Is Jesus really the Christ?

HELP! I was sent the following email from someone. Not sure if they are just playing "Devil's Advocate" or if they are really battling with their beliefs. I told the person I would share this info and get some feedback. Some lines have been deleted or edited to hide identity. So please HELP! Respond with questions or comments you would like for me to forward on your behalf and I will give you their response. Thx.

---Jewel


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....for whatever reason I always felt uncomfortable when I followed systems that the larger majority never questioned. It started when I was young - in church - and battling with the emotional expressions of the youth around me, and my desire to be accepted...by family... by the church... by God.


I yawned to force tears while kneeling at the alter / I would put on a serious face, sometimes keep my head down to reflect that I was in prayer - all the while I felt nothing. It tormented me, got me thinking that perhaps I was not a child of God - which led me to question whether or not I needed any of that emotion to be in a right relationship with God. Then enters Reformed Theology / which didn't throw "emotions" in the trash - but it didn't make them a prerequisite to being a good Christian.


As with everything, I would try to sharpen my understanding on a particular issue or doctrine, by adding some personal reading with conversation from those who both agree and disagree with my position. I figure, if it's truth then it will survive, and I will grow stronger in defending it. Naturally, this would open the door to many debates / and a few of those debates turned quite ugly (I learned a lot about how I should talk w/people on tough issues because of some of the fall out).


When debating Christians, there would have to be some ground work / some foundational principles that we could pull from to ensure we were on common ground. Those included the infallibility of scripture / the deity of Christ / the virgin birth - death and resurrection / and a few others depending upon the nature of the conversation.


While I don't claim to be the most studied biblical scholar, I started questioning these foundational things. Why is the scriptures infallible? Who is Jesus, and why do I need Jesus? What is the benefit of Christianity here on earth, beyond just faith in heaven?


In searching for answers to these questions, I figured out a few things:


1. Most Christians don't get asked these questions often (starting to sound like Bill Maher huh?)
2. Most Christians respond to these questions with, "you have to have faith"


Very few would engage me with this type of conversation. Here's the thing, if you take away those 'foundational things'...


- Infallibility of Scripture
- The Deity of Christ
- The Virgin Birth
- Jesus' life / death / and resurrection


...what then would be the point of following the bible beyond the proverbs, which many consider a compilation of good-moral words to live by?


Questioning Christianity normally get's met with slammed doors / deleted e-mails / anger / broken relationships / etc... but why not take a couple seconds and critically think about it.


What if there was a man that was born December 25th, 1965 / born of a virgin / a star was on his home / 3 wise men came to acknowledge this birth / started his ministry at 30 / claimed to be the son of God / performed miracles / 12 disciples / was crucified / dead / 3 days later rose from the grave .... Simply do to the fact that he was born in 1965 / we would believe this was just a copy-cat of Jesus, trying his best to match up with "the original" ...


But what if the Jesus Christ of the bible wasn't the original to all of these things?


What if 900 years before Christ (in India) there was Krishna, where his followers claimed these very same things about him / or 1200 years before Christ there was Attis (in Greece) or Mithra (in Persia) where they also held the same claims:


- Born of a virgin
- December 25
- Performed Miracles
- Dead for 3 Days
- Resurrected
- attributed names ("king of kings" / "lamb of God")


I guess many would probably say that Jesus still precedes them due to the thought that the bible (Old Testament) was penned some 2000 years before Christ - and that Christ is the fulfillment of those scriptures, making him the real McCoy...


But what if 1000 years before the Old Testament was penned, there was a group who followed after (Horus in Egypt - 3000 BC):


- Born of a virgin
- December 25
- 3 Wise men came to see
- Started teaching at 12
- Began full ministry at 30
- Performed Miracles (walked on water / water into wine / etc...)
- Was crucified between 2 thieves
- Dead for 3 Days
- Resurrected
- attributed names ("king of kings" / "lamb of God")


Then would that not make the Old Testament prophecies a copy-cat story of someone who existed 1000 years prior? With that information, on what premise would you believe in the Jesus story? What distinction would be made to validate a copy-cat story over the original one?


To make matters worse, let's say that every "messianic" religion was a derivative of Horus - and that Horus was only a story crafted for people to understand the movement of the sun / would that not make all of them faulty?


If you are still reading - I hope you don't think i'm going mad. Just sharing some questions I have in hopes to add some understanding to this topic, which is (as we know) a pretty big deal - since so much rides on what you do or don't believe.


While you are thinking about this / check out this link by clicking--> Here

I see nobody's responded to this yet.. funny me and TC addressed this on HCR the other day.. i hope these help

they're links to places that debunk claims that Christianity copy catted anything. all of the similarities pointed out by your friend do NOT exist except in the lies mystics make up (that are not supported by any ORIGINAL EGYPTIAN TEXTS).. in fact.. much of the "similarities" pointed out aren't even mentioned in the original eyptian txts. I hope this helps. Peace and blessings.


Osirus & Horus
Osirus and Horus.
krishna v. The Christ (see "the essential differences" section.. krishna is a fictional character

PLENTY of information out there on this stuff.

Before Horus, Osiris or anyone else, I AM.

