2.1 Was Jesus the Real Deal?

There is nothing more fascinating than the Ancient World. It is so mysterious and intriguing that many will travel halfway across the globe just to explore it, and this Irish guy is no different! We’re curious to find out the truth about these vanished communities like the ancient Greeks and the Romans and most famous of all, The pharaohs of Egypt! Although they are gone their stories and their relics still remain and their stories will continue to be told as long as humans are on the earth. What rivals their fame is an ancient figure who is still being investigated by millions of people today, Jesus Christ. But I’m conscious that as I stand here in what many consider to be the centre of the world that His history is not as trusted as the pharaohs of old and is disputed by many. The religions of our world have different stories about Jesus Christ and so the responsibility is on us to explore and decide the truth about Him for ourselves. The ancient Egyptian carvings that we can see with our own eyes are credible Because we know that they are depictions of ancient life from eyewitnesses who were there at that time. The same I believe has to be true of Jesus Christ, from all the historical records we have of Jesus, the most verifiable and credible evidence is from the eyewitnesses that were closest to Him. I think the Egyptian eyewitnesses are similar to the eyewitnesses of Jesus Because they never would have thought that their accounts would be investigated by millions or, that 2,000 years later, that their accounts would still be read and become part of the bestselling book of all time! They were just writing them down for their friends and for local communities who wanted to know more. and these short books are known as the ‘Gospels’ which just means ‘good news’ and they were written by four people, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There’s a common question about these books, and in fact, the Bible ‘Is what we read in our Bible today the exact same as what it would have been 2,000 years ago and can it be trusted?’ because there’s a common critique of Christianity that the source writings about Jesus were altered due to whatever agenda the early Christians may have had. So can we trust them? Well, historians look for a number of things when deciding if an ancient piece of writing is reliable or not. They’ll ask questions like: How soon was it written after the actual events? How many copies of the history do we have, and are they accurate? Are there records from eyewitness testimonies? Take Alexander The Great, one of the most famous conquerors of the ancient world. He was born 300 years before Jesus, however the only surviving accounts were written at least 300 years after his death. Two were written by historians Arrian and Plutarch who, obviously, did not know Alexander or anyone from that century. But, despite the time gap, we generally accept their histories as the most reliable sources on him, because none of the original accounts, written while he lived, have survived. We’ve all heard of the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, born July 100 BC, but the interesting thing is that in the 1000 years after his death, we know of only 20 copies of the account of his life. Despite the tiny amount of information we have available to us, we take these accounts as history. And to be clear I’m not saying that these accounts shouldn’t be taken seriously! Now, here’s the interesting thing. Based on historical accuracy, there is more reason to believe the accounts of Jesus than that of Alexander The Great or Caesar. The original documents were written down just after Jesus’ life, some within just 30 years, and there were still eyewitnesses around who could confirm the details. And when it comes to relying on the accuracy of copying, we have more than 5,000 ancient manuscripts that contain part or all of the New Testament... and that’s just in Greek! We have over 8,000 copies in Latin and then 9,000 in many other languages and it was all done within 300 years of Jesus’ death, compare that to the mere 20 copies we have of Caesar’s history after 1000 years. So when it comes to historical record, I think Jesus is in a league of his own. His story went viral and it happened within a generation. Not bad for the child of an unwed refugee peasant living in an obscure corner of the world’s greatest empire. So if we accept that the accounts of Alexander The Great & Julius Caesar are historical reliable sources, should we not then be willing to accept the historical accounts of Jesus?