Apologetics: Debunking Deconstruction – Evidence for Christ.

Continuing with our discussion around Easter and the evidence for it, we need to talk about the evidence for Christ. This is one of the most controversial points to argue with non-believers because they often want tangible, archaeological evidence to be sure of Christ’s existence, even if they won’t believe that He was the Son of God. However, the first thing that needs to be understood is that Christ was not a rich ruler or military leader. While He had a profound impact on the world in the form of his teachings, He was a peasant, and thus didn’t leave behind any monuments or other major things for us to confirm His existence with. Even if you were to ask where the records of his execution are, the Romans rarely kept records of executions, especially not for someone that they considered a minor nuisance (which they would’ve considered Jesus to be). However, what we do have is the Bible and the historical records that point to Christ’s existence, to the point where even secular historians can’t argue that He was a historical figure.

I’ve already done an entire series talking about proof that the Bible is true and inerrant, talking about the history, the science, the prophecies, the grammatical context, and its divine inspiration, so I would suggest reading those real quick, but I’ll just go through the Biblical proof for Christ real quick.

First of all, we have historical records written 20-150 years after Christ’s death. The earliest mention of Jesus was written by Paul about 20 years after Christ’s death (Paul also wrote the first Christian creed in 1 Corinthians around 53-55 A.D.). Meanwhile, the Gospel of Mark was written around 66-70 A.D. and since we know from Acts that Paul personally knew the apostles (and saw Jesus) and the church was rapidly growing at the time, then we can see this as being fairly significant because it means that though the Gospels were written later, Jesus’ crucifixion was a well-known event in the area.

Furthermore, the first example of a historian mentioning Jesus was Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, which was written around 93-94 A.D. He writes in Book 20, Chapter 9, Section 1:

“…Ananus… assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others…”

This is overwhelmingly accepted by scholars as being authentic, as it lacks Christian embellishments and aligns with New Testament accounts of James as Jesus’ brother (e.g., Galatians 1:19). Written about 60 years after Jesus’ death (circa 30-33 CE), it’s the earliest non-Christian historical mention (for comparison the Gospel of Mark was written 40 years after Jesus’ death and the Gospel of John was written 50-70 years after His death; compare this, too, with the earliest written record of Alexander the Great, which was written 400 years after he died). Moreover, Josephus was born around 37 A.D., which meant that he was writing within living memory of Jesus’ followers and opponents.

Other records that were written later that scholars see as being authentic in proving Jesus was a historical figure are Tacitus’ Annals, which, though written 20 years after Josephus’ Antiquities, mentions that Christ was executed under Pontius Pilate. Other authors and historians that came later (such as Pliny the Younger), mentioned the growth of the early church, which, though it is not direct evidence of Christ’s existence, shows that there had to have a been a real person at the center of it. Because of this, the vast majority of historians agree that Christ was a historical person.

As for archaeological evidence for Christ, though (as I mentioned before) we have very little, the most direct evidence is the Shroud of Turin, which bears the image of a man whose injuries consistent with those that Jesus endured in the Bible. Though radiocarbon dating done in the 1980s said that it was a medieval forgery, new studies have actually shown that it’s much older, dating back to 2,000 years.

Then there’s the medical science of the crucifixion. From what archaeologists have found of victims of crucifixion, it was a gruesome process that left no survivors. There were different ways that it was done, but generally, a nail was driven through your heels into the wooden beam and two other nails were driven into your wrists on the crossbeam. Then, you were left to hang there, sometimes for days at a time, until you eventually couldn’t push upwards to breathe anymore and died of asphyxiation.

And did I mention that usually you were brutally flogged with a whip that had lead and shards of bone in it before being crucified and that most people didn’t get past the flogging part? That meant that by the time you were strapped to the cross, you would be dizzy from blood loss and your back would look like an unrecognizable mass of ribbon-like, bloody tissue.

Then, if you were lucky, the guards might break your legs, so you suffocate to death faster. In Jesus’ case, He was already dead, and the Roman soldier made sure he was really dead by stabbing him in the side, driving the spear through the lung and heart, releasing a torrent of blood and water-like pleural fluid. There was no way that He could survive that. Christ was dead on that cross.

There’s also the psychological proof for the reliability of the Biblical account of Jesus’ existence. The writers of the Gospels were very open that they were often bumbling fools; used the testimony of women to back their claims; saw Jesus post-resurrection, often in large groups; and were loyal to Him unto their gruesome ends. Psychologically, you would either need to be brainwashed and stupid beyond all possibility or telling the truth to ever write that and claim it was true. They had nothing to gain through telling the world their experiences and the teachings of Christ, and yet they did it anyways. Thus, is it so unreasonable to think they might’ve been telling the truth? I think not.

Finally, there’s Christ’s fulfillment of prophecy. As I’ve said in other posts, one of the biggest ways you can tell a religion is full of it is if they have prophecies that aren’t fulfilled that should be. In the case of Christ, there are anywhere from 20-60 prophecies pertaining to Christ (which is what most Biblical scholars agree on), though some apologists such as Norman Geisler believe that there’s as many as 300. Add in subtle allusions to Christ, and the tally is closer to 400. That’s quite a big number of prophecies that would need to be fulfilled in order for what you say to be true, and yet, Christ fulfilled them all (except for the ones that have yet to be fulfilled, like the ones given in Revelations). That would’ve been impossible for any man unless that man truly was the Son of God.

Until next time,

M.J.