Believe It or Not

A few more days of the Christmas season left. I'm not one bit tired of it yet. I love the Christmas carols, the lights in the neighborhood and the fun of being together. One thing that I have noticed about this time of year and around Easter is that television networks will air specials that they have on Jesus. The History Channel and National Geographic and the Discovery Channel will all broadcast shows with titles like, "The Real Jesus," "In Search of Christmas" and "The Secret Lives of Jesus." I will occasionally tune into one of these just to see what swill they are pushing. And it is swill. They will interview some of the most liberal and and outlandish "theologians" and "scholars" without even giving a chance for a rebuttal from a conservative. But, what would you really expect? They are pushing an agenda. Not a political one necessarily, but a spiritual one. "The world" (John 7:7), as Jesus describes it, is the system that the enemy operates in. It will always set itself up against the Lord Jesus and His kingdom. So, it is not surprise that it would use it's greatest platform, mass media, to sling fiery darts and arrows at the truth of the Son of God. Here are a few examples of arrows that have been slung recently and a defense of faith against them.

Herod did not kill the Bethlehem infants (Herod: Madman or Murderer on The Discovery Channel).

Rebuttal - Herod the Great, the one of whom scripture says was the instigator of the death of the infants 2 years and younger and who prompted the family of Jesus to flee to Egypt, ruled from 37 B.C.- 4 B.C. Herod interestingly was not a true Jew and was greatly disliked by the same, but was an Idhumean and was appointed King of Judea. Fearful of the brand of "Jew," he was a frequenter of the commercial Greek marketplaces and strove to be, as his adopted title suggested, a "friend of the Romans." Though a diplomat at heart, he was a man of great cruelty and paranoia. Reports have it that Herod had his nephew drowned, his sons strangled (7 B.C.), his mother-in-law Alexandra executed as well as his wife Mariamne. If Herod could kill family members, what would foreign infants matter to this murderer?

There was no Virgin Birth (Jesus: Holy Child on A&E).

Rebuttal - Just read this.

Jesus was the son of a Roman named Panthera (In Search of Christmas on The History Channel).

Rebuttal - Celsus, an influential 2nd-century Platonist of Alexandria and perhaps the first serious critic of Christianity is the source of this falsehood. Read more on Celsus here.

Jesus was confused about whether he was the Messiah (Mary, Mother of Jesus on NBC).

Rebuttal - There is no proof that Jesus was confused about his divinity or mission. See Luke 2:49, Mark 2: 1-12, 28, John 20:28.

There are many more that I could list off, and the best and most powerful rebuttal to all of them is the Word of God itself. And that brings us to the true point of contention. Is the Bible really accurate? There are many, many more TV specials that discuss this topic and I will just let you figure out what their consensus is. Bill Maher, the comedian and the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, has said, "The Bible is a fairytale," and "The people who wrote the Bible...it was not meant to be history, it was not meant to be literal." William Dever from the University of Arizona and frequent Bible Archaeology Review magazine contributor has said, "The Biblical tradition is a composite of...legends that still may be regarded as containing moral truths but until now they must be regarded as uncertain historical provenance." It is that last point that I want to speak against.

It is true that Bible contains some pretty incredible and fantastical stories. The Old Testament writers of the most dramatic of these stories are Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Jonah and Daniel. Moses gives accounts of the world being created out of nothing and man being formed out of dust. He talks about a worldwide flood, a bush that speaks and burns with fire but is not consumed and about a sea that is split in half. Joshua tells the story of the destruction of the great city of Jericho without even one finger placed on the walls of the city. Samuel writes about how Elijah called down fire from heaven and was also taken up into heaven by a chariot and horses that are made of...fire. Jonah tells the story how he spent 3 days in the belly of a giant fish before being vomited up onto the shore, alive. Daniel speaks of men being thrown into a very hot furnace and walking out unharmed, a disembodied hand writing on a wall and surviving an entire night in a den of very hungry lions. Those are incredible stories. And what about the New Testament? Look at all of the miracles that Jesus performed. Turning water into wine, walking on water, silencing a storm, feeding thousands of people with a handful of food, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, causing the lame to walk and run again and raising people from the dead. Are we supposed to believe all of this? Yes.

One thing for us to consider is the motivation of the writers. Why were these men writing these accounts down? To point people to the one true God. Now, if you wanted to accomplish this goal, what do you think is the best possible means of doing so? Would you want to write stories that were believable? Sure you would. But, if you set out writing with the express goal of writing stories that are believable you are already being dishonest because in a sense you are saying, "I will only write down and record the things that people will believe." That was not the motivation of the biblical authors. Their motivation was to write down the truth, no matter what that looked like. I wonder sometimes if this thought ever crossed Moses' mind, "They are never gonna believe this, but that's how it really happened."

When Homer was writing down his epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, he knew that he was writing mythology. He knew that he was writing a story that was always only supposed to be fantasy. When the biblical writers were writing down these incredible stories they knew that they were writing down history. These were historical records of things that they had really seen and experienced the one true God do. The Gospel writers had either seen these things first hand or they wrote down the accounts of those what witnessed these events. It only makes sense. If you wanted to write down or have a story that would convince people that you were right, wouldn't you try to make it the most rational and realistic story you could? What Moses, Samuel, Matthew and John wrote down was not primarily intended to be persuasive, but to be an accurate accounting of events. So, you and I make our choice. Do we choose to believe these things as they were always intended to be or do we say, "No, that is too unbelievable and mystical"? I choose to believe the truth, wherever it leads. Merry Christmas.