ElShamah - Reason & Science: Defending ID and the Christian Worldview
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ElShamah - Reason & Science: Defending ID and the Christian Worldview

Otangelo Grasso: This is my library, where I collect information and present arguments developed by myself that lead, in my view, to the Christian faith, creationism, and Intelligent Design as the best explanation for the origin of the physical world.


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ElShamah - Reason & Science: Defending ID and the Christian Worldview » Bible / Christian faith / Apologetics » JESUS CHRIST: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL INDIVIDUAL EVER

JESUS CHRIST: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL INDIVIDUAL EVER

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Otangelo


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JESUS CHRIST: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL INDIVIDUAL EVER
(all details borrowed, I claim no ownership, all emphasis added, as well as edits and formatting)
"Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by [H]is name. Yes, ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.'" - Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The reason Jesus keeps getting a rebrand—the reason He simply refuses to go away—is that He is without question the most influential person in history.” - Kurt Mahlburg, Autralian pastor
JESUS: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL LIFE EVER LIVED
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi...
Jesus was born in obscurity, not in the court of a king nor with the anticipation of royalty. He was cradled in a manger, surrounded by straw, some animals, and His father and mother. He was brought up in a country village, not in the synagogues of the religious, the palaces of the rich, nor the courts of the powerful. Jesus was trained at home by His mother, not the great universities of His day. He never crossed frontiers to see the sights, to interact with other cultures, or to broaden His experience. He was born of a people who were peculiarly secluded to their land, who had narrow religious customs, and had an exclusive monotheistic belief in God. He had no access to [the] great philosophical literature of the Greeks, the great legal literature of the Romans, the mystical literature of the Persians, nor even to the great libraries of Jerusalem. He only had access to the scrolls of Scripture found in His small town synagogue. Yet, out of this limited environment and narrow heredity, stepped the one person who was peculiarly greater than His roots, who understood more than the learnings of the scholars, who had more authority than the political leaders, who had more might than the soldiers who carried their weapons of war. Out of this little town stepped a perfect man who changed the destination of history.
Considering all the teachers of all the ages... Jesus has influenced far more lives, for people to learn far more knowledge, about far more things; than any other instructor of the ages.
Considering all the writers of all the ages... Jesus has motivated far more literature, about far more subjects, to teach far more knowledge, to lift people far higher; than any other authors of the ages.
Considering all the workmen of all the ages... Jesus is responsible for far more construction, of far more different kinds of buildings, to help far more people, in far more different ways; than any other carpenter of the ages.
Considering all the social workers of all the ages... Jesus has helped raise far more money, to give far more help, to far more needy; than any other humanitarian of the ages.
Considering all the artists of all the ages... Jesus has breathed far more life into far more paintings, sculptures and art works, and to uplift far more people, to far more higher levels of aspiration; than any other artist of the ages.
Considering all the politicians and statesmen of all ages... Jesus is responsible for far more good, to far more subjects, in far more areas of their life; than any other ruler of the ages.
Considering all the military personnel that have ever defended freedom, Jesus has motivated far more to defend freedom for all people, for far more people; and to attack more different kinds of evil; than any defender of the ages.
Considering all the individuals ever born, Jesus Christ is the greatest influence to ever live.

