When Aladdin first meets the genie, he mutters to himself in disbelief: “I’m talking to a smoking blue giant?” The genie responds, I am not a giant. I am a genie. There’s a difference. Giants are not real.[1]
The genie’s response is funny because it’s absurd. If anything, it’s easier to believe in an extra-large human than in a magical, wish-granting being that pops out of a lamp! We might enjoy fanciful stories like Aladdin, but we don’t for a moment think that they’re true. Some people think we should view the Bible the same way.
The Bible was written thousands of years ago, and it makes some incredible claims. It claims there is a God who made the universe. It claims God sent his Son into the world to die on a cross for people like you and me. It claims that Jesus performed miracles, that he was raised from the dead, that he now lives with all his followers by God’s Spirit, and that he will come back to earth one day as universal judge and king. These are extraordinary claims. We’d need some serious evidence to believe them. But they’re not claims that only stupid people believe. In fact, some of the smartest people in the world believe that what the Bible says is true.
In this chapter, we’ll focus on Jesus himself, and we’ll see that there is good evidence to believe what the Bible says about him. We’ll also see that the Bible speaks truth to us in different ways, and we need to pay careful attention to read it well.
Did Jesus Even Exist?
Some people question whether Jesus even existed. But all serious historians agree that he did. We have evidence from outside the Bible—from writings by people who didn’t even like Christians—that confirm that Jesus was a first-century, Jewish teacher, that he was crucified by the Romans during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (who ruled AD 14 to AD 37) and under the authority of Pontius Pilate (who was the governor of Judea between AD 26 to AD 36) and that Christians believed he was the Messiah (God’s promised king) and worshiped him. We also have accounts of Jesus’ life from the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), which include all sorts of accurate details about the time and place in which Jesus lived.[2] Even historians who do not believe in God at all agree that Jesus was a real person.
Were the Gospels Written Too Long after Jesus’ Life to Be Trusted?
We don’t have the first copies of the Gospels. We have copies of copies of copies. But that’s not surprising at all. If you’ve ever learned about Greek and Roman history, most of what you’ve learned has been based on copies of copies of copies of copies of things people originally wrote down. And we have far more manuscript evidence for the life of Jesus than we do for the lives of many other important historical figures of his time—including the Roman emperor Tiberius who ruled during Jesus’ ministry.
When Jesus was born, most people could not read and write. There were no computers or printers or email. Most people learned by listening, and the disciples (or students) of a Jewish teacher would often know all their teachings by heart, like you might know the lyrics of songs by your favorite singer or lines in your favorite movies. (My nineteen-year-old nephew knows all the words to all the songs in Moana—don’t ask me why!)
Jesus had twelve chosen disciples and lots of other followers who traveled with him. Thousands of people listened to his teaching and saw his miracles. After his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples to spread his message throughout the world (Matthew 28:18–20). At first, they did this just by word of mouth. But when the first witnesses were starting to die out, four accounts of Jesus’ life were written down: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
In a book called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, world-class New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham gives us evidence that these Gospels are based on eyewitness accounts. He points out that the writers often mention the names of the people they had talked to, so that anyone reading the Gospels would know whom to ask to test the accuracy or the writing. It would be like saying, “If you don’t believe me, go and ask so-and-so: she saw it with her own eyes!”[3] Experts believe that Mark’s Gospel was written first, and that it was probably written thirty-five to forty-five years after Jesus’ death. That might sound like a long time to you. But is it too long for us to trust what Mark says about Jesus?
My kids love hearing stories from when my grandpa was young. Their favorite story is of a time when great-grandpa was a kid, and he was in a swimming competition. His nickname was “Mac,” and as he swam in a race, his friends shouted, “Come on Mac!” But because he was putting his head in and out of the water as he swam, he thought they were shouting, “Come back!” So he turned around and started swimming back to the start! This happened about seventy years ago. My grandpa told the story to my mum when she was little, and to me when I was little, and now he tells it to my kids. It hasn’t changed over time. And it’s a story from twice as long ago as the time between Jesus’ death and when Mark’s Gospel was written down. If your parents are in their thirties or forties, ask them to tell you about something that happened to them when they were kids.
