Transcription
In fact, I was talking to a famous scholar recently who is certainly well-versed on this stuff, and this is not for... I can't attribute it to him yet. It'll come out. But he, I was talking about this creed, and I quoted James D.G. Dunn. Within months, this creed was de— and he said, "Yeah, it was within weeks. Within weeks."
Um, I mean, that's a news flash from ancient history when you consider the first two biographies of Alexander the Great by Arrian and Plutarch, written 400 years after his life, and they're generally considered reliable. Here we have something to go. It is a news flash from ancient history. Get ready, because what you're about to hear could change the way you see history forever. Lee Strobel, the investigative journalist who went from atheist to believer, is back with powerful, updated evidence for Jesus. In this video, we're diving into brand new scholarship on the resurrection. If you've ever wondered if the Gospels are reliable, this is one conversation you don't want to miss. Let's jump into this.
Leah, I'm so glad you're here.
>> Glad to be here.
>> Listen, uh, I want, I'm eager to talk to you about some of the myths around Jesus. Um, who he was, what he did. And I think pastors face this a lot. You, you talk to different folks that have come to the church, maybe they're exploring the faith,
>> but they've believed a thing or been told a thing, and it, it really just is a hurdle. So, I want to overcome some of those.
>> Yeah.
>> And the first one I'd love to just start with is this idea that Jesus never even existed.
>> Yeah.
>> Speak to that idea.
>> Yeah. You know, that was popular in the Soviet Union when it first started. Uh, they would teach their children that Jesus never existed. Um, it was interesting just recently, there was a survey online by an atheist, um, organization on Twitter or X, and it was a poll to vote, "Do you believe Jesus ever existed?"
>> Wow.
>> And of course, those aren't scientific polls, but it was interesting, at 38% said, "No, I don't believe he ever existed." Now, that's an atheist site.
>> Um, so it's, it's, it's just a, a belief that really has no support. In fact, Bart Ehrman, who's a famous, um, um, agnostic New Testament scholar, uh, no friend to Christianity, uh, did a book refuting this because it's so ridiculous. So he did a book, and his conclusion of the book was, "Jesus did exist, whether you like it or not." So, but there are people who raise this as a possibility, and you know, I would say a couple of things to it.
Number one, um, you know, we have such good accounts of the life of Jesus that date back right to the beginning. I mean, that's so key. Um, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Uh, Matthew and John were disciples, eyewitnesses to the life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Um, Mark was the scribe of Peter, another one of the key disciples. Luke is my favorite first-century investigative reporter. Yeah. See, so I carefully investigated everything from the beginning so that I could write an orderly account about the certainty of what took place. So we have these accounts that are claimed to be eyewitness-based, uh, accounts of the life of Jesus. So the idea they didn't exist is, doesn't really hold any water. We actually have 14 sources inside and outside the Bible for within the first hundred years after the life of Jesus that talk about Jesus. That's a lot of evidentiary, uh, material that supports the fact that Jesus did exist.
>> Well, help our pastors out a little bit. What, what are some of those extra-biblical sources?
>> Yeah. Josephus, the first-century Jewish, um, historian who worked for the Romans. He has two references to Jesus, uh, in his writings. One is a little more controversial than the other, but there's two references in there. Suetonius, another early historian. Tacitus, another early historian. Um,
>> these are all first-century folks?
>> These are right first-century or shortly thereafter. Yeah. These are very early, um, um, sources. Pliny the Younger, um, who also wrote about, um, early Christianity. Um, what's interesting to me though, is we actually have preserved for us a creed of the earliest Christian church. So, this is a creed of belief based on eyewitness accounts, uh, that says that Jesus died for our sins. He was buried. The third day, he rose from the dead. And then it mentions the specific names of eyewitnesses who encountered the resurrected Jesus, including groups of eyewitnesses and individuals, including Peter and James, half-brother of Jesus, and so forth. This creed has been dated back by scholars to within months of the death of Jesus. That's like a news flash from ancient history.
>> Wow.
>> And of course, in these accounts that we have in the Gospels, um, we have Jesus, um, um, you know, teaching. We have him doing miracles and exorcisms. Uh, so we've got first-century accounts of what he did and what he said.
Now, here's where it gets a little tricky. Some people will say, "Oh, Jesus never existed. He's, he's a product of mythology, just like Mithras, or just like Bacchus, or Dionysus, or these other ancient myths." That's become popularized. The Da Vinci Code popularized that.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, well,
>> there's a lot of problems with that. I'll give you an example. When you, when you dig into that. I did a book, by the way, a few years ago called *In Defense of Jesus*, and I refute every one of these myths. Um, but my favorite one is the one that was talked about in *The Da Vinci Code*, Mithras. And people would say, "Oh, well, you know, Jesus is just made up, just like Mithras." Mithras, uh, was born of a virgin in a cave on December the 25th. He had 12 disciples. He, um, um, proclaimed world peace, fought for world peace. He died and was resurrected.
>> So, what's the difference?
>> So, what's the difference? That's what they based the idea of Jesus on.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, golly. So, I researched it. What did I find out?
>> Well, Mithras emerged fully grown, naked, out of a rock. So, unless the rock is a virgin, there was no virgin birth of Mithras. The belief is he emerged out of a rock.
