January 11, 2009
Whilst this argument has been stated previously (C.S. Lewis formed the first
version with only three L's, and Legend was added later), I feel it is well
worth repeating. This is essentially an argument as too who the real historic
figure of Jesus of Nazareth was. There is extensive historical documents
surrounding this Rabbi from Judea who claimed to be much more than just a Rabbi.
(Don't believe me that Jesus claimed to be God? See Matt. 27:43, Mark 14:62,
Luke 22:70, John 6:35, John 6:40, John 6:51, John 8:12, John 8:23-24, John 8:58,
and a bunch of others that I couldn't be bothered to look up right now)
There are essentially four possibilities as to who Jesus was based on
these documents: Legend, or these account are heavily if not entirely
fictionalized; Liar, or Jesus was a masterful Charlatan, perhaps with some form
of demonic or magical power; Lunatic, Jesus was insane; or Lord, Jesus is the
rightful Lord and ruler of your life. Essentially Jesus of Nazareth must be one
of these four things, or some combination thereof. Now lets examine each of
these in order:
Legend
Now this one is the most popular and consists of two main variants. First,
Jesus did not exist at all, which doesn't make sense from a historic
perspective, the shear quantity of documentation about him proves, as near as
can be done with any historic figure, that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Now of
course the more popular form is almost definitely that Jesus did exist, but that
is no more reliable most scholars place the original authorship of the New
Testament within the life span of the people who actually met Jesus. Just
imagine if a bunch of Martin Luther King's supporters started to make those sort
of claims about him today. It doesn't make sense.
Liar
Basically this requires Jesus to have been such an expert liar that he
actually managed to convince a large number of people that he rose people from
the dead, several times, and even feed thousands of people magically, again
several times. Managing to trick people into believing in these miracles is a
miracle in and of itself. And then of course there's the little question of how
many liars are willing to die for their lies?
Lunatic
Of course he might still be crazy, except of course that the thousands of
people who met him in his life appear not to have thought so, after all
they where apparently quite impressed with him, so much so that leaders in
society came to him for help on several occasions. Also crazy doesn't grant the
power to perform miracles as far as I know.
Lord
And that leaves our third and final possibility. So, who do you think
Jesus was?
Posted by Timothy Pollard in Religion on January 11, 2009
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