Not long ago, fellow blogger John Zande wrote an excellent post titled “Jesus Christ: Just Not Worth a Sheet of Paper.” It’s actually not as derogatory as the title suggests. Some apologists have suggested that the reason we have no contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life is that paper was so expensive. That’s the argument John deals with in his post.
His post is great — you should read it. But what I actually want to write about is one of the comments that someone left on it. Diana of NarrowWayApologetics.com left a lengthy comment that I decided to include here in its entirety. I identified with it a bit. It reminded me of some of the thoughts I used to have as a Christian:
One of the main reasons people believed Paul was because he explained the reason for Jesus coming into the world. His teachings were amazing. They explained how Jesus “fulfilled the law and the prophets.” I wrote this comment in response to John Zande’s comment on my blog last night. Forgive me for posting it here. Just ignore if you don’t want to read it.
“This passage about Jesus fulfilling the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17-20) is one of the main reasons I believe the Gospel message. The incredible ways that Jesus did this are beyond human ability to create. I don’t think any mystery writer could have weaved together the incredible ways Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets.
I know this post is long, so if you want to skip the parts between the dotted lines, I understand. I just wrote it for anyone who might be interested.
———
First of all, there are many ways Jesus fulfilled the law. In fact, believers are constantly astounded by how intricately Jesus fulfilled the law.One way he fulfilled the law was by fulfilling the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the seventh day of rest that the Jews were commanded to obey. Jesus fulfilled the law of the Sabbath by becoming our rest for us. (Hebrews 4:9-11) He said his burden was light and his yoke was easy. Christians no longer practice the Sabbath. They worship on Sunday, rather than Saturday. They enter into his rest and no longer do religious works for salvation. (They are saved by grace through faith.)
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. His death on the cross was similar to the Exodus story, which described the lamb, whose blood would be placed on the doorposts of the home, causing the death angel to pass over that home. (Hebrews 9)
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became the unleavened bread of the Exodus story. Leaven is a symbol of sin and false teaching (1 Cor. 5:6-8, Matt. 16:12). Jesus fulfilled this feast by being sinless and being the TRUTH.
Another way that Jesus fulfilled the law was by becoming a tithe (firstfruits) for us. (Leviticus 23:10) He fulfilled the tithe by becoming the firstfruits from the dead when he was resurrected. (1 Cor. 15:20) Christians are no longer bound by a tithe, instead we are told to be cheerful givers. We are also promised that there will be a resurrection for us because of what Christ did for us.
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became a light to the Gentiles. In the law of Moses, the people were commanded to leave behind the gleanings (or leftovers) of the harvest for the poor and aliens. (Lev. 23:22) This would be fulfilled at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down and the gospel was preached in all languages, offering salvation to all, not just the Jews. (Acts 10:34-35)
These fulfillments of the law were actually the first 4 feasts that would be celebrated every year by the Jews. They would be celebrated according to the seasons. The feasts celebrated during the early rains were the fulfilled at the time of the early church. Three more feasts are waiting to be fulfilled at the end of the age (or at the time of the latter rains). These three feasts are the feast of trumpets (representing the return of Jesus), the feast day of atonement (representing the salvation of the Jews), and the feast of tabernacles (representing the time when we will all be with the Lord).
There are so many other ways in which Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. And none of it has to do with Jesus expecting or commanding Christians to obey the law to perfection. It has to do with how it’s impossible for anyone to keep the law. That is why Jesus came. How could any human conceive of a way to have even a made-up, fictional character fulfill all these things? And I’ve barely scratched the surface of the way Jesus accomplished these things.
The greatest concern I feel burdened about is how to convey the magnificence of what I’m trying to explain. He was the manna from heaven. He was the living water. He was the high priest in the order of Melchizedek. He is the “I AM.” He is the Word become flesh. He became a slave for us. (Philippians 2:7) He became a curse for us. He became sin for us, so we could become righteous before God. He offers us mercy because his blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. All of this is explained in the scriptures.
I haven’t even begun to explain the way Jesus fulfilled the prophets.
