Jesus Overview
God is Love
If God is love, then Jesus—the Son of God—is love in flesh and blood, reaching out to a broken world. Discover how His life, death, and resurrection reveal the boundless depths of God's love!
Faith Salvation
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Did Jesus Exist?
Investigating the puzzle of reality requires looking at The Record—the documented traces left behind in time and space. Just as we accept the existence of figures like George Washington through reliable testimony, we can weigh the facts of Jesus’ life through independent historical sources.
• The Roman Record (Tacitus, c. 116 AD): A neutral Roman historian recorded that "Christus" was executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. This provides secular confirmation of the crucifixion as a verifiable occurrence.
• The Jewish Record (Josephus, c. 93 AD): Historian Flavius Josephus identified James as "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ." This establishes Jesus as a real person with documented family ties in Jerusalem.
• The Governor’s Record (Pliny the Younger, c. 112 AD): A Roman governor documented that early followers sang hymns to "Christ as to a god," confirming his massive historical impact and the rapid spread of his teachings shortly after his life.
• The Archaeological Record: Physical discoveries, like the Pilate Stone and the Caiaphas Ossuary, verify the people and settings mentioned in the historical accounts.
• The Caiaphas Ossuary: A burial box providing historical weight to the high priest involved in the trial of Jesus.
• The Pools of Siloam and Bethesda: Excavated sites in Jerusalem that confirm the precise geographical accuracy of the locations described in the New Testament records.
Virtually all modern scholars—Christian, Jewish, secular, and atheist—agree that Jesus of Nazareth lived and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. This is supported by:
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Tacitus, Annals 15.44
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Josephus, Antiquities 18.3
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Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars
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The Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a)
This establishes a real historical figure whose followers very early claimed divine status.
Was Jesus the Son of God?
Was Jesus the Son of God?
This becomes the most important question in the world.
If Jesus Christ is Divine, then we must believe everything he said and commanded.
The true meaning of freedom becomes conformity to him.
Jesus called himself the “Son of God” which is of the same nature as God. Jesus called God his Father. “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In contrast, people like Buddha said he was not God, “Look not to me; look to my dharma (doctrine)”. Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad, and other religious founders performed no miracles and did not rise from the dead. Buddhists do not believe Buddha was God nor do Muslims believe Muhammad was God. Christians believe Jesus Christ is God.
Arguments for Christ’s Divinity
If Jesus is not God, then what is he?
Lord or liar?
If he is not God then he is a bad man, but few would agree that he was a bad man. He also was not merely a good man if he claimed to Be God. Everyone who reads the Gospels agrees that Jesus was a good, wise, great, and profound teacher. He was trustworthy. Why would someone believe he is God?
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If the Gospel is a lie, then who invented the lie? A liar is motivated. Martyrdom (death because you believe) is hardly a motivation.
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Why did thousands of people suffer torture and death for this lie if they knew in their hearts it was a lie?
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What force sent Christians to the lions? What lie ever transformed the world like this?
St. Aquinas argues if the Incarnation (God becomes flesh) did not happen then a more unbelievable miracle happened: the conversation of the world by the biggest lie in history.
Lord or lunatic?
Could Jesus be a lunatic? His psychological profiles are the opposite of a lunatic. He had practical wisdom and tough love. You do not feel challenged by a lunatic, only embarrassed, or bored. Jesus made you feel challenged and never bored. Could the disciples have been lunatics? If so these everyday fishermen and tax collectors invented the most compelling fictional charters in history. No lunatic could have invented even a single chapter of the Gospel much less all of it. How could a lunatic have changed the lives of billions of people over the last two thousand years? What would have been the motivation for such a lunatic? Death?
Lord or myth?
Could Jesus be nothing more than an overblown superhero? No! The data make the myth hypothesis impossible.
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No book in history has been so attacked, cut up, or reconstituted and stood on its head as the New Testament. Yet it still lives, like Christ himself.
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We have five hundred different copies of the Bible earlier than 500 AD. More than any other historical book. If the New Testament did not contain accounts of miracles or make radical uncomfortable claims, it would be as accepted as any other historical book of its time. It is not objective neutral science that fuels its skeptics’ but subjective prejudice ideology. There are very few discrepancies and no important ones. Later manuscript discoveries such as the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm rather than refute it in every important case.
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If it were a myth, many generations would have had to pass before the myth could have been generated. No competent scholar today denies the first-century dating of the New Testament.
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If a mythic layer had been added later in other generations, there would be evidence of the manufactured mythical layers. No such evidence exists.
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There are four Gospels. Written by four different authors at four separate times. The only inconsistencies are in chronology (only Luke’s Gospel claims to be in order) and accidental like numbers (did the women see one or two angels).
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If it was a myth, who invented it? No motive can be accounted for this invention. Christians were subject to persecution torture and martyred for more than the first three hundred years.
Lord or guru?
One last escape hatch would be that Jesus was not a liar, a lunatic, or a myth, but that he did not mean it when he said he was God. He meant it in only a mystical way. There are thousands of gurus, yogis,” spiritual masters”, and “enlightened consciousness” mystics who claim to be a God but are neither liars nor lunatics. Why couldn’t Jesus be one?
For one simple reason: because he was a Jew. No guru was ever a Jew. There are major differences or contradictions between Judaism and the teaching of the gurus Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, or New Age. Rather than go into it here there are very many differences between what gurus teach and what Judaism and Christianity teach.
Conclusion:
We have shown the inherent flaws in the above four arguments. The only conclusion remaining is Jesus is Lord.
Jesus’ Existence and Crucifixion Are Historically Certain
Virtually all modern scholars—Christian, Jewish, secular, and atheist—agree that Jesus of Nazareth lived and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. This is supported by:
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Tacitus, Annals 15.44
-
Josephus, Antiquities 18.3
-
Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars
-
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a)
This establishes a real historical figure whose followers very early claimed divine status.
2. Early Christian Belief in Jesus’ Divinity Appears Immediately—Not Centuries Later
A common myth is that Jesus’ divinity was invented at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325). But the earliest Christian writings—decades before Nicaea—already proclaim Him as divine:
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Philippians 2:6–11 (written ~AD 50–60) describes Jesus as “in very nature God.”
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Colossians 2:9 says “all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form.”
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John 1:1 identifies Jesus as the eternal Word who “was God.”
These texts are too early for legendary development. They reflect the beliefs of the first generation of Christians.
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Was Jesus Resurrected?
As St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:
If Christ has not been raised then: Our proclamation has been in vain; Our faith has been in vain; If Christ has not been raised then our faith is futile, and you are still in your sins; those who have died in Christ name have perished.
The resurrection is of critical importance because it completes our salvation. Jesus came to save us from our sin and its consequences, death.
The Gospel or “Good News” means the news of Christ’s resurrection. A man who claimed to be the Son of God and the Savior of the world had risen from the dead.
If he was not resurrected the largest religion 2.6 billion people 1/3 of the world has been fooled.
What is Resurrection?
It means Jesus rose from the dead. His body was not the old one but a new and very real body. St Peter in 1 Corinthians 15:40. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.
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The resurrection is not a ghost. He had a new real body, and he ate real food.
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The resurrection is not resuscitation like the resuscitation of Lazarus. Lazarus’ body was his old body. Lazarus eventually had to die again.
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The resurrection is not a reincarnation. Reincarnation like resuscitation (supposedly) only gives you another normal body.
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The resurrection was not simply evidence of immortality of the soul. It was a new body that was eventually recognized by his friends.
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The resurrection was distinct from enlightenment. The resurrected Jesus was a very distinct embodied person.
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The resurrection was not a vision. He was seen by many people, was touched, and ate food.
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The resurrection was not a myth. It was dated to a very specific time and certified by eyewitnesses.
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The resurrection was not merely the faithful thinking of the disciples. They would have never experienced a resurrection of faith and hope without a literal resurrection. If not for a risen Jesus who transformed them and converted the world?
Swoon Theory (past out or fainted)
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Jesus could not have survived the crucifixion. Roman procedures were very careful to illuminate that possibility.
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They did not break his legs which hastens death because he was already dead.
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St John and eyewitness certified that he saw blood and water gush forth from his pierced heart.
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How would a half-dead man have moved a great stone door of the tomb?
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The body was not removed after the Roman soldiers fell asleep, because the penalty for a Roman solder allowing a prisoner to escape was instant execution of the guard.
Conspiracy Theory
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If Jesus did not raise and appear to them, who would have made them all spend the rest of their life preaching of his resurrection and all, but one was tortured /died for him?
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No one week or strong, Christian, or heretic ever confessed that the whole story was a fake.
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The apostles were simple honest common peasants, not conniving liars. They willingly died for this conspiracy.
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What would have been a motivation for such a lie? There is no selfish motivation. They were hated, scorned, persecuted, crucified, boiled alive, roasted, beheaded disembowel, and even fed to the lions.
Hallucination Theory
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There were too many witnesses
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The witnesses were qualified. Simple honest moral people with firsthand knowledge.
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Five hundred people saw Christ together at the same time.
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He was seen for forty days.
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If it was a hallucination, where was the corps? Why would someone hide it from them?
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Not even the disciples believed it at first until they talk with him, touched him, and ate with him. Hallucinations do not eat with you.
Myth Theory
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The Gospels do not fit the style of myth writing at the time. There are no overblown, exaggerated, or spectacular, instead, everything fits in and is meaningful.
