The "Historical Jesus"

Scholarly study of "the historical Jesus" appears to be an attempt by historians to strip away the deity and importance of Jesus Christ. It is interesting how these academicians ignore much of what the Bible has to say about Jesus and exchange it for hearsay, speculation, and the commentaries of their colleagues. They then come up with a weak and watered down version of Jesus, the Creator of the universe.

We cannot know anything of consequence concerning Jesus Christ outside of the Bible because it is the only real record of His life. So if you really want to know Who Jesus is, you must turn to the Bible. Start with the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They tell of His life on earth; however, keep in mind that Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, is the central figure of the entire Bible.

The "historical Jesus" offered in universities and television gives us the record of men while the Bible offers God's record of His Son. Which one will you accept? Consider the following scripture:

Let God be true, but every man a liar. (Romans 3:4)

In his book, "The Screwtape Letters," C.S. Lewis, a Cambridge professor and Christian apologist, writes a series of letters from a high-ranking devil named Screwtape to his younger nephew Wormwood, a tempter. This incredible book was written around either 1950 or 1960 (my current edition doesn't give the original printing date) and reveals some of the ways that the devil works in order to destroy society. I don't read much outside of the Bible, but this is one book that I highly recommend. Look at what the Screwtape says to Wormwood about the Historical Point of View. I believe it is quite instructive as “scholars” buy into their own theories of the “historical Jesus”. As you read this treatise, please remember that Screwtape is a devil and when he refers to "our father" he is talking about Satan.

Only the learned read old books and we have now so dealt with the learned that they are of all men the least likely to acquire wisdom by doing so. We have done this by inculcating the Historical Point of View. The Historical Point of View, put briefly, means that when a learned man is presented with any statement in an ancient author, the one question he never asks is whether it is true. He asks who influenced the ancient writer, and how far the statement is consistent with what he said in other books, and what phase in the writer's development, or in the general history of thought, it illustrates, and how it affected later writers, and how often it has been misunderstood, (specially by the learned man's own colleagues) and what the general course of criticism on it has been for the last ten years, and what is the "present state of the question." To regard the ancient writer as a possible source of knowledge-to anticipate that what he said could possibly modify your thoughts or you behavior-this would be rejected as unutterably simple-minded. And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another. But thanks be to Our Father (Satan) and the Historical Point of View, great scholars are...little nourished by the past...

Don't put too much trust in the record that men give of the "historical Jesus" regardless of their academic credentials.

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man..." (Romans 1:22-23).

If you want to learn about the real Jesus, please visit our index page which has hundreds of compelling articles. There’s something there for everyone whether atheist or believer.

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