Jesus of Nazareth: Five applications for non-believers that need good answers

Many non-believers have seen and will see M's film. Gibson "The Passion of Christ". If you ask them: “What do you think of Jesus?”, they respond:

1. “He was a good man. I admire him very much, but Jesus was not God ".
2. "He was a great teacher, but Jesus did not rise from the dead ".
3. "Jesus never really performed the miracles mentioned in the Gospels".
4. “The real Jesus has nothing to do with the Jesus described by the New Testament. The church altered the Bible in one of its councils ".
5. "There is no evidence that Jesus ever existed. Jesus is a myth like Santa Claus or the Befana ".
   

We must be ready to respond in order to account for our faith and our hope, but we must do it with kindness and respect (see 1 Pietro 3:15).

Non-believers ask us reasonable questions that need good answers. Thank God, there are excellent answers to these questions, but most unbelievers have never heard a Christian reason with them on these matters.

To these five questions, here are some key answers:

1. “He was a good man. I admire him very much, but Jesus was not God ".

Jesus claimed to be one with God in Giovanni 10:30[1]. If Jesus wasn't what he said he was, he was either a liar or a fool. But, the testimonies of those who knew Him best, they reveal a person who was neither liar nor crazy. A close friend and disciple of his, Pietro, said: “He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth” (1 Pi. 2:22). In addition to everything, after He was arrested to be crucified, all the disciples of Jesus abandoned him and scattered (see Matteo 26:56[2]). It was only after the resurrection, when they saw that He had the power to overcome death, that His disciples pledged to serve him, even if it meant their own death. With the exception of Giovanni, all of Jesus' early disciples were sentenced to death because of their testimony. John also suffered for his faith in Jesus. It is inconceivable that these men, who had fled so quickly and abandoned Him, accepted to die for Christ, if they had not seen the power and authority of God in the resurrection.

The resurrection of Jesus is one of a kind. There is no other religion in the world that claims anything like this. The resurrection of Jesus has more historical evidence confirming it than any other miracle in ancient history.
After His resurrection, Jesus appeared more than 500 His followers on several occasions. Jesus spoke and ate with them. Not only did they see Jesus, but they touched him.
After the death of Jesus, His followers were frightened and discouraged. They had gone into hiding out of fear of the authorities. After that, But, Jesus rose from the dead, they experienced a radical change in both their attitude and behavior. By shy men, discouraged and frightened, they turned into courageous apostles of Jesus, optimistic and fearless. It is inconceivable that they lied about the resurrection of Jesus when their testimony, not only did it cost them very dearly, but they personally had nothing to gain from it.

The Jewish Talmud accuses Jesus of practicing witchcraft (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 43a). There are indirect references to the gospels in these accusations against Jesus by His enemies in Luca 11:15[3] e Giovanni 8:48[4]. It is significant that Jesus' enemies never denied that He worked miracles. Unlike, they claimed that He worked miracles by evil means. If Jesus' contemporaries claimed that Jesus was a miracle worker, then the evidence of His miracles must have been indisputable.

4. “The real Jesus has nothing to do with the Jesus described by the New Testament. The church altered the Bible in one of its councils ".

This is another very popular myth which is refuted by empirical evidence. The first council of the Christian Church did not meet until 325 A. D. However, there are several biblical manuscripts that are older than the fourth century. It is extremely difficult to conceive how the Church could have changed the Bible when we have manuscripts that were written before the fourth century and that show no evidence of manipulation.
The documentary evidence in favor of the Bible is much greater than any other ancient document. For example, take Julius Caesar's tale of the Gallic Wars, of the first century. Without his writings, historians would have no evidence of these wars. But, the original writings of Caesar are no longer in existence. They only exist 10 complete copies remaining of these writings, written between 900 and the 950 A. D. Despite this, these documents are considered to correspond to historical facts.

the Bible, on the other hand, owns more than 14.000 handwritten documents - many of which date back to 400 a. C. and there are more than 5.300 New Testament manuscripts, with almost 800 of them written before 1000 A. D. It would be very curious to question their historical reliability. There is no empirical evidence that the early Church changed their description of Jesus.

5. "There is no evidence that Jesus ever existed. Jesus is a myth like Santa Claus and the Easter rabbit ".

It is just a popular myth that ancient references to Jesus are found only in the Bible. The truth is that many ancient non-Christian sources refer to Jesus. For example, the Roman historian Tacitus refers to Jesus at least three times. Svetonio, who was part of the staff of Emperor Hadrian in the first part of the second century, wrote about Jesus. There are allusions to Christ in the writings of ancient authors such as Thallus, Filono, Pliny as a young man, Galen, Celso, Mara ben Serapion, and Luciano. Furthermore, the Jewish historian Josephus, as well as the Talmud, mention Jesus.

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