The birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
" To be born or not to be born," The begining is the best place to start, so let's start at the beginning point of the life of Jesus. If we are not sure of where Jesus was actually born, how do we know he was born at all? Should one actually rethink the bible, rather than basing an opinion solely on church hearsay and the mid rash of scripture. Or should we actually see for ourselves, by gathering the evidence ourselves, regardless of how painful the answers may be, whether to the affirmative or to the negative. I would say the objective way to go about it, would be to see for ourselves. The following post, whether you think it righ or wrong, is based on actual well accepted historic facts based on archeological evidence or lack of evidence.
There are well accepted accounts from the bible that Christians and others never question. Events and locations that are part of the story told of Christ and his history. One such is the account of John 1, of the birth of Christ in the lower Galilee town of Nazareth. This town is not mentioned at all, in the old testament, nor in any of the extensive rabbinical literature,and the only established site there, is the ancient town water well. Now refered to as (no surprise) as Mary's well. The modern town is covered with churches also no surprise, and although modern archeology can offer no support at all for them the Nazarenes can point out sites such as Joseph's carpentry shop, the spot where Mary received the annunciation as well as the exact location of mensa Christi, the table at which Jesus dined after his resurrection and the site of the synagogue where Jesus preached as a you boy.
Nazareth may be overrated as a historical site that proves the in...
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...words, said to have been written by St. Luke himself, there was a synagogue in Nazareth. However extensive professional archeological excavation for over a century has only ever found a city well, nothing else, not one single stone of construction remains from this temple anywhere in the vicinity. Also their is no Nazareth hill thus no brow of a hill nor cliff exists or ever existed in the last hundred thousand years. There is not even an elevation or place in Nazareth where such a hill could have existed.
The bare fact is that no evidence of buildings or cliffs of any kind dating to the turn of the era has ever been found at these venerated sites. Christians seem self deluded and St. Luke and the bible have been proven dead wrong. Makes one think, should we question the rest of the bible? If we are not sure where Jesus was born, how can we be certain he was born?
Christ was crucified at but it is also believed that it was where he was buried and then resurrected. Because of this belief, the church has become the foremost pilgrimage site for the Christian religion. The church that stands today is a reconstruction of the original church because the church was damaged throughout the years by fire, invasion, and earthquakes. The original church was rebuilt during the middle ages when an agreement was reached between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire. The tomb itself is empty of course but millions come to the church to pay their respects to the religious figurehead.
There are several ways in which we can be assured that what we are taught about Jesus is true and not just made up. These are called our faith sources. These sources, like the Bible and other sources of information about Jesus have accounts of Jesus’ life. The most important part of these faith sources is the Christian Scriptures. Although the Christian Scriptures are one of the most valuable tools we have to learn about Jesus there are also the Gospels, and also other non-biblical, and non-Christian accounts of Jesus’ life that we can consider when trying to answer the question How can we be sure that what we are taught about Jesus is true and not just made up?
John 18:39- but it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release `the king of the Jews'?"King of Jews- He's not the king of the Jews, He's slapping them in the face.The same thing Jesus was being accused of Barnabbas did.JN 19:1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. [2] The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe [3] and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.This is your Messiah people, this is not VBS, or bible study, this is the Messiah that is in love with you.MT 27:27 Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him.
According to the dictionary a myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events..(oxforddictionaries.). On the other hand, there are no myths in the Bible because the Bible tries to explain the world we live in. It is a historical account of the world and its surroundings before, during, and after Jesus' time on earth. Therefore, the Bible itself contains a timeline of historical events that include places, historical figures and also coincides with other non-biblical related events. For example, mythical stories aim to explain how things have come to be, but does not point to a particular location or involve human beings, nor do they give any information regarding the future. However, in the Bible, the events take place in places still known to people today, with historical figures such as Pontius Poilate, Herod, Jesus and many more figures. The Bible gives insight and information into many more days to come and into the distant future.Although the Bible is not a scientific book, it is accurate regarding scientific knowledge and facts. This is because in the Bible, God is the creator of the world, and is all-knowing. In 1861, the French Academy of Sciences claimed to find 51 scientific errors in the Bible. However, with the progress of scientific research and time the 'errors' found by the French Academy of Sciences were errors caused by the academy itself and not by the Bible. There were some facts written in the Bible long ago, and with the progress of life we started to discover and witness them. One of these facts is the spherical Earth:
The Bible is a large and rather confusing book of laws, parables and true stories. The most important story in the Bible, in the story of Jesus ' birth. These two passages which tell of Jesus ' birth are, especially because Christians, at least the majority of them, base their beliefs on it, along with his death. Matthew and Luke are the only two books out of the sixty-six in the bible which give detailed descriptions of the monumental event. There is the main idea in American culture that the Birth story is clear, that there are not any issues between Matthew and Luke 's stories. However, there are many conflicting facts in the two books, although most of them are easily thought, though, there are some that are a little harder to explain,
Jesus Christ is worshiped around the world as being the savior of all mankind. His birth was a miracle because he was born from a virgin. Taken from the Holy Bible, in Matthew 1:18-25, it states that Mary (the virgin) was to marry Joseph, but before they were married, she found out she was pregnant with the Son of God. Joseph was a man of good morals and was ashamed when he heard of Mary being with child. He planned to divorce her in private so she wouldn't be disgraced. An angel from God came to Joseph in a dream and told him, "'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.'" Joseph awakened and obeyed the angel of God, and He and Mary were married. "But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus."
