The Case for the Real Jesus
Page 34
Taken together, I concluded that this expert testimony constitutes compelling evidence that Jesus Christ was who he claimed to be—and one and only Son of God. For details that support this summary, as well as other evidence, please refer to The Case for Christ.
APPENDIX B
HELPFUL WEBSITES TO INVESTIGATE THE REAL JESUS
LEESTROBEL.COM
…a video-intensive site that explores what Christians believe about Jesus—and why. Also available is a free e-newsletter, “Investigating Faith.”
JESUSCENTRAL.COM
…a place to learn and dialogue about what Jesus said.
TEKTONICS.ORG
…a feisty site that answers critics of historic Christianity.
CHRISTIAN-THINKTANK.COM
…a vast resource of answers to current objections to Christianity.
REASONABLEFAITH.ORG
…scholar William Lane Craig defends historic Christianity.
MARKDROBERTS.COM
…a wealth of material from Harvard-educated scholar.
WILLOWCREEK.COM
…includes a guide to finding local churches that can help in your spiritual journey.
METAMORPHA.COM
…where the focus is on how to become more like Jesus.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION: SEARCHING FOR THE REAL JESUS
1. Andrew Greeley, “There’s No Solving Mystery of Christ,” Chicago Sun-Times (Jan. 16, 2004).
2. Lyric from “The Real Jesus,” from the album Wide-Eyed and Mystified by downhere (Word Entertainment, 2006).
3. Doyle P. Johnson, “Dilemmas of Charismatic Leadership: The Case of the People’s Temple,” Sociological Analysis 40 (1979), 320.
4. See Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham, “Who Was Jesus?” available at newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/2006/12/who_was_jesus/comments.html#760080 (Dec. 26, 2006). The bulleted points are condensed from the submissions, but they preserve the author’s original language as much as possible.
5. Chris Suellentrop, “Jesus Christ: Choose Your Own Savior,” available at www.slate.com/id/2150645 (Oct. 4, 2006).
6. Paul Copan, True for You, but Not for Me (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1998), 94.
7. Charlotte Allen, The Human Christ (Oxford: Lion, 1998), 5.
8. For a summary of the evidence I found convincing, see appendix A.
9. Gregory A. Boyd, Jesus under Siege (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1995), 14.
10. See Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, “How Religious Are America’s College and University Professors?” available at: www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/gross/religions.pdf (Oct. 22, 2006).
11. See N. T. Wright, Judas and the Gospel of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2006), 31–34.
12. Ibid., 33.
13. Jay Tolson, “In Search of the Real Jesus: The Gospel Truth,” U.S. News and World Report (Dec. 18, 2006).
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Richard Cimino and Don Lattin, Shopping for Faith (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), 19.
17. Ibid., 19–20.
18. Tolson, “In Search of the Real Jesus.”
19. See Marvin Meyer and James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007).
20. Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), 208.
21. The percentage who saw or heard about the Jesus Tomb documentary is based on a survey of 1,204 randomly selected American adults by Zogby International from March 22–26, 2007. See www.churchexecutive.com/Page.cfm/PageID/8875 (April 18, 2007).
22. For example, see Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 232.
23. Jesus said in John 8:24: “If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.”
CHALLENGE#1: “SCHOLARS ARE UNCOVERING A RADICALLY DIFFERENT JESUS IN ANCIENT DOCUMENTS JUST AS CREDIBLE AS THE FOUR GOSPELS”
1. Stevan L. Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom (New York: Seabury, 1983), 1. The year 1945 was when a cache of ancient nonbiblical texts, including the Gospel of Thomas, was discovered in Egypt.
2. Sullivan made the comment during The Chris Matthews Show on MSNBC, May 7, 2006, in a debate over The Da Vinci Code.
3. The reporters who broke the story, which won first place for investigative reporting among Illinois newspapers from United Press International in 1986, were Anne Burris, Thomas J. Lee, Pete Nenni, Chris Szechenyi, and Kathy Schaeffer.
4. See Robert J. Miller, ed., The Complete Gospels (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge, revised and expanded edition, 1994).
5. Ibid., back cover.
6. Ibid., 3.
7. Philip Jenkins, Hidden Gospels (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 7.
8. Miller, Complete Gospels, 360.
9. Ibid., 357.
10. Ibid., 357, 358.
11. Ibid., 401.
12. See Scott G. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery (Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005).
13. Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel (Middletown, Calif.: Dawn Horse, reissued 2005), 107.
14. Ibid., 15–16.
15. Michael Baigent, The Jesus Papers (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 270.
16. See Robert W. Funk, et al., The Five Gospels (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, paperback edition, 1997).
17. Miller, Complete Gospels, 6.
18. Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, The Gnostic Bible (Boston: New Seeds Books, 2003), 43.
19. Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Vintage, 2004), 40–41.
