Some people think that trusting a book that was finished being written about 2000 years ago makes about as much sense as trusting Paris Hilton to write your philosophy dissertation. So when it comes to believing that a book this old can still be relevant to life today, I understand how that would make people a bit cynical.

Many people who don’t believe the bible believe that it was written and inspired by men. Christians would say that it was written by men, but it was inspired by God.

There’s a scene in The Da Vinci Code kind of sums up the popular view that the Bible was written by early church leaders so they could keep control over people. It gives us this picture that the leaders came up with lies about Jesus being God about 300 years after Jesus was crucified. Obviously The Divinci Code is fiction and Dan Brown didn’t intend for it to be viewed as historical fact, but the way he portrayed the bible is fairly consistent with how many people think even today. So when it comes to Jesus, many believe he was simply a man and any extraordinary claims are simply legend instead of fact.

But we need to ask, what does the evidence support? You could probably guess that I believe there is solid evidence that proves Jesus wasn’t just a legend. Perhaps one of the greatest pieces of evidence is simply that claims about Jesus being divine appear too early to be legend.

In order for legends to survive, they need to be thought up a long time after the death of those who know the truth. For example, if someone wanted to start a legend that I, a Canadian who loves ice-hockey, was the world’s greatest undiscovered football talent, they would need to wait long after I was dead to start this legend. They’d also have to wait until long after everyone who knew me, and knew the truth, that I actually am horrible at football, was dead.  If I had children, they would also need to wait until they were dead because my kids would also know the truth about how bad I am at football. Actually, whoever wanted to start this legend starters would need to wait a few generations after my kids. You probably get my point. For a legend to survive, it would need to be started a long time, at least 200-300 years if not more, after everyone who knew the real story was gone.

But here’s the problem for people who think that any claims about Jesus being God are just legends. These claims didn’t start 300 years after his death and resurrection as The Da Vinci Code suggests. Approximately 30 years after the death and resurrection of Christ, the Paul, in writing to the Philippians, a church in Philippi which is in modern day Greece, makes it clear that he knew his audience worshipped Jesus as God:

In Philippians 2 he says: Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:4-7

Remember, this letter was written in a time frame easily within the lifetime of the people who would have been around Jesus. If Jesus had stayed dead after his crucifixion then Paul's audience would have known this because they were alive during the same time. In fact, Paul wouldn't have had an audience because why would people risk their lives worshipping a dead man? These people had a deep belief that Jesus was who he said he was and that he came back from the grave - a belief so firmly planted that they were willing to risk their own lives to worship the one they worshipped as their Lord and Saviour.

Again, it's important to keep in mind that this letter was written about 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul’s letter starts out - To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi. This was a public letter, it wasn’t written to one person but to an entire church. That’s a big audience. If Paul had been lying and was just trying to start a legend, he would have been way too early because people who knew the truth would have called him out. In fact, he would have been very stupid to try to start a legend about a man who walked the earth just 30 years earlier.

I’ve never heard any historian or academic, Christian or non-Christian, say that they think Paul was stupid. He wasn’t. He wasn’t making up a legend. That only leaves one other possibility; He was telling the truth. When he wrote to the church in Philippi and referred to Jesus as God, he wasn’t telling them something new. He was affirming to them something they already believed – that Jesus Christ was who he said he was. He truly was the Son of God.

- Rich Crosby