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Otangelo


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The greatest man that has ever lived motivated the writing of some of the greatest books that influenced history, although He never wrote one. The greatest man that has ever lived motivated the writing of some of the greatest music that has ever moved listeners, although He never composed a song. The greatest man to ever live motivated His followers to build hospitals, orphanages, universities, and many other institutions to influence the world, although He never suggested them or built one Himself. The greatest man to ever live had the greatest influence over the greatest number of individuals, although He seized no power by the sword, by political action, or by business manipulation. The greatest man to ever live did the most good, for the most number of people, among the most number of ethnic groups, in the most diverse circumstances, that resulted in uplifting the most number of people, and giving them the best quality of life, and motivating them to share their blessing with the most needy recipients. The story of the greatest man to ever live is told in the Bible, God’s book. All God wants us to do is read it and believe it. The greatness of this character was in the simple way He lived, the simple sermon He preached and the simplicity of the way He helped people. The greatest man to ever live is Jesus who said, “Follow Me.”
JESUS – THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSON WHO EVER LIVED
=AT2k_pC_-SenC1daF7aUihyP8dOqfiuNW6tDjDNO1uWxYQt2kYpemBJEIKfEkv5LJI89JVwr7xlnVeNMuI6KJXcdJ8n-1Zi24eRlkb-hDBzfY6G4BYDqIX5kZTcIN0lyAWDS]https://bibleapologetics.org/jesus-the-most-influential.../
What many consider the most scholarly and influential encyclopedia in the US, the Encyclopedia Britannica, clearly recognized Jesus Christ’s phenomenal impact in our world by devoting more space to this one man than to any other who has ever walked the earth.
And when we talk about impact, perhaps historian Philip Schaff summed it up best:
“This Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science or learning, He has shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of schools, He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise, than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.” - Philip Schaff https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/304737.Philip_Schaff
The noted historian Kenneth Scott Latourette added:
“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. That influence appears to be mounting.” (Josh McDowell, More than a Carpenter (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1988), p. 8.)
H. G. Wells, the famous English writer and historian, commented:
“I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.” (=AT2k_pC_-SenC1daF7aUihyP8dOqfiuNW6tDjDNO1uWxYQt2kYpemBJEIKfEkv5LJI89JVwr7xlnVeNMuI6KJXcdJ8n-1Zi24eRlkb-hDBzfY6G4BYDqIX5kZTcIN0lyAWDS]https://apologetics315.com/.../h-g-wells-on-the.../)

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Otangelo


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"Today, even as belief in God fades across the West, the countries that were once collectively known as Christendom continue to bear the stamp of the two-millennia-old revolution that Christianity represents. It is the principal reason why, by and large, most of us who live in post-Christian societies still take for granted that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering. It is why we generally assume that every human life is of equal value. In my morals and ethics, I have learned to accept that I am not Greek or Roman at all, but thoroughly and proudly Christian." - Tom Holland
=AT2k_pC_-SenC1daF7aUihyP8dOqfiuNW6tDjDNO1uWxYQt2kYpemBJEIKfEkv5LJI89JVwr7xlnVeNMuI6KJXcdJ8n-1Zi24eRlkb-hDBzfY6G4BYDqIX5kZTcIN0lyAWDS]https://www.newstatesman.com/.../tom-holland-why-i-was...
3. Jesus Redefined “Hero” - Here’s another confronting truth about the ancient world: its heroes were - let’s be honest - mostly murderers. Think conquering Caesars, samurai warriors, and knights in shining armor.
Thousands of years later, it couldn’t be more opposite. In the West at least, we esteem the nun who serves in the ghetto, the rescuer who sacrifices his life to save a child, and the head of state who relates to the humble and lowly.
This is an extraordinary reversal. And once again, Jesus helps explain it.
As Jesus hung on the cross crying out in agony, His devastated followers had to decide: either He wasn’t the hero they once thought - or their very definition of hero had to change. They chose the second option.
Slowly the continent of Europe marinated in a single, world-changing idea: the universe-creating God stepped down to earth, became a peasant carpenter, washed His disciples dirty feet, made upside-down claims like the meek will inherit the earth, and then gave up His life for His friends... and the world.
Whether you’re a Christian or not, if your idea of a hero is a humble, self-giving servant, then you’ve been shaped by Jesus.

