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Lord, Liar, Lunatic - A Jesus Apologetic

I wanted to open a thread particularly discussing the apologetics regarding Jesus. However, there are far to many from to many points of views, so I decided to start with one at a time and address them individually. My first deals with a very well known and subscribed to apologetic argument for Jesus being god. Now I understand that not every christian sect believes Jesus to be the incarnate god on earth. I would love to hear your sects arguments against this apologetic as well.

Lord, Liar, or Lunatic

This apologetics argument was first made popular by Josh McDowell. He claimed that after years of research as an atheist, he came up with this final question to answer all questions. "Jesus Christ was either stark raving made, a liar beyond all contempt, or he was who he said he was, he is the Lord God". Thus, Jesus could not have been a good moral teacher because he claimed to be God. Not being god would exclude him as either crazy or a liar, thus not very moral. Interesting concept that sounds logically sound, but we will address each in kind.

Liar
The argument says that Jesus taught things that were out of character for someone that was a liar. His very actions and teachings could not have been in line with a liar, thus he was not a liar. Its a little more detailed than that, but that is the main idea.

This argument is bogus, especially if you believe that what was written in the bible is true. In the book of John, Jesus refutes his stand on his right and desire to judge people with three different contradicting statements. John 8:15 say: You judge by human standards; I pass judgement on no one.
Beautiful, Jesus is refuting judgement saying that he judges no one. But what about later? John 9:39 says: Jesus said, For Judgement I have come into this world so that the blind will see, and those who see will be come blind. That sounds like he is here solly for the purpose of judging. But he just said that he passes judgment on no one. The word in greek and aramaic is the same in both versus! But further, maybe he clears it up later in John. John 12:47 says: As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come into the world to judge the world, but to save it. Now thats pretty darn confusing. Jesus seemed to say what sounded good at the time. His moral can be questioned as well as his ability to always say the same thing, or even fudge a little white lie when it was needed.

Lunatic
According the Josh McDowell and other psychologists, Jesus behavior was not in line with a crazy person, so he couldn't have been crazy. Now if any person besides the one you already believed was god said he was god, and cast out demons into pigs, would you believe him? Asylums are full of people who act normal, but are still not all there. Besides, the gospels fail to grasp Jesus personality at all. Jesus never laughs, never kids around, never gets angry except at the temple, and in general doesn't act like a person at all. The gospels are a collection of sayings, supposedly word for word, including before his birth, that don't give a hint of real personality. They are nothing but repeated stories and dialogues that vary very little from Marks original tales. No real modern psychologists really believes you can make the determination that someone was sane by what their followers wrote! Of course they didn't think he was insane, they were following him! Thus they would have left out any crazy parts. Indeed, the people who knew him best, his family, thought he was crazy, so did his supposed home Nazareth.

Lord

And so it goes, he must be Lord. If he must be god, then why is his power limited to those who believe? He said in two of the three synoptics that he couldn't do miracles Nazareth because they didn't have enough faith. His family thought he was crazy as well. You would think after growing up with him they would believe, but they didn't. To add, there was great debate amongst the early church about his godhood and whether he even existed as a physical person at all! The likes of Origin, Iraneus of Lyon, Marcion and others violently opposed each other in regards to this. The all lived in the early and late second century, very close to Jesus supposed life, it should have been clear. Even well into the fourth century, the Catholics and the Arians disagreed on the god hood of christ and his physical existence until Theodosius the first had them all killed, the Arians that is. To add, three of the four gospels don't have a single quote in which Jesus definitively claims he is god! Its not until John when he makes the direct claims of god hood, and it was the last and latest gospel written. It was likely not written until the second century. And if it was written by John, and most secular and even christian scholars no longer believe it was, then John would have been over a hundred years old. Not exactly the person you would expect to remember every word of Jesus nearly ninety years later.

So there must be another option. That option is that the words written about Jesus were not word for word accounts, but handed down tales about the jewish god man everyone hoped would come. If he existed, then it doesn't mean that every story is true, or that any of them are true. In fact, during Jesus time period, there was a certain Apollonius that was made out to be a god man before he was even dead. It was said that he raised people from the dead, fed people with only a few fishes and bread, and that he became god because of his righteousness. When he died roughly 28-32 CE, he was deified and was worship as a god come to earth as a man for nearly four hundred years. The expulsion of all pagan religions took care of that in the fourth and fifth century.

So this argument for Jesus being god runs on the assumption that everything in the bible is the perfect, inerrant word of god. Thus the argument is not only circular, its based on a foundation that can be easily proven wrong and thus invalidates the argument. If you would like to read about this more, go buy the book "More than a carpenter" by Josh McDowell. I encourage people to read apologetics and read their opposites, their is always someone willing to dispute their claim.

Edited: konquererz on 13th Aug, 2006 - 11:30am

Apologetic Jesus - Lunatic Liar Lord

I have to agree with you about Josh McDowell and his form of apologetics. He uses very shaky logic. His logic is also rooted in the idea that Bible is completely inerrant - essentially perfect.

I really find this apologetic logic very weak. The "Either Jesus was the Lord, or a Liar" idea is absolutely ridiculous, yet I see it used all the time. Most people (besides those enamored with this argument) just ignore those who use it.