20. Ben Witherington III, The Gospel Code (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004), 101.
21. Barnstone and Meyer, Gnostic Bible, 48, 69, 46.
22. Pagels, Beyond Belief, 35.
23. Pagels, Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage, 1989), xxxv.
24. Funk, et al., Five Gospels, 35.
25. Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 248.
26. Jenkins, Hidden Gospels, 16.
27. All interviews have been edited for conciseness, clarity, and content.
28. Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), xxx.
29. Davies, Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom, 146.
30. See John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 427–34.
31. See Nicholas Perrin, Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship Between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron, Academia Biblica 5 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002); Nicholas Perrin, “NHC II, 2 and the Oxyrhynchus Fragments (P.Oxy 1, 654, 655): Overlooked Evidence for a Syriac Gospel of Thomas,” Vigiliae Christianae 58 (2004): 138–51; and Nicholas Perrin, Thomas, the Other Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).
32. From the German word Quelle, or “source.”
33. Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief, 38.
34. See http://home.epix.net/~miser17/Thomas.html (Sept. 17, 2006).
35. Witherington, Gospel Code, 75.
36. Jenkins, Hidden Gospels, 17.
37. See John Dominic Crossan, The Cross That Spoke (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
38. Evans added: “Luke was a proselyte more than likely.”
39. Moody Smith, “The Problem of John and the Synoptics in Light of the Relation between Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels,” in Adelbert Denaux, ed., John and the Synoptics BETL 101 (Leuven: Peeters and Leuven University Press, 1992), 150.
40. See Lee Strobel and Garry Poole, Exploring the Da Vinci Code (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2006).
41. See Stephen C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2005).
42. Smith, Secret Gospel, xi. Pagels wrote the foreword to Smith’s book.
43. Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 80.
44. Ibid., 16.
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bsp; 45. Ibid., 79.
46. Ibid., 77.
47. Scott Brown, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Secret Mark, is among the scholars who continue to believe in its legitimacy: “I, for one, side with Clement, who believed that Mark himself created the Secret Gospel in Alexandria by adding more stories to the version of his gospel than are found in the New Testament” (quoted in a 2005 afterword to Secret Gospel).
48. Ibid., 84, 85.
49. Smith, Secret Gospel, ix; from Pagels’s foreword.
50. Ibid., 85.
51. Against Heresies 1. 31.1.
52. See John 13:27.
53. See Mark 11 and Mark 14.
54. See “Are the Gospels Reliable?” available at: www.whoisthisjesus.tv/qa.htmchallenge.xhtml#n_1" id="n1scholars (Feb. 6, 2007).
CHALLENGE#2: “THE BIBLE’S PORTRAIT OF JESUS CAN’T BE TRUSTED BECAUSE THE CHURCH TAMPERED WITH THE TEXT”
1. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 207, 208.
2. Richard C. Carrier, “Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity,” www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/jesuspuzzle.html (Nov. 23, 2006).
3. See advertising supplement on TimesSelect in the New York Times (Sept. 24, 2006).
4. Reportedly Ehrman wanted to name the book Lost in Transmission, but the publisher thought that made it sound like an automotive book.
5. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 89–90.
6. Ibid., 7.
7. Ibid., 208.
8. Ibid.
9. Hoover, 6.
10. Carrier, “Did Jesus Exist?”
11. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 9.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 11.
14. Neely Tucker, “The Book of Bart,” Washington Post (March 5, 2006).
15. Emphasis added.
16. See www.csntm.org.
17. See www.netbible.org.
18. Ben Witherington III, “Misanalyzing Text Criticism—Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus,” http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2006/03/misanalyzing-test-criticism-bart-html (June 6, 2006).
19. Gordon D. Fee, review of The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture in Critical Review of Books in Religion 8 (1995), 204. Bart D. Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus is a popularized version of The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.
20. Funk, et al., Five Gospels, 6.
21. 2 Timothy 3:16–17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
22. See Matthew 1:22, 2:15.
23. See 2 Peter 3:15–16.
24. See John 10:35.
25. See Daniel B. Wallace, “Mark 2:26 and the Problem of Abiathar,” www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=3839 (Nov. 23, 2006).
26. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 207–208.
27. See John 7:53–8:11.
28. Shawntaye Hopkins, “Woman Bitten by Snake at Church Dies,” Lexington Herald-Leader (Nov. 8, 2006).
29. Frank Zindler, The Real Bible: Who’s Got it? www.atheists.org/christianity/realbible.html (Nov. 29, 2006).
30. See Michael Baigent, Richard Lee, and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail (New York: Dell, 1983), 368–69.
31. Norman Geisler and William Nix, From God to Us: How We Got Our Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 180.
32. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, acknowledgments.
33. For the entire interview with Metzger, see Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1998), 55–72.
CHALLENGE #3: PART ONE: “NEW EXPLANATIONS HAVE REFUTED JESUS’ RESURRECTION”
1. Richard C. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb,” in Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder, eds., The Empty Tomb (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2005), 197.
