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“No-body homicide” cases are incredibly difficult to investigate and prosecute. Few of these cases are ever filed with the district attorney because prosecutors must (1) prove the victim was murdered (and isn’t simply missing) and (2) prove that the defendant committed the crime. These types of murders require a special approach to solve and communicate to a jury. This unique approach can also be used to investigate the case for Jesus.
I also investigated Jesus as if he were a person of interest in a no-body homicide case.
we can still make a case for the historicity and deity of Jesus. We can do it without a body—and without any evidence from the New Testament.
If some evil regime had destroyed every Christian Bible before I was born—if there hadn’t been a single New Testament manuscript to testify about the life or deity of Jesus—I would still have been able to determine the truth about him.
If Jesus was truly the smartest, most interesting, and most transformative man who ever lived—if he was truly God—we ought to be able to make a case for his existence and impact, even without a body or any evidence from the New Testament.
His appearance was the explosion that broke the human timeline into two “eras.”
If Jesus was more than a mere human, I would expect the appearance and teaching of Jesus to change nearly every aspect of the world, and I should find evidence of this impact in unexpected places.
Had Jesus arrived at this point in history (prior to 3500 BCE), complex concepts involving his nature and teaching would have been impossible to communicate in writing.
Only at this point in history—once the Roman Empire had adopted the Etruscan-modified Greek alphabet, embraced Koine Greek as a common language, and adopted the use of papyrus—could the message of Jesus be effectively communicated with a shared language and letters. Had Jesus arrived prior to 100 BCE, this would not have been possible.
Olivera Petrovich, an Oxford University psychologist, surveyed several international studies of children aged four to seven and found that the belief in God as a “creator” is “hardwired” in children and that “atheism is definitely an acquired position.”
None of the ancient mythologies possessed all the attributes described on this list.
The three-stranded fuse that burned toward the Common Era seemed to make Jesus’s arrival inevitable. He met our human expectations, matched the Jewish predictions, and arrived at precisely the right time in the history of the Roman Empire to be shared with the entire known world.
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. —BARBARA TUCHMAN
If you include the noncanonical texts, there are nearly twice as many non-Christian voices as Christian voices in the period preceding the Edict of Milan. In addition, the ancient sources we have for the life and ministry of Jesus are more reliable (and were written much earlier) than the sources we have for the life of Tiberius Caesar, the emperor of Rome who ruled during the latter part of Jesus’s lifetime. Some of these sources (like Tacitus), report on both men. If we have enough information to have knowledge about Tiberius Caesar, then we have enough information to have knowledge about
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A Christian should use these arts to the glory of God, not just as tracts, mind you, but as things of beauty to the praise of God. An art work can be a doxology in itself. —FRANCIS SCHAEFFER
Jesus followers creatively changed the course of musical history, systematically advancing forms of expression toward the music we know today.
But make no mistake, no other historical person so universally appears in the lyrics of popular music as does Jesus, and no other person in history has inspired the visual arts as has Jesus.
Jesus matters to the history of education. Jesus followers laid the foundation for schools as we know them today, from kindergartens to universities.
Christians contributed to the progress of education and founded more universities and colleges than all their religious predecessors. Even though Hindus had a 2,300- to 1,500-year advantage, Jews had a 2,000- to 1,800-year lead, and Buddhists and Zoroastrians had a 600-year head start, Christians established more universities than all the other groups combined, by a magnitude of ten to one.
If a man is drawn towards honor and courage and endurance, justice, mercy, and charity, let him follow the way of Christ and find out for himself. No findings in science hinder him in that way. —WILLIAM HENRY BRAGG
A scientific discovery is also a religious discovery. There is no conflict between science and religion. Our knowledge of God is made larger with every discovery we make about the world. —JOSEPH H. TAYLOR JR.
