I was recently listening to Lee Strobel's testimony about his conversion to evangelical Christianity. Lee Strobel is a former atheist and editor for the Chicago Tribune who converted to born again Christian after he found after a year and a half, he couldn't disprove the gospel. Lee Strobel's wife at the time had converted to born again Christian and Lee believed he could convince her that "it" was false. He couldn't and consequently he has been a born-again Christian ever since.
While listening to one of his many public testimonies about his conversion I thought it'd be interesting to do a series of posts about the gospel, resurrection, crucifixion, and other related facts about Christianity. The first fact I want to look at is Jesus' crucifixion and what has been recorded about it both within and outside the four gospels of the New Testament.
Other than the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), Paul the apostle and former persecutor of Christians writes after his conversion to Christianity in 1 Corinthians 15 3-8 the following
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried. that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also."
I have had numerous conversations with skeptics who flatly reject ANY scriptural support for Jesus' crucifixion, let alone his resurrection or even existence, so one must look outside the New Testament for objective, additional evidence of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.
Crucifixion was not uncommon for Jews. Just thirty years prior to Jesus' crucifixion the governor of Syria crucified two thousand Jews. Additionally, the ancient writer Cicero said death by crucifixion was "the most cruel and hideous of tortures" Crucifixion was so awful the Romans usually exempted Roman citizens from it and only reserved it for slaves or rebels.
In connecting the dots of crucifixion as an extremely cruel form of punishment for Jews and dated to the time of Jesus' place in history it's still NOT a given that Jesus WAS crucified but given the accounts within the gospels along with Paul's writings in the New Testament and his first-hand account of meeting Jesus it certainly follows that Jesus MAY HAVE been killed by the Romans as documented in the New Testament, but let's get some more facts about Jesus' death on the cross.
In 1968 construction workers found remnants of an ankle bone with a nail piercing it from within an ancient tomb. The nail was in knotted wood and the discovery had been dated to the first century. Clearly crucifixion was not uncommon and was very "real" and used around the time of Jesus' ministry.
There are also additional outside sources corroborating the crucifixion of Jesus including
1. The Jewish Talmud
2. Josephus
3. Tacitus
4. Lucian
5. Mara-Bar-Serapion
NOTE: Each of the above-mentioned sources can be researched for exactness. I have listed the sources but have not provided the actual documentation of Jesus' crucifixion.
So, in a nutshell the fact that Jesus is reported in great detail to have been crucified within the four gospels as early as AD 70, despite the many skeptics who try to denounce the validity and reliability of Jesus' crucifixion, it's really not within the acceptance of New Testament Scholars that Jesus was NOT crucified.
What this proves is that Jesus throughout his ministry foretold his death and the purpose of his death in bringing about a fulfillment of his canceling out human sin, and both scripturally and historically he WAS crucified by the Romans at the request of the Jews because on the outside he was a threat to the Jewish order, but more importantly he was prophesized to be the perfect vehicle for God's plan to redeem the sin of mankind forever.
Jesus did exist.
Jesus was crucified.
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