In order to determine if God exists you must look at history for evidence. Jesus is recognized as a historical figure by most objective scholars. Since Jesus claimed he was God if you prove that Jesus existed then you have proven that God exists.
There is plenty of evidence both biblical and non-biblical that attest that Jesus was a historical figure. He is mentioned in the writings of Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Justin Martyr and Suetonius as well as others. These historians had no reason to believe Jesus was made up and corroborate portions of the New Testament. Jesus has been written about more than any other human being in the history of civilization. The Christian movement, despite severe persecution in its infancy, survived due to the conviction that Jesus was who he claimed to be, and many early Christians were martyred for their faith. No one refuses to recant their beliefs in the face of execution unless they are fully convinced that what they believe to be truth is true.
Within the Bible, there are 356 Old Testament prophecies foretelling the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It has been calculated that in order for just 8 of these prophecies to be fulfilled in any one man, the odds are one chance in ten to the power of 17. To illustrate this number, it would be the same as covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep, marking one coin and tossing it into the mass and mixing the whole mass thoroughly. Then blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wants to but he must pick up one coin and say this is the one. That is only the odds of just 8 of the 356 prophecies. For all of them to be fulfilled in one man due to chance alone, the odds are one chance in ten to the power of 60. This number is so infinitesimal that it is nearly impossible to illustrate. Yet all of these prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
Jesus remains to be God’s proof that he not only exists but that the Bible is his word. Furthermore, the fact that Jesus appeared to more than five hundred people after his resurrection is proof that he rose from the dead. If that doesn’t convince you that God is who he claims to be then you will not believe any amount of evidence supporting his existence.
There are many who believe that Jesus was a historical figure but deny that he was the Messiah and say that he was just a good teacher or simply a prophet. However, if you examine what Jesus said about himself you will see clearly that he claimed to be God and that he alone was the way and the truth and the life. His radical teaching drew condemnation from the religious establishment which ultimately crucified him for blasphemy. So it is nonsensical to conclude that he was just a good teacher or simply a prophet. He either was who he claimed or he was a complete lunatic.
The Bible is the most authenticated ancient document in the history of civilization. It has more manuscripts and more accurate manuscripts than any other ancient writing. For example, Plato’s known work consists of 210 manuscripts with the earliest written 1200 years after the events. Aristotle’s works are validated by 1000 manuscripts dated 1200 years afterward. Homer’s Lliad, boasts 1757 manuscripts dated 400 years after. Even more recent writings, such as The Travels of Marco Polo between AD 1298 – AD 1299, with only 150 copies in existence, are considered to be authentic. The New Testament alone has over 25,000 known manuscripts, dated as early as 25 years after Jesus’s crucifixion. If the Bible is held to the same standards as other ancient documents, its authenticity is without question.
Jewish historian Flavius Josephus AD 37-AD 101 wrote in his 20 volume book Antiquities of the Jews, in book 18 chapter three, “Now about this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, for he was a teacher of people who gladly accept the truth. He won over both many Jews and Greeks. Pilate, when he heard of him accused by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross (but) those who had first loved him did not cease (doing so). To this day the tribe of Christians named after him has not disappeared.”
Josephus also recorded the meeting of Alexander the Great and the high priest Jaddua in 332 BC. After defeating the coastal cities of Tyre and Gaza, Alexander arrived at Jerusalem and was met outside the city. When the high priest showed him the book of Daniel and the prophecy that a Greek would conquer Persia, Alexander surmised himself as the Greek, spared Jerusalem and went on to defeat Darius and the Persian empire. The book of Daniel was written several centuries before Alexander’s campaign.
Phlegon of Tralles was a Greek writer from the second century. His work is quoted by Origen of Alexandria, considered one of the most influential early Christian theologians. He wrote, “Noe Phlegon, in the 13th or 14th book, I think, of his chronicles, not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events…. but also testified that the result corresponded with his perdictions.” He quoted as well, “Jesus, while alive, was of no assistance to himself, but that he rose after death, and exhibited the marks of his punishment, and showed his hands and feet had been pierced by nails.”
