Ending the Pause

This blog has been in "pause" mode for about four months, but we are ready to hit the "play" button and get back to it. But before we do, lets review previous episodes. We are giving you summaries of the main points of a book called "Lord or Legend". This book considers the question of whether the historical accounts about Jesus are based on legends that people created or factual historical accounts.  We have looked at four reasons people give for claiming they are legends and have seen that all of them have problems.

1. Some say since the accounts describe him doing miracles it can't possibly be true, yet they don't even consider the evidence of supernatural events in our world. 
2. Others say Jews made up the stories of Jesus, even though there is no cultural context that supports that possibility.
3. Some say Paul, whose writings in the Bible preceded the Gospel, wrote about an ancient miracle working man which was later attributed by the gospel writers to person named Jesus. However reading his writings shows he was writing about a man who lived in his lifetime.
4. Lastly, we saw that people say the stories of Jesus are just like other legends that existed at that time. We looked at two examples they give and found that they were clearly legends and lacked the historical support that stands behind the story of Jesus.

All the previous posts are available if you want to review the information summarized above. Next time,   we will push the "play" button and start looking at chapter 5 which discusses the reliability of the oral tradition as it relates to the stories about Jesus.