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DEAD MEN WALKING

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CHRIST'S VICTORY	Dead Men Walking sounds a bit cryptic doesn't it? Well, most everyone you know, most everyone you see walking down the street, are just that; Dead Men Walking. I say this with the conviction of truth, because Jesus and the Bible say it's so, and neither lie.  A lot of people say they are Christians because they believe in God. Well I'm here to tell you that simply believing in God and Jesus Christ as Our Savior is not nearly enough. A Christian who wants to be saved must live for Him 'til he dies. Being saved is a life-changing event which is where the term "Born Again" comes from. So when you walk down the street and see people who don't walk the walk of someone wanting to be like Christ, you're looking at another soul that will die and not see eternal life. Denial can be a killer.
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Men shall desire to die and death shall flee from them!  (Rev. 9:6)

Dr. Mark R. Levin For President In 2012!

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This page has one purpose in mind, to refute all of the latest arguments out there against the reality, divinity, and existence of Jesus Christ. Believe it or not, people are coming out of the woodwork with supposed "evidence" that points to Jesus as someone other than who we all know in our hearts He really is. I will not use the word "was" in reference to Jesus Christ because He is alive and well, awaiting His time to come back and conquer evil and all who follow evil's ways.

This page will be worded with excerpts from the book "The Case For The Real Jesus" written by Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel also wrote a very good book named "The Case For Christ" (his first book I believe) back in the mid to late '90's, which he began in an attempt to discredit the Bible and Jesus, but which turned him into a full-fledged Christian and believer in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. This book also became a documentary type of movie on DVD which is well worth watching if you should have the opportunity. It has been since his first book The Case For Christ, that more arguments have come out to the forefront in many books written by people of respect that have been given too much credibility for doing a horrible job at historical research to come to very erroneous conclusions. Most of these individuals did their "research" having a predisposed bias on what they wanted to find, obscuring or outright ignoring the truth, and making arguments that did nothing but put doubt into the believers' minds. By beginning their research with the idea of discrediting Jesus and Christianity, they therefore couldn't arrive at the correct outcome because they intentionally jumped to false conclusions they were determined to find, justifying their using bad evidence by willfully not digging deep into the full history of the massive amounts of documentation that supports the Gospels of the Holy Bible.

The Case For The Real Jesus is an excellent book of fact that dispels all of the most recent, and completely false, myths that try to discredit the authenticity of the Bible and the truths therein regarding our savior Jesus Christ. This book does an excellent job of doing so, and I would strongly recommend reading it. Whether you are a devoted Christian, and Christian on the fence, or a firm unbeliever, you will get to the real truth behind the lies being spread in this millennium that call Jesus a fake or a hoax. If you pick up and read this book with a mind open to believing the truth, you too will find that Jesus is the only way to everlasting life. It just may save your life.

Below the initial arguments and the evidence that dismisses and discredits the lies, I will provide a "Summary Of The Evidence For The Case For Christ", taken directly from the Appendix A, but can also be found in Mr. Strobel's initial book "The Case For Christ". I would strongly recommend reading both of these books so that you can come to know your personal savior Jesus Christ, and find out what it means to be truly loved. Please continue...

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So what are the biggest and most popular lies and falsehoods being spread around now that are causing confusion in some, complete disbelief in others, and leading so many to destruction?

1. Scholars are uncovering a radically different Jesus in ancient documents just as credible as the four gospels.
2. The Bible's portrait of Jesus can't be trusted because the church tampered with the text.
3. New explanations have refuted Jesus' resurrection.
4. Christianity's beliefs about Jesus were copied from pagan religions.
5. Jesus was an imposter who failed to fulfill the Messianic prophecies.
6. People should be free to pick and choose what to believe about Jesus.

There are a ton of books that have come out in the last ten years that try to convince us of one or more of the above untruths. What's most dangerous about these latest blasphemies is that the writers have a certain amount of credibility based on their "expertise" in the area of history, or religion, or have PhD's, or are scholars of some sort. Regardless of their credentials, the facts of the matter are these. All of these authors who are creating so much doubt in the minds of the new believers, or turning unbelievers away from even giving the Bible it's due credibility. All of them went into their writing with a preconceived idea of what they were going to find, or what they wanted to find, as they were all unbelievers to begin with. They all broke the cardinal rule of gathering and examining evidence: which is to keep their minds completely open to the facts, and not allow their minds to reach an unsubstantiated conclusion. Using Lee Strobel's "The Case For The Real Jesus", I will condense his findings to fit this page without just writing his book here. I will use his conclusions to all the arguments word for word so that I don't take anything away from the brilliant job he did in completing this book. I will say it again, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to know exactly who the real Jesus is. Personally, I already knew when I picked it up, but I wanted to know my argument to refute those who might come at me with any of the above listed falsehoods, and I got them by Lee Strobel. This page is all credited to him and his patient and thorough research. And don't forget about his first book, "The Case For Christ", which is also an excellent read and was also used to contribute to his latest book...

