"...the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 2:2-3)

MAN OR MYTH?

Two thousand years ago, Jesus challenged his disciples with, “Who do you say that I am?” It was a haunting question because the possible answers were few. His contemporaries accused him of being a deluded babbler, knowing fraud or demon-possessed lackey. Some accepted him as a great moral teacher, and a few, the Lord he claimed to be. Today, the expanse of intervening time has led some to another conclusion.

In an open online exchange, I used a version of C.S. Lewis’ Liar, Lunatic, Lord trilemma to establish the divinity of Jesus. One participant countered, “That’s well and fine, but for the fact that there is no reliable record that Jesus actually lived.”

“Come again?”

“Jesus goes completely under the radar of the Roman records, the Palestinian historians—everyone!”

He was referring to the “Jesus myth”—a claim that the Jesus of the Bible never existed. Although it has charmed skeptics since it was originally trotted out in the 19th century, today no reputable scholar supports the Jesus myth, for several reasons:

• First, there are the extra-biblical references to Jesus by Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, and Suetonious—men who weren’t particularly inclined toward this messianic figure or His fringe following.

• Next, there is the emergence of a Christian community within the living memory of Jesus’ contemporaries. Modern naysayers would have us accept that this community endured persecution for a fictitious character whose existence could have been checked out from any number of surviving eyewitnesses.

• Finally, there is the historical record of the Bible itself: Namely, that Jesus was a Jew who lived in first-century Palestine; He was executed on the order of Pontius Pilate; and after His death His disciples began saying He had risen from the dead.

Consequently, even some not-so-sympathetic authorities dismiss the myth theory. For instance, atheist and historian Michael Grant cedes, "Modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. . . . It has again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars."

Considering the remaining options, the one that best fits the facts is the one reached by the apostle Thomas: "My Lord and my God!"

Saul of Tarsus, a Jewish zealot and Christian persecutor, came to the same conclusion on a dusty trail to Damascus. He eventually described Jesus as “the image of the invisible God,” in whom “all the fullness of the Godhead resides in bodily form.”