...is trying to convince people that the idea that Jesus never existed is nonsense. You will only run into the most absurdly (yet also inconsistently!!) skeptical people who will reply with "what ifs" that go beyond the normal level of skepticism a rational person might have into a whole other realm of pure imbecility. I was confronted today with the possibility that the four writers of the gospels might have come together, purposefully wrote differing accounts of the same story, got together with this other guy Paul, suffered cruel persecution and embarrassing deaths--all to have their names go down in history.



God forgive me that after about an hour and a half or so, I started to lose my patience and responded somewhat aggressively.

This is only one example of the wickedness and evil in a man's heart! That he is willing to accept the most absurd conclusions rather than the truth of Christ's life! Because he tells them that they can't live life how they want to...

Are there any good, semi-advanced resources on the historicity of Christ? Are there any conversations you've had with Christ-mythicists? Any public debates or mp3 debates on the topic?

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Steven Nemes
Phoenix, AZ

Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be answered - C.S. Lewis

Look up William Lane Craig on Youtube.

here you go: http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...aig+jesus&aq=f

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-JD

10 wise men cannot answer the question of a fool.

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Andrew DeShazo
Husband of Kathryn
Father of Phillip-Giles B. DeShazo
Deacon
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"From out of the depth of unbroken Infinfity arose the Question, "Who am I?" And to that Question there is the answer, "I am God!" -Meher Baba, died 1969.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Christ, died 33 AD, ressurected three days later.

But surely I've got a responsibility to try my best to convince the fool otherwise, wouldn't I?

There are lots of false religions that were based on their founders imagination, often in the face of persecution. Joseph Smith died for his new faith (although i do not think that this was part of his plan). People make up religions and create myths, that is a historic fact.

We have to differentiate Christianity from these false religions and in my mind the willingness of Christianity to accept the Jewish revelation without any ammendment is a very powerful apologetic argument.

Christianity has an internal logic that the false religions do not.

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Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
England

"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."

In what way is the Christian willingness to accept Jewish teachings in any way special?

Mental pigmys like the one you discribe cannot be reasoned with. Best to just walk on and pray for the person later that God will grant them regeneration and repentance.

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Donald Jacobs
Roanoke VA.
Covenant Reformed Episcopal Church.

Cum vero infirmor tunc potens sum.

Islam and Mormons rewrite the Old Testament, Christians do not. How can these sects claim to be a continuation of a revelation they do not comport with?

Okay, but how does that give reason to believe that the story of the gospels aren't made up?

I actually had a friend last year, who being once reformed, basically rejected Christianity and embraced the Christ-myth hypothesis, after reading much higher criticism (i.e. Barth Herman, and Robert Brice).

I went to look it up on wikipedia, and indeed, the thing does exist and a few scholars have either embraced it or commented about it, but the main point is that it bears very little credibility among today's Bible scholars, even the most liberal ones. So, my conclusion was that my friend had really become irrational, and I gave up trying to bring him back.

If you occasionally come across some websites by atheists, the Christ-myth is actually quite prevalent among them. Some of them idiots have even claimed that the fact that the Q-source has not been found up to date is evidence that all the four gospels are not based on any historical foundation, but are pure mythology.

Even liberal scholars won't listen to these lunatics.

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Jean-David Jutras
URCNA
Alberta