As we read John, we see that the stories center around the concept of belief. In the second chapter of John, we are told of the miracle that Jesus did at a wedding: turning water into wine. This miracle was told so that we may believe. “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11). Through these miracles we are able to see signs of Jesus’s power and glory and how God’s presence is in him, leading many to believe in him. After this, Jesus went to Capernum, then Jerusalem to the temple, where he found people selling things
If one was to look in the Bible and read through the entire book of
The birth narrative of Matthew begins with a long genealogy of Jesus, which basically shows how Jesus is son of Abraham who is the father of the nation of Israel, and David the King of the Jews. This may not seem important but this genealogy shows how Jesus is connected to the Davidic line. Then we have Mary, who just found out she was pregnant and Joseph decides it is best to divorce her because he wanted to break his union with someone who is pregnant, by someone else. But behold the angel comes down and reassures Joseph that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and that he should take her back into his house. The angel also said to name the child Emmanuel. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and King Herod heard of this new newborn king of the Jews and he ordered that all boys under the age of 2 be killed. The magi gave Jesus the gifts and left. In a dream, the angel of the lord told Joseph to take the child and go to Egypt and hide, Herod then died, and Jesus was safe.
The traditional story of Jesus tells of his birth in a stable in Bethlehem in the Holy Land, to a young virgin called Mary who had become pregnant with the son of God through the action of the Holy Spirit. The story of Jesus' birth is told in the writings of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament of the Bible. The New Testament, a collection of twenty-seven books written in the century after Jesus' death in 30 C.E., has had importance by shaping the church's teachings, ethics, ritual, organization, and mission in the world (Van Voorst 245). His birth is believed by Christians to be the fulfillment of prophecies in the Jewish Old Testament which claimed that a Messiah would deliver the Jewish people from captivity ("The Basics"). Christians ultimately believe in two places to go after death, Heaven, where eternity is spent in a state that is beautiful beyond our ability to conceive, or Hell, where eternity is spent with Satan and his demons.
Scholars have shifted from the notion that the Bible differs from other ancient Near Eastern literature, cultures, and religions. If this were so, the Bible would be considered a myth. In this chapter Oswalt gives descriptions to what a myth is and gives insight into whether it is acceptable to label the Bible as a myth. Since the 1960s, scholars have been stating that the attributes of the Bible and its contemporary belief system have more in common to a myth even though the data used to make these claims have remained the same.
The author of this book, Lee Strobel, struggled for almost two years, sometimes jumping from one issue or topic to another and then back again, investigating the facts of Jesus for himself. He traces his journey from skepticism to faith.
These three tests when applied to the Bible show it as the most historically reliable text known to man, thus the events found upon the pages of the Bible are actual historically proven events. In light of these facts, there are still many theories other than that of the Biblical account. Three of them include the "Visionary" theory, the theft theory, and the wrong tomb theory. The first theory is that of Strauss, that the appearances of Jesus after His death on the cross were "visions generated by the imaginations of the disciples (Ramsey 48)." This may be the easiest of all the theories to discredit. First of all, it does not take into account the inability of the disciples to grasp this idea that Christ was alive and to recognize Him for who He was (Ramsey 48).
The Virgin birth of Christ is an actual Historical fact. God came (in the sinless form of Jesus) into the earth "HE" created. No other event in the past has had so much impact out side of Calvary where Christ paid the price for our transgressions. Seven hundred years earlier, this was prophesied by the prophet Isaiah and it came about just as predicated in (Matthew 1:22, 23)
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This verse - John 3:16 - is perhaps the most important in the Bible. Jesus Christ was the son of God, but he was also the son of man.