An introduction to Jesus Christ.

If you have come to this page it is because you wanted to as this page will not come up by accident. Here you will find what I consider the most important topic you will ever deal with. The eternal status of your soul. I will summarize what I believe, lay forth the reasons and then you can decide what you will do with it. My prayer is that God will speak to your heart.

I believe in God the Father, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ His only Son my Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. On the third day He rose again and ascended into heaven where He sits at God's mighty right hand. I believe He will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Christian Church, the communion of saints, the foregiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen

Some will question whether Jesus actually existed. This is a specious argument at best as there is to much historical evidence to the contrary.

Pliny the Younger writes to emperor Trajan (circa. 111A.D.) concerning the trials of Christians. He mentions their gathering and singing hymns to Christ as God. Pliny

The Annals of Tacitus refer to Jesus and His followers and not in a favorable way. He does show sympathy for their treatment under Nero but calls their practices abominable.Tacitus

The Jewish historian Josephus makes two references to Jesus in his Antiquities of the Jews. Josephus

All of these writers wrote independantly and were notably non-Christians. Tacitus and Pliny following the cult of emperor worship and Josephus a devout orthodox Jew.

If you look at the manuscript evidences you will find that there is much more documentation concerning Jesus dated closer to His time than any other person of the Greco-Roman era. The following list taken from The New Evidence Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell lists some of the ancient writings, date they were written, earliest copies we have, the gap between them, and the number of copies we have.These are hand written copies that pre-date the printing press which was invented in the mid 1400's.

Author	Book	Date Written	Earliest Copy	Gap	# of copies
Homer	Iliad	800 B.C.	400 B.C.	400yrs	643
Herodotus	History	480-425 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,350yrs	8
Thuycydides	History	460-400 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,300yrs	8
Plato		400 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,300yrs	7
Demothenes		300 B.C.	1100 A.D.	1,400yrs	200
Caesar	Gaullic wars	100-44 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,000yrs	10
Tacitus	Annals	100 A.D.	1100 A.D.	1000yrs	20
Pliny Secondus	Natural History	61-113 A.D.	850 A.D.	750yrs	7
New Testament	Fragments	50-100 A.D.	c.114 A.D.	+50yrs	5366
	Complete books		c.200 A.D.	100yrs	total
	Most of N.T.		c.250 A.D.	150yrs	copies
	Complete N.T.		c.325 A.D.	225yrs	as of 1999.

Next page.