Was Jesus Christ The Divine Son Of God?

 April 23, 2006

By: Sellers S. Crain, Jr.

    Attacks upon Christ and the religion named for Him are not new.  As for the recent ones that have gained so much attention in the media, we can say with the wise man, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  The popular book by Dan Brown, soon to be released as a movie, appears to have created a wave of speculators wanting to get in on some of his action.  Brown has reportedly made over four hundred million dollars off this book already, and it has just been released in paperback.

    The two authors of a previously lesser known work Holy Blood, Holy Grail sued Brown in an English court hoping to cash in on his success.  Last week the judge in the case ruled in Brown's favor saying that he had done nothing wrong in researching several books in writing his novel including the aforementioned work.

    One of these authors has come out with a new book claiming to be a work of authentic historical research entitled The Jesus Papers.  In this book the author, obviously an atheist, makes the case that Jesus survived the crucifixion, was married to Mary Magdalene, and they had children.  Proof of that are some letters reportedly written by Jesus after His death.  He claims these letters have been in the possession of the Catholic Church for years and they have hidden them away to prevent the truth from being exposed.  The author of this book even makes the preposterous claim that Pilate and the Roman soldiers conspired with Jesus' disciples to fake Jesus' crucifixion.

    First of all, the claim that Jesus did not die from crucifixion began shortly after He died.  The Roman soldiers who guarded His tomb were bribed by the Jewish rulers to say that His disciples stole His body away while they slept (Matthew 28:12,13).  Although false, the lie grew to say that Jesus did not die at all but was simply swooned and was later revived.  Second, as for the reported letters, there were many bogus manuscripts and forgeries in existence that have been studied and rejected.  There is nothing new here.

    A professor at Florida State University, who once made the claim that Moses did not part the Red Sea but that the winds parted the waves, has come out with a new hypothesis.  First, unless I am mistaken the Bible says that when Moses obeyed God and stretched his rod over the sea, God "sent a strong east wind all that night and made the sea into dry land and the waters were divided" (Exodus 14:16,21).  You can see how ridiculous his argument is to begin with.  Wouldn't it have been convenient for the wind to have divided the water at just the moment Moses stretched his rod over the sea if no miracle was involved?

    Second, his new theory is that Jesus did not walk on the waters of the Sea of Galilee, but He walked on ice (see Matthew 14:22-33).  While it does get cold in Palestine, it is usually hot during the day.  It is very doubtful that it would have been cold enough to freeze the salty waters of that body, even if, as he claimed it was colder there then.  Also, the disciples were in their small fishing boat in a storm crossing the sea at that time.  Ice near the shore would have made such a crossing extremely difficult, if not impossible.  Steve Higginbotham wrote about this in his bulletin, "Wonder how Jesus kept His balance on this small patch of ice in the middle of a storm tossed sea?  Sounds more like it would require surfing rather than walking... And what about Peter?  Did he just happen to jump out of the boat and onto the same patch of ice upon which Jesus was walking?"  Such a situation as this professor proposes is as foolish as his previous claim concerning Moses.  He needs to read the Bible and quit trying to disprove it.

 Brotherly,

Sellers