2. John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 241.
3. See Strobel, Case for Christ, 191–257.
4. “Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus? A Debate between William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman,” www.holycross.edu/departments/crec/website/resurrdebate.htm (Oct. 2, 2006).
5. See Surah 4:157–58.
6. “Who Is the True Jesus?” videotape, available at: www.facultylinc.com/national/fslf.nsf (Oct. 1, 2006).
7. Hassan M. Fattah, “In Qaeda Video, Zawahri Condemns Bush and Pope Benedict,” New York Times (Sept. 30, 2006).
8. Lemuel Lall, “Jesus Christ Lived in India, was buried in Kashmir: RSS Chief,” www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1914198,0015002100000000.htm (Jan. 28, 2007).
9. Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 16.
10. Baigent, Jesus Papers, 125.
11. See Baigent, Jesus Papers, 124–32.
12. Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, back cover.
13. See Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 238–40.
14. Ibid., 234.
15. N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 718.
16. The segment, “Resurrection: True or False?” appeared on PAX-TV’s program Faith under Fire.
17. Gary Habermas and Antony Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), xiv.
18. For the transcript of a prior interview, see Antony Flew and Gary R. Habermas, “My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism,” www.biola.edu/antonyflew (Feb. 7, 2007).
19. For video clips of my interview with Flew, see www.LeeStrobel.com (Feb. 7, 2007).
20. Transcript available at www.holycross.edu/departments/crec/website/resurr debate.htm (Oct. 2, 2006).
21. Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli, eds., Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment? (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000), 67.
22. 1 Corinthians 15:17.
23. Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 2004), 1.
24. Ibid.
25. See www.holycross.edu/departments/crec/website/resurrection-debate-transcript.pdf (Oct. 2, 2006).
26. John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 145.
27. Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 230 (emphasis in original).
28. See Deuteronomy 21:23.
29. See Acts 9:26–30; 15:1–35.
30. 1 Corinthians 15:3–7.
31. Dean John Rodgers of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, quoted in Richard N. Ostling, “Who Was Jesus?” Time (Aug. 15, 1988).
32. Acts 13:36–38.
33. Mark 8:31; 9:9, 31; 10:32–34; 14:28.
34. 1 Clement 42:3. Translation by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona.
35. Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians 9:2. Translation by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona.
36. Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus? trans. John Bowden (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 80.
37. Fredriksen’s comments came during an interview with the late ABC journalist Peter Jennings for his documentary The Search for Jesus, which first aired in July 2000. Emphasis added.
38. Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Vintage, 1999), 264.
39. See 1 Corinthians 9:1 and 15:8; Acts 9, 22, and 26.
40. See Matthew 12:46–50, 13:55–56; Mark 3:31–35, 6:3; Luke 8:19–21; John 2:12, 7:3, 5, 10; Acts 1:13–14; 1 Corinthians 9:5; Galatians 1:19.
41. See Mark 3:21, 31; 6:3–4; and John 7:3–5.
42. John 7:3–5: “Jesus’ brothers said to him, ‘You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.’ For even his own brothers did not believe in him.”
43. See Acts 15:12–21 and Galatians 1:19.
44. See Josephus (Ant. 20:200); Hegesippus (quoted by Eusebius in EH 2:23); Clement of Alexandria (quoted by Eusebius in EH 2:1, 23).
45. Reginald Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 37.
47. William Ward, Christianity: A Historical Religion? (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 1972), 93–94.
48. Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 124–25.
CHALLENGE #3: PART TWO: THE CROSS-EXAMINATION
1. “Code Red” was invented for the movie. The film won an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, while Jack Nicholson was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
2. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, translator, The Qur’an (Elmhurst, N.Y.: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, Inc., 1999), 61.
3. The True Furqan (Duncanville, Tex.: World Wide, 2006). This is not to say that pure Christian doctrine is presented in The True Furqan. One could write it using any doctrine, true or false, and it could still serve to answer the test presented in the Qur’an.
4. Ali, The Qur’an, 1.
5. Baigent, Jesus Papers, 125.
6. Ibid., 130 (emphasis added).
7. Richard C. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 187.
8. Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 135, 131.
9. Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 232.
10. Paraphrase of Luke 24:39.
11. See 1 Corinthians 9:11.
12. Emphasis added.
13. Emphasis added. See also 1 Corinthians 15:53–54.
14. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 184.
15. Strobel, Case for Christ, 238.
16. See Deuteronomy 21:23.
17. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 156.
18. Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Putting Away Childish Things (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 131.
19. Copan and Tacelli, Jesus’ Resurrection, 44.
20. See Matthew 5:22–24, 35–43.
21. Jeffery Jay Lowder, “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 267.
22. See Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 228–40.
23. Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2006), 220.