>> Um, secondly, um, was he born on December 25th? Yeah. But so what? We don't know when Jesus was born. That's not in the Bible. And that's a winter solstice time, and there were a lot of mythological characters who were said to be born in that time frame. So that means nothing. Did he have 12 disciples? No. In one version, he had one disciple. In another version, he had two disciples. Did he, uh, fight for world peace? No. He was known for killing a bull. Did he die and was resurrected? No. There's no account of him dying, and therefore no account of him being resurrected. And by the way, the, the, the cult of Mithraism flourished *after* Christianity. So if anybody was borrowing anything, it was the other way around. So, and all of these myths, these, these, this idea, these ancient myths, um, are of lusty gods who are lusting o after mortal women, and they have sex with mortal women, and nothing to do with what we see in the Bible in terms of the incarnation and things like that. So, there's just, it's just apples and oranges. So, this idea that Jesus, uh, never lived, uh, just does not withstand scrutiny. I can't think of a, a legitimate historian anywhere that really proclaims that message.
And you referenced this creed, this creed early on, within months of the resurrection, even referencing witnesses. Yes. And, and where would a pastor go to learn more about that?
>> Yeah. Okay. Let me give you a little bit of background on that because this is, this is very, very powerful.
>> That's fascinating.
>> There have been people who have come to faith, just, I mean, scholars who have come to faith just on this creed. Here's what happened. Um, one to three years after the crucifixion, uh, Saul of Tarsus is out persecuting Christians. He encounters the resurrected Jesus. He becomes the Apostle Paul immediately. The Bible says he goes into Damascus and he meets with some apostles. Many scholars believe this is when he was given this creed from the earliest Christians talking about eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.
>> Others say it was three years later. Three years later, Paul goes to Jerusalem. He meets for 15 days with two eyewitnesses named in the creed, Peter and James. And the Greek word that Paul uses in Galatians to describe this meeting, uh, suggests that this was an investigative meeting. They were checking each other out. "What do you know? What did you see? What do you expect?" And, and other scholars will say this is probably when he was given the creed by two people named in the creed. But either way, this means that Paul was given this creed within one to six years after the death of Jesus. And therefore, the beliefs that make up that creed go back even earlier, virtually to the cross itself.
Now, one of the greatest historians of our age, uh, James D.G. Dunn of England, um, exam, he was a scholar on this creed, and he, I'll quote him. He said, uh, "This tradition," he means that this creed, "this tradition, we can be entirely confident was formulated as tradition, as a creed, within months of the death of Jesus." Now, what did Paul do with it? He wrote a letter to the church in Corinth, we call it First Corinthians. He wrote that letter about 22 years after the death of Jesus. And in that letter, 1 Corinthians 15, starting at verse three, he, he, that's where the creed is recorded. And interestingly, he says, "I, I'm paraphrasing, but say, 'I already gave you this creed on an earlier visit, but I'm going to repeat it here because it's the foundation of everything. Jesus died. Why? For our sins. He was buried. On the third day, rose from the dead.' And then here are the eyewitnesses to whom he appeared, including 500 people at once." And then Paul says, "By the way, there's some of them are still alive. Go talk to them if you don't believe me." So, this creed, uh, because 1 Corinthians can be dated, say, 22 years after the death of Jesus, and, um, he gave it to them before that, you can date the creed that way within 20 years. But the way I just gave you, with going back to Paul, we get back to within months. In fact, I was talking to a famous scholar recently who is certainly well-versed on this stuff, and this is not for... I can't attribute it to him yet. It'll come out. But he, I was talking about this creed, and I quoted James D.G. Dunn. "Within months, this creed was de—" and he said, "Yeah, it was within weeks. Within weeks."
>> Um, I mean, that's a news flash from ancient history when you consider
>> the first two biographies of Alexander the Great by Arrian and Plutarch, written 400 years after his life, and they're generally considered reliable. Here we have something to go. It is a news flash from ancient history. That, that is a powerful, powerful bit of evol. Pastors aren't aware that when you preach on the resurrection or so forth, and you use that text, let people know that that that statement, 1 Corinthians 15, starting at verse three, that dates back to within months of the death of Jesus. That gives it extra power because people will often claim, "Oh, well, the idea that Jesus was God was a myth that developed in the many years after his death, the, the oral transmission of the New Testament and so forth, it got mixed up." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not true. But when you take it back to within months, you eliminate that issue.
>> Yeah. And within weeks, potentially.
>> Within weeks.
>> Wow.
>> Wow.
One amazing video. You know, when you look at Jesus, you're not just looking at a religious figure. You're looking at the most verified person in all of human history. Archaeology, manuscripts, non-biblical records all confirm his life, his death, and the movement that exploded right after his resurrection. The historical and archaeological trail point straight to him. But here's the thing. Jesus didn't just shape history. He changed humanity. His message of love, forgiveness, redemption, and truth has transcended every culture, every people group, every generation. Empires rose and fell. But his words still move hearts today. He changes lives from skeptics to scholars, addicts to atheists, prisoners to presidents. People encountered him and walked away transformed. Facts point straight to him. History confirms him. But the real proof is what happens when you let him into your life. Jesus is alive, and he's still changing hearts today.
Hi, my name is Enel Cand.