I was in conversation with a friend who was telling me about some Victorian queen and her reign: how she overthrew the king and took the country for herself. I asked how they knew all this to which the reply was “I read it in a book; I have a lot of books on this topic.”
As the conversation continued, mentioning kings and queens, it shifted to Jesus and the Bible. How the subject switched to Jesus I still don’t know but that’s the topic we landed on. The same person who told me they read all these historical facts in this book about a queen, said “You can’t believe everything you read; the Bible is just a book and Jesus is just a made-up character.” I’m pretty sure my jaw hit the floor as my brain was bending over that absurd comment (considering I was just bored to death about this queen who clearly needed to read the Bible more). We can so easily believe that a queen poisoned her husband, beheaded the help, and loved dogs. But we cannot believe that Jesus was a REAL Person who is not just mentioned in the Bible but also in history?
Although the Bible is the foundation of Jesus, there are supporting historical accounts from Jewish AND Roman historians that mention Jesus. Josephus, a Jewish historian, writes: “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds… He was the Messiah.”
Tacitus, a Roman historian, wrote about Nero’s persecution of Christians and mentioned Jesus’ execution by Pontius Pilate. “Christus, from whom the name “Christians” had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”
Not to mention all the archeological sites that are described in the Bible. For example, the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-8,) where Jesus healed a paralyzed man; they found that pool and it is exactly as described in the Bible.
The tomb that held Jesus, which originally belonged to Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-60), was discovered. It’s still empty, by the way.
Luke says in chapter 1:3-4 (NIV): “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, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”
Jesus is not a made-up character. He was and is a real person, who embodied God and the Holy Spirit. He sacrificed for you and me so that one day we can call heaven home. Jesus did the unthinkable for the ungrateful. That book is the foundation for creation and the greatest love story ever told.
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