The Proof for Christ's Claims

ok so ive noticed that some people have very little knowledge of actual Christianity. in this post i hope to explain some of the beliefs and hopefully answer some questions. i will cover the life death and resurrection of jesus in this post.

the first question that comes to mind is did jesus even claim to be deity?

during christ's trial, the chief priests asked Him point blank, "tell us if you are the christ, the son of god." and he said,

# "I am." (Mark 14:60-62)
# "Yes, it is as you say." (Matt. 26: 63-65)
# "You are right in saying I am." (Luke 22:67-70)

ok moving on to the next question as that one seems pretty well answered.

many non believers may speculate that perhaps jesus wasnt actually dead but was unconscious only to awaken later to astound the 515 people he appeared to later. to disprove this belief i will explain to you in detail the flogging jesus took for you.

first he was beating severely with blunt objects and whips. the worst of which was the cat of nine tails. it was a whip with 9 strands of leather with jagged fish bones, pieces of glass and other things you wouldnt want to be hit with woven into each of the 9 ends. this initial beating was so severe that in a typical flogging of this nature it was common for the subjects tendons, muscles and internal organs to be exposed. such was the case with jesus as he was said to be indistinguishable from an animal.

next he was forced to carry his cross on the journey to the top of a hill just to be nailed to it. he was so weak from his injuries he couldnt complete this journey alone.

after he topped the hill he was nailed to the cross through the wrist and ankle not hand and feet as is often taught. after he hung there for hours his heart began to beat erratically as he lost the energy to push himself up to inhale. the cause of death was asphyxiation, something very hard to fake.

any doubt that he wasnt in fact dead is only in ignorance as even if he did by some miracle suvive he could have never gotten out of the borrowed tomb he was in as there was a boulder in the doorway.

there is something quite amazing in the manner of execution. it was predicted in the old testament that the messiah would be pierced in his hands and feet and his joints would be out of socket. the relevance is that this was predicted hundreds of years before crucifixion or any similar manner of execution was even invented!!

next many people may say that the body was simply stolen from the tomb. if his body was stolen who are the suspects?
the followers of jesus.

if the followers of jesus had stolen the body to fake his resurrection it seems odd that they later were tortured and KILLED for something that they knew was just a lie. would you willingly die for a something you knew to be a lie?

i find it interesting who found the empty tomb. TWO WOMEN!! in those times a women couldnt even be a witness in court!!! if this was all a lie then why would they say that women found the empty tomb if women WERE SIMPLY NOT CREDIBLE WITNESSES!?!?! the wouldnt.

next after the empty tomb was found jesus appeared to 515 people. these people were in groups of a few sometimes and sometimes they were all alone. he sat and ate and drank with them and even offered an non believer to put his finger in the nail holes. he appeared to his disciples but also to saul of taursus and his brother james who did not believe his brothers claim to deity. saul was a feared man among christians and persecuted them more than you can imagine but after he saw the resurrected jesus he changed his tune and became paul.

for those of you that think that he was just a great man and his legend built up to deity over time
it has been documented that it takes two generations to create a legend so its very interesting that the "legend" of jesus's resurrection took only a few weeks to be in full swing.

ok so ive shown that he claimed deity, he was killed, and 515 people within 40 days of his tomb being found empty would claim that they saw him in person AFTER he was crucified.

i sincerely hope you read this and and please ask any questions because you will be taken seriously and your question will be answered as best i can answer it.

Interesting acticle, IceMan...

I actually am baptized Christian, and know a lot about it. But I decided to renounce my "faith" for my own reasons.

So, anyway, good article! :)

hmm, not sure what point you are trying to prove. remember, all this "happened" 2000 years ago, it is unlikely that events weren't either created or changed over time.

ok so im not trying to prove any points. i am simply trying to inform people so that they can make there own decisions.

as for this just being folklore built up over time i will simply bring up this one fact. the bible is widely known as a reliable source of info on actual events in its time. until i came here i NEVER heard anyone adamantly say the bible was out and out wrong even though atheist scholars admit its historically accurate. they claim that the events may be exaggerated but as far as the historical events no one deserving respect as a scholar denounces it.

only days after the empty tomb was found a creed was spoken by john (i think) that LITERALLY said he died he rose and 515 of us saw him after he died walking around. in a recent study of normal life in bible times it was shown that a legend takes more than 2 generations to grow up NOT a week or so.

anyone who thinks that they can write off the bible because its old needs to seriously rethink his stance. i beg you please just research what your saying. the only translation errors were things like accent marks being left out and things like that.

its impossible to translate jesus was a nice guy into jesus rose from the dead.

Remember, however, that the gospels were written decades after Jesus died. During that time, many of the original witnesses to the event died out. Christianity had grown as a religion during that time, and there were many different stories of Jesus in circulation. In reality, almost nobody had a clear recollection of what happened. Check out the Gospel of Judas for one such unique take. Only at the council of Nicea did they finally choose four books, (Matthew, Mark,Luke, and John) and mostly because they had some semblance to each other.

