Monthly Archives: April 2017

10 Historical Facts About Jesus From Non-Christian Sources

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Article: 10 Historical Facts About Jesus From Non-Christian Sources by Alisa Childers (original source here)

If you have ever been involved in religious discussion on Facebook or Twitter, you have probably come across some version of the comment below:

“I just think it’s interesting that the only book that even talks about Jesus is the Bible! I’m not even sure we can prove he actually existed.”

Although this assertion is largely rejected by scholars in all spheres of historical and biblical studies, it tends to pop back up on social media like a never-ending game of digital whack-a-mole. The truth is that Jesus is not only documented in the eye-witness testimony compiled in the New Testament, but He is mentioned as a historical person by several non-Christian sources within 150 years of His life. From those sources, we can learn 10 things about Jesus without even opening a Bible:

1. He was known to be wise and virtuous.

This fact was reported by Jewish Historian Josephus, who was born around AD 37. In his Antiquities of the Jews, he reports:

At this time there was a wise man named Jesus. His conduct was good, and [he] was known to be virtuous. (1)

2. He had a brother named James.

In recounting the stoning of James, Josephus records:

So he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned. (2)

3. He was known to perform miracles.

Celsus was a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and a fierce opponent of Christianity. In what is known to be the first comprehensive intellectual attack on Christianity, he tried to resolve why Jesus was able to perform miracles. The story is wild—but the main point is that by trying to explain away the miracles of Jesus, he is actually affirming that they happened:

Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing. He returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god. (3) Continue reading →

Ten Things You Should Know About Eastern Orthodoxy

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Dr. Sam Storms: (original source here)

News broke this past week that Hank Hannegraaf, of the Bible Answer Man radio program, was chrismated on Palm Sunday at Saint Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Yet another man devoted to the Eastern Orthodox faith is Rod Dreher, who has been much in the news of late because of his best-selling book, The Benedict Option. So who are the Eastern Orthodox and what is it precisely that they believe?

There are @ 6 million people in the U.S. who identify with the Orthodox faith, and @ 200-215 million worldwide (70 million of whom are in Russia alone), all of whom are gathered into one of the 13 autocephalous or “self-governing” Orthodox churches throughout the world. The head of each autocephalous church is called a Patriarch. The Patriarch of Constantinople is given greater honor but has no authority to interfere with the affairs of the other 12 Orthodox communions. “All bishops share equally in the apostolic succession, all have the same sacramental powers, all are divinely appointed teachers of the faith” (Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church [hereafter TOC], new edition [New York: Penguin Books, 1997], 27).

Although these many autocephalous churches are independent, they maintain (so they assert) complete agreement on matters of doctrine and are in sacramental communion with each other.

Before I describe ten of the more important beliefs of Eastern Orthodoxy, a brief history of the Church should be noted. Continue reading →