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These Excerpts Are Written By Lee Strobel In "The Case For The Real Jesus"

"In the end, none of these seemingly daunting challenges turned out to be close calls. One by one, they were systematically dismantled by scholars who backed up their positions not with verbal sleights of hand or speculation, but with facts, logic, and evidence:"

1. Are Scholars Discovering A Radically Different Jesus In Ancient Documents Just As Credible As The Four Gospels?  No, the alternative texts that are touted in liberal circles are too late to be historically credible - for instance, the Gospel of Thomas was written after AD 175 and probably closer to 200. According to eminent New Testament scholar I. Howard Marshall of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, the Thomas gospel has "no significant new light to shed on the historical Jesus." The Secret Gospel of Mark, with its homoerotic undercurrents, turned out to be an embarrassing hoax that fooled many liberal scholars too eager to buy into bizarre theories about Jesus, while no serious historians give credence to the so-called Jesus Papers. The Gnostic depiction of Jesus as a revealer of hidden knowledge - including the teaching that we all possess the divine light that he embodied - lacks any connection to the historical Jesus.
2. Is The Bible's Portrait Of Jesus Unreliable Because Of Mistakes Or Deliberate Changes By Scribes Through The Centuries?  No, there are no new disclosures that have cast any doubt on the essential reliability of the New Testament. Only about one percent of the manuscript variants affect the meaning of the text to any degree, and not a single cardinal doctrine is at stake. Actually, the unrivaled wealth of New Testament manuscripts greatly enhances the credibility of the Bible's portrayal of Jesus.
3. Have New Explanations Refuted Jesus' Resurrection?  No, the truth is that a persuasive case for Jesus rising from the dead can be made by using five facts that are well-evidenced and which the vast majority of today's scholars on the subject - including skeptical ones - accept as true: Jesus death by crucifixion: his disciples' belief that he rose and appeared to them;  the conversion of the church persecutor Paul; the conversion of the skeptic James, who was Jesus' half-brother; and Jesus' empty tomb. All the attempts by skeptics and Muslims to put Jesus back into his tomb utterly fail when subjected to serious analysis, while the overblown and ill-supported claims of the Jesus Tomb documentary and book have been decimated by knowledgeable scholars.
4. Were Christian Beliefs About Jesus Stolen From Pagan Religions?  No, they clearly were not. Allegations that the virgin birth, the resurrection, communion, and baptism came from earlier mythology simply evaporated when the shoddy scholarship of "copycat" theorists was exposed. There are simply no examples of dying and rising gods that preceded Christianity and which have meaningful parallels to Jesus' resurrection. In short, this is a theory that careful scholars discredited decades ago.
5. Was Jesus An Imposter Who Failed To Fulfill The Messianic Prophecies?  On the contrary, a compelling case can be made that Jesus - and Jesus alone - matches the "fingerprint" of the Messiah. Only Jesus managed to fulfill the prophecies that needed to come to fruition prior to the fall of the Jewish temple in AD 70. Consequently, if Jesus isn't the predicted Messiah, then there will never be one. What's more, Jesus' fulfillment of these prophecies against all odds makes it rational to conclude that he will fulfill the final ones when the time is right.
6. Should People Be Free To Pick And Choose What They Want To Believe About Jesus?  Obviously, we have the freedom to believe anything we want. But just because the U.S. Constitution provides equal protection for all religions doesn't mean that all beliefs are equally true. Whatever we believe about Jesus cannot change the reality of who he clearly established himself to be: the unique Son of God. So why cobble together our own make-believe Jesus to try to fulfill our personal prejudices when we can meet and experience the actual Jesus of history and faith?

