I find it untenable to believe that a being named Jesus never existed. Scientific and scholarly examination of written texts has proven to me that evidence for the man’s reality far exceeds any data affirming the opposite. The examination of evidence is scientific for two reasons.
- 1) Papyrology is used to examine parchment documents, papyrus fragments, and historical cross-reference sources in exacting detail to uncover the best translation and interpretation of the documents. It is common that several different languages are involved in this process.
- 2) In addition, Paleographic studies by brilliant scholars compare the actual formation of letters (characters) from various time periods. This provides an extremely accurate method of dating texts, along with a more generalized carbon dating analysis.
The Dead S
ea Scrolls located in 1947 and the Nag Hammadi Library discovered in 1945 have helped determine the age of various manuscripts. Comparisons have shown that the overall authenticity of the New Testament has remained remarkably intact.
It has been shown, for example, that the earliest documents written about Jesus were probably penned around 40-70 A.D. while events that happened in Jerusalem were relatively fresh in the minds of ancient writers. Although, these original scriptures are lost, nevertheless, many of the extant texts we have today were written immediately after these original Q Texts.
Indeed, the gap between these early scriptures and their written form is extraordinarily small. Consider the situation with other trusted ancient sources which academia considers reliable and truthful.
- 1000 years lapsed between Caesar’s Gallic Wars and earliest known copies
- 400 years lapsed between Homer’s Illiad and earliest known copies
- 750 years lapsed between Pliny’s Natural History and earliest known copies
- 1,300 years lapsed between Herodotus’ History and earliest known copies
- 50 years lapsed between author and earliest known New Testament fragment
- 150 years lapsed between authors and most New Testament scriptures
- 225 years lapsed between authors and a complete New Testament scripture
Scientifically speaking, I believe there is more first-hand proof for the existence of Christ than for the existence of many of the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers. Even today, the ideas of these teachers, scientists, and philosophers are still considered so impressive as to be studied in colleges and universities throughout the world.
But scholars now seem to be divided about this question: Did Jesus’ followers consider him the Messiah—the divinely anointed Son of God—while he actually lived on this planet? Many would say his contemporaries considered him a great teacher and prophet who seemed to have uncanny insight into human nature.
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