The Case for the Real Jesus

by Lee Strobel

  Should people be free to pick and choose what they want to believe about Jesus? Obviously, we have the freedom to believe anything we want. But just because the U.S. Constitution provides equal protection for all religions doesn’t mean that all beliefs are equally true. Whatever we believe about Jesus cannot change the reality of who he clearly established himself to be: the unique Son of God. So why cobble together our own make-believe Jesus to try to fulfill our personal prejudices when we can meet and experience the actual Jesus of history and faith?

  FOLLOWING THE UNIQUE JESUS

  Not only had the six challenges been answered, but my journey also had yielded a fresh and powerful affirmative case for the overall reliability of the four Gospels, Jesus’ fulfillment of the messianic predictions, and his resurrection. For me, it was further confirmation that the traditional view of Christ is amply supported by a firm foundation of historical facts.

  Yet if that case is so convincing, then why do so many critics rely on flimsy evidence and feeble arguments in order to build a much weaker case for a fabricated Jesus? For instance, why would they ignore or denigrate the first-century, eyewitness-based Gospels of the New Testament and instead manufacture a different Jesus out of second century—or later—documents that lack historical credibility?

  It’s not always easy to discern people’s motives. Still, I can’t help but notice a common thread that runs through the efforts to discover another Jesus: many of them, in their own way, attempt to put humankind on the same level as him.

  Some critics try to accomplish this by reducing Jesus. They reject his uniqueness, his miracles, and his divinity, transforming him into just another human being. This is the tactic employed by the Jesus Seminar, advocates of the “copycat” theory, and the skeptics who deny the resurrection. It’s the message behind the Jesus Papers: Jesus never claimed to be God but only embodied God’s Spirit in a way that anyone can.

  Others take a different approach: rather than tearing Jesus down, they elevate themselves. In other words, they’re fine with affirming the divinity of Jesus—as long as they too are indwelled by the same spark of the divine. This seems to be the strategy of many New Agers and Gnostics, as well as the people who set out to create their own do-it-yourself religion, only to “discover”—as Ed and Joanne did—that they’re gods themselves.

  Whether reducing Jesus or elevating ourselves, the result is the same: Jesus becomes our equal. As such, he doesn’t deserve our allegiance or our worship. He cannot judge us or hold us accountable. His teachings become mere suggestions that can be followed or disregarded according to our whims. He isn’t our savior; at most, he’s a friendly guide.

  On the other hand, the one Jesus that skeptics refuse to tolerate is a uniquely divine, miraculous, prophecy-fulfilling, and resurrected Jesus—even if the historical evidence points persuasively in that direction. After all, that would put them in the place of being beholden to him. Their personal sovereignty and moral independence would be at risk. The problem is: that’s the real Jesus.

  We are not his equals. We don’t occupy the same stratum or possess the same status. He is God, and we’re not. For many people, that’s the crux of their predicament: if Jesus is God incarnate, then he could demand too much. And in fact, he does demand everything. Said C. S. Lewis:

  The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good…. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”18

  That kind of surrender sounds scary for many people. But if Jesus really is God—if he really did sacrifice himself so that we could be forgiven and set free to experience his love forever—then why should we hesitate to give all of ourselves to him? Who could be more trustworthy than someone who lays down his life so that others might live?

  This is what Jesus has done. The church has been telling this same story for two millennia. As I sat in my office, I found Evans’s words echoing in my mind: “I come down on the side of the church,” he declared. “Doggone it, bless their bones, I think they figured it out. They avoided errors and pitfalls to the left and to the right. I think the church got it right.”

  As imperfect as she is, the church has preserved for us the four Gospels that constitute the most reliable reports about Jesus. The church has formulated the ancient creeds that efficiently sum up the implications of his life and ministry: Jesus is fully God and fully man, who offers forgiveness, hope, and eternal life as a free gift to all who want to receive it.19

  As the church has affirmed from the beginning, he is utterly one of a kind. “Jesus was entirely different and new and stunning,” said author Don Everts.

  There was just something so clear and beautiful and true and unique and powerful about Jesus that old rabbis would marvel at his teaching, young children would run and sit in his lap, ashamed prostitutes would find themselves weeping at his feet, whole villages would gather to hear him speak, experts in the law would find themselves speechless, and people from the poor to the rugged working class to the unbelievably wealthy would leave everything…to follow him.20

  This is the real Jesus, who all along has been alive and well as he dwells in the lives of his people—the community whose door is always open.

  APPENDIX A

  A SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE FROM THE CASE FOR CHRIST

  Here is a summary of the historical evidence for Jesus Christ from thirteen experts who were interviewed for my book The Case for Christ:

  CAN THE BIOGRAPHIES OF JESUS BE TRUSTED?

