"Have You Heard" Newspaper Articles Posted with the Permission of the Streetsboro Church of Christ.
Have you heard that people reject the existence of Jesus in spite of the abundance of evidence by friends and foes?
The New Testament is the
best evidence for the existence of Jesus. So many events surrounding the life of
Christ are revealed in New Testament to validate its testimony of Jesus. For
example, the circumstance of making people return to their birthplace for
registration at the time of Christ (Luke
2:1-7) was attacked as inaccurate until further research showed that all the
details around this registration were indeed accurate. Some may be astonished to
learn that the New Testament is the most validated historical text in history.
We have over 24,000 ancient copies of either a portion or entire New Testament.
The Iliad by Homer is the distant second most frequently copied text from
antiquity at 643 copies. So one cannot dismiss the evidence presented in the New
Testament by attacking the validity of the text.
Writers from the centuries immediately following the New Testament produced volumes important to understanding the changes occurring in the Christian religion and testify profusely to the historical Christ. For example, Polycarp (69-155 AD) is believed to have known some of the apostles and was appointed bishop by the apostle John.
Additional evidence that
testifies of the existence of Jesus is the Roman Catacombs, tombs created during
2-5th centuries. The catacombs are some six hundred miles of underground
passages containing an estimated 1.175-4.0 million graves. This was one of the
secret worshiping places of Christians. The artwork in these catacombs is
tremendous testimony of the existence of Jesus Christ. The survival of
Christianity alone is testimony of existence of Christ. No other movement is in
a class with Christian movement. Multiple of thousands of people were put to
death for their faith, not in the existence of the man Jesus, but that this man
Jesus was the Son of God.
-- David R. Kenney - 02/09/2003 --
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