Postscript: The Unlikeliest of Suspects: Jesus, the Person of Interest
No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. Other gods have been as devoutly worshipped; no other man has been so devoutly loved.
—JOHN KNOX
As the centuries pass, the evidence is accumulating that, measured by His effect on history, Jesus is the most influential life ever lived on this planet.
—KENNETH SCOTT LATOURETTE
District Attorney Don Kingsley closed his notebook and faced the jury for the last time. His final argument included a powerful description of the evidence in our case, including the DNA comparison that identified Tammy’s blood in the trunk of Steve’s old Chevy Lumina. As Don confidently finished his rebuttal of the defense argument, I did my best to assess the attitude of the jury. Were they convinced Tammy was dead? Were they satisfied that Steve was responsible for her death? Was the evidence in the fuse and the fallout sufficient to make the case?
“Before I finish,” continued Don as he stepped from the podium and approached the jury, “I want to ask you one final question: If you are convinced that Tammy was murdered, who else could have committed this crime other than Steve?”
I was sitting directly behind Don’s podium at the prosecution table. Steve sat anxiously at the table to my right, along with his defense attorney.
“Tammy didn’t have any enemies. No one had a motive to hurt Tammy other than Steve. Nobody else purchased the acid or borrowed the barrel. Only Steve disposed of Tammy’s belongings prematurely, he’s the only one who tried to have Tammy’s blood removed from his car, and only Steve inadvertently acknowledged she was murdered in his interview with detectives.”
Steve was clearly uncomfortable at this point in the rebuttal. He fidgeted with his hands and avoided eye contact with the jury. Don pressed on.
“Steve is unique , ladies and gentlemen. He alone accounts for all the evidence in the fuse and the fallout. There is no other candidate for Tammy’s murder. Steve Hayes killed Tammy and disposed of her body. We’re asking you to consider all the evidence in this case and provide justice for Tammy by finding Steve guilty of her murder.”
I was impressed with Don’s effort, especially since he was initially reluctant to file the case. Without a body, Don knew he would have to prove two claims: first, that Tammy was murdered (rather than just missing), and second, that Steve was the murderer. In my experience, not many prosecutors are willing to take no-body homicide cases to trial, but Don believed there was enough evidence (in the fuse and the fallout) to get a conviction.
“VERDICT”
Juries consider the evidence presented in a trial, determine the facts of the case, and render a decision. Their ruling is called a “verdict.” Juries render verdicts even though they may have unanswered questions. In fact, when jurors are selected, they are instructed that the “standard of proof” is “beyond a reasonable doubt” (rather than “beyond a possible doubt”). Possible doubts shouldn’t stop jurors from deciding about a suspect’s guilt, and they shouldn’t stop you from making a decision about Jesus. Ask yourself, “What is the most reasonable inference from the evidence?”
The next three days tested Don’s certainty.
As the jury deliberated and failed to return a verdict, Don and I wondered if there was a problem. A day passed. Then two. Then three. Still no verdict.
On day four, we sat at a local restaurant and wondered if the jury was hung. We ordered lunch and sat through the afternoon lull, occasionally ordering a soft drink or two to justify our lingering presence. Don seemed to be losing his confidence in the case. From his perspective, the longer the deliberation, the more likely a hung jury or a “not guilty” verdict. I tried to reassure him.
“Don, put yourself in the position of a juror; if Tammy were your wife or your daughter or your sister, would the evidence in the fuse and the fallout be enough to convince you that she was murdered and that Steve was the killer?”
“Of course,” he replied without hesitation.
“That’s my view as well,” I said. “Maybe they’re just thoroughly reviewing everything to make sure they do their due diligence. This is a murder case, after all . . .”
“You’re right,” he replied. “I bet they’ll come back tomorrow.”
WHY JESUS?
Steve wasn’t the only unique subject of an investigation. My examination of the Common Era fuse and fallout revealed something exceptional about Jesus as well. Even though the evidence in the fuse and the fallout pointed strongly to Steve as Tammy’s killer, it was nothing compared with the evidence in the Common Era fuse and fallout that pointed to Jesus.
The more I studied this evidence, the more I questioned my presuppositions about Jesus and the New Testament. The explosive impact of Jesus had forever changed the things I valued most as an atheist (and as a “creative”)—literature, the arts, music, education, and science. There was simply no denying this truth. Jesus and his followers transformed the development of these disciplines. This conclusion was obvious to me, and it changed my skepticism of the Christian Bible.
