Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 01: Jesus and History is There a Problem Here?

Transcription

1 Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 01: Jesus and History is There a Problem Here? Who is Jesus? That is the question. Many movies, books, documentaries. This guy just won t go away. Continues to be the most influential person in history. Who was this Jesus? - Historical guy carpenter (Jews) - Prophet like Muslims think - Modern people some guy in history who was nice? How can we know anything about this guy? Sermon series: Can know who Jesus is. Amongst all the skeptical portraits of Jesus. We can know who the real Jesus was and we can be certain of it. 1 Peter 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. If someone was to ask you: Who is Jesus? How do you know it? Lizzy: Isn t enough to just love Jesus? Yes, it is enough for faith. Yet, w live in skeptical world. Demanding a reasonable answer. Sermon Series Goal: Your faith will be strengthened. Through this study you will be further convinced in who Jesus is. As well as to present a sound Biblical and rational proof for the evangelical concept of Jesus Christ. Four parts: 01: Jesus and History is There a Problem Here? 02: What Jesus Really Thought of Himself 03: Resurrection: Truth or fiction 04: Is Jesus the Only Saviour? Today s Message: Jesus and History.is there a problem here? Let me outline the problem for us. Maybe you have heard it said this way: We cannot be certain that Jesus ever really lived. Historical Problem: In the past few hundred years have arisen doubt that the Jesus who lived is the same as the Jesus in the Bible. In short: The vents described in the Bible did not really happen. They are religious truth but not historical truth. 19 th century = Martin Kähler, The so-called Historical Jesus. The Bible doesn t measure up to historicity and that we can t know anything about the person called Jesus.

2 Didn t matter. For Kähler, the Jesus of the Bible was much different than the Jesus of history. Jesus of the Bible based on a person but not the same. The real Jesus (Kähler) was the Jesus who was preached. The ideas, values, the teachings. Faith is based on what the memory of Jesus does for us presently, not who he might have been. He created a dichotomy between the Jesus of history and Christ of faith, His ideas endured and some people who call themselves Christians think this way. Jesus seminar 1985 Robert Funk gathered 150 scholars. Started the Jesus seminar. Goal, is to prove that the Jesus of faith different then the Jesus of history. Scholars include John Dominic Crossan, and Marcus Borg. Say Christians. Deny Bible as authority. Deny Jesus was divine. Deny Jesus was who he said he was. Echo convictions of millions of skeptical thinkers in and out of the church. Are their concerns valid? Is the skeptical view of Jesus and the Bible the right one? How can we know? We will use modern historical method to answer. Problem is Jesus did not write any books. Followers did. - followers wrote about him - How do we know it is accurate? Maybe stories we read evolved. Elaborated and mythologized before they were recorded then ascribed to a man named Jesus. Jesus is mentioned even beyond the NT. Roman, Jewish and Christian sources Amazing thing about Jesus is that historically he is kind of obscure. Only 3 years public ministry. From an obscure town. Yet, more sources about him than other historical figures of his time such as Julius Caesar Best source about Jesus is the New Testament. Some think that if we use the Bible and examine the NT for stories of Jesus that we are reasoning in a circle Use the Bible to prove the Bible. Begging the questions. Meaning we assuming the conclusion. Nonsense! The NT is like any other historical source. It is a collection of historical documents.

3 NT bunch of different letters that were compiled years later. When the church compiled the NT they only included the earliest, primary, and most reliable sources. Left out the later, secondary and suspect documents. Left out the weird documents like the Gospel of Thomas and Phillip. Instead, only included the best sources. Heard of the Da Vinci Code? These and other fiction like that are based on some of these weird sources. Gospel of Thomas, Nag Hammadi, etc. But these were written centuries later and are written with forged autographs by the apostles. - They were commonly known to be fake - They were later, secondary and less reliable sources NT sources were all written within the span of first generation. Why is this important? 1) Insufficient time for mythology to develop. a. It takes several generations for mythology to develop 2) Eyewitnesses were still alive a. People going around saying, Jesus rose again. Jesus healed people but he didn t. Plenty of people around to refute that. 3) Written by eyewitnesses a. How can we trust them because it was 200 years ago b years from present to the event. c. But the time between event and when it was recorded is relatively short. d. Jesus ascended to heaven in AD30 first book was written about 48AD e. Good evidence doesn t cease to become evidence based on the passage of time. f. Paul 1 Corinthians sites hymn i. Within 5 years of detah of Jesus g. Markan passion account i. Book 60AD ii. Tradition from 40AD (10 years after death) 4) Compare with sources for Alexander the Great a. Arrian and Plutarch / 400 years after events b. Historians regard them as accurate c. Accounts of Jesus are written extremely close i. Taken extremely seriously / serious scholars ii. Those who dismiss the credibility don t do so on basis of historicity 1. Personal agenda 5) Can t write them off as historical a. 300 years alter these primary sources were compiled. Placed in the NT b. Now they are Bible, therefore, no longer valid.

4 i. Preposterous. c. Bad historical methodology to say i. In the Bible, therefore it s not scientific. If we treat the NT like other historical documents we need to see if there is internal evidence to prove its historicity. Look at one example. Gospel of Luke. Luke and Acts were written by Luke. One document that was separated into two. Luke historian. He was not an eyewitness but he knew the eyewitnesses. He wrote the events of Jesus and the church as history and not as myth. Read the first verses. 1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled [a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Couple of things 1) Wrote this in classical GK (language of historians) a. He is capable and competent and trained as a historian b. Make his reader aware of the fact that he went about this in the right way. 2) He outlines his sources with emphasis on the fact that he carefully investigated. He was a companion of Paul. (Acts 16) says, We The NT is not just some elaborate ideas. Luke 1:4 says these were written, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, The Bible stands the test of textual criticism and historiography. It stands as a legitimate source and a reliable document form a historicity standpoint. The problem with the Jesus Seminar is that they refuse to accept the historicity of the Bible because it means they need to accept it as true. The end result is that the NT stands, unparalleled, as a reliable document and we can have confidence that when we read the words of the Bible, specifically about Jesus. It is accurate.

5 Addressing the Problem: Is there a difference between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith? 1) NT not written for legend written to tell about a real man a. Real events, real history. 2) Do not show the marks of mythological development. But show incredible attention to fact and detail. They are first and foremost reliable historical documents. 3) No one ever died for mythology. Yet, Jesus disciples, the eyewitnesses. The early church was persecuted, killed and tortured for Jesus. a. Either they were insane or they were convinced. b. They died for these stories. They must be true. TODAY: Not enough to say that Jesus lives in my heart reduce him to fantasy. Needs to be grounded in real life. Jesus I am aware of in my prayer. Jesus I meet in worship is real. He really lived; he really did what the Bible says he did. The evidence is there. It is real. Some refuse to look at it and desperately try to deny it. Pinchas Lapide Hebrew scholar from University of Tel Aviv. When looking at the historical evidence of the NT declared (God of Israel rose Jesus from the dead). Gospels not only trustworthy documents in a general sense but as we look at some of the most important aspects of Jesus over the next few weeks. Radical personal claims, miracles, nature of his crucifixion and resurrection from the dead. * The historical veracity, it s reliability, it s undeniable credibility shouts out from the megaphone of history to us today and says, You can trust these. These documents, this Bible: It stands there and tells us that the God of the universe has acted in history and we can know it. Conclusion: You can know without any doubt that the Bible is historically accurate. You can know that it is not just a historical document but the written record of God s action in human history Jesus, who lived and acted in history, is alive and at work in our lives today. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.