Satan is a master deceiver. I'll get back to this in a bit.

right now I'm reading an excellent book called "Reason for God" by Timothy Keller
Its one of those books that's good for Christians and Skeptics alike.

simply seth wrote:

right now I'm reading an excellent book called "Reason for God" by Timothy Keller
Its one of those books that's good for Christians and Skeptics alike.

That's definitely on my list of books to buy.

http://books.livingsocial.com/people/1690762640

This all looks like ancient Sumerian stuff. I had an interesting conversation about this at work recently. What I've found is that these folks are usually beyond reason. They have bought into what they've read in "ancient history" and are not willing to believe the Bible's HIStorical account. They've traded truth for lies and unless the Lord works on their hearts, they will be eternally damned to hell.

So...while apologetics is important, I'd make sure these folks have a clear explanation of the gospel given to them. That's what we've been called to do. At the end of the day, after debating the historicity of the Bible and the reality of Jesus Christ, they will still disagree with you because of the many books that try to refute even the historical existence of Christ. They believe themselves to be true scholars, but their arguments are not scholarly at all.

I think one of the greatest defenses for our belief in Christ is the New Testament itself. Written in the 1st Century AD, with the earliest copy being in approximately 130 AD, less than 100 years after the original writings, there are 5600 Greek copies with 99.5 percent accuracy to the originals. There is no ancient writing or group of writings with more abundant and more accurate manuscripts. There are almost 5000 more copies of the New Testament than the writings of Homer and 500 years went by between his original writing and the first copy.

People have no problem believing the writings of Plato or Aristotle are historically accurate. However, between the TWO of them, there are only 56 copies (Plato with 7, Aristotle with 49).

If the New Testament cannot be trusted, neither can any of these writings, which have significantly less surviving copies.

Michael wrote:

This all looks like ancient Sumerian stuff. I had an interesting conversation about this at work recently. What I've found is that these folks are usually beyond reason. They have bought into what they've read in "ancient history" and are not willing to believe the Bible's HIStorical account. They've traded truth for lies and unless the Lord works on their hearts, they will be eternally damned to hell.

So...while apologetics is important, I'd make sure these folks have a clear explanation of the gospel given to them. That's what we've been called to do. At the end of the day, after debating the historicity of the Bible and the reality of Jesus Christ, they will still disagree with you because of the many books that try to refute even the historical existence of Christ. They believe themselves to be true scholars, but their arguments are not scholarly at all.

I think one of the greatest defenses for our belief in Christ is the New Testament itself. Written in the 1st Century AD, with the earliest copy being in approximately 130 AD, less than 100 years after the original writings, there are 5600 Greek copies with 99.5 percent accuracy to the originals. There is no ancient writing or group of writings with more abundant and more accurate manuscripts. There are almost 5000 more copies of the New Testament than the writings of Homer and 500 years went by between his original writing and the first copy.

People have no problem believing the writings of Plato or Aristotle are historically accurate. However, between the TWO of them, there are only 56 copies (Plato with 7, Aristotle with 49).

If the New Testament cannot be trusted, neither can any of these writings, which have significantly less surviving copies.

Yeah, I've used these arguments before and unless God moves on a person's heart they usually dont help... They will concede that they dont know if they can trust any writings. But they will say that we dont stake our lives and eternities on Plato or Aristotles writings, so Its not that big of a deal if they arent completely accurate or not...

[quote="JARZJR"]

Michael wrote:

This all looks like ancient Sumerian stuff. I had an interesting conversation about this at work recently. What I've found is that these folks are usually beyond reason. They have bought into what they've read in "ancient history" and are not willing to believe the Bible's HIStorical account. They've traded truth for lies and unless the Lord works on their hearts, they will be eternally damned to hell.

So...while apologetics is important, I'd make sure these folks have a clear explanation of the gospel given to them. That's what we've been called to do. At the end of the day, after debating the historicity of the Bible and the reality of Jesus Christ, they will still disagree with you because of the many books that try to refute even the historical existence of Christ. They believe themselves to be true scholars, but their arguments are not scholarly at all.

I think one of the greatest defenses for our belief in Christ is the New Testament itself. Written in the 1st Century AD, with the earliest copy being in approximately 130 AD, less than 100 years after the original writings, there are 5600 Greek copies with 99.5 percent accuracy to the originals. There is no ancient writing or group of writings with more abundant and more accurate manuscripts. There are almost 5000 more copies of the New Testament than the writings of Homer and 500 years went by between his original writing and the first copy.

People have no problem believing the writings of Plato or Aristotle are historically accurate. However, between the TWO of them, there are only 56 copies (Plato with 7, Aristotle with 49).

If the New Testament cannot be trusted, neither can any of these writings, which have significantly less surviving copies.

Yeah, I've used these arguments before and unless God moves on a person's heart they usually dont help... They will concede that they dont know if they can trust any writings. But they will say that we dont stake our lives and eternities on Plato or Aristotles writings, so Its not that big of a deal if they arent completely accurate or not...[/quote

Yeah, I think apologetics has its place. We are called to always have an answer for the hope that lies within. But, as you stated, only God moving upon hearts will do anything to bring them to Himself. That's why it's so important that we are preaching the real gospel to real people who need a real Savior.