Thallus, an early Greek historian, most of whose work has been lost, has been quoted by Sextus Julius Africanus in his History of the World. Around AD 52, he wrote about the earthquake and darkness that occurred when Christ was crucified. “On the whole world there pressed the most fearful darkness, and the rocks were rent by an earthquake and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness, Thallus, in the third book of his history, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.”
Jesus was crucified at Passover. His last supper was the feast of the Passover. In Mathew 26:18, Jesus sends Peter and John ahead to get the Passover meal ready, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘the teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.'” The Jewish month always began with a new moon feast and the Passover was held on the 14th day of the first month (Leviticus 23:5). That would mean the Passover took place near or on a full moon, based on the 29.5 day moon cycle. A full moon is never visible during the afternoon therefore, the darkness could not have been caused by an eclipse of the sun. Africanus was correct in his logic that this was something more. It was a supernatural darkness, initiated by God himself.
Roman historian and senator Publius Cornelius Tacitus referred to Jesus in book 15 chapter 44 of Annals which he wrote in AD 116. In reference to the fire of Rome he wrote, “Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievious superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful find their center and become popular.
Justin Martyr, in his first apology written around AD 150, defended Christians against wrongful persecution and punishment by the Roman Empire. Since the monotheistic views of Christians (and Jews as well) contradicted the Roman belief of many gods, they were considered atheists by the state and convicted of failing to worship the Roman gods. What makes Justin Martyr’s writing significant is the fact that he references the New Testament, proving its existence as a Christian document only 120 years after Christ. In chapter XV “What Christ Himself Taught” he cites the Sermon on the Mount with several quotes of Jesus. He then goes on to reference Jesus through the next four chapters quoting him on subjects including patience and obedience.
Pliny the Younger was a Roman Governor who, in letters to Emperor Trajan, describes his frustration with Christians while sentencing them to punishment, including execution. In one letter he writes, “I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed.” The horrific treatment of Christians by the Roman Empire was atrocious as the Romans inflicted cruelty in ways our imaginations cannot fathom.
Skeptics often raise the issue that there were several gospels and that not all were canonized therefore the New Testament gospels are lacking truth and that the gospels were anonymous and cannot be considered reliable. One must consider the reason that some were not considered for the canon of scripture before condemning the four gospels of the Bible.
The apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatian church gives evidence that there were false gospels in existence within a couple of decades of the crucifixion. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.” Galatians 1:6-7. Therefore it is no surprise that not all gospels were chosen to be canonized.
The following quotes attest to the authorship of the gospels:
Tertullian of Carthage (160-225), “I lay it down to begin with that the documents of the gospel have the apostles for their authors, and that this task of promulgating the gospel was imposed on them bt the Lord himself…. In short, from among the apostles, John and Matthew implant in us the faith, while from among the apostolic men Luke and Mark reaffirm it.” Clement of Alexandria (150-215), “Mark, the follower of Peter, while Peter was publicly preaching the gospel at Rome in the presence of some of Ceasar’s knights and uttering many testimonies about Christ, on their asking him to let them have a record of the, things that had been said, wrote the Gospel of Mark from the things said by Peter, just as Luke is recognized as the pen that wrote the Acts of the Apostles and as the translator of the letter of Paul to the Hebrews.” Irenaeus of Lyons (130-200), “Matthew also issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul recorded in a book the gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast did himself publish a gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.”
Papias of Hierapolis (125 AD, recorded in Eusebius 3:39) “So then, Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and everyone interpreted them as he was able. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said and done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.”
Muratorian fragment (175 AD) “The third book of the gospel is that according to Luke. Luke, the well known physician, after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken with him as one zealous for the law, composed it in his own name, according to the general belief. Yet he himself had not seen Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as he was able to ascertain events, so indeed he begins to tell the story from the birth of John, (one) of the disciples.”
If skeptics applied the same standards to the Bible and other ancient documents the Bible stands up to scrutiny as good or better than any other ancient writing. The double standard of looking for perfection in biblical texts while accepting errors in other ancient writing is pure hypocrisy. For example, there are plenty of accusations that the Bible is filled with errors. However when you examine the texts, these errors consist of differences in spelling, word order or the relationship between noun and definite articles. These are slight variations that are easily recognized. After factoring out these minor differences there is a 95% agreement between all known manuscripts of the Bible. Of the remaining variants none affects any crucial element or teaching of the Christian faith. I would submit that it is of much grater importance to have texts that differ slightly in wording but maintain a consistent context and message than to have identical texts that have lost the original intent.
