I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (54 page)

Self-Canceling Miracles—
The great skeptic David Hume argued that miracles cannot affirm any one religion because miracles are based on poor testimony and all religions have them. In other words, miracle claims are self-canceling. Unfortunately for Hume, his objection does not describe the actual state of affairs.

First, Hume makes a hasty generalization by saying that alleged miracles from all religions are alike. As we’ve seen since chapter 9, the miracles associated with Christianity are not based on poor testimony. They are based on early, eyewitness, multiple-source testimony that is unrivaled in any other world religion. That is, no other world religion has verified miracles like those in the New Testament.

Second, Hume’s objection is prior to the discoveries of modern science that confirm that this is a theistic universe (chapters 3–6). Since this is a theistic universe, Judaism and Islam are the only other major world religions that possibly could be true. Miracles confirming the Old Testament of Judaism also confirm Christianity. So we are left with Islam as the only possible alternative to “cancel” the miracles of Christianity. But as we saw in chapter 10, there are no verifiable miracles confirming Islam. All alleged miracles of Muhammad come long after his death and were not based on eyewitness testimony.

Finally, the uniqueness, number, and quality of New Testament miracles cannot be explained by anything other than a supernatural cause. Jesus performed more than thirty miracles that were instantaneous, always successful, and unique. Some were even predicted. So-called miracle workers who claim partial success effect only psychosomatic cures, engage in trickery, perform satanic signs, or rely on naturally explainable events. In fact, no contemporary healer even claims to be able to heal all diseases (including “incurable” ones) instantaneously, with 100 percent success. But Jesus and his apostles did. This demonstrates the unique, God-authenticating nature of the New Testament miracles against all other supernatural claims of any other religion. In short, nothing “cancels” the miracles of the New Testament.

C
ONCLUSION
: O
NE
S
OLITARY
L
IFE

In the beginning of chapter 9, we said there are two questions we needed to answer to see if the New Testament is truly historical:

1. Do we have accurate copies of the original documents that were written down in the first century?

2. Do those documents speak the truth?

As we’ve seen in the last four chapters, the evidence is strong that the answer to both of those questions is yes. In other words, we can be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the New Testament is historically reliable.

At this point, we are
not
saying that the New Testament is without error. We’ll investigate that question later. Right now, we can only conclude that the major events of the New Testament really occurred nearly 2,000 years ago. Jesus really lived, taught, performed miracles, died by crucifixion, and then rose from the dead.

If you’re still not convinced, consider one more piece of corroborating evidence: the incredible impact of Christ’s life as expressed in a short sermon excerpt that is often titled “One Solitary Life”:

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn’t go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.

[Twenty] centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned—put together—have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.
²⁹

If there was no resurrection, how could this life be the most influential life of all time? We don’t have enough faith to believe that this one solitary life from a remote, ancient village could be the most influential life of all time . . .
unless the Resurrection is true.

Chapters 13–14
will cover:

1. Truth about reality is knowable.

2. The opposite of true is false.

3. It is true that the theistic God exists. This is evidenced by the:

a. Beginning of the universe (Cosmological Argument)

b. Design of the universe (Teleological Argument/ Anthropic Principle)

c. Design of life (Teleological Argument)

d. Moral Law (Moral Argument)

4. If God exists, then miracles are possible.

5. Miracles can be used to confirm a message from God (i.e., as acts of God to confirm a word from God).

6. The New Testament is historically reliable. This is evidenced by:

a. Early testimony

b. Eyewitness testimony

c. Uninvented (authentic) testimony

d. Eyewitnesses who were not deceived

7. The New Testament says Jesus claimed to be God.
.

8. Jesus’ claim to be God was miraculously confirmed by:

.

a. His fulfillment of many prophecies about himself;

b. His sinless life and miraculous deeds;

c. His prediction and accomplishment of his resurrection.

9. Therefore, Jesus is God.

10. Whatever Jesus (who is God) teaches is true.

11. Jesus taught that the Bible is the Word of God.

12. Therefore, it is true that the Bible is the Word of God
(and anything opposed to it is false).

13

Who Is Jesus: God?
Or Just a Great Moral
Teacher?

“There are none who are as deaf as those who do not
want to hear.”

—BARRY LEVENTHAL

WE’VE ESTABLISHED THAT the New Testament documents are historically reliable. That is, we can be reasonably certain that Jesus said and did what those documents say he said and did, including his resurrection from the dead. So who is this Jesus? What did he say about himself? Is he really God as Christians claim?

Before we investigate the claims of Christ, we need to take a look at the messianic predictions we’ve been alluding to in recent chapters. This will help us discover Jesus’ true identity, and it also will provide further evidence relating to the authenticity of the New Testament. We start on the campus of UCLA in the mid-60s.

T
HE
M
ESSIAH AND THE
“T
RICK
” B
IBLE

In early 1966, Barry Leventhal was a young Jewish man on top of the world. As offensive captain of the UCLA football team, Barry had just led UCLA—a team predicted to finish last that year—to its first ever Rose Bowl championship.

“My life was great!” he remembers. “I was a hero. People loved me. My Jewish fraternity chose me as the national athlete of the year. And I basked in the glory of it all.”
¹

Soon after the Rose Bowl victory, Barry’s best friend, Kent, said that he had come to know Jesus Christ in a personal way.

