Person of Interest: Why Jesus Still Matters in a World that Rejects the Bible - J. Warner Wallace 

Keep Going your savior loved you so much

I am so sorry for your situation. It is such a blessing that our strength comes from our Lord Jesus Christ, never forget that. Praying for you.

what makes you think that?

😆

The shroud

Even atheist scholars agree that Jesus's death on the cross is a historical event.

Ancient historians didn't consider Jesus a fictional character and neither do serious (skeptical) scholars today -- such as Bart Ehrman. You obviously aren't aware of the historical record. Several ancient historians wrote about Jesus; such as Josephus, Thallus, Mara Bar Serapion, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Celsus and Lucian of Samostata. For example, Pliny the Younger was Governor of the Roman provinces of Pontus and Bithynia in A.D. 101 to 110. In a letter to the Emperor Trajan, Pliny the Younger requested specific instructions about interrogating the Christians whom he was persecuting. The Christians affirmed that "...the whole of their guilt, or their error, was that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god... " (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 10.96.) Pliny said he made them curse Christ, which a genuine Christian could not be forced to do. Pliny also noted that Christians worshiped Jesus as if he were a God. (From the video "Jesus of Testimony.") Obviously, Pliny considered Jesus to be a historical person, and the Christians Pliny tortured not only considered Jesus to be a historical person but God. In "The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ;" the video, "Jesus of Testimony," and numerous classes and lectures, Gary Habermas (PhD in History and Philosophy of Religion) says, "There are about a dozen and a half extra-Biblical, non-Christian sources that say anything from half a sentence to a paragraph on Jesus. The vast majority date within about 150 years after the death of Jesus and they report totally about 50 to 60 different items from the life, preaching, death of Jesus; who he was, what happened afterwards, and even the earliest church...The non-Christian sources don't shy away from calling him the Son of God... They don't even shy away from reporting the resurrection. So some of these sources are pretty surprising at what they admit." Craig Blomberg, also in "Jesus of Testimony," goes on to add that these ancient sources, "...demonstrate that Jesus was an early First Century, Jewish teacher who was born out of wedlock, whose ministry intersected with that of John the Baptist, who gathered in his adult life close followers, as other self-styled Rabbis did, that his teaching came regularly into conflict with the conventional teaching of various Jewish leaders, and that he was ultimately arrested and crucified under the governorship in Judea, of Pontius Pilate, which narrows the dates to the time period between 26 and 36."

@@FriendOfChrist _"Even atheist scholars agree that Jesus's death on the cross is a historical event."_ So, provide evidence Jesus existed.

@@FriendOfChrist _"Several ancient historians wrote about Jesus; such as Josephus, Thallus, Mara Bar Serapion, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Celsus and Lucian of Samostata."_ But none witnessed Jesus. Neither did any Bible author. In the entire first century Jesus is not mentioned by a single historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, carving, sculpture or monument, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence or official record. No Greek or Roman historian witnessed Jesus. They merely reported what the Gospels asserted (none of the Gospel authors witnessed Jesus) and what Christians told them. Pontius Pilate wrote nothing about Jesus. Herod wrote nothing about Jesus. Flavius Josephus wasn't born until 37 AD (and was likely Paul). Mara bar Scarpion wasn't born until 50 AD. Thallus wasn't born until 52 AD. Tacitus wasn't born until 56 AD. Papias of Hierapolis wasn't born until 60 AD. Pliny the Younger wasn't born until 61 AD. Suetonius wasn't born until 69 AD. Polycarp wasn't born until 69 AD. Ignatius of Antioch wasn't born until 108 AD. Lucian of Samosata wasn't born until 125 AD. Titus Flavius Clemen (Clement of Alexandria) wasn't born until 150 AD. Celsus wasn't born until the second century. Phlegon of Tralles wasn't born until the second century. Until the mid-90s AD, there is no corroborating evidence from anyone who was not party to the new religion of Christianity. Flavius Josephus wasn't born until 37 AD (and was likely Paul). There are no known manuscripts of Josephus' works that can be dated before the 11th century, and the oldest which do survive were copied by Christian monks. Josephus says that he drew from and "interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures". There are no known manuscripts of Josephus' works that can be dated before the 11th century, and the oldest which do survive were copied by Christian monks. The original was written in Aramaic and was later translated into Greek by Christian monks. In the third century, Origen wrote extensively about Josephus, even about the very chapter that contains the Testimonium, but never mentioned or referred to the Testimonium in any way. This is inconceivable if the Testimonium had existed at that time. Since the first mention of that passage came from Eusebius, we can conclude that is when it was created. Early Christian apologists like Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Origen never wrote about the Testimonium passage. Origen even mentions Josephus but never mentioned the Testimonium. Further evidence of a fraud is if you remove the Testimonium from its larger context, the previous paragraph flows together. The Testimonium is out of place because it was crudely inserted centuries later. References to Jesus as the son of God from Josephus are not found in the oldest manuscripts of his Antiquities of the Jews. The first mention of Jesus in Antiquities of the Jews came from Eusebius (none of the earlier church fathers mention Josephus’ Jesus). Scholars have determined that Eusebius, not Josephus, was responsible for those writings. Eusebius wrote about “how it may be lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine, and for the benefit of those who want to be deceived.” The Testimonium Flavianum (testimony of Flavius Josephus) is a passage found in Book 18, Chapter 3, of the Antiquities which describes the condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of the Roman authorities. The Josephus reference to Jesus is also a well-known fraud. The ink is marked out, the writing is different, the tone and quality and voice of the writing is also different. Furthermore, it includes the word “Christian”, which wasn’t coined at all until decades later. The earliest secure reference to this passage is found in the writings of the fourth-century Christian apologist and historian Eusebius, who used Josephus' works extensively as a source for his own Historia Ecclesiastica. Eusebius quotes the passage in essentially the same form as that preserved in extant manuscripts. It has been suggested that part or all of the passage may have been Eusebius' own invention in order to provide an outside Jewish authority for the life of Christ. Tacitus wasn't born until 56 AD. He was merely documenting, from more than 80 years after the purported event, and from hundreds of miles away, the early Christian movement and what those early Christians told him (Annals book 15, chapter 44 was written in 116 AD): "Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures 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 one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome...". If Tacitus had been copying from an official source we would expect him to have labelled Pilate correctly as a prefect rather than a procurator. Philo of Alexandria was born around 20 BC, and thus was an adult at the time of the Bethlehem star. He lived well past the crucifixion, dying about the year 50 AD. He would have been the ideal man to record everything about a Jewish miracle-worker and savior. He wrote about 40 individual essays, which now fill seven volumes. Yet he says not one word about Jesus or the Christian movement. ~~~~~~~~ Historians who lived during the time, or within a century, of the purported time of Jesus and who wrote nothing about him: Philo-Judæus Seneca Pliny Elder Arrian Petronius Dion Pruseus Paterculus Suetonius Pausanias Florus Lucius Lucian Quintius Curtius Aulus Gellius Juvenal Martial Persius Plutarch Pliny Younger Justus of Tiberius Apollonius Quintilian Dio Chrysostom Columella Valerius Flaccus Damis Favorinus Lucanus Epictetus Hermogones Silius Italicus Statius Ptolemy Appian Phlegon Phædrus Valerius Maximus Lysias Pomponius Mela Appion of Alexandria Theon of Smyrna

@@FriendOfChrist _"You obviously aren't aware of the historical record."_ Name a single person who witnessed Jesus.