  I once thought that the Gospels were merely religious propaganda, hopelessly tainted by overactive imaginations and evangelistic zeal. But Craig Blomberg of Denver Seminary, one of the country’s foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, built a convincing case that they reflect eyewitness testimony and bear the unmistakable earmarks of accuracy. So early are these accounts of Jesus’ life that they cannot be explained away as legendary inventions. “Within the first two years after his death,” Blomberg said, “significant numbers of Jesus’ followers seem to have formulated a doctrine of the atonement, were convinced that he had been raised from the dead in bodily form, associated Jesus with God, and believed they found support for all these convictions in the Old Testament.” A study indicates that there was nowhere enough time for legend to have developed and wiped out a solid core of historical truth.

  DO JESUS’ BIOGRAPHIES STAND UP TO SCRUTINY?

  Blomberg argued persuasively that the gospel writers intended to preserve reliable history, were able to do so, were honest and willing to include difficult-to-explain material, and didn’t allow bias to unduly color their reporting. The harmony among the Gospels on essential facts, coupled with divergence on some incidental details, lends historical credibility to the accounts. What’s more, the early church could not have taken root and flourished right there in Jerusalem if it had been teaching facts about Jesus that his own contemporaries could have exposed as exaggerated or false. In short, the Gospels were able to pass all eight evidential tests, demonstrating their basic trustworthiness as historical records.

  WERE JESUS’ BIOGRAPHIES RELIABLY PRESERVED FOR US?

  World-class scholar Bruce Metzger, professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, said that compared to other ancient documents, there is an unprecedented number of New Testament manuscripts and that they can be dated extremely close to the original writings. The modern New Testament is about 99 percent free of meaningful textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrine in doubt. The criteria used by the early church to determine which books should be considered authoritative have ensured that we possess the best records about Jesus.

  IS THERE CREDIBLE EVIDENCE FO
R JESUS OUTSIDE HIS BIOGRAPHIES?

  “We have better historical documentation for Jesus than for the founder of any other ancient religion,” said Edwin Yamauchi of Miami University, a leading expert on ancient history. Sources from outside the Bible corroborate that many people believed Jesus performed healings and was the Messiah, that he was crucified, and that despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed he was still alive, worshiped him as God. One expert documented thirty-nine ancient sources that corroborate more than one hundred facts concerning Jesus’ life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection. Seven secular sources and several early Christian creeds concern the deity of Jesus, a doctrine “definitely present in the earliest church,” according to Dr. Gary Habermas, the scholar who wrote The Historical Jesus.

  DOES ARCHAEOLOGY CONFIRM OR CONTRADICT JESUS’ BIOGRAPHIES?

  John McRay, a professor of archaeology for more than fifteen years and author of Archaeology and the New Testament, said there’s no question that archaeological findings have enhanced the New Testament’s credibility. No discovery has ever disproved a biblical reference. Further, archaeology has established that Luke, who wrote about one-quarter of the New Testament, was an especially careful historian. Concluded one expert: “If Luke was so painstakingly accurate in his historical reporting [of minor details], on what logical basis may we assume he was credulous or inaccurate in his reporting of matters that were far more important, not only to him but to others as well?” Like, for instance, the resurrection of Jesus—the event that authenticated his claim to being the unique Son of God.

  IS THE JESUS OF HISTORY THE SAME AS THE JESUS OF FAITH?

  Gregory Boyd, a Yale-and Princeton-educated scholar who wrote the award-winning Cynic Sage or Son of God, offered a devastating critique of the Jesus Seminar, a group that questions whether Jesus said or did most of what’s attributed to him. He identified the Seminar as “an extremely small number of radical-fringe scholars who are on the far, far left wing of New Testament thinking.” The Seminar ruled out the possibility of miracles at the outset, employed questionable criteria, and some participants have touted myth-riddled documents of extremely dubious quality. Further, the idea that stories about Jesus emerged from mythology fails to withstand scrutiny. Said Boyd: “The evidence for Jesus being who the disciples said he was…is just light years beyond my reasons for thinking that the left-wing scholarship of the Jesus Seminar is correct.” In sum, the Jesus of faith is the same as the Jesus of history.

  WAS JESUS REALLY CONVINCED HE WAS THE SON OF GOD?

  By going back to the very earliest traditions, which were unquestionably safe from legendary development, Ben Witherington III, author of The Christology of Jesus, was able to show that Jesus had a supreme and transcendent self-understanding. Based on the evidence, Witherington said: “Did Jesus believe he was the Son of God, the anointed one of God? The answer is yes. Did he see himself as the Son of Man? The answer is yes. Did he see himself as the final Messiah? Yes, that’s the way he viewed himself. Did he believe that anybody less than God could save the world? No, I don’t believe he did.” Scholars said that Jesus’ repeated reference to himself as the Son of Man was not merely a claim of humanity, but a reference to Daniel 7:13–14, in which the Son of Man is seen as having universal authority and everlasting dominion and who receives the worship of all nations. Said one scholar: “Thus, the claim to be the Son of Man would be in effect a claim to divinity.”

  WAS JESUS CRAZY WHEN HE CLAIMED TO BE THE SON OF GOD?

