Thursday, April 27, 2017

Christian Essentials The Evidence



What evidence do we have to support Christianity?
God never asked us to take a blind leap of faith.
We are not to shut off our minds to be Christians. On the contrary we have been given tons of evidence and multiple lines of logical rational proofs. 

 Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)
1  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 


 Acts 1:3 (NASB)
3  To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 
Why was Jesus born at that time and place in  history.
Ephesians 1:10 (NKJV) …......... that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth--in Him. 


God waited till the Romans constructed their massive road system.  The Romans used it to move their legions from one territory to another and to bring goods and wealth to Rome. 
Genesis 50:20 (ESV)
20  As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 
The Romans used their system of roads to dominate and suppress the nations while God was going to use these same roads to spread the Gospel. A few hundred years earlier and the news of the Gospel would have been impossible to transmit across the world as it was during the time of the apostles and early church. 


The Septuagint (also known as the LXX) is a translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language. The name “Septuagint” comes from the Latin word for seventy. The tradition is that 70 (or 72) Jewish scholars were the translators behind the Septuagint.
The Septuagint was translated in the third and second centuries B.C. in Alexandria, Egypt. As Israel was under the authority of Greece for several centuries, the Greek language became more and more common. By the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C., most people in Israel spoke Greek as their primary language. That is why the effort was made to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek – so that those who did not understand Hebrew could have the Scriptures in a language they could understand. The Septuagint represents the first major effort at translating a significant religious text from one language into another.

God waited till after Alexander the Great conquered the known world during the 4th century BC and brought Hellenistic culture and the Greek language to most of the conquered nation. As Greek became the language of commerce and business most people in Israel no longer spoke or understood Hebrew and had some knowledge of Greek. With the translation of the Old Testament, into Greek, the Septuagint, the bible was now available to the common people.  
Is there anything in the Old Testament telling us any details about Jesus the Messiah.


In approximately 700 B.C. the prophet Micah named the tiny village of

Bethlehem as the birthplace of Israel’s Messiah:

Micah 5:2 (NKJV)
2  "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting."

The fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Christ is one of the most widely known and widely celebrated facts in history. In fact since their were 2 Bethlehem's in Israel God specifically identifies Bethlehem Ephrathah to distinguish it from Bethlehem in the northern area of Zebulun.

John 7:42 (ESV)
42  Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”

 Matthew 2:1 (NIV) 
1  After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 

A very unique and specific type of birth was prophesied for the Messiah.

Isaiah 7:14 (NASB)  "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.
Matthew 1:20-23 (NASB)   But when he had considered this, behold, an angel
of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.  "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:  "BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL," which translated means, "GOD WITH US."

Jesus as a boy would be taken to Egypt to escape the murder of the babies by
the evil King Herod.


Hosea 11:1 (NASB) When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.

Matthew 2:14-15 (NASB) So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. 15 He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my Son."
In the fifth century B.C. the prophet  Zechariah declared that the Messiah would be betrayed for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver, according to Jewish law-and also that this money would be used to buy a burial ground
for Jerusalem’s poor foreigners.
Zechariah 11:12-13 (NKJV)
Then I said to them, "If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain." So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter"--that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter. 

Bible writers and secular historians both record thirty pieces of silver as the sum paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus, and they indicate that the money went to purchase a “potter’s field,” used—just as predicted—for the burial of poor aliens (Matthew 27:3-10).
 Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, …… Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and
departed, and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests took the silver pieces …………and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 



Some 400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel’s King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah’s death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion.
Psalm 22:16    ……….They pierced my hands and my feet.

Zechariah 12:10  …………….so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced……

Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.

Psalm 34:20  
He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken.



Isaiah 53:12  ……………. And was numbered with the transgressors…….


Matthew 27:38 At that time two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left.





In 518 B.C. Zechariah wrote that Jesus the Messiah would enter Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt .

Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.



Matthew 21:6-7 
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey And the colt and put on them Their cloaks, and he sat on them.







Jesus would be betrayed by a friend. 

Psalm 41:9 Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.

John 13:18  “I do not speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me.’






Isaiah writing between 701-681 BC

Isaiah 53:3 (NASB)  He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Matthew 22:15 (ESV)  Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.

Mark 11:18 (MSG) The high priests and religion scholars heard what was
going on and plotted how they might get rid of him.

Mark 2:16 (NKJV)  And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, "How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?"


 Psalm 22:18 They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.

Matthew 27:35  
 After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. 








The Messiah would be buried in a rich man’s tomb.

Isaiah 53:9  His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

Matthew 27:57-60  When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. …………………… And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,  and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and
he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away. 


The bible has over 100 prophesies concerning the life of Jesus Christ.
What are the odds?  