The nonbiblical evidence from history alone gives us a clear picture of the catalyst who inaugurated the Common Era. Which person of interest, in the history of interesting persons, could cause such an explosion? Consider this list of historical figures from the first century:
Antonia Minor
Julia Agrippina
Titus
Augustus Caesar
Kujula Kadphises
Trajan
Boudica
Livia Drusilla
Trung Sisters
Caligula
Ming of Han
Vespasian
Livilla
Nero Claudius
Vitellius
Claudia Octavia
Caesar (Nero)
Valeria Messalina
Claudius
Marcus Cocceius Nerva
Vipsania Agrippina
Decebalus
Marcus Salvius Otho
Major
Domitian
Nedum Cheralathan
Wang Mang
Galba
Pontius Pilate
Yax Ehb Xook
Guangwu of Han
Lucius Aelius Seianus
Yuan An
Heraios
Tiberius
Zhang of Han
While these diverse figures from the past are important, none of them had the impact Jesus did on the Common Era. Now consider this list of significant national leaders from a much broader range in history:
George Washington
Elizabeth I of England
Frederick Barbarossa
Alexander the Great
Leif Ericson
Friedrich Wilhelm
Nelson Mandela
William the Conqueror
von Steuben
Napoleon Bonaparte
Frederick the Great
Cnut the Great
Augustus Caesar
Attila the Hun
Erik the Red
Charlemagne
Sultan Mehmed II
Charles XII of Sweden
the Great
Theodoric the Great
William of Orange
Julius Caesar
Dmitry Donskoy
Philip II of Macedon
Catherine the Great
Suleiman the
Gustav I of Sweden
Otto von Bismarck
Magnificent
Vladimir Lenin
Winston Churchill
Gustavus Adolphus
Isabella I of Castile
Mustafa Kemal
Hannibal Barca
Frederick I of Prussia
Atatürk
Ragnar Lodbrok
Niccolò Machiavelli
Alfred the Great
Joseph Stalin
Mao Zedong
Genghis Khan
Queen Victoria
There are some grand names on this list of world leaders, but none was grand enough to serve as the catalyst for the Common Era, and all of them combined didn’t have the impact that Jesus had on literature, the arts, music, education, science, and religion. Speaking of religion, consider this list of deities and religious leaders:
Horus
Indra
Thesan
Muhammad
Quetzalcóatl
Bahá’u’lláh
Osiris
Attis
Aita
Tammuz
Hephaestus
Confucius
Joseph Smith
Mithras
The Báb
Shangdi
Krishna
Dalai Lama
Marduk
Cronus
Zhang Guotao
Artemis
Zoroaster
Swedenborg
Adonis
Sabbatai Zevi
The Buddha
Demeter
Zeus
Al-Mahdi
Jupiter
Minerva
Serapis
Gandhi
Dionysus
Heracles
Vulcan
Thakur Jiu
Zalmoxis
Baldur
Even the world’s most famous gods and spiritual leaders haven’t had the combined impact on history that Jesus had when he claimed to be the Savior. But Jesus wasn’t alone in this claim to messiahship. In the years that followed Jesus, many other people also claimed this identity:
Simon bar Kokhba
Moses al-Dar'i
David Reubeni
Moses of Crete
Eve Frank
Sabbatai Zevi
Abu Isa
Moses Botarel
Asher Lammlein
Yudghan
of Cisneros
Shukr Kuhayl I
Abraham ben
Menachem Mendel
Judah ben Shalom
Samuel Abulafia
Schneerson
Moses Guibbory
Serene
Jacob Joseph Frank
I suspect none of the names in this group of alleged messiahs is familiar to you. That’s because they had little or no impact on the Common Era.
Why, then, did Jesus have more impact than anyone else?
Jesus was born in a tiny, irrelevant town in the Roman Empire and raised in another small village. He had to walk from one place to the next, and as an adult he never traveled more than two hundred miles from the town where he was born.
He had none of the resources people use today to make an impact: no social media platform, no podcast audience, no clever videos, and no website. He didn’t even have the resources people used in the first century to make an impact: he never held a political office, never ruled a nation, never led an army, and never authored a book.
His family was insignificant. The locals suspected he was an illegitimate son, his mother was a poor peasant woman, and his father couldn’t afford much. Jesus didn’t receive an expensive education, never married, never had children, never owned a home of his own, and didn’t possess much more than the clothes on his back.
