Be a Man Part 1: The man called Jesus

Who’s the man?

I spent the entirety of my childhood and adolescent life searching for what it means to be a man. The school system taught me that all kids are supposed to be relatively the same, at least within their respective groupings, so that must be true for men as well. There must be a one-size-fits-all model when it comes to being a man.

Having this belief forced me to try to find out which model of man was the true man. Was it the John Wayne and Clint Eastwood characters in the old Westerns I would watch with my dad? The genius scientist who wins a Nobel Prize?The professional athlete? Or was it the good-guy-Luke Skywalker-type hero that fights evil despite the odds stacked against him? There were too many options, and none of them felt like me, though I spent many years trying, forcing a square peg into a circle hole, so to speak.

What I didn’t know then was that being a man isn’t defined by what you do, how you look, or your interests. It’s about who you are as a person and how you live your life.

To be clear, I’m not talking about your sex—you’re either born a man or you’re born a woman [1]. Male and female chromosomes are different, our femur bones and pelvis are shaped and sized differently for distinct functions, our brains are different, and the list goes on. When I talk about my search for what it meant to be a man, I’m speaking about what it means to be the male I was born as.

For someone who grew up reading my Bible, living in a Christian household, and being involved in Christian schools and communities, the answer should’ve been obvious. After all, it was right in front of my face. If you want to know what a true man is, then you should look at the life of the only person ever to walk this earth and live a completely perfect life—Jesus of Nazareth.

However, I need to split this discussion into two posts. If I’m going to explain why we (both men and women) should model our lives after Jesus, then I must first establish why He’s worth modeling after. Was He even a real person, or just a myth? Was He actually the Son of God, or was He just a renegade Jew who was betrayed by His own people and killed by the Romans? If He is not who He said He was, then we have no real reason to model our lives after Him. We might as well pick some other kind and wise man from history to follow, or even our favorite superhero.

In Part 1 of this discussion, I want to present some of the most compelling evidence I’ve found that strongly supports the validity of the man called Jesus, not only as a real person but also exactly who He said He was.

Copy Cat

I was shocked to learn several years ago that many people believe that the historicity of Jesus is nothing more than a conspiracy theory—The Greatest Story Ever Sold [2]. I always thought that the debate was whether He is who He said He was and did what He said He did, not whether He was a made-up figure or not.

After diving down this rabbit hole, I landed on the claim that the story of Jesus actually originated in several mythologies that predated Jesus. The belief is that early Christians drew on all these stories and compiled them into a perfect Jesus figure to start a new religion: The Egyptian god Horus, the Greek god Dionysus, the Persian god Mithras, Rome’s Attis, the Hindu Krishna, and the list goes on. The claim is that the Jesus story leeched off the stories of these gods, borrowing details such as virgin births, a god taking a human form, the role of a carpenter, performing miracles, having twelve disciples, being killed and raised from the dead, and so on. Sounds awfully similar, right?

But if you actually read these stories for yourself, you’ll find that these similarities aren’t as close as they say. In fact, it’s quite a reach. For example, the claim is that Mithras was born from a virgin, but in reality, he was born from a rock. Under the fair assumption that rocks do not have an innate sexual identity, it’s safe to suppose that there was no daddy rock to go with this mommy rock. Combining this with the fact that rocks don’t procreate, I’d say this puts the nail in the coffin. As I read the rest of these myths, the chasm of difference between them and the Jesus story grew deeper and deeper. Out of all the reasons why the Jesus story is claimed to be a myth, this one was the most ludicrous to me. If you’re interested in a more in-depth contrast of some of these stories, you should check out some of Pastor Mark Clark’s works, such as The Problem of God.

Prophesy

In his short 33 years, Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies, while some say the number may be as high as 600. Most of these prophecies were written hundreds of years before Jesus’ time, going as far back as 700 years with the books of Isaiah and Micah.

A Mathematician by the name of Peter Stoner, applying the modern science of probability, says that the chance of one person fulfilling even 8 of these prophecies is one in 100,000,000,000,000,000. Sheesh.