As the church has affirmed from the very beginning, He is utterly one of a kind. "Jesus was entirely different and new and stunning," said author Don Everts. "There was just something so clear and beautiful and true and unique and powerful about Jesus that old rabbis would marvel at his teaching, young children would run and sit in his lap, ashamed prostitutes would find themselves weeping at his feet, whole villages would gather to hear him speak, experts in the law would find themselves speechless, and people from the poor to the rugged working class to the unbelievably wealthy would leave everything...to follow him."

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A Summary Of Evidence From "The Case For Christ", By Lee Strobel

Can the biographies of Jesus be trusted?

• I once thought that the Gospels were  merely religious propaganda, hopelessly tainted by overactive imaginations and evangelistic zeal. But Craig Blomberg of Denver Seminary, one of the country's foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, built a convincing case that they reflect eyewitness testimony and bear the unmistakable earmarks of accuracy. So early are these accounts of Jesus' life that they cannot be explained away as legendary inventions. "Within the first two years after his death," Blomberg said, "significant numbers of Jesus' followers seem to have formulated a doctrine of the atonement, were convinced that he had been raised from the dead in bodily form, associated Jesus with God, and believed they found support for all these convictions in the Old Testament." A study indicates that there was nowhere enough time for legend to have developed and wiped out a solid core of historical truth.

Do Jesus' biographies stand up to scrutiny?

• Blomberg argued persuasively that the gospel writers intended to preserve reliable history, were able to do so, were honest and willing to include difficult-to-explain material, and didn't allow bias to unduly color their reporting. The harmony among the Gospels on essential facts, coupled with divergence on some incidental details, lends historical credibility to the accounts. What's more, the early church could not have taken root and flourished right there in Jerusalem if it had been teaching facts about Jesus that his own contemporaries could have exposed as exaggerated or false. In short, the Gospels were able to pass all eight evidential tests, demonstrating their basic trustworthiness as historical records.

Were Jesus' biographies reliably preserved for us?

• World-class Bruce Metzger, professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, said that compared to other ancient documents, there is an unprecedented number of New Testament manuscripts and that they can be dated extremely close to the original writings. The modern New Testament is about 99 percent free of meaningful textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrine in doubt. The criteria used by the early church to determine which books should be considered authoritative have ensured that we possess the best records about Jesus.

Is there credible evidence for Jesus outside his biographies?

• "We have better historical documentation for Jesus than for the founder of any other ancient religion," said Edwin Yamauchi of Miami University, a leading expert on ancient history. Sources from outside the Bible corroborate that many people believed Jesus performed healings and was the Messiah, that he was crucified, and that despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed he was still alive, worshiped him as God. One expert documented thirty-nine ancient sources that corroborate more than one hundred facts concerning Jesus' life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection. Seven secular sources and several early Christian creeds concern the deity of Jesus, a doctrine "definitely present in the earliest church," according to Dr. Gary Habermas, the scholar who wrote The Historical Jesus.

Does archaeology confirm or contradict Jesus' biographies?

• John McRay, a professor of archaeology for more than fifteen years and author of Archaeology and the New Testament, said there's no question that archaeological findings have enhanced the New Testament's credibility. No discovery has ever disproved a biblical reference. Further, archaeology has established that Luke, who wrote about one-quarter of the New Testament, was an especially careful historian. Concluded one expert: "If Luke was so painstakingly accurate in his historical reporting [of minor details], on what logical basis may we assume he was credulous or inaccurate in his reporting of matters that were far more important, not only to him but to others as well?" Like, for instance, the resurrection of Jesus - the event that authenticated his claim to being the unique Son of God.

Is the Jesus of history the same as the Jesus of faith?

• Gregory Boyd, a Yale - and Princeton - educated scholar who wrote the award-winning Cynic Sage or Son of God, offered a devastating critique of the Jesus Seminar, a group that questions whether Jesus said or did most of what's attributed to him. He identified the Seminar as "an extremely small number of radical-fringe scholars who are on the far, far left wing of New Testament thinking." The Seminar ruled out the possibility of miracles at the outset, employed questionable criteria, and some participants have touted myth-riddled documents of extremely dubious quality. Further, the idea that stories about Jesus emerged from mythology fails to withstand scrutiny. Said Boyd: "The evidence for Jesus being who the disciples said he was...is just light years beyond my reasons for thinking that the left-wing scholarship of the Jesus seminar is correct." In sum, the Jesus of faith is the same as the Jesus of history.

Was Jesus really convinced he was the son of god?