——–
The story of Jewish history and the giving of the law is actually a way to PROVE the reality of God’s plan for the salvation of humanity through Jesus Christ. One random fact doesn’t prove anything, but the cumulative effect of ALL the fulfillments makes the Bible a miraculous book. This is why some of the brightest and best minds in the history of the world have loved and received Jesus. It isn’t a decision based on emotion alone, but a decision based on knowledge. And the more I learn, the more I am in awe of what God did and how he accomplished it.”
To say that the story of Jesus was just created by pasting together myths, fictional narratives, sayings, and borrowed phrases (as Ken Humphreys does) is a ridiculous claim because only a Christ could have conceived of a Christ. Who could have created the amazing Jesus portrayed in the Gospels and explained further by Paul?
Of course, I now see that there are several problems with this line of thinking. In 2015, Star Wars Episode 7 is supposed to hit theaters. Will it shock anyone if the movie syncs up perfectly with the previous 6? The thing is, when there is already an established back story, it’s not impossible to construct a narrative that builds upon it. The fact that we as readers see the parallels between the stories of Jesus and events in the Old Testament is not an accident. The authors intended for us to see those parallels, and there’s no reason why they couldn’t have invented them — even if Jesus was a real person.
Matthew is one of the best books to look to for evidence of this. Matthew is the only book that tells of Jesus’ family fleeing to Egypt to escape Herod’s infanticide. Both events, fleeing to Egypt and the infanticide, seem to be inspired by Matthew’s reading of the Old Testament. Hosea 11:1 says, “out of Egypt, I called my son.” Matthew says that this prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus’ family returned after fleeing to Egypt. But when you read the entire chapter of Hosea 11, it’s very evident that the passage has nothing to do with the Messiah, but is simply talking about Israel’s period of captivity in Egypt.
Matthew also claims that Herod’s slaughter of infants in Bethlehem was to fulfill this prophecy:
A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.
But once again, when we read all of Jeremiah 31, this was no prophecy at all. The chapter is talking about Israel’s captivity in Assyria. Nothing else.
The author of Matthew took these passages and used them to add parallels to the story about Jesus’ birth. It didn’t require magic or divine inspiration to do that — it only took knowledge of these passages. Just like the people working on Star Wars 7 don’t need divine intervention to let them know about Darth Vader.
Diana ends her comment by asking who could have created such a compelling story. Who could have created Christ? But why couldn’t we ask this about anyone? Who could have created Darth Vader? He’s quite a compelling character himself. Who could have created someone as magnificent as Santa Claus? Or Paul Bunyan? Or Achilles? Or King Arthur? Just asking this question doesn’t really mean anything. If Jesus never existed, then someone did just create his story. Or if he was a real person, but not divine, then his story was embellished. We have to draw our conclusions about Jesus based on the evidence, including the fact that Matthew seemed to feel the need to create “prophecies” to give Jesus credibility.
Finding Truth 
Me…Satan..The Hell you say! 😉
LikeLike
No, your name would translate to “Lord Arken,” not “Lord Set”!
LikeLike
Phew…my God Status is not diminished. I was getting a tad worried and wondering which books you had been reading that were different to mine, seeing as I ‘invented’ monotheism and all that and then those miserable bloody Hebrews niked it… 😉
LikeLike
Arch, thanks for all the great info!
Laurie, I’d still like to hear if you have some thoughts about the issues surrounding whether or not Jesus could be touched immediately after the resurrection.
Also, I’ve seen you mention evolution a couple of times, and if you’re interested, I highly recommend Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne and The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. Both books talk about different lines of evidence for evolution. Not saying one should accept them without investigation, but I know those two books helped me straighten out some misconceptions I had about evolution.
LikeLike
Nate,
Thanks for the research ideas, but Coyne is extremely dishonest in his writings especially in this particular book. He uses things for proof, that have been long discredited, and offers lack of evidence as evidence it’s self. He is completely unscientific. Lucy was rejected in the 80’s by paleoanthropologists, she was nothing more than a fraud. Junk dna and pseudo genes were disproven before he wrote his book. Nobody is arguing micro evolution. He offers no explanation for macro evolution, its all maybe and possibly. Stephen Jay Gould wrote a book called the structure of evolution theory, where he states that abrupt origin is what the fossil record shows. Paleontologists have always recognized the long term stability of species, but evolution requires gradualism.
