Expert: Brenda Martin - 4/14/2008

Question
well for a while now i have been wondering if jesus is true or if there is some other way we are created. lastnight i was getting into it and i thought well if jesus realy was true why wouldnt he just show himself to prove that he is real instead of just trying to make us beleive from other people? there doesnt seem to be any reason why he can't just show himself to prove he is real since he can do anything.... can you explain this

Answer
"I have been wondering if jesus is true?"

strangely, some say that Jesus never lived—that he is, in effect, a creation of some first-century men. Answering such skeptics, the respected historian Will Durant argued: “That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels.”

Ask yourself: Could a person who never lived have affected human history so remarkably? The reference work The Historians’ History of the World observed: “The historical result of [Jesus’] activities was more momentous, even from a strictly secular standpoint, than the deeds of any other character of history. A new era, recognised by the chief civilisations of the world, dates from his birth.”

Yes, think about it. Even calendars today are based on the year that Jesus was thought to have been born. “Dates before that year are listed as B.C., or before Christ,” explains The World Book Encyclopedia. “Dates after that year are listed as A.D., or anno Domini (in the year of our Lord).”

Although references to Jesus Christ by early secular historians are meager, such references do exist. Cornelius Tacitus, a respected first-century Roman historian, wrote: “The name [Christian] is derived from Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius.” Suetonius and Pliny the Younger, other Roman writers of the time, also referred to Christ. In addition, Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, wrote of James, whom he identified as “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.”

The New Encyclopædia Britannica thus concludes: “These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the beginning of the 20th centuries.”

"or if there is some other way we are created?

Ah now your speaking about the existense of GOD the ALMIGHTY,the Creator, Jesus is God's son, they are 2 entirely different people, just as you are not your Dad & he is not you :¬)

the only other explanation to the existense of mankind & the earth etc. is the THEORY of Evolution,mm think about this way; if I said to to you that; "no-one made your computer, it just came about all by itself" would you believe it? I doubt it, well to believe in Evolution is to say exactly that, so the only logical explanation is that we were created.

"why wouldnt God just show himself to prove that he is real instead of just trying to make us beleive from other people?"

Tell me; can you SEE the wind, or electricity, no, yet you do believe they exist dont you? why, because we see the affects of them dont we, well its the same with God, the evidence is all around us in Creation that a Creator exists.

God cannot "show himself" to mankind, it would be like; the sun coming down to earth, we would burn up, he cannot be looked on with the literal eye.

all the best
Brenda