In Jesus Christ, the reality of God entered into the reality of this world. . . . Henceforth one can speak neither of God nor of the world without speaking of Jesus Christ. All concepts of reality which do not take account of Him are abstractions. —DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
Buddha simply said, “I am a teacher in search of the truth.” Jesus said, “I am the Truth.” Confucius said, “I never claimed to be holy.” Jesus said, “Who convicts me of sin?” Mohammed said, “Unless God throws his cloak of mercy over me, I have no hope.” Jesus said, “Unless you believe in me, you will die in your sins.” —ANONYMOUS
Jesus and his followers affected the religious systems that preceded Christianity in three important ways: believers and leaders in these religions either modified their beliefs in response to Christianity, merged Jesus into their worldviews, or mentioned the history of Jesus as it was described in the New Testament.
There are unreconcilable differences between the historic views of God. Christians believe that Jesus is God; Jews do not. Both groups could be wrong, but they can’t both be right, given that their claims are contradictory. Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the grave. Muslims deny this claim. Again, both groups can’t be correct. Christians believe in a personal God; Buddhists are pantheistic and deny the existence of a personal God. Yet again, both groups could be wrong, but they can’t both be right. Why would anyone believe that all religions lead to God when
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If you wanted to remove any trace of Jesus from human history, you’d also have to scrub the scriptures and statements of religious people all over the world. These non-Christians consider Jesus a divinely wise teacher, a model of morality, a sadhu, acharya, bodhisattva, “guru,” “manifestation,” or prophet of God. Jesus matters to billions of religious people, even if they don’t claim a Christian identity.
Jesus matters to people all over the globe, even to people who’ve never read the Gospels. If all the Christian Bibles were destroyed, we’d still be able to reconstruct the story of Jesus from the scriptures, writings, and statements of non-Christian religions and their leaders.
Christians don’t claim Jesus is the only way to God. Jesus claimed he was the only way to God. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). That’s an exclusive claim, but what if it’s true? Doctors claim isoniazid is the only cure for tuberculosis. That’s also an exclusive claim. Are they being narrow-minded? What if their claim is simply true? Isn’t it more important to investigate the claim than to dismiss it out of hand because you think it’s narrow-minded?
No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. Other gods have been as devoutly worshipped; no other man has been so devoutly loved. —JOHN KNOX
As the centuries pass, the evidence is accumulating that, measured by His effect on history, Jesus is the most influential life ever lived on this planet. —KENNETH SCOTT LATOURETTE
As I reflected on the fuse and fallout related to Jesus, I was similarly persuaded that Jesus was history’s unique person of interest. The fuse leading up to the Common Era anticipated and predicted his arrival, and the fallout related to literature, the arts, music, education, science, and world religions demonstrated his unparalleled impact. The appearance of Jesus was the singular event that changed human history.
But the evidence from the fuse and the fallout alone exposed two important truths: First, no person had the kind of impact Jesus had on history. Second, every reconstruction of the Jesus story from the literature, art, music, education, and science fallout describes Jesus as God incarnate.
Jesus spoke as though he was God, equated himself to God, accepted the worship of others as though he was God, described himself as God using the Jewish title “I am,” and even claimed to have God’s power to forgive sins. It’s one thing to reject Jesus’s claims; it’s another to deny he made them. Given the nature of Jesus’s assertions, only one option remains: each of us must decide if the claims of Jesus are true.
Only if Jesus was truly more than a man, if he was God incarnate as that first pastor and the gospel authors claimed, would his unparalleled impact on history make sense. Wouldn’t we expect God to inspire the ancients to think about him and the Jews to prophesy about him? Wouldn’t we expect history to align to his arrival? Wouldn’t we expect God to have an explosive impact on the most important aspects of human existence? Wouldn’t we expect him to reorder our calendar and transform our history? Jesus had that kind of impact—the impact we would expect from God.
Jesus doesn’t matter because he influenced the world; Jesus influenced the world because he matters.
Are you a good person? Have you ever lied? Have you ever taken something that wasn’t yours? Have you ever even thought about such things? I don’t know many people who are arrogant enough to say they’ve never done anything wrong. If being a good person is all that matters, then you and I don’t matter because we aren’t consistently “good.” If an all-powerful God exists, it’s reasonable to believe he has the power to eliminate moral imperfection. How, then, can morally imperfect humans be united with a morally perfect God? Christianity offers a solution: God came to us in human form. Jesus took
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