We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Quotes to Chew on: How First Century Jews Came to Worship a Man
“Legends do not generally arise in contradiction to fundamental convictions held by the culture of those who create and embrace them. Yet if the Jesus story is largely a fictitious legend, this is exactly what we must suppose happened. We submit that the initial historical implausibility of this supposition should be enough for us seriously to consider alternative explanations.”
“One such explanation is the one given us by those who first told the Jesus story. It is simple and straightforward, and it explains all that needs to be explained–though it requires that we accept the reality of the supernatural. In essence, the earliest disciples tell us that they report what they do about Jesus (despite its conflict with their own cultural/religious expectations) because this is how things actually happened. Most importantly, they tell us they believe Jesus is the Son of God and worship him as Lord because, though it violates some of their most fundamental Jewish religious convictions to do so, his life, teachings, miracles, and resurrection convinced them.”
Boyd, Gregory A., Lord or Legend? Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma, Baker Books, 2007, p. 37.
Related Reading
Did Jesus Believe in Satan?
Jesus’ teaching, his exorcisms, his healings and other miracles, as well as his work on the cross, all remain somewhat incoherent and unrelated to one another until we interpret them as acts of war. As in apocalyptic thought of the time of Jesus, the assumption that undergirds Jesus’ entire ministry is that Satan has illegitimately…
Can You Believe It?
The origin of human sin and the world’s oppression goes back to a deceptive, untruthful picture of God given to Eve by Satan. Jesus came, in part, to finally reveal the absolute truth about God. He is the way and the truth (alethia) and the life (Jn 14:6). The word “truth,” literally means “uncovered.” And…
The Cosmic Dance Project
The story behind The Cosmic Dance The idea for The Cosmic Dance arose out of Greg’s sharing his latest ideas with his small group (the three couples he and his wife Shelley share life with). Theological discussions are often a regular part of the conversation when they get together, and Greg, being the theologian in…
Don’t Be a Functional Atheist at Christmas
All of us raised in Western culture have been strongly conditioned by what is called a secular worldview. The word secular comes from the Latin saeculum, meaning “the present world.” A secular worldview, therefore, is one that focuses on the present physical world and ignores or rejects the spiritual realm. To the extent that one…
Cynic, Sage Endorsements
Endorsements: “Recent years have witnessed several attempts to ‘explain away’ Jesus as …a wandering Cynic sage…..For all who are trying to come to terms with this reconstruction, especially as represented in the well-publicized books by John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack, this volume is invaluable.” –D. A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School “John Dominic Crossan…
The Jesus Seminar and the Reliability of the Gospels
The Jesus Seminar The primary driving force behind the popular media’s present preoccupation with liberal views of Jesus has been the Jesus Seminar. This Seminar, first convened in 1985 by Robert Funk, is a gathering of 100 or so mostly liberal New Testament scholars who meet on a regular basis. They have determined, by a…