  Gary Collins, a professor of psychology for twenty years and author of forty-five books on psychology-related topics, said Jesus exhibited no inappropriate emotions, was in contact with reality, was brilliant and had amazing insights into human nature, and enjoyed deep and abiding relationships. “I just don’t see signs that Jesus was suffering from any known mental illness,” he concluded. In addition, Jesus backed up his claim to being God through miraculous feats of healing, astounding demonstrations of power over nature, unrivaled teaching, divine understanding of people, and with his own resurrection, which was the ultimate evidence of his deity.

  DID JESUS FULFILL THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD?

  While the incarnation—God becoming man, the infinite becoming finite—stretches our imaginations, prominent theologian D. A. Carson pointed out that there’s lots of evidence that Jesus exhibited the characteristics of deity. Based on Philippians 2, many theologians believe Jesus voluntarily emptied himself of the independent use of his divine attributes as he pursued his mission of human redemption. Even so, the New Testament specifically confirms that Jesus ultimately possessed every qualification of deity, including omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternality, and immutability.

  DID JESUS—AND JESUS ALONE—MATCH THE IDENTITY OF THE MESSIAH?

  Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah, or the Anointed One, who would redeem God’s people. In effect, dozens of these Old Testament prophecies created a fingerprint that only the true Messiah could fit. This gave Israel a way to rule out imposters and validate the credentials of the authentic Messiah. Against astronomical odds—by one estimate, one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion—Jesus, and only Jesus throughout history, matched this prophetic fingerprint. This confirms Jesus’ identity to an incredible degree of certainty. The expert I interviewed on this topic, Louis Lapides, is an example of someone raised in a conservative Jewish home and who came to believe Jesus is the Messiah after a systematic study of the prophecies. Today, he’s a pastor of a church in California and former president of a national network of fifteen messianic congregations.

  WAS JESUS’ DEATH A SHAM, AND HIS RESURRECTION A HOAX?

  By analyzing the medical and historical data, Dr. Alexander Metherell, a physician who also holds a doctorate in engineering, concluded Jesus could not have survived the gruesome rigors of crucifixion, much less the gaping wound that pierced his lung and heart. In fact, even before the crucifixion he was in serious to critical condition and suffering from hypovolemic shock as the result of a horrific flogging. The idea that he swooned on the cross and pretended to be dead lacks any evidential basis. Roman executioners were grimly efficient, knowing that they themselves would face death if any of their victims were to come down from the cross alive. Even if Jesus had somehow lived through the torture, his ghastly condition could never have inspired a worldwide movement based on the premise that he had gloriously triumphed over the grave.

  WAS JESUS’ BODY REALLY ABSENT FROM HIS TOMB?

  William Lane Craig, who has earned two doctorates and written several books on the Resurrection, presented striking evidence that the enduing symbol of Easter—the vacant tomb of Jesus—was a historical reality. The empty grave is reported or implied in extremely early sources—Mark’s Gospel and a creed in 1 Corinthians 15—which date so close to the event that they could not possibly have been products of legend. The fact that the Gospels report that women discovered the empty tomb bolsters the story’s authenticity, because women’s testimony lacked credibility in the first century and thus there would have been no motive to report they found the empty tomb if it weren’t true. The site of Jesus’ tomb was known to Christians, Jews, and Romans, so it could have been checked by skeptics. In fact, nobody—not even the Roman authorities or Jewish leaders—ever claimed that the tomb still contained Jesus’ body. Instead, they were forced to invent the absurd story that the disciples, despite having no motive or opportunity, had stolen the body—a theory that not even the most skeptical critic believes today.

  WAS JESUS SEEN ALIVE AFTER HIS DEATH ON THE CROSS?

  The evidence for the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus didn’t develop gradually over the years as mythology distorted memories of his life. Rather, said renowned resurrection expert Gary Habermas, his resurrection was “the central proclamation of the early church from the very beginning.” The a
ncient creed from 1 Corinthians 15 mentions specific individuals who encountered the risen Christ, and Paul, in effect, challenged first-century doubters to talk with these individuals personally to determine the truth of the matter for themselves. The book of Acts is littered with extremely early affirmations of Jesus’ resurrection, while the Gospels describe numerous encounters in detail. Concluded British theologian Michael Green: “The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity…. There can be no rational doubt that they occurred.”

  ARE THERE ANY SUPPORTING FACTS THAT POINT TOWARD THE RESURRECTION?

  Professor J. P. Moreland presented circumstantial evidence that provided strong documentation for the resurrection. First, the disciples were in a unique position to know whether the resurrection happened, and they went to their deaths proclaiming it was true. Nobody knowingly and willingly dies for a lie. Second, apart from the resurrection, there’s no good reason why such skeptics as Paul and James would have been converted and would have died for their faith. Third, within weeks of the crucifixion, thousands of Jews became convinced Jesus was the Son of God and began following him, abandoning key social practices that had critical sociological and religious importance for centuries. They believed they risked damnation if they were wrong. Fourth, the early sacraments of communion and baptism affirmed Jesus’ resurrection and deity. And fifth, the miraculous emergence of the church in the face of brutal Roman persecution “rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of Resurrection,” as C. F. D. Moule put it.