And when it comes to these prophesies, it’s not the type of stuff that could be easily fulfilled and applied to any Joe Schmo—the Messiah will be a lover of dogs and prefers savory over sweet—No, this was really specific stuff. Let’s take a look at just a few of these so we can get a grasp on how difficult it would be to fulfill:

Virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14) in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), triumphal entry on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9), betrayal by a close friend (Psalm 41:9) for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13), being struck and spit on (Micah 5:1, Isaiah 50:6), pierced hands and feet/clothing being cast for lots (Psalm 22), and the entire 53rd Chapter of Isaiah which talks about Him taking on our iniquities, healing us, and being crushed as a guilt offering. Pretty crazy, right? And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to prophecies.

But Pete, you might say, anyone could look at these prophecies and still write a fake story about a man who fulfilled them. Absolutely, they could. So let’s first look at some secular sources that write about Jesus as a real person, and then dive into the reasons we should believe what the early Christians said about him in the New Testament.

Secular Sources

There are at least ten non-believing 1st-century historians who mention Jesus, most of them writing about Jesus and His Christian followers with contempt. It would be one thing only to have writings from Christians, but these are valid records from people who didn’t even like the guy, and who surely didn’t believe Him to be the Son of God. Let’s check out a few of them:

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish-born Roman citizen, writes, …about this time, Jesus, a wise man, a doer of wonderful works…[3], Tacitus, the Roman historian, discussed how Nero, fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class…called ‘Chrestians’, by the populus Christus, from whom the name had it’s origin, suffered the extreme penalty under the reign of Tiberius at the hands of…Pontius Pilate [4], the Stoic Philosopher, Mara bar Serapion, who wrote a letter to his son speaking about the execution of the wise King of the Jews, Phlegon of Tralles, who referenced the eclipse from the sixth hour to the ninth hour [5] during Jesus’ crucifixion, which was also mentioned in three of the four Gospels [6], and many others, such as Pliny the Younger, and Seutonius.

Not only do we have mentions of Jesus in secular sources such as those mentioned above, but we also have to consider the number of manuscripts that refer to Jesus. For example, there are only ten (some say 3) generally valid manuscripts about Caesar’s Gallic Wars, written a thousand years after the event. At the same time, we have over 25,000 New Testament manuscripts in five languages, written within the same century as Jesus, including over 5,600 Greek manuscripts, most of which were written 15-25 years after Jesus’ life [7].

Tiberius was Caesar and the most powerful man in the world during Jesus’ time. Yet, we only have four sources on his reign, written 80-90 years after, while Jesus, the peasant-class Jewish carpenter who died a slave’s death, has far more reliable written sources closer to the time of his life than the Caesar of Rome [8,9]. Similar numbers also go for famous men such as Plato and Aristotle, yet no one bats an eye when you say they existed.

Lastly, concerning all of Scripture, the Bible is known to contain the most reliable writings of any work in the world, to the point that secular archaeologists and historians use it as a reference. Every time they think they find a discrepancy, they discover new evidence that reaffirms what the text says.

So, let’s not be so close-minded as to pretend the Man didn’t exist. Historian and Professor Edwin Yamauchi puts it this way: "Any argument that challenges the claim of a historical Jesus is so ridiculous in the scholarly community, it is relegated only to the world of footnotes." So now that we’ve gone through a few pieces of that evidence, let’s build on the prophecies we covered earlier and examine why we should take the early Christian writers at their word about Jesus being who He claimed to be.

Telling a Lie

Let’s start by looking at a few facts and timelines. There were at least eight or nine different authors for the entire New Testament. The Gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John) were written by four different people, living in different places and written at various times. The Apostle Paul, who wrote up to 13 books in the New Testament, began speaking about Jesus 3 years after Jesus' death on the cross. Jesus died between 30 and 33 AD. Most of the New Testament is believed to have been written between 50 and 70 AD, which is as early as 20 years after the death of Jesus. Looking at these facts, this means that if Christianity is made-up, then all of these authors only had about 20 years or so to get their story together and create a lie, which is almost impossible to do, because there are too many people still alive in that time and region who could dispute the claim. If you’re going to create a lie, wait until everyone who could personally speak against it is dead. After all, Dead men tell no tales.

