It’s not a new-fangled idea, but I’ve been seeing it pop up in my social media feeds enough lately that I felt the need to deal with this subject. It goes something like this:
“Believing in Jesus is no different than believing any other myths.”
•Some point to how Christians developed their holidays, trying to (however loosely) connect them to other belief systems’ holidays (check out this video here)
•Some point to the near-impossibility of the stories that surround Jesus
•Some deny the claims Jesus and His followers make in the Bible
•Some straight up deny that Jesus even existed at all
The problem we have here is that, well, to try to argue back against all of those (and that’s just a sampling) would take a LOOOOOOONG time. More than that, it’s like trying to punch back against a non-stop moving object. Why? Because people who are trying to hit you with the “Jesus is a myth” line don’t actually have to have a foundation, they just have to have an initial jab. If you fight back against their statement, they’ll simply throw out something else. It doesn’t have to be foundational; it just has to create a question, a conflict, in the listener’s head. When we debate them on their terms, to some extent, we validate their claims.
So what do we do instead?
Well, the thing is, the Bible doesn’t require us to acknowledge the veracity of their claim on its face. What that means is, while we as Christians actually do have valid answers to each of the “Jesus is a myth” talking points, I don’t have to be an expert debater with years of studying to be able to pull out those talking points. I can point out that there’s more extra-biblical empirical evidence of the existence of Jesus than there is of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar (and I’d be right in saying that), but I don’t need to. I simply need to know God’s Word.
Why? Well, because the Gospels aren’t myths. Myths are clearly fictionalized writings of someone, real or imagined, usually at least hundreds if not thousands of years in the past, whose stories are designed with a purpose to explain why things are the way they are in the world. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are written as historical narratives. John is written as an eyewitness testimonial. Both of those genres vary significantly from the genre of mythology.
And while there is strong evidence to support the historical claims made in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I get that historical narratives can be viewed askance even if the askance view is unwarranted, so I want to focus right now on John’s Gospel.
What does John's Gospel show us?
John’s Gospel, written in the format of an eyewitness testimonial, cannot simply be dismissed as historically inaccurate. To argue against his version of the story, one cannot simply say “Prove to me it isn’t a lie.” If you’re going to try to poke holes in an eyewitness testimony, it is not imperative on the eyewitness to prove the veracity of their claims. No, it is on the one denying those claims’ accuracy to give some reason that you logically can deny those claims’ accuracy.
In other words, when John claims explicitly, 3 different times, that he was an eyewitness to what he was writing, there are only 3 conclusions you can draw:
1) He’s lying about what he saw (or, at the very least, misremembering)
2) He didn’t actually write it, and whoever actually wrote it is a straight-up bald-faced liar for even suggesting he did
3) He’s telling the truth
And the problem for anyone trying to claim John’s Gospel isn’t reliable is - there really is no logical reason to land on either 1) or 2).
•There’s no evidence whatsoever that John didn’t write his Gospel
•There’s no evidence whatsoever that John lied about what he put in his Gospel
•In fact, the fact that we have a partial manuscript of John’s Gospel dating to the 120s (roughly only 30 years or so after the believed writing of that Gospel) actually stands to back up the authorship and believability of his Gospel
But moreover, even if you can talk yourself into believing that John’s eyewitness testimony isn’t reliable, you still can’t land on “Jesus is a myth.” John didn’t leave us that option. He himself wrote that he wrote his Gospel was written with one purpose in mind: so that “you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and that by believing you might have life in His Name” (John 20:31). It’s like he was saying, “Look, I get it, I know I’m making some huge, crazy-sounding claims. If I hadn’t seen it, I’m not sure I would have believed it. But I did see it. It really happened. I’m telling you that you can believe it.”
In other words, either it’s all false, meaning it’s all unredeemable, meaning it has nothing of value to add to our lives (rendering the idea of Jesus being a myth moot and pointless), or it’s all true. There’s no middle ground.
The good news?
John’s Gospel has stood the validity test over the past 1900+ years. (So have Matthew’s, Mark’s, and Luke’s for that matter.) As a Christian, you don’t have to live wondering which side of the debate we might land on. More than that, if John’s eyewitness testimonial Gospel has to be accepted as a solid evidence, that goes a long way to verifying the claims made in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s historical narrative Gospels (especially since all 3 of those were written BEFORE John). We can read the accounts of Jesus and know that our faith is resting on a firm foundation of reality.
So, long story short, we don’t need to feel like we need to constantly stay on our game against every new line of attack - because there’ll always be a new line of attack. If we know the claims the Bible makes, and if we know the God who inspired it, we don’t have to dive into the muddied waters of every seemingly smart but ultimately unfounded attack every time one is made. Instead, when we know that the Bible is pointing to real life real factual real truths, and are confidently resting on it, we can simply redirect any of those unfounded claims to our firm foundation.
People can choose to believe these facts or not, that’s on them, but don’t ever let anyone twist it for you:
Jesus really existed.
He really did miracles.
He really died on the cross.
He really rose from the grave.
He really saves souls even today.
He’s not a myth.
***(Please note: this is not a reason to not have an answer to arguments against Jesus, arguments against Scripture. I’m not saying to not study apologetics. This is simply saying an advanced degree in apologetics isn’t necessary to stand firm on the Bible.)***
Comments