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Friday, March 29, 2002

Evidence

I never intended to turn this page into an apologetic for Christianity, but since Brock has asked for the evidence I mentioned I'm posting an excerpt from an article on Answering Islam's Case for Christianity page:

"Sometimes uninformed critics of the Bible, particularly of the New Testament, claim that since there are no references outside the New Testament to events of the New Testament, therefore the New Testament testimony is suspect. The truth is that there are several references to New Testament events outside the New Testament. For example, Suetonius, in his The Twelve Caesars says: 'Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Crestus [a Latin reference to Christ], he [Claudius] expelled them from the city.' Compare this reference to Acts 18:2, which clearly refers to the same event: 'And he [Paul] found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome); and he came to them.' Another clear reference outside the New Testament to a New Testament event is found by the Roman historian Tacitus in his work The Annals of Imperial Rome: 'To suppress this rumour [that the massive fires of Rome had been deliberately set by men], Nero fabricated scapegoats--and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius' reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus.' The Jewish historian Josephus (ca. 90-95 AD) mentions the martyrdom of the apostle James, refers to James as Jesus' brother, mentions the martyrdom of John the Baptist, and mentions Jesus a second time. Other references include the Roman historian Thallus (ca. 52 AD) as quoted by Julius Africanus concerning the darkness at the crucifixion, the Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger's (ca. 112 AD) mention of the early Christians' worship of Christ, and historical references from the Roman Emperors Trajan and Hadrian. These and other references I could cite prove the charge that there are no extra biblical references to New Testament events is false, and thus provide corroborating evidence of the authenticity of the New Testament."

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ examines topics such as the nature of eyewitness evidence, biblical documentary evidence, the historicity of Jesus in extra-biblical sources, archaeological data, psychological evidence, medical evidence (dealing with the nature of Jesus’ death), and the credibility of the resurrection record. Strobel is the former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and holds a law degree from Yale. A former atheist, he became a Christian after setting out to find holes in Christianity. Josh McDowell, another former atheist, wrote More than a Carpenter after a similar journey; though he doesn't go nearly as in-depth, he offers his book for free through his website. The final resource I'd like to mention is C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, which examines the philosophical basis for Christianity. He was yet another former atheist (I'm starting to notice a trend) who descibed himself as "the most relunctant convert in all of England" when he decided that his atheism made less sense than having faith in Jesus Christ.

Believing in God doesn't mean that you have to divorce your intellect; Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37; also in the Old Testament as Deuteronomy 6:5, emphasis mine).

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