John Stonestreet.
Ah,
springtime. Flowers blooming, birds singing, and articles questioning the
historicity of Jesus hitting the newsstands.
Insurance
company Geico has done a lot of funny commercials, but our editor at BreakPoint
has a favourite. A group of
teenagers are running through a dark forest being chased by a killer. After
debating whether to hide in the basement, the attic or make a quick getaway in
the nearby running car, they decide to hide behind dozens of chainsaws dangling
from a barn door.
"When
you're in a horror movie, you make poor decisions," says the narrator. "It's
what you do."
And
this week I found myself paraphrasing: "When you're CNN, you publish annual
articles suggesting Jesus never existed. It's what you do."
Every
year around March and December, this and other news outlets
exhume the long-dead thesis that the New Testament is based on a mythological
figure, not a Man who really lived, died, and rose from the grave two-thousand
years ago. This year, CNN
even republished
an article from 2012 at CNN.com. In the piece, entitled, "Decoding
Jesus: Separating Man from Myth," John Blake suggests that Christ's historical
existence is an open question. CNN featured it at the top of their homepage as
part of the push for their new series, "Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact,
Forgery."
Blake
quotes the likes of Timothy Freke, author of "Jesus Mysteries" and former
Baptist pastor Robert Price, author of "Deconstructing Jesus," who both claim
that the Gospels are forgeries or misunderstood allegories, and that the story
of Jesus was copied from legends about pagan deities.
"In
the age of the Internet and self-publishing," writes Blake, "these arguments
have gained enough traction that some of the world's leading New Testament
scholars feel compelled to publicly take them on."
Now
let me be clear: This is the very definition of fake news: No credible historian
believes Jesus is a myth. Even among skeptics of religion, that theory has been
abandoned. None other than Bart Ehrman, the agnostic biblical scholar and fierce
critic of the New Testament, calls Jesus-deniers Internet conspiracy theorists
trying to sell books, and compares them to Holocaust-deniers.
Dominic
Crossan, another scholar who would never pass for an evangelical apologist, says
he's "certain" that Christ existed, and chalks up alternative theories to
disdain for the Prince of Peace. Keep in mind, neither Ehrman or Crosson would
affirm anything historically Christian, such as that Jesus was not just a man
but God — that He performed miracles, died for the sins of the world, and rose
from the dead for our justification. But if anything, this fact makes their
agreement on His existence even more powerful, not less.
On
this issue, they represent the broad consensus among scholars that Christianity
began with the life and death of a real and extraordinary Man. Of course, we
Christians don't believe that's all there was to it. But when our neighbors tell
us over the backyard fence that they've watched a documentary or read an article
claiming Jesus is a myth, we have to be able to respond gently but
confidently.
Even
ancient writers hostile to Christianity like Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny the
Younger, confirm the existence of a Man from Nazareth who preached throughout
Galilee and Judea, ran afoul of the authorities, was crucified under Pontius
Pilate, and sparked what would eventually become the world's largest
religion.
And
let's not forget the New Testament itself, manuscript fragments of which date to
the early second century. Ravi Zacharias, who's speaking at our Wilberforce
Weekend in May, points out that the evidence
for the life and words of Jesus is stronger than the evidence for Plato. Classicist
Michael Grant sums it up best when he writes that "we can no more reject
Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages
whose reality as historical figures is never questioned."
Look,
though many scholars who affirm Jesus' existence still reject the supernatural
claims that make Him worthy of our worship, one thing is certain: Headlines do
not equal history. And serious media should stop giving air-time and credibility
to Jesus-deniers.
Read
more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/cnn-questions-jesus-existence-again-177576/#GoDbLPxBASl8UfEX.99
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