Is Christianity true?

I was raised a Christian. The way a person is raised significantly impacts his or her worldview. As they get older, many come to question and doubt what they were told as they grew up. It seems that any belief a person holds should hold up to examination, otherwise, it will be tossed by the wayside. As I examined my beliefs, I came to a clear conclusion, this belief is based on fact, not fiction. In this article, I hope to make an objective and clear case for Christianity being grounded in reality. For Christianity to be true, at least these three things must be true: Jesus existed, was crucified, and was resurrected.

The existence of a man in the first century named Jesus of Nazareth is as certain as the existence of Julis Caesar or Plato. I point to agnostic New Testament scholar and historian Bart D. Ehrman who says in his book Did Jesus Exist?: “Jesus did exist, whether we like it or not ” The impact this one Man had on the world is incredible. The calendar used today is entirely centered around the life of this one Man, which would be incredible if He did not exist!

Did Jesus die on the cross? There is virtually no debate among people who study this topic and people from all walks of life agree. A profound source on this would be the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which says, “Modern medical interpretation of the historical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead when taken down from the cross.”

Did He rise from the dead though? Some may disagree, but I believe that a miracle can be verifiable. If I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus was dead, and then was alive afterward, that’s a very compelling case that a resurrection occurred. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, “he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.” Paul is saying, ‘Go ask them, they’ll tell you!’ The Jewish historian Josephus writes about the belief of the first Christians, “for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and then thousand other wonderful things concerning him.” Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and many others also talk about Jesus and His death in the first century.

In short, I believe that this is a good survey of the evidence for the Christian faith. I am confident beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that something happened that Sunday morning, and I happen to be convinced that it was a resurrection.

“You must make your choice…You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.” ~C.S. Lewis

Sources:

Ehrman , Bart D. 2013. “Did Jesus Exist?”

Edwards, William D. "On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ."

Flavius, Josephus “Antiquities Of The Jews”

Lewis, C. S. “Mere Christianity”

By Payton Arnett