By the way Walid says that he will compile the reponse to=20
Mr. Till during the weekend.=20
...........................................
By the way, Jesus is God, and He loves you
Xanthic :
A modern objection has been to say that Jesus
never claimed to be Divine. This supposition is
by far the most widespread intellectual reason
why Christians have lost their faith in the
twentieth century. For each one who thinks that
the problem of evil or the progress of science has
refuted religion, there are ten who thinkthat
textual scholarship, the =93historical critical
method=94 and =93higher criticism=94 have done so by
reducing the New Testament texts to a mangled
melange of myth and mysticism. Not hte
atheistic philosophers or skeptical scientists but
the biblical theologians have performed the
miracle of changing wine to water, faith to myth.
Why couldn=92t their postion be true? Why
couldn=92t Christ=92s Divinity be neither a lie, nor a
lunacy but a myth, like the myths about Buddha
being a god - myths that grew up after the
historical Buddha, who claimed to be only a
supremely enlightened man? Overdone
hero-worship is easily tends to divinize the hero;
isn=92t this the simplest and most reasonable
explanation for the data about Jesus?
1. If the same neutral objective, scientific
approach is used on the New Testament texts as
is used on all other ancient manuscripts, then the
texts prove remarkably reliable. Complex, clever
hypothesis after hypothesis follow another with
bewildering rapidity and complexity in the
desperate attempt to debunk, =93demythologize=94 or
demean the data - like declawing a lion. No book
in history has been so attacked, cut up,
reconstituted and stood on its head as well as the
New Testament. Yet is still lives - like Christ
Himself.
2.The state of manuscripts is very good.=20
Compared with any and all other ancient
documents, the New Testament stands up as ten
times moe sure. For instance, we have five
hundred different copies earlier than 5oo A.D.
The manuscripts we have, in addition to being
old, are also mutually reinforcing and consistent.=20
There are very few discrepancies and no really
important ones. And all the later discoveries of
manuscripts, such as the Dead Sea Scroll, have
confirmed rather than refuted previously existing
manuscripts in every important case. There is
simply no other ancient text in nearly as good a
shape.
3.If Jesus=92 divinity is a myth invented by later
generations (=93the early Christian community=94, often
a code word for =93the inventors of the myth=94), then
there must have been at least two or three
generations between the original eyewitnesses of the
historical Jesus and the universal belief in hte new,
mythic, divinized Jesus; otherwise, the myth could
never have been believed as fact because it would
have been refuted by eyewitnesses of the real Jesus.=20
Both disciples and enemies would have had reasons
to oppose this new myth.
However, we find no evidence at all of anyone ever
opposing the so-called myth of the Divine Jesus in
the name of earlier merely human Jesus. The early
=93demythologizers=94 explicitly claimed he New
Testament texts had to have been written after A.D.
150 for the myth to have taken hold. But no
competent scholar today denies the first century
dating of virtually all the New Testamen - certainly
Paul=92s letters, which clearly affirm and presuppose
Jesus=92 Divinity and the fact that this doctrine was
already universal Christian Orthodoxy.
4.If a mythic =93layer=94 had to be added later onto an
originally merely human Jesus, we should find some
evidence, at least indirectly and secondhand, of this
earlier layer. We find instead an absolute and total
abscense of any such evidence anywhere, either
internal or external, anywhere else, in Christian,
anit-Christian, or non-Christian sources.
5.The style of the Gospels is not the style of myth,
but hat of real, though unscientific, eyewitness
description. Anyone sensitive to literary styles can
compare the Gospels to any of teh mythic religious
literature of the time, and the differences will appear
remarkable and unmistakable - for instance, the
intertestamental apocalyptic literature of both Jews
and Gentiles, or a pagan mythic fantasies like Ovid=92s
Metamorphoses or Flavius Philostratus=92s story of the
wonder-worker Appolonius of Tyan (A.D. 220).
If the events recorded in the Gospels did not really
happen, then these authors invented modern realistic
fantasy nineteen centuries ago. The Gospels are full
of little details, both of external observation and
internal feelings, taht are found only in eyewitness
descriptions or modern realistic fiction. They also
include dozens of little details of life in first-century
Israel that could not have been knkow by someone
not living in that time and place (See Jn. 13:3, for
instance). And there are no second-century
anachronisms, either in language or content.
6.There are 4 Gospels, not just one. Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John were written by four different
writers, at four different times, probably for four
different audiences and for four somewhat different
purposes and emphases. So a lot of cross-checking
is possible. By a textual trigonometry or
triangulation, we can fix the facts with far greater
assurance here than with any other ancient
personage or sieries of events. The only
inconsistencies are in chronology (only Luke=92s
Gospel claims to be in order) and accidentals like
numbers.
8.If the Divine Jesus of the Gospels is a myth, who
invented it? Whether it was his 1st disciples or some
later generation, no possible motive can account for
this invention. For until the Edict of Milan in A.D.
313, Chirstians were subject to persecution, often
tortured and martyred, and hated and oppressed for
their beliefs. No one invents an elaborate pracitcal
joke in order to be crucified, stoned or beheaded.=20
And if they didn=92t know they would be persecuted for
their =93myth=94, they would certainly give it up as soon
as they were. Yet no one ever confessed that they
made it all up - even when martyred. Some refused
martyrdom, rejecting Christ and worshipping
Caesar, to save their lives; but not one of these ever
said Christ was a myth that they had fabricated.=20
They simply did what the emperor commanded them
to do to save their lives.
9.First-century Jews and Christians were not prone
to believe myths. They wer already more
=93demythologized=94 than any other people. The
orthodox were adamantly, even cantankerously adn
intolerantly, opposed to the polytheistic myths of
paganism and to any ecumenical syncretism. Nor
would anyone be less likely to confuse myth and fact
than a Jew. Peter explicitly makes point that the
Gospel story is historical fact, not =93cleverly devised
myths=94 (2 Pet 1:16).
Well there is my argument, what=92s yours? :)
The Xanny Theologian