Does the Christian God Exist

1. The Existence of Jesus: Almost all scholars in our age believe that Jesus was a real person (http://www.is-there-a-god.info...). There are many ancient historians (http://www.gotquestions.org...) that have written about him and we even have writings from the people that knew Jesus (The New Testament). You should have no doubt that Jesus was a real person. The famous historian Josephus for example stated that "Jesus was a wise teacher who was crucified by Pontius Pilate" In other words, we also have proof that Jesus was crucified. The Bible affirms all of this and even explains why Jesus' body went missing from the empty tomb. More on that later... Jesus claimed to be God and his friends and his brothers claimed that he was God. Josephus tells us that Jesus was a good teacher. But it is a mistake to believe that Jesus was only a good teacher. C.S. Lewis stated that "is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg; or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse." People of the time period indicate that Jesus was a good person and a good teacher...but you can't be these things if you are insane. Lets go back to the empty tomb. The historian Luke states (chapter 24) that the tomb was found empty by women. How did this happen? The best explanation(http://www.reasonablefaith.org...) is that Jesus was who he said he was and did in fact rise from the dead. People might claim that Jesus never died but this is silly considering that we know he was crucified and that he was buried. No one could survive that process. Others claim that the body never went missing which is ridiculous considering the Romans and the Jews could have merely shown Christians the body and then their faith would be destroyed. And on top of that, there are people such as the New Testament writers that claim they along with 500 other people saw Jesus after his death. Even the brothers of Jesus (who previously disbelieved in the deity of their brother) came to believe that Jesus was God. Think about that for a moment...what would it take for you to believe that your brother (if you have one) was God? Would it take a resurrection? Nevertheless they became Christians. Here are the specific sources that mention Jesus outside of the Bible... Tacitus wrote that "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...." Pliny wrote that "They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food " but food of an ordinary and innocent kind." The Babylonian Talmud says "On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald ... cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy." Lucian wrote that "The Christians ... worship a man to this day " the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.... [It] was impressed on 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." Source: http://www.bethinking.org... 2. New Testament Sources Again, the eye witnesses who wrote the four gospels (written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) also wrote that Jesus was killed on the cross and was missing three days later. But lets establish that the New Testament is a reliable source. a. There are precisely 5,686 New Testament documents (written in Greek) that we now have that are believed to have been written by the end of the first century. We even have a document written by John that was composed 29 years after the death of Jesus. And according to scholars, when these documents are compared to each other, and checked for accuracy, they are 99.5% accurate. This is really significant when speaking of ancient documents. There is really no doubt that we have the original information from the original documents. That said, we only have seven copies of Plato"s Tetralogies and they were composed over 1,000 years after his death and scholars still accept the documents as valid. There is also the fact that there are also over 19,000 New Testament documents that were written in Latin and in other languages. Therefore it is reasonable to say that we have the exact words that the people of the time period wrote about Jesus. b. People that the Bible mentioned have been proven to have existed: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org... John the Baptist for example was mentioned by the historian Josephus. And James, the brother of Jesus has also been confirmed outside of the Bible. The link at the bottom of this paragraph lists more people that have been confirmed outside of the Bible (including King Herod). Therefore, since the New Testament has many people that have been confirmed to have existed, we can conclude that the documents are historically accurate. Link: http://www.ucg.org... https://carm.org... c. Events in the Bible have been confirmed to have happened: http://www.christiananswers.net... The crucifixion of Jesus is an example of a real event recorded by Josephus (https://carm.org...). Then there is the fact the the New Testament mentions many Jewish events that still took place such as passover. All of these events are things that we know happened. And the Bible has been supported by archaeological findings: https://carm.org... Luke, for example, mentioned "thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities and nine islands without an error" (http://www.everystudent.com...). Then of course there is the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, Bethsaida, and etc..that have all been confirmed to have existed (). The point is that the Bible mentions real places which shows that it is historically reliable. So the Bible is a reliable source. The gospel writer Luke has around 80 confirmed facts proven in the book of Acts and I just could go on and on (John has 59). Therefore the information is accurate because it was written by real people who wrote about real people, real places, and about real events that took place. For example, when a person reads the gospel of Matthew, they are reading an eyewitness account of the events that took place. And because the document mentions real people, real places, real events, and details only an eyewitness would know...the source is reliable. There is no good reason to deny the reliability of the New Testament. Then there is the embarrassment factor. A good indicator of a source's reliability is that it mentions things that happened that were embarrassing. For example, the crucifixion of Jesus was something that was incredibly embarrassing for the early Christians and yet the gospel writers included it in their writings. These people worshiped Jesus as their God and it was horrible to see him murdered butt naked on a cross like some kind of criminal. Then there is the fact that the historian Luke records women discovering the empty tomb. Back then, the testimony of a women was not highly valued. It was embarrassing for Jesus" tomb to be discovered by women. Therefore the New Testament is reliable due to the embarrassing events that it mentions. In conclusion, it is reasonable to say that the New Testament is a reliable source because we know we have the original words of the author's, real people are mentioned, real places are mentioned, and because real events have been included in the New Testament. 3. Gospels show that Jesus raised from the dead proving that Jesus is God Matthew-https://www.biblegateway.com... Mark-https://www.biblegateway.com... Luke-https://www.biblegateway.com... John-https://www.biblegateway.com... Paul also has something to say about it-https://www.biblegateway.com... Since the existence of Jesus is a fact, since he clearly was crucified, and since his tomb was found empty, and since people of the time period say that he rose from the dead, Jesus is the Christian God and he most definitely exists.