A Defense of My Faith

by Jeff Estep

The following is a short (not exhaustive) defense of Christianity. I have written this based on my own studies of the history surrounding Jesus of Nazareth. I have chosen only six (out of possible hundreds) points that I believe are sufficient to prove Jesus' Lordship. I have then included a short discussion of each point. This essay hardly does justice to the volumes of evidence in support of the Resurrection, but I believe this essay is a good starting point.
The Resurrection of Jesus is not only a theological question, it is a historical question, with a historical answer. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christianity has no logical reason to exist. However, if Jesus rose from the dead, He is Lord and God. An examination of history should reveal the truth about Jesus.

First, here are my assumptions:
1. Jesus of Nazareth existed about 2000 years ago.
2. He had an incredible effect on those around him and was considered by many to be either a prophet or the Messiah.
3. The entire Old Testament was completed before the birth of Christ.
4. Whether or not the New Testament is the Word of God, it is a historical document. It has historical value, and like all historical documents, should be assumed to be accurate unless there is outside evidence that conflicts with the Biblical accounts.

These are the points pertinent to this essay:

1. According to history as revealed in the Gospels, and according to Josephus and others, Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem.
2. The disciples claimed that Jesus was resurrected on the third day.
3. According to New Testament documents, Jesus also appeared to over 500 others.
4. No evidence has been found that suggests the Jews or Romans disputed the disciple's claim that Jesus' tomb was empty.
5. Based on historical documents, the disciples were so convinced of the Resurrection that they were willing to die, often by horrible methods, instead of denying what they had seen.
6. The Old Testament contains literally hundreds of prophecies about the coming Jewish Messiah. History reveals that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled these prophecies.

Discussion:


1. There are probably few in the world who would deny that Jesus was crucified as described in the New Testament. Extra-Biblical accounts (such as those written by Josephus) also mention the crucifixion. Circumstances surrounding the crucifixion are also mentioned in Extra-Biblical sources. For example, the darkness that swept over the land after Jesus' death (Luke 23) was documented by secular historians and in the historical account of Tiberius Caesar. (this darkness could not have been the result of a solar eclipse because the moon was full at the time of Christ's crucifixion.)

2 and 3. The physical resurrection of Jesus was at the very center of their ministry. Peter's first sermon at Pentecost, as recorded in the book of Acts, revolved around the historical fact of the empty tomb. Jesus appeared to his disciples, Mary Magnalene, his brother James, and to over 500 believers as recorded in 1 Cor. 15:6. Thus, since New Testament documents can be considered to be accurate until proven false, there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Jesus rose from the dead, physically. The belief that Jesus could not have resurrected is based on an atheistic presupposition that if there is no God, dead matter cannot come back to life, and from the fact that people resurrecting is not a common occurance. Generally speaking, we refuse to believe in what we have not seen. (For instance, those that first explored Australia were considered by some to be insane when they brought to England stories of an egg-laying, furry mammal with a duck's bill and webbed feet, an animal now known as the duck-billed platypus.) Anyone who admits the possibility of an Almighty God must accept that an Almighty God could bring dead tissue back to life.
A good deal of historical evidence exists in support of the resurrection. Besides a overwhelming amount of evidence in the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles, there is also the writings of Josephus, a secular historian, who says in his Antiquities, "And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross, upon his impeachment by the principal man among us, those who had loved from the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive on the third day..." The writings of early Christians and apologists likewise prove that the resurrection is well documented.

4. Because modern Christianity started with the claim of an empty tomb, the very validity of the Christian faith rests on whether or not Jesus' tomb was indeed empty on that Sunday morning. If Jesus wasn't physically raised from the dead, we would expect to find evidence that Jewish and Roman officials disputed the disciples' claims of the empty tomb. Though the Jews and Romans would have been eager to record the existence of this evidence, scholarly research has found no such evidence. In Acts 2, the Jews did not try to refute Peter's claim that the tomb was empty. Later, the Jews likewise attacked Paul for claiming Christ had risen, but neither denied the empty tomb nor attempted to explain why it was empty. No evidence has EVER been found in any historical record suggesting that the tomb wasn't empty. We can therefore conclude that Jesus' tomb was empty as recorded in the Scriptures.

5. Some have suggested that Jesus never rose from the dead; rather, the disciples fabricated the resurrection story in order to make Jesus appear more godlike. However, this hypothesis is obsurd. First, such a lie would be in direct conflict with the fundamental principle of honesty preached and apparently lived by the disciples. History provides no evidence that the apostles were hypocrites. Second, one still has to deal with the fact of the empty tomb. If the tomb was empty, and the apostles were lying about the resurrection, a skeptic might argue that the disciples stole Jesus' body. However, the circumstances surrounding the death of Christ, and the fact of a Roman guard keeping watch over the tomb, makes it highly unlikely that the disciples could steal the body AND not get caught. And finally, people are generally not willing to die for a lie. As Paul Little wrote in A Latin Dictionary, "Men will die for what the believe to be true, though it may actually be false: They do not, however, die for what they know is a lie." With the exception of John, all of the apostles died as martyrs for their insistence of the Resurrection. (John died while imprisoned on Patmos. He was evidently there for spreading the Gospel.) Given the torturous ways in which many of the disciples died, it is extremely unlikely that all of them would have been willing to die for a lie. Surely one of them would have let the proverbial cat out of the bag.

6. It cannot be reasonably denied that the Old Testament existed, in its entirety, before the birth of Christ. The Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other manuscripts prove that the Jewish history, law, poetry, and prophecy were intact before Jesus' ministry. It is therefore not possible that Messianic prophecies were written after Jesus' death.
History according to the Gospels reveals that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies. Among the prophecies Jesus fulfilled were: the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, of a virgin, he would perform miracles, he would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, he would be betrayed, (for thirty silver pieces, and that the money would be thrown into the temple and used to buy a potter's field), he would suffer and die, but not one of his bones would be broken.
Some have claimed that the history of Jesus was changed by the Gospel writers in order to make Jesus seem like the Messiah, in other words, they changed the story to fit the prophecies. However, this claim cannot stand, because the Gospels were written and circulated only years after Christ's death. At this time, there would have still been people living who personally had witnessed Jesus' life. Any discrepencies between the Gospel accounts and actual history would have been brought out publically. However, no evidence exists that anyone in Jesus' time pointed out historical errors in the Gospels. The Jews would have been especially eager to point out these errors, yet Jewish records from the time contain no mention of false teachings about Jesus of Nazareth.
Because Jesus apparently fulfilled so many Old Testament prophecies, and because the odds of such fulfillments are incredibly slim, we have evidence that the fulfillments were ordained by something supernatural. Furthermore, since Jesus predicted his own resurrection, it is reasonable to believe Jesus is who he said he was, God himself.


Conclusion

Historical evidence proves that Jesus of Nazareth: existed, was crucified by the Romans, and was resurrected from the dead. Furthermore, history proves that Jesus fulfilled Messianic prophecies, which could not have been done through simple chance or through a concerted effort to fulfill those prophecies. It is not illogical to conclude that only a God could fulfill these prophecies, and that only a God could bring the dead back to life. Since Jesus claimed to be God and predicted his resurrection, and since his fulfillment of prophecies and resurrection can be considered historical fact, it can therefore be concluded that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Son of God, God Himself.