This is why, when Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, speaks of Jesus rising from the dead and then appearing to more than 500 people at once, he says, most of whom are still alive today [10]. As in, “Hey, you don’t believe me? There are still hundreds of those eyewitnesses alive right now. Go ahead and ask them, I dare you.” That’s bold, man. I don’t know about you, but if I were trying to spread a lie, I wouldn’t be urging everyone to fact-check me.

If the disciples were looking to create a false religion, they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to start preaching the Gospel the moment Jesus ascended into heaven, and they certainly wouldn’t have put it in writing so soon.

Validity Check

If you read through the Gospels, you’ll notice that there are slight differences in accounts of the same stories. You may think that this invalidates the claims. If they were telling us the truth, they would certainly all be saying the exact same thing, right? Actually, investigators and historians say differently. In fact, they say it makes the story more valid.

Picture this: you and three of your friends witness a bank robbery and are retelling the story to the police. The foundation of the story and unfolding of the events is the same among the four of you, but slight details are off. One person says there were six robbers, while the other says there were eight. One says the getaway car was red, while another says it was navy blue. The list goes on, but regardless of minor discrepancies, the fact of the matter is the same—the bank was robbed, and the bad guys got away.

I recently spoke to someone who conducts aptitude tests for a living. When discussing the observation tests they run, she said, “This is why eyewitness testimony is unreliable when it comes to very fine details. People observe things differently based on how their brain operates, what they’re focusing on, and who they are as a person, especially when they’re wrapped up in the moment.” This explains why Luke was the only one to note Jesus sweating blood [11]. Of course, that type of detail mattered to him; he was a doctor.

On the other hand, if you and three of your friends were orchestrating a lie, you would make sure that your stories matched up to a tee. It would almost be scripted, copy and paste. When you read the Gospels, and they’re repeating the same stories, you’ll see that all of the major themes and important details are the same, while inconsequential details are slightly different. This is simply due to different points of view from various people observing the same event.

Another critical point is that if the disciples wanted to create a believable lie back then, they certainly wouldn’t have included women the way they did. Formal education was largely denied to women in 1st Century Jewish culture; their word wasn’t taken as seriously, they seemed to be treated unfairly in situations involving wrongdoing (where was the adulterating man in John 8:1?), and they weren’t even allowed in a court of law. But several times in the New Testament, they record women playing essential roles in monumental scenes, such as Jesus appearing first to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection [12]. In that time, if you wanted to sound valid, you would make sure that men were the primary focus of every scene, not some woman who used to be demon possessed [13].

Storytelling

Some would argue that the Christian story isn’t necessarily a lie meant to fool people, but it’s just another story, like the myths and legends of that time.

I learned from Pastor Timothy Keller that the New Testament documents are far too detailed to be legends, and that traditional novels or realistic fiction weren’t even invented until the 18th century. C.S. Lewis, a former atheist and expert in ancient literature, backs this up when commenting on the Gospels. "I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. With the gospel texts, there are only two possible views. Either this is historical reportage, or else some unknown ancient writer without known predecessors or successors suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic, realistic narrative. The reader who doesn't see this has simply not learned how to read."

Keller also points out that if the apostles aimed to create a false religion, they wouldn’t have added so many instances of themselves acting like fools or cowards. Examples that come to my mind are: the disciples falling asleep on their watch; abandoning Jesus when He was arrested; Peter denying Jesus three times after he swore he wouldn’t; their frequent lack of faith and general selfishness; and so on. And not just uninspiring examples from the disciples, but even from Jesus. If you’re creating a religion and puffing up Jesus to be the Rough n’ Tough King of the Universe, you’re not going to put in the part where He’s on His knees, sweating blood from fear, and begging His Father to give Him a free pass [14]. That’s too human for a god of those times.

