This article is a reply to Jesus- According to Orthodox Historic Biblical Christianity, by Jass Singh. I will not attempt to answer every point in his lengthy article, as most of them are irrelevant or can be classed as unsupported assertions. Jass Singh begins by assuming that God exists, and miracles are possible as a corollary. Aside from making an assumption, he states as a corollary a proposition, which has to be proven, and he has not done so. For all anyone knows, a deity may be unable or unwilling to engage in miracle-making. And there is no assurance that any deity that exists is the Christian one; it could be Islamic, Zoroastrian, Deist, Sikh, or that of some other religion.
Jass Singh accuses some skeptics of having an anti-supernatural bias. This is an ad hominem attack designed to shift the burden of proof from those who assert a proposition to those who either reject or are unsure about it. I might equally claim that Christians have a pro-supernatural bias, and even a pro-Christian bias. And again there is no assurance that a supernatural realm is the Biblical one.
Much of the irrelevant material in the article relates to the beliefs of Christians. But no one doubts that Christians have believed certain propositions throughout history. Their belief do not make it so, even if they died for their beliefs. Adherents of most religions have died for their beliefs at one time or another. In 1997, over 30 members of an American cult called Heavens' Gate, which mixed Christian and New Age beliefs, committed suicide in order to ascend to a mother ship they believed was hiding behind a comet. Their beliefs were false, despite the utter seriousness with which they held them.
Jass Singh poses as an answer to the question of who was Jesus, the classic trilemma: Jesus was lord, liar, or lunatic. But this is a false trilemma. There are other possibilities, such as legend. Or Jesus could have sincerely thought he was the Messiah. He may not have existed. Ah, but Singh stated that he assumed that Jesus was not a legend. This is a nice trick if one can pull it off: assume what you should have to prove. Singh may not realize that there is no evidence outside the New Testament for the existence of Jesus (Joshua) of Nazareth. Indeed there is precious little evidence for a first-century Nazareth.
Contrary to his claim, no witnesses have written about the death or resurrection of Jesus. The gospel authors are all unknown and do not claim to be witnesses; nor does Paul, who does not even claim to have met Jesus except in some sort of dream, or more likely, hallucination. In this regard, the discussion of the empty tomb is putting the cart before the horse, as it must first be established there was a tomb at all. Also, if the empty tomb is so important, it is odd that Paul never mentions it even once. All of the Bible verses quoted relating to the supposed divinity of Jesus are mere circular reasoning, since it has not been proven that the Bible is the infallible word of a deity, nor can a document validate itself by self-assertion.
Ancient peoples believed in all sorts of miracles, magic, and superstition. Resurrected saviors and virgin births were a dime a dozen. Palestine before and during the Herodian period was full of would-be Messiahs. None of them, including the Jesus of Christianity, did what the Jewish Messiah was supposed to do, including establishing an earthly kingdom free of foreign control, and creating a worldwide worship of the Jewish god Yahweh centered in Jerusalem.
As an ex-Christian, I understand all too well the psychology of belief and the attraction of Christianity. But my reason tells me that Jesus was at most a completely human figure who became mythologized as an incarnated god.