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There was not enough time for a myth to develop.
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The first eyewitnesses were women. At that time women were a low class and had no legal rights to serve as a witness. Their testimony was considered worthless in court. Why would someone start a myth with these eyewitnesses?
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The sincerity of the Apostles’ belief in the Risen Lord is undeniable. How else to explain their behavior? One day they’re scattered and afraid, denying they even know Jesus (Matthew 26:74); a few days later they’re willing to die horrific deaths in His name. How to explain this change? According to them, it was because they had seen and touched the Risen Lord. See CCC 641 & 642; 1 Cor 15:4-8, Acts 1:22.
Conclusion
No alternative to a real resurrection has yet explained: the existence of the Gospels, the origin of Christian faith, the failure of Christ’s enemies to produce a corps, or the more than five hundred eyewitnesses of his post-resurrection appearances.
Source: Some excerpts from Handbook of Christian Apologetics Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tracelli
Historical Facts That Support (or Point Toward) the Divinity of Jesus Christ
Historians do not “prove divinity” in a scientific sense. What they can do is establish events, texts, and early beliefs that make the Christian claim of divinity historically plausible rather than legendary. The following points are the strongest historically grounded pillars.
1. Jesus’ Existence and Crucifixion Are Historically Certain
Virtually all modern scholars—Christian, Jewish, secular, and atheist—agree that Jesus of Nazareth lived and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. This is supported by:
-
Tacitus, Annals 15.44
-
Josephus, Antiquities 18.3
-
Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars
-
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a)
This establishes a real historical figure whose followers very early claimed divine status. The Archaeologist
2. Early Christian Belief in Jesus’ Divinity Appears Immediately—Not Centuries Later
A common myth is that Jesus’ divinity was invented at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325). But the earliest Christian writings—decades before Nicaea—already proclaim Him as divine:
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Philippians 2:6–11 (written ~AD 50–60) describes Jesus as “in very nature God.”
-
Colossians 2:9 says “all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form.”
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John 1:1 identifies Jesus as the eternal Word who “was God.” divinenarratives.org
These texts are too early for legendary development. They reflect the beliefs of the first generation of Christians.
3. The Resurrection Belief Emerged Immediately After the Crucifixion
Historians agree that:
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Jesus’ followers sincerely believed He rose from the dead.
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This belief arose within months, not generations.
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The earliest creed (1 Corinthians 15:3–7) dates to within 3–5 years of the crucifixion.
Even skeptical scholars (e.g., Bart Ehrman, Gerd Lüdemann) affirm the early, explosive rise of resurrection belief.
While historians cannot verify the supernatural event itself, they acknowledge the historical fact of the disciples’ conviction, which is difficult to explain without something extraordinary.
4. The Empty Tomb Tradition Is Early and Multi‑Sourced
While debated, several historical features strengthen the empty‑tomb claim:
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Reported by multiple independent sources (Mark, John, Acts, early creeds).
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Women are listed as the first witnesses—an unlikely invention in a patriarchal culture.
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Jewish and Roman opponents never produced a body; instead, they claimed the disciples stole it, which implicitly concedes the tomb was empty.
These features make the empty tomb historically plausible.
5. The Rapid Explosion of Christianity in Jerusalem
Christianity began in the very city where Jesus was executed—the hardest place for a resurrection claim to survive if the body were still present.
Within a few decades:
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Thousands of Jews converted.
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Many accepted martyrdom rather than deny Jesus’ divine status.
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The movement spread across the Roman Empire despite persecution.
Movements based on known falsehoods rarely produce such rapid, sacrificial growth.
6. Early Non‑Christian Sources Confirm Key Gospel Details
Ancient writers who were not Christians confirm:
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Jesus lived in Judea.
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He had followers.
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He was crucified under Pilate.
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His followers worshiped Him as divine.
Tacitus, Josephus, and Suetonius all corroborate these points. The Archaeologist
These independent confirmations strengthen the historical core around which Christian claims of divinity are built.
7. Early Church Fathers Affirmed Jesus’ Divinity Long Before Nicaea
Writings from the 1st–3rd centuries (Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian) explicitly call Jesus:
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“God”
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“Lord”
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“Eternal Word”
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“Creator”
The Council of Nicaea did not invent Jesus’ divinity; it formalized what Christians had already believed for centuries. divinenarratives.org
Putting It All Together
Historians can confidently affirm:
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Jesus existed.
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He was crucified.
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His followers immediately proclaimed Him divine.
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They believed He rose from the dead.
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Christianity exploded in the very place where these events occurred.
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Early non‑Christian sources confirm the movement and its claims.
None of this proves divinity in a laboratory sense—but it creates a historically robust foundation for the Christian claim that something extraordinary happened in the life of Jesus.