Invitation Part 3: The New Testament

Last week I mentioned that, historically speaking, it's highly unlikely that Jesus' followers fabricated his divinity. More likely, they discovered the Son of God in their midst.

*********

This week, a simple argument: Palestinian Jews and their close associates were eyewitnesses of the Son of God, and they recorded their observations. They wrote down what they saw and experienced. 

That's our New Testament.

Catholic historian Luke Timothy Johnson notes that the creation of at least 27 distinct letters "which, despite their diversity of literary genre, social setting and theological perspective, have the same Jesus as their point of focus. . . . Such highly specific historical phenomena do not arise out of generalized social conditions, psychological laws or religious types. Their necessary and sufficient cause is the death and . . . exaltation of Jesus." *

What Professor Johnson is getting at is the remarkably unified, coherent portrait of Christ that emerges when one reads the entire New Testament. And here it should be remembered that the New Testament represents a collection of stories and letters composed by several authors, not merely a single book with a single writer. 

Critics often focus on the small percentage of difficult passages in the New Testament (and yes, there are some) but manage to ignore the broad unity therein. A time-honored principle of historical study is that when multiple sources point to the same conclusion, the probability of that conclusion being true increases significantly. 

I remember as a late-teenager when I opened myself to the possibility that Jesus was the Son of God -- that the history of his life was actually true. It was an "aha" moment for me, and when I embraced it, I never turned back.

Perhaps you, too, would consider believing in the Son of God.

* Beilby and Eddy, The Historical Jesus: Five Views, p91.

Part 2: An Invitation to Talk

Hi again. This post is written to seekers of God who are looking for reasons to back up their emerging faith.

It's also written to skeptics who peer into the Christian camp and seem to see only blind faith. My hope is to offer a small but reasonable argument that will put the question of the historical Jesus into perspective.

Thanks for entrusting a minute or two of your time to me.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It seems to me there are only two main possibilities* to explain Jesus Christ, the Son of God:

1. His 1st-century followers invented him.         Or:

2. He was the real thing.

A possible explanation for the "invention" of the Son of God is that he began as a specially enlightened man, and that his followers gradually elevated him to god-status as they looked back on his life.

After all, it's common for legends and myths to begin circulating and gaining momentum after the death of an illustrious figure. People want something to be true so badly that they make it so.

Heck, just look at Elvis. He's been "sighted" thousands of times, posthumously.

And in the case of Jesus, perhaps other ancient myths of dying and rising gods provided background fodder for the creation of the Christ-myth.

It all sounds plausible at first -- until, that is, we remember who was doing the inventing: 1st-century Palestinian Jews. They were strict monotheists -- that is, they believed in one God, the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh.

The one thing this group of Jews would never do is create another God (Jesus Christ) alongside Yahweh. There could not be two gods in Israel, at least not this Israel.

Christian historians make the case that 1st-century Palestinian Jews did not invent the Son of God, but rather discovered him in their midst, much to their surprise. **

********

If you are naturally skeptical toward the idea of Jesus being the Son of God, I understand. There's a lot at stake here. You don't want to act rashly. You don't want to believe in a fairy-tale.

Yet, I hope you'll consider the unlikelihood of Palestinian Jews of the time period inventing a "second god."



*There may be other remote possibilities as well: that Jesus was an extra-terrestrial being, a mass hallucination, an apparition -- all minor viewpoints.

** For a more extended treatment of 1st-century Jewish monotheism, see Eddy/Boyd, The Jesus Legend, ch 2.

An Invitation to Talk, Part 1

Hello. My name is Rick Mattson and I've been in college campus ministry with InterVarsity for over 30 years. See my profile at right, if you wish to know more.

My job these days in InterVarsity is to travel to campuses around the country, making a case for Christian faith. I'm what they call an "apologist," meaning, I try to make a convincing case for the Christian faith.

I have a book coming out later in the year (untitled, as of yet), and this series of posts will draw on my research and writing from that project.

So, if you are a "seeker" of Jesus or a skeptic of Christianity, I am writing to you.

First, then, welcome. I'm truly thankful you would take the time to read my posts.

To my thinking, the "Jesus" question is the greatest question in the world, because if the biblical accounts of his life are true, we all ought to pay attention.

If the accounts are not true, however, then I guess everything is up for grabs.

So I hope you'll enjoy thinking through the Jesus question -- and related questions -- with me. I am not a preachy Christian, and I think you'll find as you read that I respect you as a thoughtful person.

Each post is short -- about a one-minute read. Except this one, which is longer. Feel free to leave a comment at the end.

First Idea: Faith is like Skydiving. You look before you leap.

My wife Sharon tells me she plans to jump out of a plane one of these days. Not my thing. But I have promised to attend her post-jump funeral.

I jest. Anyway, according to the USPA*, somewhere around 99.99% of jumps are successful.

Still, there's no proof of future safety.

There's plenty of evidence of safety, such as the quality of the jumping gear, the experience of the pilot and the track record of the skydiving business -- none of which constitutes proof. At some point Sharon will still leap out an open hatch into thin air, no guarantees.

To my thinking, skydiving is a good analogy for Christian faith. Faith in Jesus is based on evidence and arguments, but not proof.

So where does that leave us?

If you're a seeker of Jesus (meaning, you're checking him out), you're probably OK with what I've said so far. You're looking at the reasons for Christian faith and you're intrigued by the possibilities.

If you're a skeptic, however, you probably have objections. One may be that you've never thought the words "evidence" and "faith" could appear in the same sentence.

I understand. You've probably been around Christians who just "have faith," and that's all there is to it. Not everyone is a philosophical thinker. Many are following the tradition of their upbringing, or they've had a significant conversion experience they look back on -- or they sense God working in their life each day.

You, understandably, don't want to adopt blind faith. 

You may be a person who wishes to live your life in a more scientific way -- by reason rather than faith. And here is where I wish to appeal to your best sensibilities. I want to simply invite you to consider that many (certainly not all) Christians do approach their faith from the standpoint of reason.

Myself? I would NEVER believe in Jesus (or anything else) if I thought the evidence and rationale for doing so was lacking. You'll just have to take my word on that.

So what is the evidence and rationale for Christian faith?  What are the "reasons"?

I'll write about that next week.

I normally post on Mondays, so if a friend forwarded this to you, you can ask them to continue that practice, or you can come directly to my blog at http://rickmattson.blogspot.com/ and read -- and interact, if you wish.

Thanks again for giving me the privilege of talking with you.


* USPA = United States Parachute Association http://www.uspa.org/
picture credit: 
http://parachutemobile.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/parachute_mobile_jim_pink2.jpg