• By going back to the very earliest traditions, which were unquestionably safe from legendary development, Ben Witherington III, author of The Christology of Jesus, was able to show that Jesus had a supreme and transcendent self-understanding. Based on the evidence, Witherington said: "Did Jesus believe he was the Son of God, the anointed one of God? The answer is yes. Did he see himself as the Son of Man? The answer is yes. Did he see himself as the final Messiah? Yes, that's the way he viewed himself. Did he believe that anybody less than God could save the world? No, I don't believe he did." Scholars said that Jesus' repeated reference to himself as the Son of Man was not merely a claim of humanity, but a reference to Daniel 7:13-14, in which the Son of Man is seen as having universal authority and everlasting dominion and who receives the worship of all nations. Said one scholar: "Thus, the claim to be the Son of Man would be in effect a claim to divinity."

Was Jesus crazy when he claimed to be the son of God?

• Gary Collins, a professor of psychology for twenty years and author of forty-five books on psychology-related topics, said Jesus exhibited no inappropriate emotions, was in contact with reality, was brilliant and had amazing insights into human nature, and enjoyed deep and abiding relationships. "I just don't see signs that Jesus was suffering from any known mental illness," he concluded. In addition, Jesus backed up his claim to being God through miraculous feats of healing, astounding demonstrations of power over nature, unrivaled teaching, divine understanding of people, and with his own resurrection, which was the ultimate evidence of his deity.

Did Jesus fulfill the attributes of God?

• While the incarnation - God becoming man, the infinite becoming finite - stretches our imaginations, prominent theologian D.A. Carson pointed out that there's lots of evidence that Jesus exhibited the characteristics of deity. Based on Philippians 2, many theologians believe Jesus voluntarily emptied himself of the independent use of his divine attributes as he pursued his mission of human redemption. Even so, the New Testament specifically confirms that Jesus ultimately possessed every qualification of deity, including omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternality, and immutability.

Did Jesus - and Jesus alone - match the identity of the Messiah?

• Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah, or the Anointed One, who would redeem God's people. In effect, dozens of these Old Testament prophecies created a fingerprint that only the true Messiah could fit. This gave Israel a way to rule out imposters and validate the credentials of the authentic Messiah. Against astronomical odds - by one estimate, one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion - Jesus, and only Jesus throughout history, matched this prophetic fingerprint. This confirms Jesus' identity to an incredible degree of certainty. The expert I interviewed on this topic, Louis Lapides, is an example of someone raised in a  conservative Jewish home and who came to believe Jesus is the Messiah after a systematic study of the prophecies. Today, he's a pastor of a church in California and former president of a national network of fifteen messianic congregations.

Was Jesus' death a sham, and his resurrection a hoax?

• By analyzing the medical and historical data, Dr. Alexander Metherell, a physician who also holds a doctorate in engineering, concluded Jesus could not have survived the gruesome rigors of crucifixion, much less the gaping wound that pierced his lung and heart. In fact, even before the crucifixion he was in serious to critical condition and suffering from hypovolemic shock as the result of a horrific flogging. The idea that he swooned on the cross and pretended to be dead lacks any evidential basis. Roman executioners were grimly efficient, knowing that they themselves would face death if any of their victims were to come down from the cross alive. Even if Jesus had somehow lived through the torture, his ghastly condition could never have inspired a worldwide movement based on the premise that he had gloriously triumphed over the grave.

Was Jesus' body really absent from his tomb?

• William Lane Craig, who has earned two doctorates and written several books on the Resurrection, presented striking evidence that the enduring symbol of Easter - the vacant tomb of Jesus - was a historical reality. The empty grave is reported or implied in extremely early sources - Mark's Gospel and a creed in 1 Corinthians 15 - which date so close to the event that they could not possibly have been products of legend. The fact that the Gospels report that women discovered the empty tomb bolsters the story's authenticity, because women's testimony lacked credibility in the first century and thus there would have been no motive to report they found the empty tomb if it weren't true. The site of Jesus' tomb was known to Christians, Jews, and Romans, so it could have been checked by skeptics. In fact, nobody - not even the Roman authorities or Jewish leaders - ever claimed that the tomb still contained Jesus' body. Instead, they were forced to invent the absurd story that the disciples, despite having no motive or opportunity, had stolen the body - a theory that not even the most skeptical critic believes today.

Was Jesus seen alive after his death on the cross?