“I had no idea what Kent was talking about,” Barry said. “I thought he had always been a Christian. After all, he had been born into a Christian home, just as I had been born into a Jewish home. Isn’t that how a person got his particular religion? You inherited it from your parents.”

But Barry was intrigued by the change in Kent’s life, especially when Kent said to him, “Barry, I want you to know that I thank God every day for the Jews.”

“Why in the world would you do that?” Barry asked.

Kent’s answer utterly surprised him. “I thank God every day for the Jews for two reasons,” Kent began. “First, God used them to give me my Bible. And second, and most important, God used the Jews to bring his Messiah into the world, the One who died for the sins of the whole world and especially for all of my sins.”

“To this day I remember the impact of those few simple but true statements,” Barry recalls.
“Genuine
Christians don’t hate the Jews after all. In fact, they truly love us and are grateful and honored that God has included them by faith into his forever family.”

A few weeks later, Kent introduced Barry to Hal, the Campus Crusade for Christ leader on the UCLA campus. One day Barry and Hal were sitting in the crowded student lounge, when things got very tense. As Hal was showing Barry that predictions of the Messiah from the Old Testament were fulfilled by Jesus, Barry blurted out loudly, “How could you do this?!”

“Do what?” Hal asked.

“Use a trick Bible!” Barry charged. “You’ve got a trick Bible to fool the Jews!”

“What do you mean by a ‘trick Bible?’” Hal asked.

Barry responded, “You Christians took those so-called messianic predictions from your own New Testament and then rewrote them into your edition of the Old Testament in order to fool the Jews. But I guarantee you, those messianic prophecies are not in our Jewish Bible!”

“No, Barry. That’s not it at all,” said Hal.

“No, that’s a trick Bible!” Barry shouted as he jumped up.

“No, it isn’t!” Hal said again, amazed at the charge. “I’ve never had anyone say this before. Please sit down.”

People began to stare.

“No, Hal. This relationship is over!”

“Barry, Barry, wait a minute. Do you have your own Tanach [a Jewish Bible]?”

“Yes, I’ve got one from my Bar Mitzvah. So what?”

“Why don’t you write down these verses and go read them in your own Tanach?”

“Because that’ll be a waste of time!” Barry blasted. “Those verses aren’t in the Tanach!”

“Please,” Hal persisted, “just write them down and check them out for yourself.”

The two men volleyed back and forth until Barry—wanting to get Hal off his back—agreed to check them out. “Alright,” he said as he scribbled the references down, “I’ll check them out. But don’t call me, I’ll call you!”

Barry left, never expecting to see Hal again. He didn’t check the verses for several days, and then guilt began to gnaw at him. “I told Hal I’d check them out,” Barry recalled, “so I should at least do that and put this Christianity thing to rest once and for all!”

That night Barry dusted off his old Tanach—the one he hadn’t even opened since he was thirteen—and was shocked at what he found. Every prediction Hal had referenced was indeed in the Tanach!

Barry’s initial reaction was, “I’m in deep trouble! Jesus really is the Messiah!”

But at this point, Barry’s acceptance was only intellectual. He immediately began to worry about the implications if he made his discovery public. “If I accept Jesus as the Messiah, what will my parents think? What will my Jewish fraternity friends do? What will my rabbi say?”

More study was needed before Barry was ready to go public, especially on one passage that Hal had referenced several times: Isaiah 53. Before we reveal the conclusion of Barry’s search, let’s take a look at Isaiah 53 and some of the other messianic prophecies he was investigating.

T
HE
S
UFFERING
S
ERVANT

In March of 1947 a young Arab shepherd boy (Muhammad adh-Dhib) was watching his sheep seven-and-a-half miles south of Jericho and one mile west of the Dead Sea. After tossing a rock at a stray goat, he heard the sound of breaking pottery. What ensued was one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time—the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In excavations of area caves through 1956, numerous scrolls and thousands of manuscript fragments were found in pottery that had been placed there about 2,000 years ago by a Jewish religious sect known as the Essenes. The Essenes existed as a group from 167 B.C. to A.D. 68. They had broken away from the temple authorities and established their own monastic community in the Judean desert near Qumran.

One of their scrolls found in Qumran is now known as the Great Isaiah Scroll. Dated from 100 B.C., this twenty-four-foot scroll is the complete book of Isaiah (all sixty-six chapters) and is the oldest biblical scroll in existence.
²
It is currently protected in a vault somewhere in Jerusalem, but a copy of it is on display at the Shrine of the Book museum in Jerusalem.

The importance of this discovery is not just that the scroll predates Christ and is in good condition, but that it contains perhaps the clearest and most complete prophecy about the coming Messiah. Isaiah calls the Messiah the “Servant of the Lord,” and he begins to refer to the Servant in chapter 42 in what is known as the first “Servant Song.” However, the Servant is most often referred to as the “Suffering Servant,” because of the vivid description of his sacrificial death found in Isaiah 53.

As you read the passage (52:13–53:12), ask yourself, “To whom is this referring?”

(52:13) See, my servant will act wisely;

he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.

(14) Just as there were many who were appalled at him—his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness—

(15) so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him.

For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.

(53:1) Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

(2) He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.