Religious leaders have always sought to control the masses. Jesus' preachings taught the masses that religion could be personal (in one book not in the bible, he even preached that God was a part of each of us. To find God, we needed only to look within ourselves). For his stance against organized religion, the religious leader of his time wanted him dead. Thus, the accusations of blasphemy (which he was technically guilty of, claims of godhood or not).

Iceman - your quotes from Matt, Mark, and Luke each hold one critical flaw. None of those three writers were actually present at the trial. The disciples scattered like sheep when the Romans hauled Jesus away at the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus' trial was swift, and none of the Disciples wanted to get caught up in that. the witnesses of the trial were the religious leaders, whom I have already established wanted Jesus to die. Whatever was said during the trial or during jesus questioning by Pilate was never heard by the writers of the Gospels.

As for the Bible having ties to actual historical events, OF COURSE IT DOES!!! The ancient Jews often recorded important historical events in their scriptures, since they believed that God had a hand in them. The Iliad by Homer detailed the Trojan War and the impact that the gods had on it. For a long time, scholars regarded it as an act of fiction, until one archaeologist used the info from the story to unearth the actual ancient city of Troy. Now, just because The Iliad was right about that, should we also believe that Achilles was also immortal or that the Greek gods slew the one man in Troy who was suspicious of the wooden horse? That's the thing about ancient texts, they often were based on historical events. You need to be wary though, archeology can prove that places and people existed, but it can rarely verify the exact details of their lives.

I've ranted long enough. If you haven't guessed, I was also baptized a Christian before giving up my faith in the face of the iffy origins of our moder Christianity.

Why is it that you christians always feel you have to convince others that your god exists? Belive in your god all you like, but please just stop trying to convince others of it. Your incessant ramblings defending your religion is more harmful than the atheists non-belief in it.

You seem to spend more time defending your religion than we do criticising it. If you are so contented with your faith, then be quiet and appear to be as such.

Nietzsche said it well in this short aphorism; "What distinguishes us [scientists] from the pious and the believers is not the quality but the quantity of belief and piety; we are contented with less. But if the former should challenge us: then be contented and appear to be contented! - then we might easily reply: 'We are, indeed, not among the least contented. You, however, if your belief makes you blessed then appear to be blessed! Your faces have always been more injurious to your belief than our objections have! If these glad tidings of your Bible were written on your faces, you would not need to insist so obstinately on the authority of that book... As things are, however, all your apologies for Christianity have their roots in your lack of Christianity; with your defence plea you inscribe your own bill of indictment."

bull, x.

Your right, Bullhead, but I don't think he means to convince others he's right. Trust me, I've been around stuck-up assholes that are trying to be "the best" and be a member of "the coolest religion" until I can defend my point. :p

There was this one time in the chat room at my school (fairly recent) that I was joking everybody should discuss aliens again, since I knew they hate it (big suprise).

There was this one guy that said "You believe in aliens? I do too." and I was like "Are you serious?" and he says "Yes". So we start talking about it, and this girl shows up and says "You guys are stupid".

Needless to say, we totally uber pwned her and proved our point, while she could only sorta prove one. She was pathetic (she though the earth was only 2,000 years old, even though it's been proven otherwise, and that the universe is basically our solar system, LOL).

Remember when I got suspended for saying that all religions are equal? Well, I got an award (sort of like a principal's award thingy) for "Enriching the minds of our students". They said the guy was out-of-line (the one that gave me the suspension). :)

the bible has been so screwded with, its hard to tell what really happened. i try not to take it literally word for word. I do however believe jesus existed.

What i find quite astonishing, is that musslims take there holy book, the Quran word for word as if there God wrote it.

Nice points ice_man, the people should read this to learn about religions. Also I know alot about this but I can hardly translate it to english :p.

ok if you are here to poke fun and say the bible is inaccurate leave. if you are here to learn and ask questions please stay and ask away. my only intention is to educate and yet i get nothing but people telling me that the bible isnt credible.

the bible was translated 3 times in most cases ok? 3. not 456 to the point that its meaningless. 3. hebrew to greek to english.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TAKE JESUS WAS A NICE GUY AND TRANSLATE IT TO JESUS WAS GOD AND HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD IN 3 TRANSLATIONS!!

as for the books being written years after the fact i will point AGAIN to one thing. IT TAKES MORE THE 120 YEARS TO BUILD LEGEND NOT THE 40 YEARS IN BETWEEN THE EVENTS AND WHEN THEY WERE WRITTEN ABOUT. TWO GENERATIONS IS WIDELY EXCEPTED AS THE LENGTH OF TIME NEEDED TO MAKE LEGEND!!! 40 YEARS CANT MAKE HE WAS NICE INTO HE WAS GOD EITHER!

so if you are here to learn and ask questions please do but dont try to make me look stupid with invalid points.

EDIT: by the way i never quoted matt mark or luke when i was talking about the trial.... so guy who said i was wrong when i did.. um i didnt..