Introduction
Traditionally, the resurrection of Jesus Christ has been thought to be true. However, the modern debate amongst many theologians has been whether the resurrection is truly a fact, or just a legend created over the past hundreds of years. There are four different Gospel accounts and two other books in the bible which seem to tell the story of the resurrection as a central truth. There are also many historians which use the resurrection to support arguments and expand their literary works. The resurrection could be thought of as the foundation of Christianity. Without the truth of the resurrection, many pieces of the Christian religion seem to fall apart. There are three main known facts which are used to support the Resurrection. The tomb which was found empty, the physical appearance of Jesus to many witnesses, and the formation of the Christian religion all point towards the traditional theory. To interpret these facts, theologians use the process of inference till reaching an explanation. This means that, in order to understand the facts left
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The Trilemma is based on a C.S Lewis argument and was formulated by Josh McDowell. It states that Jesus was either a Liar, a Lunatic, or the true Lord. Jesus was most certainly not a Liar, because that would mean he made a deliberate misrepresentation of who he was for his entire ministry. If Jesus was a liar, he was also a hypocrite. If he was a hypocrite, then he was truly sinful, and it would not make sense that he would die for his fake life. With this information, then entire argument that Jesus deliberately lied about being the Son of God falls apart. On the other hand, if Jesus was a lunatic, then why did his teachings accomplish so much good? Jesus did not show any abnormalities that a lunatic would exhibit. The only possible option then, is that Jesus is Lord and has always been
Over 2000 years ago, there purportedly was a man born of a virgin, who made outrageous claims. This man was Jesus of Nazareth and He professed to be the Son of God. Without question, Jesus is one of the most influential people that ever walked the earth, but was he the Son of God? Many suggest that he was not Lord, just a great moral teacher, which is a legitimate answer if one does not consider the bold statements that he proclaimed to the world. Lewis suggests that if Jesus was not God, but claimed to be God, then these opponents have lost their argument because he was clearly not a moral teacher but an outright liar or a crazy lunatic. On the other hand, scholars argue Jesus never professed to be God and followers of Christ distort the
Normally, it is generally believed that the statement gap between broadminded and conventional Christian theologians is more ruthless than the statement gap between broadminded and conventional Politicians. Most of the time the Politicians are fewer forced to confront each other in elections but the broadminded and conventional Christians can spent most of their time keeping away from each other. In a book, ‘Meaning of Jesus’ the authors Marcus Borg and Tom Wright has discussed a lot of issues like resurrection. Even though Borg and Wright take different diverse methods but they has discussed each other point of view in a reasonable manner, and they both directly faced points of their discrepancy.
There are several ways in which we can be assured that what we are taught about Jesus is true and not just made up. These are called our faith sources. These sources, like the Bible and other sources of information about Jesus have accounts of Jesus’ life. The most important part of these faith sources is the Christian Scriptures. Although the Christian Scriptures are one of the most valuable tools we have to learn about Jesus there are also the Gospels, and also other non-biblical, and non-Christian accounts of Jesus’ life that we can consider when trying to answer the question How can we be sure that what we are taught about Jesus is true and not just made up?
The resurrection of Jesus is a topic in Christian Apologetic that confirms the faith of a believer. Groothuis submits, “Of all the world’s religions Christianity alone purports to be based on the resurrection of its divine founder. No other religion or worldview makes such an audacious and consequential claim. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus himself predicts his own betrayal, death and resurrection.”1 The Bible reveals the importance of the resurrection in Corinthians 15:14-17, “And if Christ wasn’t raised to life, our message is worthless, and so is your faith. If the dead won’t be raised to life, we have told lies about God by saying that he raised Christ to life, when he really did not. So if the dead won’t be raised to life, Christ wasn’t raised to life. Unless Christ was raised to life, your faith is useless, and you are still living in your sins.”
The resurrection put away the pains of death. “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him”(Acts 2:24). Here on earth people experience death but because of the resurrection death no longer has a hole on those who believe in Jesus. As Christians we have the reassurance of life after death this is all made possible by Jesus death burial and
The author of this book, Lee Strobel, struggled for almost two years, sometimes jumping from one issue or topic to another and then back again, investigating the facts of Jesus for himself. He traces his journey from skepticism to faith.
These three tests when applied to the Bible show it as the most historically reliable text known to man, thus the events found upon the pages of the Bible are actual historically proven events. In light of these facts, there are still many theories other than that of the Biblical account. Three of them include the "Visionary" theory, the theft theory, and the wrong tomb theory. The first theory is that of Strauss, that the appearances of Jesus after His death on the cross were "visions generated by the imaginations of the disciples (Ramsey 48)." This may be the easiest of all the theories to discredit. First of all, it does not take into account the inability of the disciples to grasp this idea that Christ was alive and to recognize Him for who He was (Ramsey 48).
"Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (James 1:15), or as Paul puts it in Romans 6:23 " the wages of sin is death". Christ never sinned, and therefore did not earn the wages of sin. Therefore God raised him from the dead "having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." (Acts 2:24). The full story of Christ's death and resurrection can be found in Matthew 27 & 28, Mark 15 & 16, Luke 23 & 24, and John 18 - 21.
If these men were not telling the truth, would they have suffered in the way they did? “Their letters do not suggest delusion or deceit, but clear thinking and burning integrity (Barnett 116)”. They lived the way they did based on a verifiable historical event, the resurrection of Jesus. The two traditions of when Jesus rose from the dead combine powerfully to reinforce the reality of the resurrection. They came from separate sources. From the women we learn that Jesus rose on the first day of the week. From the other disciples we learn that Jesus rose on the third day. If the resurrection of Jesus was nothing but a hoax or urban legend, there would not be an identifiable starting point. This is not the case for the resurrection. We know the location he was buried and the time span in which it happened. There are several objections, other hypotheses about the resurrection. Some believe that another man was crucified, but Jesus was crucified in public. Officials wanted him to die specifically, so it would have been noticed if the wrong man was on that cross. Others say that Jesus only fainted, he did not actually die. Romans were very cruel in their punishment and execution of
In 1 Peter 1:3, the apostle Peter says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” A Christian hope is a “living hope”. It is “a living hope” because it is rooted in faith in the living Son of God who arose from the dead. In 3:15, Peter says to the believers: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Many people ask with great sincerity, “Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Why is the resurrection of Jesus relevant to us?” Let’s look together at Luke 24:1-12 and consider these two questions (read).
One of the most perplexing events in the ministry of Jesus Christ is His resurrection from the dead. Many skeptics look at it as made up stories or hallucinations, or mass hysteria, yet the biblical accounts and other evidences point to another conclusion. This research paper will explore three pieces of evidence that the resurrection story is factual and can be accepted as a historical event.
In this paper, I will examine Jesus’ resurrection from the dead because, according to many scholars, there is no other event in the life of Jesus that is as significant. In order to better comprehend the magnitude of this event, I will begin by looking at what can be discerned from the Resurrection of Jesus. Then, I will explore the two different kinds of resurrection testimony that there are: the confessional tradition and narrative tradition. For the confessional tradition, I will look at a few examples including St. Paul’s confession in First Corinthians which is composed of four parts: Jesus’ death, the question of the empty tomb, the third day, and the witnesses. For the narrative tradition, I will briefly examine the two sources of information
Christianity is one of the world’s most widely practiced religions and has a long history spanning back over two-thousand years. Some might say that its history might go back even farther to include the history of Judaism because there are prophets in Hebrew scripture who foretold the coming of Jesus Christ, who Christians believe to be the Messiah that God promised the Jewish people. This paper discusses how Christianity influences our society today, some of its history along with some of our beliefs. However, it is impossible to tell the complete history of Christianity in just one essay because for all two thousand years it has been in existence, there are literally thousands of things to talk about. The construction of our religious buildings, the Crusades, how the Protestant Reformation branched it out into what it is today, any of these things can and have been made into essays, books, and even movies on their own. That being said, it will touch on each of the questions which were asked in the assignment and will add a bit more depth on a few other things which are considered very important to the history of Christianity.
Freud said, “God is a projection of our inner desires”. Marx said, “It was just a way of keeping the hungry masses quiet”. (3) Even with all this negative opposition and doubt, can the hard- line skeptic honestly deny the existence of Jesus? We see proof of Jesus’s existence in the New Testament. The New Testament is a compile of stories after Jesus’s death written by people who believed passionately in what he had done and said. The gospel writer’s were people who saw the stories happen with their own eyes; they were his followers. . “What non-Christian sources are there for Jesus? (Answer: a reference in the Jewish historian Josephus, a reference in the Roman historian Tacitus, and one possible allusion in a more scurrilous Roman writer, Suetonius.)” (23) We can try to ignore the facts because we did not physically see it happen and we did not experience it but, I think there is enough evidence to keep an open mind. In the search of truth that we seek we need to understand who Jesus is. He first came into the public’s eye in the late 20’s of the first century. With only being in the public eye for three short years, he was one of the greatest teachers, spiritual leaders, moralist and healer. The authorities in Jerusalem soon became threatened with the impact he had on society and arrested him for being a would-be rebel leader. He was executed as the “king of the Jews.” All four gospels make note of this phrase and said
The word "gospel" is a translation of the Greek word "euangelion" which means "good news. The first three books in the New Testament (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) are often referred to as the Synoptic Gospels (from Greek synoptikos, "seen together") They bear greater similarity to each other than any of the other gospels in the New Testament. Along with these similarities come some differences among the gospels, suggesting that each gospel was written for a specific audience and for a specific purpose. This paper will examine the resurrection of Jesus, while identifying the significant differences between Mark, Matthew and Luke. This paper will also analyze the differences to suggest the prominent theological perspective each gospel author might be trying to convey about the resurrection of Jesus.