As an adult, his own brother was suspicious of his ministry, a work that ended after just three short years. Public opinion turned against him, most of his followers abandoned him, one disciple betrayed him, and another denied him. He was rejected by the religious, hunted by the powerful, mocked and unjustly persecuted by his enemies. He suffered an unfair trial, was publicly humiliated, brutally beaten, and unduly executed in the most horrific way.
Even then, the few followers who remained had to borrow a grave to bury him.
Yet this is the man who changed history, inaugurated the Common Era, and forever transformed the most important and revered aspects of human culture. How is it possible that a single man—a man like Jesus —could have this impact?
A VERDICT RENDERED
At 4:00 p.m. on the fourth day of deliberation, Don received a text from the court clerk. Our jury was prepared to deliver their verdict. Before I tell you how they decided, ask yourself the question I posed to Don earlier at the restaurant: “If Tammy were your daughter, sister, or friend, would the evidence in the fuse and the fallout have been enough to convince you that she was murdered and that Steve was her killer?”
It should have. It was certainly enough for the jury.
They found Steve guilty even though Tammy’s body was missing, there wasn’t any evidence from a crime scene, and not a single person witnessed the killing. Despite these evidential deficiencies, the jury convicted Steve of Tammy’s murder. The evidence from the fuse and the fallout was sufficient.
Years later, at Steve’s first parole hearing, he confessed to the murder and provided the location where he disposed of the barrel that contained Tammy’s remains. I was notified of this admission, and we searched for the barrel unsuccessfully. The dump site where Steve buried it had since been transformed from a landfill to a graded foundation for new homes. As with many of my cold cases, the passing of time thwarted this aspect of the investigation.
But I was satisfied that the evidence from the fuse and the fallout revealed the truth about Tammy’s disappearance. Even though this evidence was persuasive, the jurors later told us that they would have been much more confident about their verdict (and their deliberations would have been shorter) if eyewitnesses had seen and testified about Tammy’s murder.
A DECISION MADE
As I reflected on the fuse and fallout related to Jesus, I was similarly persuaded that Jesus was history’s unique person of interest. The fuse leading up to the Common Era anticipated and predicted his arrival, and the fallout related to literature, the arts, music, education, science, and world religions demonstrated his unparalleled impact. The appearance of Jesus was the singular event that changed human history.
But as with the jury in Steve’s criminal trial, I also would have preferred testimony from eyewitnesses who saw Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection before rendering a verdict. Christians believe the New Testament gospels contain that kind of eyewitness testimony, but when I started investigating Jesus, I didn’t trust the Bible and I was unwilling to rely on it for information.
But the evidence from the fuse and the fallout alone exposed two important truths: First, no person had the kind of impact Jesus had on history. Second, every reconstruction of the Jesus story from the literature, art, music, education, and science fallout describes Jesus as God incarnate .
Was that true? Was it possible that Jesus was something more than a man? Would the gospel eyewitness accounts provide some context and explain why the explosive appearance of Jesus inaugurated the Common Era? That’s the question that caused me to suspend my skepticism of the Bible and investigate the Gospels.
I began by testing them.
Were these ancient documents penned early enough to have been written (or sourced) by true eyewitnesses? Could they be corroborated in some way? Were the authors honest and accurate over time? Did the writers possess a bias that would cause them to lie? I evaluated the Gospels using this same four-part template I used to assess eyewitnesses in criminal trials. In the end, the Gospels passed this reliability test, adding additional evidence to explain why Jesus—the unlikeliest of suspects—inaugurated the Common Era. (Much more, of course, could be said about this aspect of my investigation, but that’s the topic of Cold-Case Christianity .)
The Gospels—the eyewitness accounts of ancient Jesus followers—helped me to understand why the appearance of Jesus changed our calendar and inspired the world.
MORE THAN A MAN
Jesus showed his followers he was far more than a mere human. He demonstrated this directly and indirectly, with his words and his actions.
When Jesus made public claims, he didn’t speak for God in a manner similar to the Old Testament prophets. Jeremiah, for example, proclaimed, “ This is what the L ORD Almighty says : ‘Cut down the trees and build siege ramps against Jerusalem’ ” (Jeremiah 6:6, emphasis mine). Jesus, on the other hand, never used expressions such as “This is what the Lord says . . .” Instead, he would say, “ Very truly I tell you , a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live” (John 5:25, emphasis mine). While human prophets spoke for God, Jesus spoke as God.
Jesus also identified himself as otherworldly. He told his disciples and listeners, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23). He also claimed a divine domain and authority over angels when he said, “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil” (Matthew 13:41).
Jesus claimed equality with God, saying, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). He even identified himself as the great “I am” (the name God used to identify himself to Moses) when he said, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58).
