WAS JESUS A REAL PERSON? - PART EIGHT

                                            WAS JESUS A REAL               PERSON?

        Part eight

     (copied from 
      Y-Jesus.com)


Historical Impact

Myths have little or any impact on history. The historian Thomas Carlyle said  " The history of the world is but the biography of great men."

There is no nation or regime which owes its foundation or heritage to a mythological person or god.

But what has been the impact of Jesus Christ?

The average Roman citizen did not feel His impact until many years after His death.  Jesus marshalled  no army. He wrote no books and changed no laws. The Jewish leaders and Roman Caesars had hoped to wipe out His memory, and it appeared they would succeed.

Today all we see of ancient Rome is ruins. Caesar's mighty legions and the pomp of Roman imperial power have faded into oblivion. Yet how is Jesus remembered today? What is His enduring influence?

*  More books have been written about          
   Jesus than about any other person in 
    history.
*  Nations have used His words as the 
   bedrock of  their governments.  
   According to Durant "The triumph of 
   Christ was the beginning of   
    democracy.
*  His sermon on the mount established 
    a new  paradigm in ethics and morals.
*  Schools, hospitals and humanitarian 
    works have been founded in His  
    name. 
    Over 100 great universities - including 
    Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, 
    Columbia and Oxford  were begun by 
    His followers.

 *  The elevated role   
     of  women in 
     Western culture 
     traces it's  roots
     back to Jesus.
      (Women, in 
      Jesus'  day were
      considered  
      inferior and 
                                           virtualy  non-  
      persons until His teaching was 
      followed.)
*    Slavery was abolished in Britain and 
      America due to Jesus' teaching that 
      each human life is  valuable.

Amazingly Jesus made all this impact as a result of just a three-year period of public ministry, When noted  author and world historian
 H.G. Wells was asked who has left the greatest legacy on history he replied "by this test Jesus stands first."

Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan writes of  Him, "Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about Him,  Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries... It is from His birth that most of the human race dates it's calendars, it is by His Name that millions curse  and in His Name that millions pray.

If Jesus didn't exist, one must wonder how a myth could so alter history.



next post 21st June