DeMythologizing Jesus

Tonight I will be sharing the standard Muslim teachings about Jesus.  In short, Muslims see Jesus as a great prophet, but holistically deny that He was the Son of God, that He actually died on the cross, that He is the intercessor, or that He has atoned for sin.  The Quran teaches that the church as been led astray when it comes to the nature of Jesus and the reality of His crucifixion (Sura IV. 157, V. 77, XIX. 29ff). 

In this regard Islam has followed the path of centuries old heresies that attack orthodox/Biblical teaching of the nature and work of Jesus Christ.  It is not uncommon for those who deny the deity of Christ and the essential nature of His work to allege that:

  1. The Jesus of history is not the same as the Jesus of the Christian faith.
  2. Jesus was not self-aware or believe Himself to be divine.
  3. We do not have any of the original words or writings of Jesus recorded in the Bible
  4. The deity of Christ was a late invention of the church that did not appear until the Council of Nicaea 325 A.D.
  5. Much of modern church doctrine and practice, especially in regards to Jesus, is heavily influenced by Constantine and his adaptations of pagan Roman religions into early Christian practice. 
In this way, it is alleged that much of the Jesus we know has arisen by corruptions of the Biblical text, mythological teaching, and an overall conspiracy of the church to deify the man Jesus.  While I will touch on these issues in our time tonight, I will not be able to answer them in full.  For more information on these issues I would like to point you to a powerpoint presentation found online by Jeff Chacon and John Oakes.  Although the powerpoint focuses primarily on a refutation of the DaVinci Code, the critiques of Jesus it answers are applicable to all heretical teachings that allege corruption and conspiracy by the early church.  This would apply to refutations of Islam, various cult groups and world religions, heretical pseudo-Christian teachings that deny the deity of Christ, as well as non-Christian groups including atheists - all of which seem to borrow from a common pool of ideas that the deity of Christ is a total fabrication.  If you have only a few moments to flip through it, I would commend you especially to the latter half of the presentation.

The hosting websites have great articles on a variety of topics related to these issues:

http://www.evidenceforchristianity.org/ 


http://www.equip.org/

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