Then ask them if they’re sure it happened, or if that’s too long ago for them to remember. Or ask your grandparents to tell you stories about when your parents were little. Because that’s about the same time difference between when Jesus was teaching and when the Gospels were written down.
My grandpa’s story is funny. But it’s not important. The other people there that day probably don’t remember the story and probably didn’t tell it to their great-grandchildren. But the teachings of Jesus and the things he did were really important. Lots of people were watching and listening to Jesus. He changed people’s lives and many of those people were willing to face execution for telling others about Jesus. The Gospels were written to make sure that the stories about Jesus would still be told accurately after the eye witnesses had died and could not be consulted anymore. Jesus’ followers didn’t want the stories about Jesus to be changed. They were too important.
What If People Just Made Up Stories about Jesus?
My daughter has a friend who says his brother can jump off tall buildings and not get hurt. I’m sure he knows this isn’t true. He’s just saying it to get attention. Some people think that the Gospel writers made up stories about Jesus to get attention too. But there are several problems with this theory.
First, the most crazy-sounding claim in the Gospels is Jesus’ resurrection. You might make up that your hero had risen from the dead if you thought you would get lots of attention or make lots of money. But if people might kill you for saying that, you’d probably stop, right? Many of Jesus’ first followers were beaten and killed for saying that very thing.
Second, the stories in the Gospels are really embarrassing for the disciples. Peter was one of Jesus’ closest followers and a key leader in the early church. Experts believe that Mark’s Gospel was based on Peter’s memories of Jesus. Mark tells us that Peter had promised that he’d stick with Jesus even if everyone else ran away (Mark 14:29–31). So far so good for Peter. But Mark also says that on the night that Jesus was arrested, Peter claimed three times that he didn’t even know who Jesus was (Mark 14:66–72)! If I were Peter, I wouldn’t want people to know that part of the story—unless it really happened, and I thought that telling the truth about Jesus was more important than what people thought of me. I definitely wouldn’t make it up or let other people make up a story like that and spread it around!
Third, some people argue that as years went by, more and more crazy stories were made up about Jesus. But the earliest writings we have about Jesus (some of the New Testament letters) talk about his resurrection, and this is his most amazing miracle. If people were exaggerating about Jesus over time, you’d expect the most crazy-sounding story to come last. But the resurrection claim is in the earliest writings about Jesus that we have. And if you think about it, if Jesus really was raised from the dead, it’s not so crazy to believe that he also healed people, or walked on water, or stopped storms.
But what if the disciples truly thought Jesus had been raised to life, but in fact he just hadn’t died in the first place?
What If Jesus Didn’t Really Die?
In the classic comic film, The Princess Bride, the hero Wesley gets tortured to death. But his friends take him to see a man called Miracle Max. After inspecting Wesley’s body, Max reassures them:
It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. . . .Mostly dead is slightly alive.[4]
By the end of the day, thanks to Max’s miracle pill, Wesley is alive enough to fight his enemies.
Some people wonder if Jesus wasn’t all dead after he was crucified, but just mostly dead so that after a few days he revived. But Roman soldiers knew how to kill. In fact, they often had the job of crucifying people who claimed to be God’s Messiah. Crucifixion (the method used to kill Jesus) was designed to maximize pain and to leave the victim not just mostly dead, but all dead.
We saw in chapter 3 that Jesus was either raised from the dead or he was not and that different religions disagree about whether or not he was raised. So is there any evidence to think that Christianity is right and that Jesus truly came back to life?
Is There Any Evidence for the Resurrection?
