Over the years, I have come across many people who deny God's existence, many people who do not believe in Jesus Christ. And, especially with the release of The Da Vinci Code, it seems that the number of people who question God and Jesus' existence are growing. And the Bible. It's all fiction. A pack of lies, stories and myths made up by humans. It has come to my attention that most of the people who claim this are not at all familiar with the Bible... neither the authors nor the era it was written in. They are not even familiar with the content. They are just convinced that Jesus is a mythological character that has been handed down to us over the centuries. Only interested in making uninformed claims. I ask these people to go and read the Bible. To study it's background and the era that it was written in. To look at the evidence from history and non-Christian writings. At archaeology confirms and to understand the reliability of the Bible. I ask them to be informed before making such pathetic claims.
I ask them to answer the following question. How did the Christian church come into being in the first century? We know that at the beginning of the first century there were no people called Christians, but by the end of that century Christians existed throughout the entire Roman Empire. History tells us that in the latter half of the first century there were men and women all over Palestine claiming that they had seen this man Jesus alive after his public execution. No one in the first century ever denied that this man was a real person. There were many enemies of the Christian church, who if possible, would have stopped this new movement. Yet no one ever did on the basis of his non-existence. So tell me... if there was no Jesus Christ, how and why did the Christian church come into being? Please, help me fill in this huge gap.
Not only is there evidence from history but also from non-Christian writings. Josephus, an aristocratic Jew, and Tacitus, the greatest of the Roman historians of the period, both wrote witnesses that Jesus lived and ministered in Galilee in the time of Herod Antipas. That he died in Judea following the accusations of Caiaphas the high priest, by the hands of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. They wrote that the movement led by Jesus did not cease with his death, but continued and spread westward to Rome. Surely they were not both lying. Wait a minute. Maybe they were both very talented storytellers who just both coincidentally wrote the exact same story. Maybe, eh?
To support the historical evidence and eyewitness accounts we also have archaeology confirms. In 1961 an Italian archaeological team working in Caesarea came across an inscription from the time of Jesus bearing the name 'Pontius Pilate Prefect of Judea'. In November 1990 the tomb of Caiaphas the high priest was found on a hill in Jerusalem. Can these skeptical people explain to me these discoveries? Do they not uphold the authenticity of the Bible about Jesus? Of course!
I ask them to answer the following question. How did the Christian church come into being in the first century? We know that at the beginning of the first century there were no people called Christians, but by the end of that century Christians existed throughout the entire Roman Empire. History tells us that in the latter half of the first century there were men and women all over Palestine claiming that they had seen this man Jesus alive after his public execution. No one in the first century ever denied that this man was a real person. There were many enemies of the Christian church, who if possible, would have stopped this new movement. Yet no one ever did on the basis of his non-existence. So tell me... if there was no Jesus Christ, how and why did the Christian church come into being? Please, help me fill in this huge gap.
Not only is there evidence from history but also from non-Christian writings. Josephus, an aristocratic Jew, and Tacitus, the greatest of the Roman historians of the period, both wrote witnesses that Jesus lived and ministered in Galilee in the time of Herod Antipas. That he died in Judea following the accusations of Caiaphas the high priest, by the hands of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. They wrote that the movement led by Jesus did not cease with his death, but continued and spread westward to Rome. Surely they were not both lying. Wait a minute. Maybe they were both very talented storytellers who just both coincidentally wrote the exact same story. Maybe, eh?
To support the historical evidence and eyewitness accounts we also have archaeology confirms. In 1961 an Italian archaeological team working in Caesarea came across an inscription from the time of Jesus bearing the name 'Pontius Pilate Prefect of Judea'. In November 1990 the tomb of Caiaphas the high priest was found on a hill in Jerusalem. Can these skeptical people explain to me these discoveries? Do they not uphold the authenticity of the Bible about Jesus? Of course!
Then there are those people who declare that Jesus’ life story as recorded in the Bible is not at all reliable… that the story of Jesus has been changed by Christians over the centuries. We can be so confident that this was not the case as detailed accounts of Jesus’ life were compiled so close to the time that Jesus was living in. How do we know this? By 70 AD church leaders Clement and Ignatius were quoting from gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and today we have more than 24,000 early manuscripts of the New Testament against which to check our present copies. So how can they say that we have altered the stories of the Bible to suit our liking and that it is not accurate?
Yes, I went and saw the movie. It is, like most people know, fiction. And his fictional story-line uses certain facts, yes. However these facts are so obviously distorted in order to support his pathetic claims. If anything, the movie strengthened my belief in God and the Bible. The strength people will go to in order to deter and lessen people’s faith made me laugh. I am more determined to strengthen other people’s faith. We need to inform doubters of ALL the facts... undistorted. We need to view The Da Vinci Code as inspiration.
Marwa Hosni
