Retracing Christianity as a Historical Faith

The Christian faith isn’t an obscure belief system with Jesus as a mythological figure. Rather, Christianity is based entirely on real space-time history; in the words of Francis Schaeffer, its central figure is an actual man who “hung on a cross in the sense that, if you were there that day, you could have rubbed your finger on the cross and got a splinter on it” (The God Who Is There, InterVarsity Press, 1968). Therefore, when you consider the Christian faith, you also have to examine its historical claims of truth. 

Examining artefacts

Archaeologists, historians, and other researchers have closely scrutinized the historical events of Jesus’ life and the Bible as a whole and continue to do so. Although some sceptical archaeologists have been quick to discount historical accounts of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, actual findings have proven that they’re credible. In fact, a century of archaeological discoveries underscores the fact that the more evidence that researchers unearth in the Holy Land, the more the biblical record becomes authenticated. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls are arguably the most significant discovery in many centuries. This collection of 500 scrolls and scroll fragments was accidentally discovered in 1947 by a shepherd in a series of caves along the Dead Sea. 

These scrolls were written in a period between 250 B.C. and A.D. 68 and provide amazing insights into the practices and beliefs of the Qumram Community, a particular group of Jews who lived during this timeframe. The scrolls include a variety of documents, including: a complete manuscript of the Book of Isaiah and parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; commentaries on several Old Testament books (such as Habakkuk, Job, Isaiah, and Micah); non-canonical books; and a Qumram manual of conduct and other community-related documents. Although the scrolls are Jewish and not Christian, they nonetheless serve to underscore the reliability of the Old Testament scriptures and have helped scholars reconstruct the history of Israel and the Holy Land area between 300 B.C. and A.D. 135.

 

Perhaps the most sensationalized discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls is a first-century limestone box designed to hold a deceased person’s bones. This bones box (or ossuary) has an Aramaic inscription carved on the side that says, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” (See Matthew 13:55, 1 Corinthians 15:7, and Acts 15 for references to James in the Bible.) The possibility exists that this bones box actually contains the bones of James, the brother of Jesus Christ. Sceptics don’t even argue strongly against this, because it would’ve been unusual to add “brother of (so-and-so)” unless that brother was well-known. So, chances are that this wasn’t just any random Jesus, but was indeed Jesus Christ. Experts continue to examine the artefact to determine its authenticity, but if it were proven to be authentic, this box would be the oldest nonbiblical, nonliterary reference to Jesus that has ever been recovered.