The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ

by Brant Pitre

He also saved what is in many ways the greatest miracle of all for last. The Gentiles began to repent, and convert, and convert. And they are still converting today.

little stone “cut out by no human hand”—

“a great mountain and filled the whole earth” (Daniel

I, for one, prefer the simpler explanation.

Jesus of Nazareth was right. The Son of Man was crucified. The Son of Man was buried. The Son of Man was raised on the third day. The tomb was empty. It still is. And the Gentiles turn to the God of Israel in droves. Because something greater than Jonah is here.

with C. S. Lewis’s famous Liar, Lunatic, or Lord trilemma.

you had better be committed to eliminating a lot of historical evidence.

Jesus did not go around shouting in the streets: “I am God!”

I think it shows that Jesus understood his identity as a mystery that needed to be revealed.

In fact, this may be one of the most debated passages in the New Testament.

Jesus’s otherwise baffling response:

because Peter is open to receiving the mystery.

In other words, Peter’s insight into who Jesus really is is a result of divine revelation.

And it is revealed to those who are little, like children. Not to those who are proud because they are wise and learned.

gift of grace.

not contrary to his human intellect.

In the end, however, according to Jesus, Peter is only able to believe the incomprehensible mystery that Jesus is really “the Son of the living God” because God himself reveals it to him.

The same thing, I would suggest, is true for us today.

I can’t answer the ultimate question—

was in fact God.

That is a question you have to answer...

For today, as in the first century, there are lots of opinions about who the man from Nazareth really was. Apparently, it has always been that way, and it probably always will be.

“But who do you say that I am?”

anything but the Son of God, truly human and truly divine.

were written by either eyewitnesses (Matthew and John) or those in close association with eyewitnesses (Mark and Luke),

that they properly fit into the genre of ancient biography (and not folklore),

that they were composed far earlier than the standard s...

and that they are the results of a disciplined process of communication that commenced even durin...

his insistence upon the Jewishness of the Gospel.

In point of fact, the Synoptic Gospel writers are just as insistent upon the divinity of the Lord as John,

but their communication is offered in a distinctively Jewish idiom.