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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16, ESV).
Recently, I watched a short video by a young woman claiming that Jesus didn’t exist.
She had three points: 1. There is no mention of Jesus in literature (outside the New Testament), 2. Jesus was a myth made up from popular folklore by the church, and finally, 3. The Gospels are untrustworthy sources of information about Jesus because they were written by the disciples of Jesus.
Yikes, are these three points true?
No, they are typical social media “junk thinking,” more interested in “clicks” and “views” than in actual history. To debunk these three points, I did a simple Wikipedia™ search on the historical Jesus, and this link came up…
I easily found this comment in this Wikipedia article about outside sources to the life of Jesus…
There are at least 14 independent sources from multiple authors within a century of the crucifixion of Jesus that survive.[35]
And two comments also easily found about Jesus being a myth…
Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory has consistently rejected the idea that Jesus was a mythical figure.[7][8][9][10][11]
Contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and biblical scholars and classical historians view the theories of His nonexistence as effectively refuted.[8][10][58][59][60]
(Please note the quotes above have footnotes which can be followed through their links back to the sources. Consider my giving footnotes as another attempt by the OG to produce in-depth, remarkable scholarship!!!!???)
Now to the third point of the skeptic’s argument: the Gospels are unreliable because they were written by Jesus’ disciples.
I didn’t research to disprove this thought because the statement is self-defeating logically. If we followed the skeptic’s reasoning, then her video shouldn’t be watched because she, as a skeptic, is challenging the validity of Jesus, or, another way of considering it, we shouldn’t listen to atheists as atheists because they are atheists?
Christians can, as Christians, write reliable Gospels in the first century and other books about God in different centuries, because we can’t categorically dismiss writings because of preconceived beliefs without dismissing all books everywhere, since everyone has preconceived ideas. Writing must be accepted or rejected according to the content and the results of the ideas expressed!
With the Gospels and their effect on history, I like the following quote in the book Excavating the Evidence for Jesus by Titus Kennedy.
It seems uncanny that Jesus, who lived on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire and never left the area, who had only several thousand followers at his death, and who was shunned by both the religious and political establishment of the time, is not simply remembered two millennia later but became the most famous and influential person in all of human history. While many may disregard the teachings of Jesus, or even make the outrageous claim that he never existed, no one can deny the tremendous and unparalleled impact Jesus has had on history.
Considering the impact of Jesus on history and the millions, if not billions, who claim Him as Lord and Savior, if Jesus didn’t exist, this myth would stand as the greatest hoodwinking in history, casting doubt on humankind’s rational ability to know anything.
So instead of throwing the reliability of all of history and mankind into the trash can, I’m just going to delete the skeptic’s video. It’s the only intelligent thing to do.
Here are two excellent books on the reliability of Jesus and the New Testament.