I know that a bodybuilding forum isn't the place for such a discussion, but today struck me as one of those days where something had to be said about this. Its because today I was walking to work and I noticed so many unhappy people around me, walking around with their heads down looking miserable and depressed and it really shocked me how many unhappy people there are out there these days. Now, whenever I walk around, it saddens me as I see so many unhappy people looking glum and miserable, who see life as a terrible trial that we have to overcome. So, I've decided to pronounce the answer to these problems. The truth is that too many people are unhappy today because they are not asking God, and our Lord Jeus, to come into their lives and guide them along the way. Belief in Jesus is most important. If you believe, you will be saved...
Let me tell you one thing right now, life is not pointless, we are not here to just live for so many years, maybe have a couple of kids and then die, and that being all our existence ever was. No, life is for enjoying, living and thriving. And Jesus himself wants to come into your life and show you the path to happiness...
Now, I know that many people claim that Jesus never existed, but the truth is that he did exist. It is interesting that when people seek historic and scientific proof of Jesus, they immediately discount the Bible as a reliable source.
If we look at the Bible simply as a historic document, it should be among the most reliable on record compared with others.
Historians routinely cite Herodotus as a key source of information. He wrote from 488 B.C. to 428 B.C. and the earliest copy of his work comes from 900 A.D. (1,300 years later). There are only eight known copies of his work.
By contrast, the New Testament of the Bible (with all its information about Jesus) was written between 40 A.D. and 100 A.D. The earliest known copy is from 130 A.D. and there are 5,000 known copies in Greek, 10,000 in Latin and 9,300 in other languages.
Still, to put to rest the notion that there is no historic and scientific proof of Jesus outside the Bible, we may look to Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and to Roman historian Carius Cornelius Tacitus - both well known and accepted.
Josephus, in the book Jewish Antiquities" wrote:
"At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. . . .And when Pilate, at the instigation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adhere to him. For on the third day he appeared to them alive again, the divine prophets having foretold these and many other wonderful things concerning him. And the sect of the Christians, so called from him, subsists at this time" (Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3, Section 1).
Tacitus, in writing about accusations that Nero burned the city of Rome and blamed it on Christians, said the following:
". . .Nero procured others to be accused, and inflicted exquisite punishment upon those people, who were in abhorrence for their crimes, and were commonly known by the name of Christians. They had their denomination from Christus (Christ, dm.), who in the reign of Tibertius was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate. . . .At first they were only apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterwards a vast multitude discovered by them, all of which were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for their enmity to mankind. . . ." (Tacitus, Annals, 15, 44).
Therefore, you can't dispute that Jesus was a historical person and did exist, just as Napoleon, Roosevelt and George Bush.
Think about it, I bet you have a dusty Bible on your shelf? Well, opening that and finding out about Jesus and the meaning of life is the key to happiness and success in life.
Ever noticed how people who seem to have it all (money, power, fame etc) never seem happy and so often turn to drugs and drink to deal with life's problems, but those who may be poor, but know the love of God and feel that they have a purpose in life, are happy?
Well, its no accident....believe in God and you will be happy...
