Historical Jesus

This is my answer or refutation of an Atheist youtuber, under nickname CosmicSkeptic. In his debate with Jonathan McLatchie on ressurection of Jesus Christ, he rejected and down played
Testimonium Flavianum. He argued that: “Josephus was a Jew, therefore it’s a forgery.” But he forgets to mention that Josephus accounts of the Jewish War have proved to be very accurate; for example, they’ve been corroborated through archaeological excavations at Masada as well as by historians like Tacitus. And that he’s considered to be a pretty reliable historian. Also Tacitus recorded, In A.D. 115 Nero persecuted the Christians as scapegoats to divert suspicion away from himself for the great fire that had devastated Rome in A.D. 64.

Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstitution, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. . . . Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty: then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.

And it does provide us with a very remarkable fact, which is this: crucifixion was the most abhorrent fate that anyone could undergo, and the fact that there was a movement based on a crucified man has to be explained. Question how can you explain the spread of a religion based on the worship of a man who had suffered the most ignominious death possible if Jesus didn’t rose from the death? It’s a rhetorical question, even today people who have had near death expierence testify, that they have seen Jesus Christ.

Bible and Archaeology

Every year hundreds of discoveries are made in archaeological digs in the lands of the Bible. Many of these finds relate directly to the Bible; others shed light on different periods in biblical history.

A fact, even secular archaeologists use the Bible as a tool in their excavation work. Why? Because Biblical Archaeology is at work digging up the lands and locations that the Bible talks about. And often the Bible is the ONLY ancient text that gives the historical record about the people who lived in those lands and describes the events that took place there. Without the Bible, Archaeology would be digging blind, guessing the story behind the artifacts, without any way to correctly reconstruct the history it unearths.

So if, as many secular minds would say today, the Bible is not a strong and lasting witness of the past, then why is there a specific field within archaeology distinguished as Biblical Archaeology? The answer is simple. The Bible IS historical and accurate.

I’ll mention few findings, Assyrian Limmu Lists, Annals of Assyrian Kings, Cyrus Cylinder, Merneptah Stele, Moabite Stone, The Babylonian chronicles, Hezekiah’s Tunnel, Lachish Reliefs, Silver Ketef Hinnom Scrolls, Tel Dan Stele, Dead Sea Scrolls.

Over the past century, scientists have discovered that if certain properties of the universe were changed very slightly from what they are, we would not be here. They have to be within a very narrow range for our universe to make life possible and be habitable.

Fine-Tuning of Universe

The universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life with a complexity and delicacy that literally defy human comprehension. The sensitivity of the ‘habitability’ of the universe to small changes is called ‘fine-tuning.’

This was recognized about 60 years ago by Fred Hoyle who was not a religious person at the time he made the discovery. Scientists like Paul Davies, Martin Rees, Max Tegmark, Bernard Carr, Frank Tipler, John Barrow, and Stephen Hawking, to name a few, believe in fine-tuning. These are prominent names in cosmology as they are heard in the media whenever a news headline is made.

Roger Penrose of Oxford University, and one of Britain’s leading theoretical physicists and cosmologists, has calculated that the odds of a low-entropy state to exist by chance alone are one out of 10 in 10^123 – the Penrose number.

Imagine a universe-creating machine, like a giant safe with two types of dials. There are dials that fix the settings for laws of physics like gravity, electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces. It also has dials for Planck’s constant, one for the ratio of the neutron mass to the proton mass, one for the strength of the electromagnetic attraction, and so on. Initially, all dials have been set and fixed at particular numbers. These numbers are the constants of nature and they produce the universe we live in.

Let us say that you can change the dials of this universe generating machine. There is also a screen which shows you what would happen if you were to change the dials even by a little bit.

You change the dials and hit the preview button to see what might happen. You weaken the force of electromagnetism and the force of gravity just a little. Then you touch the preview button and see the results on a screen. Suddenly, stars, galaxies, and planets start falling apart! Then you increase the dial of the electromagnetic force and suddenly, the planets are not the right size. They are too big for life. Also, stars burn up quickly.

Most people find it hard to believe that a fine-tuned universe is just a fact that neither has nor requires an explanation. The universe just sprang into existence sounds about as scientific as answering the question why apples fall to the ground, by saying that they just do.

Will anyone accept that a photograph of a face is simply the result of an ink spill? No one would ever accept an accident as an explanation. If they won’t accept ink spill as an explanation for a photograph, how could anyone accept the universe to be fine-tuned without an explanation?

The prophecies

The fulfilled predictions of the Bible give the clearest and most conclusive evidence that the Bible is the revelation of God, which i have disscused till ad nauseam, so i will provide a link to a Website http://www.100prophecies.org/page11.htm putting cherry on the cake