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Otangelo


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4. Jesus Inspired Universal Literacy - Most cultures have turned their language into writing. Some have gone on to develop beautiful literature. But from time immemorial and on every continent, education was for the elite.
That is until followers of Jesus saw otherwise. As the Reformation swept Europe, reformers like Luther and Wycliffe had a vision to make the Word of God available to the masses, taking it from Latin into the languages of the people.
Missionaries continued this project. To translate Scripture, they systematized national languages like Hindi, Urdu and Bengali which helped birth nations. In fact, thousands of indigenous dialects have been saved by Christians in this drive to democratize language.
A Bible you can understand is only useful if you can read. So the other goal of reformers and missionaries was mass literacy, for which they enlisted the help of governments. From the earliest days, Christians have played a disproportionate role in making universal education global.
As for higher learning, don’t forget that monks invented the university - and that the world’s leading institutions like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale (and too many more to list) were established to teach the Bible.
5. Jesus Is The Star Of Ancient History - It’s often assumed that the Bible is historically unreliable. Some even question if Jesus ever lived. But it’s no exaggeration to say that Jesus is the best-attested figure of ancient history.
German historian, Adolf Harnack (1851-1930), declared that Jesus was so imposing that he was “far beyond the power of men to invent” and that those who treat him as a myth are bereft of “the capacity to distinguish between fiction and the documentary evidence” (as quoted in Harrison 1968, 3).
Tiberius was emperor when Jesus was born. But almost everything we know about him was written 80 years after the event. The writings we have about Jesus, on the other hand, were written within 20-60 years of His life.
In case you didn’t catch that, our records about a ragtag rabbi called Jesus are better (closer in time to the events recorded) than those we have for the man who ruled the world at the same time.
But it gets more impressive. No one claims the history about Caesar or the writings of Plato were made up. But only a handful of these documents have survived.
By contrast, 24,000+ New Testament (NT) manuscripts can be found throughout the world’s libraries. With these, it’s possible to reconstruct the NT with near-perfect accuracy. In fact, the early church fathers had such a habit of writing commentaries about the NT that if all we had were these commentaries, all but 11 verses of the NT could be compiled... in the absence of ALL other NT documents.
Jesus came from Nazareth; He lived a virtuous life; He was crucified in Palestine during the festival of Passover, under Pontius Pilate, during the reign of Tiberius Caesar; He was considered a Jewish king; His disciples believed He was raised to life 3 days after He died; and they worshipped Him as God.
Yes, faith is needed to follow Jesus — but it’s not a blind faith. The historical evidence for Jesus is overwhelming.