Consider 48 prophecies and we find the chance that any one man fulfilled all 48 prophecies to be 1 in 10 to the 157th power, or 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

The estimated number of electrons in the universe is around 10 to the 79th power. It should be quite evident that Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies by accident. 
Mathematicians say that anything that has odds more than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is virtually impossible.






Daniel 9:25-27 (NKJV) 
  "Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times. 26  "And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined. 27  Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate."

Nehemiah 2:1-8 (NKJV) 
And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes………..5  And I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it." ……………………
7  Furthermore I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the River, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah, 8  and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy." And the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my God upon me.



One of the titles given to Daniel was Rab-mag, the Chief of the Magi.

Daniel 4:9 (KJV) O Daniel (Belteshazzar), master of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troubleth thee, tell me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and the interpretation thereof. 
•
Daniel 5:11 (KJV)   There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the
holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers; 


Matthew 2:1-12 (NASB)
1  Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,  2  "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.“…………………….. 7  Then Herod secretly called the magi and determined from them the exact time the star appeared. ……………………….10  When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11  After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12  And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the magi left for their own country by another way.

Maybe the bible was corrupted and these prophesies were added later by Christians to support their myth of Jesus.





Ok is there any non biblical evidence to support the existence of Jesus and the spread of his followers?



It is a fairly well-established fact that Jesus Christ was publicly executed in Judea in the 1st Century A.D., under Pontius Pilate, by means of crucifixion, at the behest of the Jewish Sanhedrin. The non-Christian historical accounts of Flavius Josephus, Cornelius Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, Maimonides and even the Jewish Sanhedrin corroborate the early Christian eyewitness accounts of these important historical aspects of the death of Jesus Christ.



Thallus (52AD)
Thallus is perhaps the earliest secular writer to mention Jesus tried to explain away the darkness occurring at Jesus’ crucifixion:
“On the whole world there pressed a 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.”
 (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18:1)  

In the year 93, Jewish historian Josephus published his lengthy history of the Jews. While discussing the period in which the Jews of Judaea were governed by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, Josephus included the following account:  

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was
good, and  he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive;  FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS Antiquities of the Jews 18:63:


Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus  wrote:
Nero fastened the guilt . . . 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 Tiberius at the hands of . . . Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even
in Rome. . . .




Lucian, the Greek satirist, wrote this rather scathing attack in The Death of Peregrine circa AD 170:
The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day - the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that
account... You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed upon them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws


The Talmud is essentially the collection of Jewish oral traditions that were put into writing with additional commentary between the years of AD 70 and 200. From the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a includes:
On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshua………. because he practiced sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray. Anyone who knows anything in his favor, let him come and plead in his behalf.' But, not having found anything in his favor, they hanged him on the eve of the Passover.









How did the resurrection of Jesus Christ affect the ancient world?

John 20:19 (ESV)  On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, ………………

Something dramatic happened to change the  disciples from afraid to being bold witnesses.







1 Corinthians 15:3-8 (ESV)
 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5  and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8  Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 



Acts 2:1,4 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place…….. 4  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:5-6 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. ……..each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 








Acts 2:9-12 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10  Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11  both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 


Acts 2:14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them……….. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and

the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins,and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

Acts 2:41  So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Acts 2:47 ………..And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.


Acts 4:4 However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. 


Christian Persecution: Many of the Early Disciples Died for their Faith

Christian persecution was a dramatic part of early church history. For anyone who holds that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a man-made hoax conspired by a group of disciples should check out the legacy of martyrdom. Eleven of the 12 apostles, and many of the other early disciples, died for their adherence to this story. This is dramatic, since they all witnessed the alleged events of Jesus and still went to their deaths defending their faith. Why is this dramatic, when many throughout history have died martyred deaths for a religious belief? Because people don’t die for a lie. Look at human nature throughout history. No conspiracy can be maintained when life or liberty is at stake. Dying for a belief is one thing, but numerous eye-witnesses dying for a known lie is quite another.

•Matthew - killed by stabbing as ordered by King Hircanus
•James, son of Alphaeous - crucified
•James, brother of Jesus - thrown down from a height, stoned and then beaten to death at the hands of Ananias (circa AD 66)
•John - tortured by boiling oil, exiled to Patmos in AD 95
•Mark - burned during Roman emperor Trajan's reign
•Peter - crucified upside-down by the gardens of Nero on the Vatican hill circa AD 64
•Andrew - crucified on an "X" shaped cross by Aegeas, governor of the Edessenes, around AD 80
•Philip - stoned and crucified in Hierapolis, Phrygia
•Simon - crucified in Egypt under Trajan's reign
•Thomas - death by spear thrust in Calamina, India
•Thaddaeous - killed by arrows
•James, son of Zebedee - killed by sword in AD 44 by order of King Herod Agrippa I of Judea
•Bartholomew - beaten, flayed alive, crucified upside down, then beheaded 







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