Quotes for Christ.

Over the last half a year or so I have posted many articles on some of the scientific evidences that can lead one to reasonably conclude that a God, in some form or another, just may exist. What I have not posted on is the historicity of Christ himself. If there is a God, how can we know who He is? Mankind’s history is full of hundreds if not thousands of god figures.

I think one way we can know who the one true God is (if he does in fact exist) is by examining and studying the life and death of Christ. It’s probably the most logical starting point anyway. I am by no means an expert on this subject and I have only just begun to dig into the story and what we can know about it. I think ultimately the questions of whether or not Christ actually existed and subsequently whether or not he actually rose from the grave, are two of the most important questions one searching for truth in theism can ask him or herself. So as a starting point for now I am going to share some quotes I have found from the experts on the person of Jesus Christ.

"The early Christians' opponents all accepted that Jesus existed, taught, had disciples, worked miracles, and was put to death on a Roman cross. As in our day, debate and disagreement centred largely not on the story but on the significance of Jesus. Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically."

- Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, p.145

"Plenty of great teachers, mystics, martyrs and saints have made their appearance at different times in the world, and lived lives and spoken words full of grace and truth, for which we have every reason to be grateful. Of none of them, however, has the claim been made, and accepted, that they were Incarnate God. In the case of Jesus alone the belief has persisted that when he came into the world God deigned to take on the likeness of a man in order that thenceforth men might be encouraged to aspire after the likeness of God; reaching out from their mortality to His immortality, from their imperfection to His perfection."

- Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 16.

"Anybody who tries to use the argument that Jesus of Nazareth never existed [as a verifiable historical figure] is simply flaunting his or her ignorance. There is no serious question in the mind of any serious scholar, anywhere in the world that there certainly was a historical personality named Jesus of Nazareth. Now you can argue if he was the Son of God or not, argue about the supernatural aspects of his life, but in terms of the historical character of Jesus, all the evidence is in favour."

- Historian Paul L. Maier

"The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar."

- F.F. Bruce

"Thousands and tens of thousands have gone through the evidence which attests the resurrection of Christ, piece by piece, as carefully as ever a judge summed up on the most important case. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others, but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the history of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fitter evidence and every kind."

- Thomas Arnold

"These three great facts--the resurrection appearances, the empty tomb, and the origin of the Christian faith--all point unavoidably to one conclusion: The resurrection of Jesus. Today the rational man can hardly be blamed if he believes that on that first Easter morning a divine miracle occurred."

- William Lane Craig, "Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ".