Skip to main content

Something a little Deeper. . .

It is good to challenge ourselves from time to time with a something a little more meaty.  This article deals with many of the humanistic claims that atheists throw at Christians about the "true" nature of Jesus.

Who was Jesus really?
For the past few weeks I’ve been discussing this question with my high school theology class. Although most of my students have been brought up in the church, I know they’re going to face challenges to their faith when they go off to college. Many will hear jarring claims from classmates and professors about the “real” Jesus—claims contradictory to the church’s confession of Jesus as the risen Son of God.
So I want my students to be prepared. I want them to know these claims have been around for a long time, as have Christian responses. Despite what many critical scholars claim, there is no contradiction between the “Jesus of history” and the “Christ of faith.” In fact, studying Jesus as a historical figure can often strengthen faith. But that requires honestly engaging the critics and evaluating their claims.
Here I will briefly examine five popular alternative theories about Jesus, concluding with some general guidelines for how Christians can respond to them.

1. Jesus the Pagan Myth 

Though this theory has very little support among scholars today, it’s still quite popular on atheist websites (a student is therefore more likely to hear it from a classmate than a professor). The theory claims Jesus never existed as a historical figure. Rather, the stories of his birth, life, death, and resurrection were all myths the early Christians borrowed from pagan mystery religions—such as the cults of Dionysus and Mithras—which allegedly predated Christianity by centuries.
The roots of the Christ-myth theory go back to 19th-century German scholars like David Strauss (1808–1874), who argued the New Testament (NT) is simply a collection of mythical retellings of Jesus’s life, and Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), who made the more radical claim Jesus never existed. The theory gained prominence for a time in the “History of Religions School” at the University of Göttingen, but began to decline during the 20th century as scholars examined the evidence more closely. (Richard Carrier andRobert Price still make this claim today, but even non-Christian scholars like Bart Erhman refute it.) 
The general consensus today is that most of the alleged parallels between Christianity and the mystery religions are either non-existent (sometimes pure fabrications), coincidental, or anachronistic. In fact, there is no evidence pagan mystery religions existed in first-century Israel, and much of our evidence for them elsewhere dates to after the rise of Christianity. So if any borrowing did happen, it was probably the other way around.
Read the rest of this fine article HERE.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Ready for Friday

Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him, and say, "Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not." --Martin Luther
Post a Comment
Read more

Families' Fridays

You Cannot Raise Snowflakes in Jesus’ Name David Prince “What you are describing is not a crisis; it is life.” I find myself making that assertion often as I talk to parents. The parent will describe a situation where someone teased their child, or spoke a harsh word to them, and then ask me, “How should we respond?” Usually, what they are describing is normal stuff that happens between children in a fallen world. I tell them what they are describing it is not a crisis; it is life. Their responsibility is to coach their child on how to appropriately respond. Typically, the parent responds to me with shock and I hear phrases like: “But it hurts their feelings.” “They are a sensitive child.” It doesn’t dawn on them that their child’s sensitivity could be the major problem. Frequently, parents place the blame on other children for their child’s reaction. They position their child as a victim. Focusing on the child a parent has no control over while neglecting and opportunity to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Grace Too Small

Last evening our sermon passage was found in Genesis 38.  It is an ugly passage.  It tells the story of Judah, his sons Er, Onan, and Shelah, and Er's wife Tamar.  Judah marries a Canaanite woman and has three sons.  His sons are so evil that God kills both Er and Onan for their wickedness.  Because Judah fears the loss of his remaining son, he fails to fulfill his obligation to Tamar of marrying her to his last son so that an heir might be raised up to Er.  Seeing the failure of her father-in-law, Tamar takes matters into her own hand by dressing as a prostitute and sleeping with Judah.  Judah, unaware of with whom he has had sex, subsequently hears that Tamar is pregnant by immorality. He demands that she be brought out and burned for her crime (can anyone say "hypocrite?").  Tamar then produces the evidence against her father-in-law and he relents.  The story ends with the birth of twin boys. I jokingly called the sermon the "Jerry ...
Post a Comment
Read more