OBJECTION: JESUS DIDN’T THINK HE WAS GOD
Jesus spoke as though he was God, equated himself to God, accepted the worship of others as though he was God, described himself as God using the Jewish title “I am,” and even claimed to have God’s power to forgive sins . It’s one thing to reject Jesus’s claims; it’s another to deny he made them. Given the nature of Jesus’s assertions, only one option remains: each of us must decide if the claims of Jesus are true .
Jesus also acted as though he was God. In a Jewish culture that considered it blasphemous to accept the worship of humans, Jesus repeatedly received the worship of others. The wise men worshiped Jesus at his birth, a leper worshiped him after being healed, a synagogue ruler worshiped him after the raising of his daughter, the disciples worshiped him in the boat, the mother of James and John worshiped him when asking a favor, a blind man worshiped him after receiving his vision, and the women worshiped him after leaving the empty tomb. Jesus accepted this worship consistently as though he was God.
The Gospels also include several passages in which Jesus was described as having the power of God. According to the gospel authors, Jesus had the power to create , the power to forgive , the power to grant eternal life , and the power to judge sin . Only God has that kind of power.
Finally, according to the eyewitnesses, Jesus rose from the grave . This alone demonstrated Jesus was—and is— more than human .
The jury decided the truth about Steve from the fuse and fallout without any testimony from eyewitnesses. How much easier should it have been for me to make a decision about Jesus with this information from the gospel eyewitness accounts? The fuse and fallout related to Steve was persuasive, but the fuse and fallout related to Jesus is phenomenal. Add the testimony of the gospel eyewitnesses, and the case is overwhelming .
WHAT’S TRUE AND WHAT MATTERS
The early church leaders knew what they were doing when they divided the calendar into BC and AD. Our current terms fail to explain the reason why human history changed so dramatically. The period BCE is better described as BC (the period “before Christ”), and the years we now refer to as part of the Common Era (CE) are better labeled as AD ( Anno Domini , or the “year[s] of our Lord”). While the designations BC and AD may seem like artifacts from the past, they are a far more accurate description of history’s timeline, given that they reference the divine person of interest who divided history.
OBJECTION: IF CHRISTIANITY WERE TRUE, THERE WOULDN’T BE SO MANY DENOMINATIONS
Christianity isn’t the only worldview held by people who disagree with each other. Even atheists hold disagreements about secondary issues, although all of them agree God does not exist. Atheists differ in their views, leading to a variety of categorizations and descriptions, including implicit atheists, explicit atheists, iconoclastic atheists, pragmatic atheists, and many more. Like Christians who disagree on secondary issues, people who hold an atheistic worldview (or, for that matter, a Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim worldview) have similar disagreements. Are we to conclude, then, that every worldview is untrue because of these human disagreements?
Our calendars demonstrate that Jesus still matters (and ought to matter), even if you’re not a believer:
He matters because he inspired more literature than any other person in history. More books, scripts, and screenplays have been written about Jesus than anyone else. His story has so captured the human imagination that “Christ figures” have been written into non-Christian literature. From the earliest books and writings, the story of Jesus could be reconstructed in nearly its entirety, even if every New Testament manuscript was unavailable to us.
He matters because he was the catalyst for the visual arts, inspiring painters and sculptors in every generation, genre, style, and nation. No one has affected the arts like Jesus, and from these paintings, etchings, and sculptures, the story of Jesus—every episode as described in the Gospels—could be reconstructed, even if every Bible was destroyed.
He matters because he has been the topic of more songs, hymns, and symphonies than any other figure in history. Jesus’s followers innovated and changed the nature of music forever, and musicians and singers in every musical style continue to sing about him. From their lyrics, the life of Jesus—along with the rich theology of the Christian worldview—could be reconstructed, even without access to the New Testament.
He matters because his teaching set the standard for moral reform and initiated a worldview that led to the flourishing of education. His followers established monasteries, cathedral schools, and ultimately universities that continue to educate people to this day. From their campus buildings and founding charters, Jesus’s life and teaching could be reconstructed, even if no Bibles were available.
He matters because he established a worldview that encouraged exploration and motivated his followers to investigate the natural revelation of God, resulting in an explosion of scientific discovery, the scientific revolution, and an unparalleled history of excellence in the sciences. From the writings of the “science fathers”—the vast majority of whom were Jesus followers—Jesus’s life, ministry, and mission could be reconstructed, even if all the Christian Bibles were destroyed.
