This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:
Evidence points to existence of Jesus
I really appreciate the platform that Mercury Mailbox offers for the discussion of various matters and, as a new contributor, I also appreciate the comments that others have made regarding the information that I have presented so far.
The interchange of experience and information can only be good.However, in commenting on my letter about the historicity of Christ, I am sure that most readers will realise that letters are edited by the Mailbox team, and for good reason.
With this in mind I would like to say that only about half of my letter was printed and I really feel that the material left out would be beneficial to the ongoing discussion.
The two first century historians I mentioned, Josephus and Tacitus, are not the only non-Christian writers who have referred to Jesus in their writings.
Pliny the Younger and Seutonius also accepted that Jesus was a real person.
Referring to early non-Christian historical references to Jesus, The New Encyclopedia Britannica states: "These independent accounts prove that in ancient times, even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus."
The historian HG Wells is reported to have said that a man's greatness can be measured by "what he leaves to grow and whether he started others to think along fresh lines with a vigour that persisted after him."
Wells, although not claiming to be a Christian, acknowledged: "By this test, Jesus stands first."
We could also ask, is it reasonable to believe that a man who never lived could have affected human history so remarkably?
Just think about it, even calendars today are based on the year that Jesus was thought to have been born.
I fully accept that the Roman historians never actually met Jesus, but they, by their writings, show that they accepted that he lived. So they must have trusted their sources and, as respected historians, their word has value.
When I consider all of the available information – the harmony of the Holy Bible, the historical writings, the opinions of those of greater intellect than me and the effect he had on Mankind, I am absolutely convinced of the existence of Jesus Christ as a truly historical person. But what is he doing now?
Keith Coleman, Worthington
I'm Christian and accept the existence of the historical Jesus although i think there may be ways of being Christian which can accommodate a lack of such a belief (e.g. involving moral example atonement). However, i wouldn't say the Josephus passage is good evidence. It seems to be inserted as it jars with the text around it and it's absent in some versions of the document. There are also references in the Talmud which are seen as referring to him, but on reading those, i've found them to be dubious and think they're just referring to someone of the same name.
ReplyDeleteHowever, well there are two things. One is that circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that he existed - it would've been a possible career choice for someone in the right place and time to appear to be the Messiah, and at a time of national crisis, charismatic spiritual figures do emerge, for instance Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The narrative of the gospels along with the presence of the sayings have a source of some kind, and they could've been composed by committee (e.g. the Essenes) or another figure, but Ockham's Razor suggests that the simplest hypothesis is that it was that charismatic figure which said those things, if not did them. Secondly, ancient history is not the same as modern history and the kind of evidence which is possible in a largely illiterate society where myth and history are not sharply delineated.
There's also a dearth of agnostic approaches to the question of his existence.
My personal approach is that He was supernaturally charismatic because He is able to inspire people today, and the evidence of His action through the Church and others is that it appears to be able to achieve more than it would without Him.