Deceived

“Have you also been deceived?” 

John 7:47

The Pharisees asked this question of the guards who were supposed to bring Jesus to them. The chief priests and the Pharisees already made up their minds about Jesus without investigating. God wants us to know the truth and He has put so much evidence for us, especially in this age of the internet. So many scholars have done the work for us. 

Some people still believe Jesus did not exist, but there is so much amazing substantiation that proves not only that Jesus existed and was crucified. It is an established historical fact. Even atheist and arch-skeptic historian Gerd Lüdemann admitted that Jesus’ death as a consequence of execution is indisputable. He noted that the elements in the tradition, including the empty tomb, are to be dated to the first 2 years after Jesus’ death on the cross, and certainly not later than 3 years. That is one reason why the empty tomb is not legend or myth. It takes 2 generations before a legend develops. The Christian Creed was put together, and distributed early after Jesus died, was buried and was seen by several eyewitnesses after He rose from the dead. St. Paul was the first to put it in writing about 22 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. The earliest account of Alexander the Great was written 400 years after he died. 

Lüdemann himself decided, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’s death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.” This is because of an overwhelming preponderance of sources inside and outside of the New Testament compared to other historical events. So why would an atheist like Lüdemann, who concluded that it may be taken as historically certain that Jesus appeared as the risen Christ, still stands by his unbelief? 

Lüdemann believes they all were having hallucinations! But psychologists who study the brain say that hallucinations like dreams are individual events happening in individual minds. One psychologist noted that for 500 people to have the same hallucination would be a bigger miracle than the resurrection of Christ!   

So let us not be like Pharisees and skeptics and atheists. The truth can be found if we want to know it. It is awesome to know that God wants us to get to know Him!