Il cammino cristiano




Answering "The fable of Christ"

by Jim Sheffield

 

In science (e.g. Quantum Mechanics) you can only give probability. I shall argue that the Gospels as history is probably true, but the best way is to know the living Christ is pick up a New Testament for yourself; read it, and ask Jesus to show you He is Truth.

I was raised an atheist, and only came to Jesus after much study and many miracles, so I can speak from my own experiences.

Let's begin with theodicy or the problem of God being all powerful and the existence of evil. The Biblical view shows God warning humans not to learn about good and evil, but we chose to learn about it, in both head knowledge and experience.
But God has appointed a day of reckoning for those who choose evil. The True God can raise the dead, so those who have been victimized by evil will be restored to eternal life and those who did evil to Justice. If you are an atheist, the victims of evil have no hope and the doers of evil will never face justice in Eternity.
The issue then is has the True God visited us in our world and showed the ability to raise the dead.

Since the so called Enlightenment there have been hundreds of books trying to disprove Christianity. The most famous is "The Life of Jesus" by David Strauss that claimed Jesus was just a myth and converted Karl Marx.

The most used is what is called the argument from silence. It usually begins thus, "there is no mention of Jesus while he was alive". The fact is most historians didn't mention the Emperor who was alive for fear that they might offend him. It would be very surprising if historians at the Emperor's Court would write about a person crucified by Rome for claiming to be king of the Jews.

The argument from silence is a lot stronger in why didn't the Romans use Josephus, Tacitus, and Plutarch to disprove Christianity. The usual answer I get is they didn't care which would explain the silence against Christianity. I guess atheists want to have it both ways.

If we go to the New Testament, we find that there were interrogations by high Roman officials, Pilate, Paulus, Gallio, Felix, and Festus. Gallio in particular was the brother of Seneca who ib 50 to 51 A.D. was probaly runing the Empire for the aged Claudius, so the most powerful man in Rome probably was interested in this new religion. All these people had official acts or records of what they did.

Why didn't the Romans refer to these records when trying to destroy Christianly instead of using torture and murder? Tertullian dared them to show the records of Pilate. There were attempts by Celsus, Porphyry of Tyre, and Eusebius of Caesarea speaks of a forged work of Pilate. All these were easily disproved. The fact is we have no credible ancient tome refuting Christianity. Remember it didn't become legal until the Edict of Milan (312 A.D.). As to the claim they were destroyed, when the pagan philosophers were expelled to Persia, no credible tome was produced to refute Christianity. So I believe the argument from silence is strongest for Christianity.

Now, let us go to the positive evidence, we find throughout the ancient world churches that have a list of their leaders going back to the Apostles, all have the same four Gospels and letters of Paul with small scribble variations. Thus unlike the Gnostics and other heretics whose texts varied there is a basic uniformity. This argument was used in the ancient world by both Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian long before the Edict of Milan. These texts are found in Aramaic, Greek, Coptic (both Lower and Upper Egypt), Vetus Latin, and other ancient languages.

As to a forced canon the Aramaic Peshitta while having the four Gospels and letters of Paul, it doesn't have Revelation, II Peter, Jude, and I + II John. Thus disproving they were forced to accept any canon. While it might be difficult to go to all the ancient churches, you can go to or write a Bible society and ask about the ancient versions.

A final point to make, what would you consider about four witnesses that agreed on everything? Answer there was collusion. While the four Gospels agree on the main points Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, was buried, and rose again, people have been trying to reconcile minor points for centuries.

Harmonies have been written since early times. Tatian's is still extant and I have a translation in my library. All in all the debunkers shall continue to write books that disagree wildly among them selves, millions shall continue to believe the Gospel Truth. God Bless!

Pax Christi

Jim Sheffield


Note: As Porphyry of Tyre was unable to refute Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian of Carthage, I issue my little challenge.
Let's write four books telling about an imaginary person giving actual towns where you claim these events occurred claiming he was born of a virgin, preached in named towns, executed and rose from the dead and convince most of the known world that it is true writing these four books in the major languages as the Bible in ancient times is found in Aramaic, Greek, Coptic,Vetus Latin and other languages. It should be easier this time arround since the Romans used torture to get at the truth. Let's see if you can PROVE your fantasy of a hoax. The power of the Roman Empire couldn't disprove one jot or tittle of the four Gospels. I shall be waiting for YOUR PROOF. GOD bless!

A few years ago the bones of Caiaphas the high priest were found (cfr. Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1992, p. 38-44,76), but none of Jesus since He is risen. He is risen, indeed!


More articles on the subject (in Italian only) are available here.


Editor's note: Atheist author Cascioli claims that "to demonstrate that Christianity is a false religion it is enough just to report what St. Augustine wrote in 350 when it was considered heresy to affirm that the earth was round: 'If it could be shown that the earth is round, then Catholicism would be shown to be a mistake'".
In the past, having interpreted literally some poetic figures in the Bible (the "four corners of the earth", a reference to the four cardinal points), Catholicism taught that Earth was flat.
This is a mere religious interpretation, not a Biblical statement. In fact, the Bible in the book of Isaiah, which was written 8 centuries before Christ - much before Galileo, Giordano Bruno, modern science and any church - declares that God is "he who sits above the globe of the earth" (cfr. Isaiah 40:22; some translations render this verse as "the circle of the earth", but the original hebrew text, "hug ha arez", means "globe of the earth"). This is confirmed by another Bible verse, who says that God "hangs the earth upon nothing" (the gravity, cfr. Job 26:7).

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