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Otangelo


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6. Jesus’ Followers Discovered Science - Many believe that science and religion are at war.
But this would be news to the founders of modern science, who were mostly Bible-believing Christians. Think Pascal (Calculus, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Probability Theory), Faraday (Electric Generator, Electronics, Electrodynamics, Field Theory), Pasteur (Bacteriology, Biogenesis, Fermentation Control, Pasteurization, Vaccination & Immunization), Kelvin (Absolute Temp Scale, Energetics, Thermodynamics, Trans-Atlantic Cable) — or Newton (Calculus, Classical Mechanics, Classical Physics, Dynamics, Law of Gravity, Mathematical Physics, Reflecting Telescope), who discovered gravity but wrote over a million words about the Bible.
Quite simply, science arose only once in history — in Christian Europe. Many other cultures had scientific insights. But it took a lot more than insights to develop a culture of science. For that, Christian assumptions were needed:
-Objective truth exists. Many eastern faiths say that each person can find their own truth. But science only works if truth exists and can be discovered - a thoroughly Christian idea.
-The universe exists. It’s also common in the East to see the world as an illusion. By contrast, “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” gave Europe a real universe that could be studied.
-The universe is orderly. Most faiths imagine an array of gods competing to run the universe. However, one Creator using one set of laws made life much easier for scientists like Kepler (Celestial Mechanics, Mathematical Physics, Physical Astronomy) who said that to do science was to “think God’s thoughts after [H]im”.
-We’re fallen and sinful. No one likes the Christian doctrine of original sin, but it inspired the scientific method which stresses that a discovery is only made when we’ve doubted our theories until we can doubt them no more.
-Our brains can be trusted. If we’re here by some cosmic accident, how can we trust the conclusions our brains come to? But if we’re made in the image of an intelligent God, that problem is solved.
All of these ideas - which are at the heart of Christian belief - made science possible.
7. Jesus Is The World’s Greatest Force For Compassion - Early Christians were despised in the Roman Empire. Despite this, their program to feed Rome’s poor was as big as the city’s civic guilds. They scoured streets and trash heaps to rescue discarded babies - their example ultimately ending infanticide.
Christianity and compassion are deeply linked. The history of hospitals, for example, is mostly a history of the church. Public healthcare was unknown in the ancient world, before St. Basil opened a 300-bed hospital. His vision spanned a thousand years until monks were caring for the sick in 37,000 European monasteries.
As modern medicine was born, followers of Jesus led the charge again, pioneering antiseptic surgery (Sir Joseph Lister, Ambroise Paré), clinical teaching, physiology (William Harvey), transplant surgery (Alexis Carrel, Joseph Murray), the vaccine (Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur), and writing what became the standard medical textbook (Thomas Percival) for 2 centuries.
The world wouldn’t be the same without Christian heroes like William Carey who ended widow burning in India, William Wilberforce who abolished the slave trade, Martin Luther King, Jr. who transformed civil rights in the US, and Mother Teresa whose name is literally a synonym for compassion.
By no means do Christians have a monopoly on care. But Jesus - who gave us the story of the Good Samaritan, and backed it up with His profound love for the hungry, sick and dying - has inspired more compassion than any other force in history.
8. Jesus Paved The Way For Democracy - Winston Churchill famously said that “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” He must be right if almost 70% of nations have adopted it.
Rule of law is the remarkable idea that a nation is governed by its constitution - something with a higher authority than senators, kings, or the mob majority.
For this, followers of Jesus were inspired by ancient Israel’s law - and they were central in drafting the foundation texts of modern democracy like The Magna Carta, Lex Rex, The English Bill of Rights and the US Declaration of Independence.
They reasoned that if we’re all made in God’s image, we the people should get a say in how government is formed, not just the elite. But if we’re fallen and sinful, we also need checks and balances to restrain our own corruption.
These are revolutionary ideas - enjoyed by very few in history. On them we’ve built the freest, safest and most generous societies on earth. Even human rights, which are slowly being adopted worldwide, have deeply Christian roots.
"Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle post-modern talk.” - Jürgen Habermas, "Time of Transitions", Polity Press, 2006, pp. 150-151, translation of an interview from 1999
"Christianity was to introduce the notion that humanity was fundamentally identical, that [humans] were equal in dignity – an unprecedented idea at the time, and one to which our world owes its entire democratic inheritance... This may seem self-evident, but it was literally unheard-of at the time, and it turned an entire world-order upside down... We see today how civilizations that have not experienced Christianity have great difficulties in fostering democratic regimes, because the notion of equality is not so deep rooted..." - atheist philosopher Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought, pp. 72, 73, 75
"Yet virtually all the secular ideas that non-believers value have Christian origins.... It was theologians and religiously minded philosophers who developed the concepts of individual and human rights. Same with progress, reason, and equality before the law: it is fantasy to suggest these values emerged out of thin air once people started questioning God.” - atheist Chris Berg, research fellow Institute of Public Affairs
"This Jewish and Christian element in our tradition is gratefully invoked by freeloading atheists like myself." - Richard Rorty, Professor of Philosophy Princeton/Stanford universities
9. Jesus And His Church Are The Most Hated People On Earth - Many people suffer oppression today, but none more than followers of Jesus. Though they make up only one third of the world’s inhabitants, Christians bear the brunt of some 80% of religious discrimination.
100 million Christians are targeted for their faith in 139 countries - or three quarters of all nations on earth. Every year, 150,000 believers are put to death simply for what they believe. In its Middle Eastern homeland, the church is under threat of extinction.
What doesn’t make sense about all of this is that the western media will stand up for almost any minority group - but it’s almost silent when it comes to the global war on Christians.
This silence, in fact, is key to understanding another trend: a growing anti-Christian sentiment in the West.
Christians who report discrimination in places like Australia, Europe and North America are often dismissed as having a martyr complex. But real data has led Open Doors, the leading authority on global Christian persecution, to warn that western nations will soon be included in their annual reports.
When a single faith is the target of so much worldwide opposition - and this despite the many benefits it has brought the world - it should get our attention.
Maybe Jesus really did come to rescue humanity from its deep hostility towards God.
"The taproot of evil is the hatred of the truth." - paraphrase of my own making from a novel by Dean Koontz

