__________________
|
|
|
According to the Brit Ha-Hadashah, Yeshua was a miracle worker, God in the flesh, whose
ultimate proof of power was his bodily resurrection from the dead. What is the truth?
We have the following Alternatives:
Proposition 1: The disciples made it up.
That sounds simple enough. But what was the motive? Did anyone make a profit from it? Most
of the disciples were martyred. All of them lived extremely difficult lives. Some died early in the
history of the Church; others went on to suffer through decades of persecution, but they all
stuck with their story. If they knew it was a lie, why didn't they give it up when they saw it
wasn't getting them anywhere? How could a lie be the motive for such lives of love and
self-sacrifice? Obviously, they firmly believed what they taught. "For we did not follow cleverly
devised fables, but were eyewitnesses to his majesty." 2 Peter 1:1Return to Alternatives
Proposition 2: They were deceived.
If the disciples didn't make up the story, then either it's the truth or they were deceived. If they
were deceived, then who or what deceived them? What master illusionist could have staged
three years of miracles, a death, burial and resurrection, angels, subsequent appearances of the
risen Christ in various locations, top it off with an ascension and make it all fit into everyday life,
all the while fulfilling ancient prophecies right and left. And even if someone could, why would
he? Just for laughs? To imagine that anyone could engineer such a hoax stretches credulity to
the breaking point. It makes infinitely better sense to simply accept the story at face
value.Return to Alternatives
Proposition 3: They were mistaken.
Maybe the believers were victims, not of a deliberate deception, but of their own gullibility.
Maybe they misread the evidence, and jumped -- sincerely but wrongly -- to erroneous
conclusions. But what else could they have concluded, given all that they had seen? We are not
talking about one or two individuals reporting one unusual experience. Had there been only one
alleged miracle, we might easily think that those who thought that had seen something
extraordinary had really seen something else -- something along the order of UFO sightings that
turn out to be weather balloons, or something equally ordinary. But the apostles witnessed
miracle after miracle. They saw a life of extraordinary holiness and compassion lived out in the
life of Yeshua of Nazareth. They listened for three years to a man who preached the highest
order of righteousness, and they watched him live it as they lived with him around the clock. He
made extraordinary claims, which he substantiated with extraordinary acts. He told them in
advance that he would die by crucifixion. He said that one of them would betray him. He said
that he would come back from the grave after three days. They watched it all happen. He
himself showed them that the Holy Scriptures had foretold all of this about him. He appeared to
them after his resurrection, when they had given up hope. He ate with them and talked with
them at length. He even invited them to touch him so that they would know that he was really,
physically there. Could all of this be hallucinations? That's a lot of hallucinations for anyone, let
alone eleven plus people. Was it all optical illusion? A dream? No explanation of this sort will
do. There are too many events to explain over too long a time witnessed by too many
people.Return to Alternatives
Proposition 4: The gospel accounts are only semi-historical legends fabricated long
after the time of Christ.
Many today are of the opinion that the historical Yeshua was only a great moral teacher, who
would be appalled to find that legend had made him out to be God. Could the alleged miracles
of Yeshua be explained as tales invented by later Christians? I don't think so, and here's why.
From the very beginning, Christian faith has been centered around a miracle-working,
resurrected Christ. The apostle Paul, in a letter to the Church in Corinth, makes very clear that
there is no Christian faith apart from the bodily resurrection of Christ. (I Corinthians. 15) All
four Gospel accounts portray Yeshua as a worker of miracles. They also all say that he was
crucified, buried, and rose the third day. If these documents are based on legend, then the
legend must be older than the documents. Paul's letter to the Corinthians dates from about 55
A.D. The crucifixion took place between 30-35 A.D. That leaves us less than thirty years for
such a legend to arise. Too many people were still alive who had been there and knew what
happened for a legend to arise out of ignorance. The apostles and others had seen these things
and knew what they were talking about. "That which we have seen and heard, write we unto
you." -- I John 1:1
Furthermore, the gospel accounts do not bear the marks of myth. Pagan myths, legends, fairy
tales and the like typically refer to characters who supposedly lived long ago, and often far
away, whose supernatural deeds and experiences were not witnessed by anyone still at hand
who could verify them. The Gospels refer to events which had transpired only a few decades at
most before they were written, in a country easily accessed, and involved large numbers of
people who could still be found and interviewed, and would testify whether or not these things
were true. As Paul said, "These things were not done in a corner . . ."
What was so special about the teaching of Yeshua that his disciples felt compelled to spread it
across the world? Morality? If that just means another set of rules, forget it! First century Jews
had more rules than they could handle. Was it the way he talked about love? Love is nice, but it
would take more than "nice" to persuade eleven grown men -- most of them outdoor types --
to abandon all earthly pursuits to spread the Word of Christ. And there again, the word they
did spread was not a lot of warm fuzzies about the "nice" idea of everybody loving everybody,
but about the Love of God as actually demonstrated in the real life of Christ Yeshua, who was
himself God in the flesh, whose love was so great he took on a human body in order to die for
the sins of Man, thereby reinstituting the personal relationship that mankind had lost with God.
