In honor of Easter I thought I'd post an essay I wrote last year for English.......
The earliest accounts
of Jesus and that time period were written on papyrus and dried animal skins
which deteriorate quickly. Luke, the writer of one of the Gospels, was an educated
man, a physician. Debated among historians and scholars today are the
controversies over Jesus, the resurrection, and the Gospels.
In social circles, many questions arise concerning the
Gospels; questions such as ‘How can one trust the copy of a copy of a copy?’
and ‘What about all of the contradictions?’ Addressing the first, to clarify,
the copies of the Gospels held today are just that, copies. Because the
originals have been lost through the finite nature of the writing back then, no
one alive today has seen or read the original copies of the Gospels. But the Iliad and the Odyssey, transcribed long after Homer, are also copies of copies
and yet people trust them as originals. Seemingly there are several
contradictions in the Gospels, but if there were no contradictions and the
Gospels were identical word-for-word, people would discredit them for being
collusion. Written by different people, the Gospels are going to have diverse
perspectives. What one should look for is whether or not the cores of the
stories are the same. People don’t trust the Gospels. They believe that the
Bible is only a story.
Exhaustively, scholars and historians have debated for
years whether Jesus is indeed the Messiah. For people who believe the Bible,
the Old Testament predicts detailed characteristics and occurrences about the
Messiah, all of which have been fulfilled or will be fulfilled through Jesus.
Also, Jesus was self-conscious; He truly believed He was and is the Messiah.
Concerning the miracles allegedly performed by Jesus, many don’t believe that
He actually did what the Bible says He did. Still others believe that He was a
magician, coercing divine beings to do His bidding, when in fact He was a
Divine being Himself. Coercing a ‘divine being’ was unnecessary. Undoubtedly,
Jesus was, is, and forever will be, the Son of God. He claimed it. Others
declared and believed it. To be sure, Jesus, the Son of Man, performed forty
separate miracles displaying His attributes, God’s attributes. Because humans
are belligerent, the debate continues today of who Jesus was and is.
Historians are continually declaiming the empty tomb, the
lack of eye witnesses, and whether Jesus legitimately died. Of course skeptics
believe that Jesus fainted or that He was drugged. Since Jesus’ questionable
death and resurrection, medical experts, believers and non-believers alike,
concluded that Jesus’ heart ruptured. He did die. Finding the body of Jesus has
proven a difficult venture; in fact, the body still hasn’t been found to this
day. Evidently many skeptics think that the resurrection was a bluff, an
elaborate lie. If someone crafted a story, they would use upstanding and
believable witnesses and sources. The first three witnesses of the empty tomb
were women. Patriarchal societies, such as that of the Hebrews in Jesus’ time,
didn’t put much credibility on a woman’s testimony. In addition, one of those
three women was Mary Magdalene, a reformed prostitute, whose witness would have
been doubly discounted. The Sanhedrin, Jesus’ enemies, claimed that Jesus’
disciples stole the body, thereby confirming the tomb was in fact empty. As an
eye witness, Peter personally met Jesus after He died and was resurrected.
Saying that one witness does not give credence to one’s statement, skeptics
would endeavor to discredit Peter’s testimony. Fortunately, Peter also knew
five hundred other people who had seen Jesus after He rose, and Paul gave lists
of occasions when people saw Jesus following the Resurrection.
Jesus is who He said He is. He did rise from the dead. And
the Gospels are reliable, historical documents. James, Jesus’ half-brother,
didn’t believe that Jesus was anything more than his brother until sometime
after Jesus’ death. The disciples suffered and died horrible deaths without
rescinding their beliefs. Why would they die for a lie they had constructed?
The explosion of petrified followers to ardent worshippers gives proof to the
fact that Jesus was much more than a man.
