John, an eye witness of Jesus who writes in a narrative style depicting Jesus as a real person with divine qualities. These New Testament writers were convicted in their writings and believed in to be true. In fact they believed it to be so true some of them faced death while others were close. Would you personally deny the story of Robin Hood or Santa Clause in exchange for your life? I’m sure you would, but these men didn’t. Instead, they constantly lived in fear and sacrificed their dignity, reputation, position, and life.

Even more, I often hear ignorant remarks like how people invented the Jesus story to feel good about themselves and to provide meaning and purpose. That is again refuted by the facts I made above. No one in their right state of mind invent stories to feel good understanding that it would cause them their life, persecution, being set of fire, being thrown in a Colosseum to be served as lion food, or nailed to the cross. Its a self defeating and suicidal journey. There are other ways to feel good. To believe they can all convince thousands to share that idea is just plain dumb.

I want to illustrate something called the Joe Blow scenario so you can understand the full extent and relevancy of what I’m trying to say:

Let’s say that 20 guys today live in a Muslim theocratic country like Turkey where any other religion that is non-Islamic is not truly welcomed but yet tolerated. These guys all then conspired, invented, and wrote about a guy name Joe Blow. They spent countless hours and dedicated such an elaborate story by the volumes and then spent years writing more copies. They then went out to sell their Joe Blow story and for some miraculous reason managed to convert thousands and thousands of devoted Muslims to abandon their faith despite the fact that they believe apostasy would endanger your soul to eternal fire according to Islam. These authors of Joe Blow even managed to convince intellect thinkers in the Muslim society such as doctors and engineers. Now these new converts were being persecuted by the hundreds and thousands for converting and it would be as bad as the death penalty. They had more to lose, nothing to gain, yet they still decided to stick to this fictitious fantastic idea and risk their lives. In fact, their religion only grew. They even gained the following of their rival religion and somehow managed to unify and coerce as one single unit. All of this was done without the use of force. To this day the religion of Joe Blow survived today and gained billions of followers and thrives today.

Folks, common sense need no religion. It does not need to side with atheism or Christianity to understand the unlikelihood for the Joe Blow example to happen. It would be a foolish and entertaining thought to believe that.

So are we just going to sit here and argue over the fact that we don’t know the names and can’t exactly identify who those 20 authors were? Are we going to then argue that it was 50 to 100 years off and not exact? Are we going to argue that Joe Blow didn’t even leave any writings? The point is that it was written by people and the Joe Blow religion exists. What we should be focusing and asking ourselves is if the Joe Blow scenario is even possible. We should also be asking ourselves the motives and purpose behind creating Joe Blow. We are overlooking those serious issues. To me it’s absurd and impossible to think that can all happen in that style and fashion without a grand purpose….Unless…..unless Jesus Christ actually existed, those writers were who they say they were, all the claims of Jesus’ existence they made were true, and there were eyewitnesses.

I don’t understand how non-Christians can use systematical analysis by bringing up intelligent points like “we don’t know who the authors were” and “it was written hundreds of years later” but then completely throw common sense out the window and believe that an invented fantasy like the Joe Blow scenario and its mechanics is highly probable or true. Are you kidding me? Seriously, does common sense have no merit at all in today’s society? Is it just a thing in the past?