He matters because his influence on spiritual seekers and religious thinkers is so overwhelming that every major world religion either mentions or merges him into their theological system. From the scriptures of non-Christian religions and their leaders’ statements, the life of Jesus could be reconstructed, even without access to the New Testament.
Looking at the evidence I had compiled of Jesus’s claims and impact, I couldn’t help but draw the obvious conclusion: Only if Jesus was truly more than a man, if he was God incarnate as that first pastor and the gospel authors claimed, would his unparalleled impact on history make sense. Wouldn’t we expect God to inspire the ancients to think about him and the Jews to prophesy about him? Wouldn’t we expect history to align to his arrival? Wouldn’t we expect God to have an explosive impact on the most important aspects of human existence? Wouldn’t we expect him to reorder our calendar and transform our history?
Jesus had that kind of impact—the impact we would expect from God. The fuse and the fallout of the Common Era simply confirm the existence and deity of Jesus as described in the New Testament.
Christian authors, artists, musicians, educators, and scientists had known for years what I was just discovering: Jesus doesn’t matter because he influenced the world ; Jesus influenced the world because he matters . Everything that was important to me as an atheist was ultimately indebted to Jesus, the man who was with God and is God and through whom “all things were made” (John 1:3). Jesus is who he said he was: God incarnate.
That truth turned the world upside down. It turned my world upside down as well.
OUR PERSON OF INTEREST
“Everyone accounted for?” I asked as Susie hopped into the passenger seat of our van.
“Yes,” she replied, “All thirty-two of them.”
As our caravan of vehicles and students pulled away from the local rescue mission after a day serving at the food bank, everyone was tired but satisfied they had contributed to an important work.
From Susie’s perspective, my conversion to Christianity seemed miraculous, especially given my attitude toward God for the first eighteen years of our relationship. But the evidence in the fuse and the fallout, coupled with the writings of the New Testament, convinced me that the gospel claims about Jesus (and his claims about himself) were true, and I understood the relationship between what’s true and what matters . I ultimately attended seminary and became a youth pastor and a lead pastor. Service trips—like the one we were taking to the rescue mission—became a regular feature of our lives.
OBJECTION: BEING A GOOD PERSON IS ALL THAT REALLY MATTERS TO GOD
Are you a good person? Have you ever lied? Have you ever taken something that wasn’t yours? Have you ever even thought about such things? I don’t know many people who are arrogant enough to say they’ve never done anything wrong. If being a good person is all that matters, then you and I don’t matter because we aren’t consistently “good.” If an all-powerful God exists, it’s reasonable to believe he has the power to eliminate moral imperfection. How, then, can morally imperfect humans be united with a morally perfect God? Christianity offers a solution: God came to us in human form. Jesus took the punishment he didn’t deserve to provide us with access we can’t earn.
After investigating history and testing the Gospels, I knew I had a decision to make. Would I continue to ignore the person of interest who was responsible for everything I valued? Or would I acknowledge him as the source of nearly everything that matters? I decided to trust what history revealed about Jesus. I came to trust what the Gospels said about Jesus and what Jesus said about himself. Perhaps more importantly, I also decided to trust what the New Testament said about me . I became painfully aware of my own imperfections and the perfect, holy nature of God. At first, the distance between these two realities seemed prohibitively vast.
But the promise of Jesus is much greater than a pledge to transform literature, art, music, education, and science. It’s a promise to transform the status and heart of every believer.
Our moral imperfection differentiates and separates us from God, yet he came to us in the person of Jesus to offer a remedy. Those of us who recognize the truth about Jesus can accept his offer to reunite us with God. On the cross Jesus paid the price for our moral imperfection. The perfect Being who had the power to create, forgive, grant eternal life, and judge sin took the penalty we deserve and exchanged it for the position and status he deserves . Those of us who are willing to trust Jesus, accept the offer of forgiveness, and follow him will be forever reconciled to God.
That decision matters , and it ultimately leads to a life that matters .
I’m a Christian today because Christianity is true. Demonstrably true. The evidence of history screams Jesus from every significant human achievement and every meaningful aspect of culture. Even on days when being a Christian is difficult (and those days are sure to increase given our culture’s growing rejection of Christianity), my high regard for truth leaves me no alternative but to embrace Jesus as history’s person of interest and my personal savior.
Jesus is in the business of changing hearts and minds, creating something from nothing, turning apathy into conviction, and molding hopelessness into meaning. He’s done it for thousands of writers, artists, musicians, educators, and scientists. He’s done it for millions of believers, just as he did for me.
He can do it for you as well.