WHY I'M CATHOLIC - Ch. 3
TRUE STORY OR MONSTROUS RUSE?
But what about that story? Was there really a Jesus Christ? Could not the Jesus story be a monstrous ruse? After all, what we call the New Testament was written by Christians for Christians, so of course they could have made it up. Right?
There is also the fact that there are no original copies of the New Testament books. All we have is copies of copies of copies and translations of translations. Couldn’t the whole thing have been concocted and perpetuated in order to subject centuries of human beings to a clerical empire?
In response to those who doubt the biblical account, Christian apologists often attempt to make the case for Christ from extra-biblical sources. But outside the Bible, the historical record for the Christian Jesus is sparse. And the authenticity of what does exist ― such as the account found in the writings of Josephus, a first century Jewish historian ― is usually discredited as the later interpolations of zealous Christian copyists.
Christian apologists also attempt to make the historical case for Christ by first making a case for the historicity of the Gospels. The case is easy to make. There is more evidence for the historical authenticity of the Gospels than there is for works of similar or greater age.
For example, while few question the authorship of Plato’s Republic, Virgil’s Aeneid, or the works of Homer, there is far more evidence for the authentic authorship of the Gospels than there is for these literary pillars of Western civilization.
However, if such evidence would suffice then we would not have unbelievers, and yet we do. So, for our purposes, the historical evidence for Christ will need to be made from accepted non-Christian historical sources.