To the death

Lee Strobel was an atheist journalist who set out to disprove Christianity. To his surprise, he found so much evidence for the validity of Jesus Christ and His claims that Strobel became a Christian himself. “Anyone might die for what they believe in”, Lee says in his book, The Case for Christ, “but no one will die for a lie.”

We can say with assurance that at least 5 of the disciples who walked with Jesus for 3 years were martyred horribly, although there is strong evidence that 11 of them were. Bartholomew was flayed alive, Peter was crucified upside down, Philip was tortured and impaled with iron hooks, Andrew was crucified, and James, the brother of Jesus, was allegedly pushed from the temple roof and then stoned and beaten with clubs. The only disciple known not to be martyred was John, but he was boiled alive in oil and then exiled to the Island of Patmos. If these men had created a lie, don’t you think that at least one of them (if not all) would’ve said, “Okay, okay, fine, we made it up!”, just to get the torture to stop? But they stood firm for the truth.

And not just the 12 disciples, but the early Christians, who were at least eyewitnesses themselves, or knew someone who was. They suffered heavy persecution: their children were killed, they were eaten alive by lions, sawn in half, dismembered, burned alive, or impaled with stakes and set on fire to provide light for Nero’s garden at night. Is that really worth a lie? This is why Paul says that if Christianity isn’t true, we are to be the most pitied of all people [15].

Lord, Liar, Lunatic

There is so much evidence for Jesus' validity both as a human who walked this earth and as being the Son of God who died for the world and rose again, that my main difficulty with this post was deciding what to include and what to leave out. This is far from a comprehensive apologetic argument, as my only aim was to provide a few pieces of evidence for the Jesus story. Many apologists, scholars, and pastors can provide you with much more evidence than this, and I’d encourage you to explore it if you’re skeptical.

And to be fair, I’ve done my homework. I’ve also extensively examined the evidence contrary to Christianity, and I’m simply not impressed. Not solely because of objective evidence such as what was written above, but mainly because my life is completely transformed by having a relationship with Jesus Christ. I personally think it takes far more faith to be an atheist or an agnostic than it does to be a Christian. I also don’t think an apologetic stance is the most important thing, but I do believe it’s a valuable component in defending your faith [16].

If you are a skeptic, I hope I’ve given you enough information to be less skeptical, or at least skeptical of your skepticism. I think this particular quote from C.S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity, wraps Part 1 of this discussion up nicely. He lays out an argument for the validity of Christ, known as Lewis’ Trilemma. Here’s what he says:

I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. 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. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse.. I have to accept the view that He was and is God.

Part 2

Now that I’ve established some reasons that I believe Jesus is the Son of God and that we should model our lives after Him, I want to dive into what that looks like: How did He live, what were His priorities, how did He deal with people and situations, how did He handle His emotions, and so on. We’ve all seen the "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets, but to ask ourselves what He would do, we should first look at what He actually did.

Stay tuned for Part 2 for the only true example of what a true man and human is.

FootNotes:

[1] Genesis 1:27

[2] The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold (1999) by Acharya S (D.M. Murdock)

[3] Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Testimonium Flavianum, 18.3

[4] Tacitus, Cornelius, The Annals, 15.44

[5] Phlegon of Tralles, Africanus, Chronography, 18:1

[6] Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44-45

[7] Pastor Johnny Ardavanis, Dial In Ministries

[8] Sherwin-White, A.N., Roman Society and Roman Law in the NT

[9] Bass, Justin, The Bedrock of Christianity

[10] 1 Corinthians 15:6

[11] Luke 22:44

[12] Mark 16:9, John 20:11-18

[13] Luke 8:2, Mark 16:9

[14] Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42, Luke 22:40-46

[15] 1 Corinthians 15:19

[16] 1 Peter 3:15