Jesus Camp
Out of context: Reply #152
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- gramme0
Actually ukit, you're on to something, given a few minor errors.
We actually do know a lot about Jesus; not only was he written up in four corroborating canonical gospels, but his life was also catalogued by Jewish and Roman historians, some of whom (like Josephus) were not Christians.
But you are absolutely right about the "what-ifs." That is: either (1) Jesus is the Messiah, God in flesh, the second person of the Trinity; (2) a prophet whose followers posthumously deified him; or (3) a charlatan and a liar; or (4) mentally unstable and fit for the bin.
The claims Jesus made are so outrageous that his opponents (the Pharisees, a strict Jewish sect) tried to kill him on numerous occasions for what they perceived as blasphemy. Jesus not only said he was the Son of God, aka the Son of Man as prophesied in the book of Daniel, but he told people "Before Abraham was, I AM." This last statement is high blasphemy if it's not true. He's claiming two things: first, that he preceded Abraham, who walked the earth 2,000 years before Christ. Secondly, he's taking on a name only used by Yahweh (God the Father) in referring to himself in the Old Testament. The name "I AM" in Hebrew has implications of eternal existence outside the constraints of time.
Furthermore, Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me." That statement alone leaves us with two choices. (1) Either it's true, and we live accordingly, or (2) it's a false statement, either an outright lie or a delusion. So there we have it, A B or C: God, liar, or madman. Only one of these three options can be correct.
Based on the above, I think it's more logically tenable to reject Jesus altogether than to half-heartedly buy into only some of the things he said and did.