• The evidence for the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus didn't develop gradually over the years as mythology distorted memories of his life. Rather, said renowned resurrection expert Gary Habermas, his resurrection was "the central proclamation of the early church from the very beginning." The ancient creed from 1 Corinthians 15 mentions specific individuals who encountered the risen Christ, and Paul, in effect, challenged first-century doubters to talk with these individuals personally to determine the truth of the matter for themselves. The book of Acts is littered with extremely early affirmations of Jesus' resurrection, while the Gospels describe numerous encounters in detail. Concluded British theologian Michael Green: "The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity....There can be no rational doubt that they occurred."

Are there any supporting facts that point toward the resurrection?

• Professor J.P. Moreland presented circumstantial evidence that provided strong documentation for the resurrection. First, the disciples were in a unique position to know whether the resurrection happened, and they went to their deaths proclaiming it was true. Nobody knowingly and willingly dies for a lie. Second, apart from the resurrection, there's' no good reason why such skeptics as Paul and James would have been converted and would have died for their faith. Third, within weeks of the crucifixion, thousands of Jews became convinced Jesus was the Son of God and began following him, abandoning key social practices that had critical sociological and religious importance for centuries. They believed they risked damnation if they were wrong. Fourth, the early sacraments of communion and baptism affirmed Jesus' resurrection and deity. And fifth, the miraculous emergence of the church in the face of brutal Roman persecution "rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of Resurrection," as C.F.D. Moule put it.

Taken together, I concluded that this expert testimony constitutes compelling evidence that Jesus Christ was who he claimed to be - the one and only Son of God. For details that support this summary, as well as other evidence, please refer to The Case For Christ.

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Above are all the key bullet points and summarized findings by Lee Strobel, who spent long hours, traveled many thousands of miles, and interviewed the most credible and authoritative individuals in their respective areas of learning. These people were the experts of the experts, above question and above reproach, simply because they followed the most simplistic and elementary rules of research. The fundamental rule of reaching a valid and compelling result from research is to take all evidence and systematically put it all to the same rigorous testing you would anything else, keeping the mind free of preconceived beliefs so that you don't unintentionally lean one direction or the other and reach a false conclusion.

As Mr. Strobel noted throughout both of his books, and was confirmed by nearly every expert he spoke with, most of the creators and writers of all these bogus theories didn't use these basic rules to reach solid evidentiary based conclusions. Virtually all of them denied the existence of Christ before they began, and didn't clear their minds of bias before beginning, so they inevitably reached false conclusions, and knew it when they did so. Rather than fix their erroneous findings, they publish that garbage to the public and cause great confusion among believers and unbelievers alike. So desperate are some scholars to get published in national publications and receive some kind of notoriety, they'll invent or create untrue findings even knowing they're untrue and/or unsubstantiated. It's truly sad how so many are falling away from Christ, and sadder how some of these so-called "experts" mislead so many and keep them from finding the truth.

In my life, I've witnessed Christ at work so many times I couldn't possibly name them all. I can also look back on my life before I was saved and see numerous times that he intervened and brought me to where I am today. Without Him, I'd have nothing, and I recognize that with complete sincerity. I should be and am so very thankful for everything that I have, everything that He's provided me with and given me responsibility over. I am one of the luckiest people I know. I've seen many people die, lost to the truth, whom I will never see again. I fully intend to take advantage of the free gift that the Lord has provided for every human being who's willing to give their lives to Him. I've given my life to Him because I was going nowhere without Him. But could there be any better reason than to simply acknowledge the great sacrifice He made for us. If you've read all of the points above, you should have no questions left unanswered.

If you're still not sure exactly what to believe, I strongly suggest that you read these two books written by Lee Strobel. What I've documented on this page are simply summaries that don't explain all of the rationale behind the logical conclusions. There is so much to know about Jesus, and so much irrefutable evidence, that you will be left asking yourself why you haven't accepted Him earlier in your life. In fact, there is no court of law in this great country that would find anything other than a true conviction that Jesus did exist, was in fact the Son of God, was divine, died on the cross, and was resurrected and witnessed by hundreds and hundreds of people. The massive amount of documentation behind Jesus and the Bible make it very clear that His allegiance was to God and completing His one mission, to be the atonement for mankind's sins and give every one of us an opportunity to enjoy an everlasting life with Him. Now ask yourself this; who in their right mind would turn down such an awesome gift, especially given the alternative?

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