Many would like to see some sort of object that has Jesus’s image or his name written on it yet the abundance of archeological evidence supporting the Bible as historical is dismissed. This hypocritical reasoning presumptuously pronounces a guilty verdict until proven innocent for Jesus’s historicity while assuming innocence until proven guilty for other ancient persons. In 2004, while doing repairs to a sewage pipe in Jerusalem, ancient steps were discovered. Coins found with them dated to the time of Christ, and further excavation revealed a trapezoid shaped reservoir connected by Hezekiah’s tunnel to the Gihon Spring (2 Chronicles 32:30). This discovery proved to be the Pool of Siloam. In John 9, Jesus heals a blind man and instructs him to “wash in the Pool of Siloam.” (John 9:7). The Pool of Siloam is also mentioned in Nehemiah 3:15 when Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. Also discovered was an inscription in the stone marking the completion of Hezekiah’s tunnel. The rock containing the inscription was removed during the Ottoman Empire and is now in the Istanbul Archeological Museum.
The Pilate stone eas discovered in Caesarea Maritima in 1961 and contains an inscription mentioning Pontius Pilate, prefect of the Roman province of Judea. It is recognized as the earliest surviving reference to Pilate and is dated AD 26 -AD 36. Caesarea Maritima was the administrative and military headquarters of the province, beginning in AD 6. It is significant because it confirms the historicity of Pontius Pilate as governor at the time of Christ’s crucifixion which supports the biblical account. The Pilate stone is currently on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
In 1979, two silver scrolls containing parts of the “Priestly Blessings” from the book of Numbers, were found in a cave south west of the Old City of Jerusalem at the Ketef Hinnom archeological site. They constitute what may be the oldest surviving texts of the Hebrew Bible and date 650 BC -587 BC. The well known benediction translated from Hebrew to English is:
May Yahweh bless you and keep you;
May Yahweh cause his face to shine upon you and grant you peace.
The Shroud of Turin is another convincing artifact that has been tested and dated by more than one method. In 2015, a vanillin test, two spectroscopic analyses and compressibility and breaking strength tests were conducted on the shroud resulting in a “midpoint average of AD 50 (plus or minus 200 years) with a 96% confidence level. Additionally, four types of external evidence place the shroud’s origin in 1st century Judea. First, pollen grains unique to Judea were found on it. Second, Roman coins on the eyes of the image – minted by Pontius Pilate in AD 29 in Judea. Thirdly, correlations with the Sudarium Christi (Facecloth of Christ), which has similar pollen grains, 124 exact matches to wounds on the shroud and the same AB blood type.(This artifact has been documented back to AD 600 proving the shroud isn’t a medieval forgery). And finally the reflectance spectrometry showed dirt on the knee, heel and nose containing travertine aragonite, a rare type of limestone identical to that found in Judea.
The research shows that sometime after the blood deposits had dried on the Shroud, the decomposing body emitted a short, intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation that led to a dehydration and discoloration of the frontal and dorsal parts of the Shroud, giving rise to a perfect photographic negative image. As well, the research “suggests that the body inside the Shroud became mechanically transparent and emitted light evenly from every 3-dimensional point within it. This allowed the frontal part of the Shroud to collapse – creating an image (of both inside and outside of the hands) as well as a double image on the frontal part of the Shroud.”
These tests prove that the image on the Shroud was not formed by dyes, chemicals, vapors or scorching as well as by brush strokes. The Shroud has been under lock and key since 1349. There are no other explanations or postulations regarding the Shroud of Turin, indicating its authenticity as well as the authenticity and historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible.
If the Bible was held to the same standards as other ancient documents it is clearly the most authenticated ancient document in the history of civilization. Jesus’s historicity is equally authentic and is proven by what is written about him considering the reliability of the writers, the timeliness of their writing and the abundance of it. No other person in human history is more authenticated than Christ.