Spontaneous generation had been disproven, and if all people like Michael Ruse can say is it happened on the backs of crystals, and aliens must have created and brought us here, then I think we need to look else where.
Evolution requires billions of years. If dinosaurs were supposed to be extinct 65 million years ago, why have we found a Tyrannosaurus Rex with live tissue. How big was the sun billions of years ago. What about the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics?
How can something that requires all 11 systems to live, evolve from the bottom up? Science does not support this.
I am not opposed to science, but evolution is not scientific by any means. In fact it seem really similar to something else. Some one had idea or story and now people search for evidence to substantiate that. The difference is, that a lot of people believe that the scriptures are history, and they study it to test accuracy. Which should be done for all history, because people who are dishonest always seem to change it. Our world lacks honesty and the motivation to find truth. Like Finkelstien, he is not the majority, and things he has written were proven wrong before he wrote them. A lack of evidence, is no evidence at all. The scriptures support an early date, so the fact that he found nothing where he was looking is no evidence at all. His dig was funded by the Rockefeller’s. Surprise surprise! If you don’t believe in God, then you don’t believe in Satan, but the illuminati does.
LikeLike
I’m curious, Laurie, as to how Man was able to evolve the wolf into a teacup Chihuahua in less than 30 thousand years through selective breeding, or are you saying there was a Pekingese in the Garden of Eden?
Schiebinger had negative things to say about “Lucy,” but I’ve yet to find anyone who believes she was a hoax – where did you get that, “Answers In Genesis”?
PS – are we still on for that Bar-B-Que and chicken fry?
LikeLike
Arch, you assume that I don’t teach my children about the real world, and that I need to send them to a public school, AND you want me to invite you all over for dinner?
Btw, I do teach my children about the real world, and they are both brilliant. I also teach them how to use a compass, build a solar still, and make bread from scratch. They love to camp and fish, and they aren’t addicted to sponge Bob.
LikeLike
What a difference a / makes! THIS is how it should have read —
Somehow, I did it again!
LikeLike
Yeah, Arch, those little marks (or absence thereof) can sure make a difference. I’ve forgotten them a time or two myself.
LikeLike
I could have SWORN I put it in the second one!
LikeLike
Thanks for the vote of confidence Arch.
I let my daughter attend kindergarten at a public school for socialization. You know where it got me? No where. They were teaching the alphabet, and she was already reading. She came home from school talking about zombies eating people’s brains, and boy friends, man was I glad she had learned about the real world! I teach her real world things. Facts and proven things of science. An unproven theory is not something I need to teach her about right now, we are learning real things that can be proven. And I don’t keep her from activities with other kids, she takes violin, and will be doing 4-h in the spring. Why are we even discussing this? You are not always right. Do you even have kids?
LikeLike
BTW, the ancestor of that poodle was a wolf, yet some would say there’s no such thing as evolution. We’ve done in less than 30 thousand years, what the evolution, using a more hit and miss process, takes millions of years to accomplish.
LikeLike
I raised a son by myself from the time he was six, then four daughters – I doubt there’s a lot you can teach me about childrearing. My son holds two Master’s degrees and three of my daughters are involved with education. They all believe in the theory of evolution, and surprisingly, in the theory of gravity as well.
LikeLike
Whew, that’s good to know – I was afraid you were teaching them about religion, but with that statement, I can see they’re safe.
LikeLike
Where is the half poodle half frog Arch.
Did I say I could teach you about childrearing? I believe you were the one telling me how to raise my children.
LikeLike
I wasn’t telling you how to raise your children, you were complaining about not having enough time, between homeschooling your girls and caring for your goats and chickens, and I was advising you as to how you could free up more time with a big banquet and public school – I was only thinking of you —
As for why there’s no half-poodle/half-frog, or as your buddy, Ray “Banana-Man” Comfort, might ask, a Crocoduck – as you may or may not know, evolution works on heredity and environment, in conjunction with occasional, accidental cell mutations. In any given environment, the organisms with the right heredity, suitable for that environment, live to pass on their genes, while all others die. So far, the environment has not been such that a half-poodle/half-frog or a crocoduck would have a survival advantage over that which is currently in existence. Some might question a mammal with a duck’s beak, but then there’s the platypus.
