New Testament scholar Jeremiah J. Johnston is on a mission to explore archeological evidence for Jesus. Johnston, an expert on the famed Shroud of Turin, believes various findings can help corroborate the biblical narrative.
His new book, “The Jesus Discoveries: 10 Historic Finds That Bring Us Face-to-Face with Jesus,” explores “discoveries that support the authenticity of the Bible, the resurrection of Jesus, and the reasonableness of Christianity.”
Johnston told CBN News some Christians don’t necessarily believe they need outside evidence for the Bible.
“There’s many great Christians out there … they walk up to me in our events and around the world, and they say, ‘Hey, I don’t need all that evidence. I have the Bible. … I have my faith,’” he said. “Well, I want to make this very clear. There would not have been a single New Testament book written had Jesus Christ not evidentially shown Himself to be alive physically, bodily, after He was crucified by the Roman Empire.”
Ultimately, Johnston said it’s important for believers to recognize this sentiment and not ignore the significance of such powerful evidence. He looked to specific areas of the Bible to drive home this fact.
“Remember how Luke opens his Gospels,” he said. “He’s literally presenting the case for Jesus through many infallible proofs. Even Acts 1:3 said Jesus proved himself to be alive through many convincing proofs.”
Johnston continued, “And, so, it’s exciting to us as Christians that we can actually appeal to evidence for our faith for the reason that we believe. And remember, we don’t ever have faith in faith or faith in a feeling. Faith is always defined by its object.”
For Christians, this is the “resurrected Lord Jesus Christ,” he noted. Johnston said there’s incredible evidence pointing to Jesus and noted that he breaks much of it down in “The Jesus Discoveries.”
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“Our evidence for Jesus is a lot better than Alexander the Great,” he said. “It’s a lot better than Caesar crossing the Rubicon.”
One such piece of evidence is the Jesus Cup, a ceramic bowl found in 2008 that refers to Jesus as an “enchanter” and “magician.” The cup dates back to AD 50 and holds spiritual significance.
“This could be the earliest incised words of the name of Jesus from any artifact,” Johnston said. “This is before Scripture is written, and what’s amazing is this tells us that Jesus was popular as a miracle worker and an exorcist.”
Find out more about this discovery and nine others in “The Jesus Discoveries: 10 Historic Finds That Bring Us Face-to-Face with Jesus.”
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