There is more involved here than just a philosophy of love. The problems of sin, love, hope, life,
death, goodness -- everything -- all find their ultimate answer in Yeshua Christ. And there you
have another reason we know the truths of Yeshua are not legends -- because nothing so
integrated and all-encompassing could arise from a hodge-podge of legends. Christianity, as
outlined in the New Testament, could not have evolved out of hear-say and imagination.
Everything in the gospels and the teachings of the apostles works together so well that it must
be either real, or the work of a single genius. Maybe it's both, with the genius being God, house
work is reality.Return to Alternatives
Proposition 5: Neither Yeshua nor the disciples ever existed.
Some have taken the view that the whole New Testament is the work of a time centuries after
the alleged time of Christ. This is certainly a minority view, and with good reason. The existence
of the church and the New Testament documents are well attested by archaeology and secular
references dating back at least to the early second century. To question the essential antiquity of
the New Testament is to question the whole of ancient history. One might as well say the
Roman Empire never existed.Return to Alternatives
Proposition 6: Yeshua did exist and did amazing things, but he was not God.
I have occasionally seen claims that Yeshua was an alien from another planet (or time or
dimension or what have you), or maybe a human visitor from the distant future, but with great
powers, owing to superior technology or to his highly advanced evolutionary state. This kind of
tabloid/comic book theology will be immediately dismissed by most people with a roll of the
eyes, but as it may appeal to some, let me have a few words about it. What was this alien (or
future man, or whatever) trying to pull by coming here and calling himself God? Was he just
messing with our minds on some kind of cosmic fraternity prank or something? Why did he
display such compassion and endure such suffering if he was only out looking for fun? Or if he
was just visiting, why did he interfere? On the other hand, if he meant to do us good, why the
deception? This approach to the Yeshua problem raises more questions than it answers, and
lacks even the appeal of naturalism. If we are to believe he was anything extraordinary at all, it
is best to believe he simply was who he said he was, and who the apostles claimed he was --
God in the flesh. More mundane, but hardly more credible, is the idea that Yeshua was some
kind of master hypnotist, who had such powers of persuasion that he could convince large
crowds of people that he was walking on water, turning water into wine, etc.
But I wonder how you hypnotize a blind man into seeing. Did the blind man only think he could
see? How did he keep from bumping into things? Did Yeshua hypnotize the entire crowd? How
is it that people who weren't even therefor the healing, who met the blind man after he had left
Yeshua, were able to tell that he could see? And how do you hypnotize people into thinking
you've risen from the dead? It has been suggested that Yeshua used post-hypnotic suggestion
to cause his followers to believe they saw him alive after he was dead! I wonder why he
bothered. I also wonder where he could have learned such high-powered hypnotic technique as
it would take to convince hundreds of people to experience the same complex illusion at the
same time, as well as various groups of various sizes at various times in various places with no
obvious common denominator that might have activated the dormant suggestion. And there's
the problem of Paul, who once persecuted the church, but suddenly made an about-face and
became an ardent believer after seeing the risen Lord. How did the presumably dead Yeshua
manage that? It would take more faith than I can muster to believe any of these preposterous
schemes. I am amazed at the lengths people will go to to get around the obvious.Return to
Alternatives
Proposition 7: Yeshua is who the New Testament says he is.
According to the New Testament, Yeshua is God become a man, the only way of salvation for
humankind. He has given us ample reason to believe in him, paving the way from the beginning
of human history with covenants and miracles and prophecies, working in the lives of the people
he chose for that purpose, and in the histories of nations to set the stage for his coming.
When he came, he came in righteousness and in wisdom and in power. He spoke as no mere
man could speak, and did works no mere man could do. He loved as no mere man could love.
He touched the lives of the people who knew him, not merely affecting them from the outside
but giving them new life. They went on to spread the word, and he went on to spread the Life.
From that time to this, millions have come to know the new life that Yeshua gives. The first
disciples knew him in the flesh in those days when he walked this earth. We might envy them for
that, thinking it would have been easier to believe had we seen him with our eyes. But even they
were not able to go out and live like him until he had gone away from them and sent that
"Counselor," or Holy Spirit, he had promised them. That same Holy Spirit is ours today, if we
believe in Yeshua Christ, and the Spirit is a testimony within our hearts far greater than what our
eyes could tell us!
How do you explain Yeshua? Is he still an enigma to you? Will you say, "You can't know."?
You can know, if only you're willing to know. If you allow yourself to accept him as real, then
you will know. Accepting something as reality is all knowledge is anyway. Only an infinite mind
(i.e., God) can ever know anything absolutely. All human knowledge involves at least a little bit
of faith.
Of course, there is always the final cop-out. You can always say, "I can't explain Yeshua, but
that doesn't mean there isn't an explanation I just haven't thought of!" Quite true, but if you say
this, you are confessing yourself to be a person of faith, because you believe without evidence in
an "explanation" you know nothing about!
If Yeshua really is who they say he is, it is of supreme importance to know. What will you
decide?
For additional information and articles related to Jewish Christian topics, go to AMF International.
|
- - 
- 
- 
- - 