The Case for the Real Jesus – Lee Strobel (2007)

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Is it possible to find the real Jesus? That depends on how you answer a more foundational question: Are you willing to set aside your preconceptions and let the evidence take you wherever it will?

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The problem, though, is there are so many people pursuing doctorates, writing dissertations, pursuing tenure, and trying to get published that there’s a tendency to push the facts beyond where they should go. If you’re hoping to get on the network news – well, news has got the be new. Nobody is going to get excited if you say the traditional view of the Gospels seems correct.

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Instead of modifying their theory to fit the evidence, they modify the evidence to fit the theory. Well, I’m sorry – where I come from, when you do history and examine documents, you’re not allowed to get away with that. You deal with the evidence you have.

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When Christians say the Bible is inspired, they mean that it’s both the Word of God and the words of men. Lewis Sperry Chafer put it well: without violating the author’s personalities, they wrote with their own feelings, literary abilities, and concerns. But in the end, God could say, That’s exactly what I wanted to have written.

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It’s disturbing that when it comes to the Christian faith, people don’t really want – or know how – to investigate the evidence.

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Scholarship has not diluted your faith? He jumped up in before I could finish my sentence. “On the contrary,” he stressed, “it has built it. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug into the text, I’ve studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed.” He paused while his eyes surveyed my face. Then he added, for emphasis, “very well placed.”

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Historians of antiquity don’t look for absolute certainty; they look for probable certainty. When a historian says something occurred, he means that given the evidence at our disposal today, this is the best explanation

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Five minimal facts about Jesus’ resurrection.
1) Jesus was killed by crucifixion
2) Jesus’ disciples believed that He rose and appeared to them
3) The conversion of the church persecutor Paul
4) The conversion of the sceptic James, Jesus’ half-brother
5) Jesus’ tomb was empty

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They don’t want to be constrained by the traditional Jesus, who calls them to a life of holiness. One friend of mine finally acknowledged that Jesus rose from the dead, but he still won’t become a Christian because he said he wanted to be the master of his own life – that’s the exact way he put it. So in many cases – not all – it’s a heart issue, not a head issue.

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For the most part, many Jewish people simple don’t examine the issue. Religious Jews are engaged in the biblical text, but they don’t spend most of their time looking at the prophets; instead they study the Talmud and rabbinic traditions. They’re not looking in the right place for Yeshua. But many Jews today lack of God-consciousness. Also, there’s a price to pay if a Jewish person decides to follow Jesus: they could be ostracized from their family and community. An another reason, unfortunately, is the barrier put up by anti-Semitism in the past.

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What is truth?
I think people instinctively understand that truth is belief, story, ideal, or statement that matches up with reality or corresponds to the way thins really are.
Something is true – or corresponds to reality – even if people don’t believe it.
In fact, truth is true even if no one knows it, admits it, aggress with it, follows it, oven fully grasps it.

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We should not be trying to create our own Jesus or our own set of doctrines, because then we are denying reality. Jesus reflects reality, so we need to align ourselves with him.

Source: The Case for the Real Jesus – Lee Strobel (2007)