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Is There Evidence That Jesus Lived?
Ask a Bible Teacher
By Jack Kelley
Question: I wonder how it feels to be as stupid as you are. There isnt one shred of evidence that Jesus ever lived. Besides the doctored Gospels of the Bible that the Romans put together based off Older religions. Get some real information and stop depending on some man that never lived.
Answer: The evidence for the existence of Jesus is incontrovertible. Even His enemies agree. The Jews made reference to Him in their Talmud, a companion to their Scriptures. The Jewish historian Josephus, an eyewitness to these things, wrote about him. So did Mohammed when writing the Koran. According to a Time magazine cover story Buddhist documents contain reference to Him.
Scholars who've set out to prove once and for all that Jesus didn't exist have been forced by the evidence to change their minds, often becoming believers in the process. The most famous of these are C.S. Lewis, Josh MacDowell and Simon Greenleaf, a legendary Harvard law professor who "wrote the book" on admissible courtroom evidence. Applying his own rules to the gospels, he concluded that Jesus had to have existed.
There are over 5000 historical source documents to support the validity of the New Testament, much more than any other ancient book. All the Gospels were published within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses, and yet there's no record of anyone ever refuting their veracity.
The Romans tried for 250 years to stamp out Christianity before accepting it as their state religion. By that time the New Testament had been a published fact for two centuries.
The Bible recounts a 6000 year history of God first saying He'll do something and then doing it. We call it prophecy, and the secular history books are full of proof of its validity. He did this so that you and I could be absolutely certain of His existence, if we just took the time to look for Him.
And most obviously of all, the Creation shouts evidence of His existence. Even good science agrees that this could not have happened spontaneously.
But let's disregard all that. If I'm wrong and Jesus didn't exist, all I've done with my life is try to live a little better, helping out some others now and then, and when I die I'll go to the destiny that was always mine.
But if you're wrong, when you die you'll learn that you could have had an eternal life of joy and happiness, and missed out simply because you refused to look into it.
Psalm 53 begins, The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." Saying something in your heart means saying it from an emotional perspective. Even a fool can't deny God on a logical basis. The evidence for His existence is simply too overwhelming.
Original Article
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