LikeLike
Only thinking of me? Ridiculous! Okay, well here is my opinion on the whole matter, and if you will just agree already, we can move on…
I believe there is a good amount of evidence on both sides, we just choose to put our faith in different ideas. Evolution is still a theory that can not be proven, and there are more questions than answers. Someday it might be something more. The scriptures and a belief in God are similar, everyday we unearth more evidence that the Bible may not be just a story, but tight now it can’t be proven. I believe in YHWY and the Messiah, but that doesn’t make me ignorant or brain washed.
LikeLike
I wish I could agree – no I don’t, because I know what kind of person it would make me if I did – rephrase, I’m sorry, I can’t agree, because there are mountains of evidence that evolution is true, and as more and more information is unearthed, the more it is proven that the stories of the Bible are fabricated.
I’ve given you the Documentary Hypothesis, I’ve given you the work of William Dever, you’ve had no significant response, yet you speak of having an open mind. Ignorant means lacking knowledge, and I don’t know what you know or what you don’t, so I can’t speak to that, but I CAN say I do NOT believe you to be unintelligent.
As for brainwashed, of course you have been, and you’ve likely brainwashed your daughters as well – we are all born atheists, it takes brainwashing to make us otherwise.
LikeLike
Well if you really want me to load this post full of information that I am sure you could find on your, you are going to have to wait until I get another computer. My phone is very small, and typing on it is not only extremely annoying , but also very time consuming. And no, I am not going to send my kids to public school to free up some spare time ;-).
And for the record, I am not brain washed. I was raised to believe something, but that is not what I believe now. Life has a small part in molding what we believe, and we have walked different paths, but all have the opportunity to research things from all sides. Have you done that, or are you comfortable believing what you were brainwashed into believing?
LikeLike
Sorry about the typos:'( lol! You can figure it out
LikeLike
I was questioning my parent’s religion by the time I was six.
My daughter always wants to phone-text with me too, and I hate it. My hands are too big for those tiny little buttons, so sure, wait til you get to a computer, but if you want me to agree with anything you’re saying, I’m going to have to see some evidence – I said, I’d show you mine, if you’d show me yours, and I showed you mine – evidence, that is —
LikeLike
Laurie,
I’d like to offer some input on this comment you made:
What you are saying is true just in the technical wording sense. But you are using this to further suggest that lack of evidence cannot be used to disprove statements, and I would suggest that everyone uses lack of evidence in this way. I know for a fact historians always use this and there is a good reason for it. If we didn’t then we would be forced to accept practically everything that has been written down in time.
Let me offer a made up example and perhaps it’s a bad one (maybe other people can think of another one). Let’s say 200 years ago, someone wrote down that there were 100 million people who lived in Antarctica back then and that they all found a way to build space-ships and fly away somewhere unknown. Could we feel justified in rejecting this statement? I think the large amount of lack of evidence in this case would be very convincing in disproving the statement, and I believe many people would agree to this.
Another example is one that Nate has used before: could we feel justified in claiming that Jesus did not come to America to preach as described in the book of Mormon? This is one thing that always struck me as a great example of inconsistency of Christian apologists who use this line of reasoning. I used to always hear Hank Hanegraaff (of Christian Research Institute) say on the radio “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, and then was struck by the inconsistency when he would talk about how the book of Mormon was clearly wrong due to the absence of evidence.
I think you use similar reasoning in your rejection of evolution – there is not enough evidence for you to believe it.
And as an aside, I think you may want to be careful talking too strongly about evolution being a farce, because the evidence for evolution is continually growing within several fields of science. So much so that even evangelical Christians are beginning to embrace this fact. Their answer to this is that God was involved in the process of course, but they believe there is enough evidence for evolution. Take a look at http://biologos.org/ to see a long list of evangelical Christians who affirm this.
LikeLike
What I find amusing, Howie, if that Fundies rejected the Big Bang, for basically the same reasons, until finally the evidence in favor of the BB was so overwhelming that cult leaders, like Billy Graham and Pat Robertson could no longer deny it, then they did an about face and embraced it, but claimed it for religion – goddidit!
It may take some time, but the same thing will eventually happen to evolution. Should be interesting to see how well Laurie wears an omlette on her face —
LikeLike