In March 2020, my kids’ school closed because of the coronavirus. Offices closed. Sports games got cancelled. Churches stopped being able to meet. I’m writing this a few months later and at this point, hundreds of thousands of people have died. If you had told me in 2019 that all of this was going to happen, I would not have believed you. It would have sounded too crazy.
The coronavirus seems to have started in one place, but it spread from person to person until it was all over the world. As I’m writing this right now, hundreds of millions of people are living differently because of it. Hundreds of thousands of people have died from it. You can’t see the virus itself without a microscope. But the evidence for it is everywhere. The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is a bit like that. But instead of it being terrible news of death, like the coronavirus, it’s the most wonderful news of life.
Jesus’ disciples weren’t expecting him to be raised. After his crucifixion they were very upset and scared. As we saw earlier, Jesus’ most enthusiastic disciple—Peter—was so scared after Jesus was arrested that he couldn’t even admit that he knew Jesus.
Then three days after Jesus’ death, some of his female followers said they’d seen Jesus alive (see Matthew 28:1–10; Mark 16:1–11; Luke 24:1–12; John 19:11–18). At that time, people didn’t take what women said very seriously, so if you were trying to make up convincing story, you definitely wouldn’t have women be the first witnesses. It would be like making up a story today and saying that you’d heard it from a few young kids. The only reason the Gospels would say that women were the first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection was if they really were. What’s more, if the Roman and Jewish authorities had produced the body of Jesus, they could have proved Jesus hadn’t been raised. But they didn’t.
Turning a few scared disciples who had abandoned Jesus when danger came into people who were willing to give their lives proclaiming that he had been raised from the dead took a miracle. And that miracle happened. Jesus’ male and female followers started passing the message on until it was all around the world. They proclaimed that Jesus had died for our sins, taking the punishment we deserved, and that he had been raised from the dead to give us new life. For the last two thousand years, this new life has been spreading, person to person, as people have heard the good news about Jesus and believed in him. Unlike a virus, this new life can’t be seen under a microscope. We can’t prove beyond a doubt that the resurrection happened. But we can see the effects of it all over the world. And if you think about it, if there is a God who made the universe and gave us life in the first place, it’s not crazy to think that God could raise someone from the dead.
Can Really Intelligent People Believe the Bible?
My friend Roz Picard is a professor at MIT, one of the top universities for science in the world. She’s a computer scientist, and she designs amazing robots that can recognize and copy human emotions. When Roz was a teenager, she was a “proud atheist,” and she thought the Bible was “full of fantastical crazy stuff.” Then a friend challenged her to read the Bible for herself. As the Bible is the best-selling book of all time, she decided to try. As she read, she was surprised: “I started reading the Bible,” Roz recalls, “and it started to change me.” She ended up being convinced that Jesus truly is the Son of God, who died so she could live.
My friend Ian Hutchinson is also an MIT professor. Like Roz, he wasn’t raised as a Christian. He became a Christian when he was in college, after some of his highly intelligent friends told him about Jesus. In 2018, he wrote a book called Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles? in which he answers dozens of questions about Christianity that he’s been asked by students over the years.[5] His answer to one of the most important questions in the book—“Can a scientist believe in the resurrection?”—is absolutely yes!
Believing the Bible isn’t just for stupid people. It isn’t like believing in genies or giants. Some of the smartest people in the world believe the Bible, including professors of science, history, philosophy, and theology. In fact, like the first disciples who shared the message of Jesus, they’d stake their life on it.
Content taken from 10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and Answer) about Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin, ©2021. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, crossway.org.
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Sources
[1] Aladdin, directed by Guy Ritchie (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios, 2019).
[2] Cambridge scholar Peter Williams wrote an excellent book about this called, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018).
[3] See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008).
[4] The Princess Bride, directed by Rob Reiner (Beverly Hills, CA: Act III Communications, 1987).
[5] Ian Hutchinson, Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles? An MIT Professor Answers Questions on God and Science (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018).