~ Gen. Jim, POW
Matthew 1:21 speaks of Mary: “She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His Name JESUS[lit. in Greek, “Savior”], for He will save His people from their sins.”
Jesus: Greek = Iesous
Jesus: Hebrew = Yeshua
“And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born JESUS who is called Christ” (v. 16).
The New Testament uses the name JESUS hundreds of times (see also “Jesus Christ”).
I saw a magazine printed by a religious cult with one article asking, “Did Jesus really exist?” I’ve written on this in years gone by. I suppose Jesus was and is the most written about, preached about, and debated about Person ever.
This magazine brought up the historian Michael Grant, expert on ancient classical civilization. Grant noted, “If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, this same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a man of pagan personages whose reality as a historical figure is never questioned.”
Then this magazine cites professor Rudolf Bultmann, professor of N.T. studies: “The doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the oldest Palestinian community [of Christians].”
Bultmann and Karl Barth, both theologians, along with Paul Tillich and Dietrick Bonhoeffer, were influential in contemporary theological thought. It was Barth that inaugurated the “New Theological Age.” Bultmann revolted with Barth against their liberal teachers but they moved in very different directions. Bultmann, professor of N.T. at the University of Marburg, was “one of the founding fathers of the school known as Form-criticism, which attempts to uncover the original oral content of the N.T. [which they say became buried under superimposed layers of tradition].” It should be noted that Bultmann judged the N.T. to be “irrational and utterly meaningless” for modern man! Yet he did not deny the existence of Jesus of the New Testament. (See his “New Testament and Mythology,” 1961.)
O.T. Jesus & N.T. Jesus
It is said that Psalm 22 is about Jesus, about His death on the Cross. See also Isaiah 53; Zechariah 13:6; 1 – 2:10; Matthew 27; Luke 23; John 19:30-37; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 1:17; Psalm 34:20 & 69:21; et al.
Thousands & Thousands
There are many historians, writers, philosophers, scholars, theologians and others that agree that Jesus existed. Even many scientists and physicists and others believed in Jesus’ existence. The famous Albert Einstein, Jewish physicist, asserted, “I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene … No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsated in every Word. No myth is filled with such life.”
Speaking of myths, Rudolf Bultmann wrote a book called “New Testament and Mythology.” He said that the New Testament teaching about the atonement rests upon primitive ideals of guilt and righteousness. He claimed that the idea of a pre-existent “Son” who came to earth to pay the supreme price of redemption was taken from Gnosticism. I’ve read this nonsense elsewhere. Bultmann goes on to say that much of the N.T. reflects the mythologies of Jewish apocalyptic Greek Gnosticism, “with their dualisms, demon powers, and Divine interventions.” What LIES AND BLASPHEMIES!!
On page 122 of “New Testament and Mythoogy,” Bultmann concludes, “if modern man is prepared to take seriously the question of God, he ought not to be burdened with the mythological element in Christianty. …The heathen mysteries know not only the figure of the dying redeemer – God – but above all the heathen-gnostic mythology knew the figure of the pre-existent being of God that, obedient to the will of the
Father, clothed himself in the garment of this world and accepted misery and need, hate and persecution, in order to prepare the way for his own into the heavenly world” (Essays: Philosophical and Theological, 1955, p. 247).
Bultmann is not considering that ever since the very Beginning after the Fall, men and women had been looking toward the day that the Messiah would come, because God had promised His coming (Genesis 3:15). Of course there would be similar stories throughout history about the coming Messiah; in fact, we would expect that, much like there are over 200 accounts from various nations that speak of the Flood, with varying details. People talk about things, and stories pass around. The expectation of a Messiah coming would certainly have been spread abroad, with variations arising from what God had originally promised. God fulfilled His promise through Jesus Christ!
Moreover, all of Bultmann’s questions about God and the Son have been debated over and over by other theologians, historians, Bible scholars, etc. But our point here is that Bultmann still said, “The doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation.” Bultmann did not doubt Jesus’ existence, he merely doubted many things about Jesus. What he calls “mythology” are those truths that he could not and would not understand.
