Yesterday's Hero: some great resources

Hi! Welcome to the “Yesterday’s Hero?” website. I’m afraid it doesn’t look brilliant yet – very soon it should look a lot more colourful and interesting – but it does contain some really interesting links to places where you can learn a lot more about the real Jesus.

We’ve talked about a lot of theories already, and these links should help you go a little bit deeper into any of the questions we’ve discussed where you’d like to learn more…

“Fake news” about Jesus

This is a great article about some of the things people say about Jesus which are just totally false. It’s amazing how much rubbish people take for granted – just because they’ve never looked at the real evidence.

What did his opponents allege?

The Talmud was written a long time after Jesus’ death. But it contains a few claims about him, which probably reflect the sorts of things his enemies were saying. To find out what the Talmud says, and what it was claiming about Jesus, this article is a good place to go.

Was Jesus the Son of God? Did he make that claim?

Mark Roberts is one of the best and most careful Christian researchers into the historical facts surrounding Jesus. He’s also a good writer. This is excellent, trustworthy stuff.

Did Jesus intend to start a church?

Here’s a good crisp answer to that one. There’s a lot more you can say… but it’s a good start anyway.

What do we know from history about Jesus?

A useful summary of the evidence, including bits we haven’t had time to look at.

What about people today who claim the Jesus story is almost entirely fictional?

There aren’t many of them who have any serious standing. There are probably three names that come up again and again: Earl Doherty, Richard Carrier, and Robert M. Price. Of the three, the most intellectually accomplished is Price, who wrote a book called The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (claiming that what we can know about Jesus is shrinking all the time). He’s quite a scholar, but has used his knowledge for years in a quite tendentious way. This article questions what his book says, and how he justifies it; if you’re curious to take a look at Price (and you aren’t put off by phrases like “the criterion of dissimilarity”!), this is a good place to try.

What difference does it make to be a Christian?

There are lots of great stories you can check out. For example, there’s a remarkable TV interview which Bono (of U2) gave to RTE a while back. Francis Collins is an interesting Christian – he headed up the biggest scientific project the world has ever seen (the Human Genome Project) and is recognized as one of the leading scientists of our time – yet he became a Christian, from an atheist background, when he was already a research scientist in his mid-twenties. He told National Geographic all about it. (You’ll find YouTube videos where he tells his story personally too.)

P.S. If you’re a scientist, check out the Faraday Institute in Cambridge – the multimedia section of their website contains a lot of great thinking about God and science.

What are the biggest objections to Christianity? Do they have answers?

Here's a talk by Dr Ravi Zacharias - a world-renowned Indian Christian thinker - on "Answering the Biggest Objections".

Interesting stuff on YouTube...

YouTube, of course, contains more garbage thinking than almost any other location on the World Wide Web. If you spend long enough there, you'll learn how Hitler is alive and well and living in Argentina, next door to Elvis, and how the fairies at the bottom of your garden are responsible for controlling the mind of Vladimir Putin and inducing him to create global warming, which doesn't really matter because the world will be coming to an end next February...

So YouTube does come with a health warning. BUT you'll also find some amazingly helpful stuff there too, from people whose facts and logic you can trust! Here are just a few that might interest you:

First, what is the Christian message, when you strip it down to its simplest essentials? There are lots of good videos trying to explain the Christian gospel simply and colourfully. The Gospel in under a minute actually takes about 39 seconds, and it's not bad. With a title like that, you'd expect a fast-talking preacher shouting it all out rapidly, but what you get is a nicely laid-back, graphics-based presentation which covers a lot of basics very rapidly and arrestingly. If you want to spend a little longer, both worship leader Tim Hughes and his wife Rachel have their own just-over-a-minute attempts to explain it, and both do a great job (although I think Rachel just shades it...)

If it's not ideas you want, but a story that tells you how Christianity actually pans out when you start following Jesus for the first time, one most unlikely Christian is the legendary rock guitarist Brian "Head" Welch of Korn. He tells his story simply and engagingly, and whether you like his kind of music or not, you'll warm to the guy and be fascinated by what happened to him.

Or if you want to do some serious thinking, I have three suggestions. First, Tim Keller is a New York church leader and author whose books have become best-sellers in places like the New York Times, since he makes sense of Christianity for unreligious people as very few others can. About eight years ago he was invited to be part of the "Authors@Google" series, where best-selling writers talk about the ideas their work contains; and the result is a fascinating introduction to why Christian faith makes sense, from one of the most engaging speakers and best minds in the Christian church today. It's called "The Reason for God".

My final two suggestions both feature Ravi Zacharias, the Indian thinker and preacher whom we mentioned last time. If you have only six minutes to spare, you might be interested in how he answered the question, "If God is love, why doesn't he stop rapists from raping?"  f you have nine minutes, try "How do you know Christianity is the one true worldview?"

More next time...