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Otangelo


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10. Jesus’ Claim To Be God Was Unique - One final quality that sets Jesus apart is His claim to be God. That might sound odd, given that countless people through time have done the same.
But actually, the claim of most was that they were a god. Jesus however claimed to be the God - the Creator of the universe, walking among us in human flesh.
No one else who launched a world religion has gone there - certainly not Muhammad or the Buddha. And most who’ve done so in modern times have actually taken a shortcut: claiming to be a reincarnate Jesus, they’ve simply hoped to borrow some of His unassailable fame.
When God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, I AM was the name he gave Himself. What got Jesus in so much trouble with the religious leaders was when He took this title to Himself, saying “before Abraham was, I AM”.
Jesus forgave sins, which any Jew knew was God’s business alone. He accepted worship, which was an even greater scandal. In these and countless other ways He made Himself equal with God - which is what ultimately got Him crucified.
Jesus could have been lying. It’s also possible that He was insane. But if His biographies are true, He seems far too virtuous to be a deceiver, and far too brilliant to be a lunatic.
The only possibility that remains is that He is who he says He is. The implications of this are profound. It means that He is Lord - and I am not.
And it means there is hope. “I am the light of the world,” Jesus said. “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
WHY JESUS IS STILL THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MAN IN HUMAN HISTORY- EVEN 2000 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH
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There are few people on the planet who have never heard the name Jesus. This poor Jewish Rabbi that lived 2000 years ago is still today the most influential man in human history. Billions of people over thousands of years have been transformed by the son of a Jewish carpenter.
How is it possible that one man, who died a criminal’s death, can influence kings, emperors, presidents and prime ministers? Why is it that His cross adorns more grave markers, T-shirts, jewelry, and tattoos than any other symbol in the world? Easter Sunday is the answer to that question!
HE DIDN’T STAY DEAD
At its very basics, Easter Sunday says that Jesus really was the Son of God: this man though murdered was yet innocent; He really did have power over death; His resurrection 3 days later proves His message to be true.
In fact, Easter is the basis for the Christian faith. The great apostle Paul, who was himself a terrorist and a persecutor of Christians, explains the resurrected Christ in Acts 26:13-15O. Paul would go on to say that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the basis for the Christian faith in 1 Corinthians 15:14.
HE CREATED AN UNSTOPPABLE MOVEMENT
If Jesus were only a dead man come back to life, I don’t think we’d still be talking about Him today. He created a movement among his people - a movement that continues to this day.
You can have the ethics of Buddhism without Buddha. You can have the tenets of Islam without Mohammed. You can have the morality of Confucianism without Confucius… But you can’t have Christianity without Christ. Jesus is the message of Christianity.
The basis for this unstoppable movement is that God has forgiven sinners through the death of His Son Jesus. God is restoring sinners to Himself through the resurrection of His Son Jesus. And, there is no other way to God except through Jesus. This is the basis of Christianity.
HIS PEOPLE CONTINUE HIS MISSION IN HIS POWER
Jesus gave His people the responsibilities to continue His mission until He comes back again. Jesus’ last commission to His people is found in Matthew 28:18-20.
The unstoppable force of Christianity is Jesus’ people, showing and sharing His love in the power of His Holy Spirit. This is the reason why He continues to be the most influential man in human history - even 2000 years after His death!
WHY JESUS STILL MATTERS
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=AT2k_pC_-SenC1daF7aUihyP8dOqfiuNW6tDjDNO1uWxYQt2kYpemBJEIKfEkv5LJI89JVwr7xlnVeNMuI6KJXcdJ8n-1Zi24eRlkb-hDBzfY6G4BYDqIX5kZTcIN0lyAWDS]https://www.christianpost.com/.../the-most-important...
But even as the Western world becomes more secularized, Jesus is impossible to avoid because, as J. Warner Wallace explains brilliantly and comprehensively in his latest book, Person of Interest, Christ is the single most influential individual who ever lived.
Jesus 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.
To date, there are more than 109 million books written about Jesus (George Washington is a distant second at nearly 59 million books).
-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.
-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.
-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.
-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.
-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.
THE HISTORICAL INFLUENCE OF JESUS
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Jesus was raised in humble Jewish surroundings in Roman-controlled Judea and Galilee, He never traveled more than 200 miles from His birthplace, He had a small group of simple followers, and He was killed (unjustly) for violating the religious laws of His own people. He never received political power, never raised an army, and never conquered territory. By historical standards, Jesus didn’t cut it as an influential figure in political, economic, or military power.
So, why the powerful influence - even today?
Why does about a third of the world call themselves His followers about 2,000 years later?
When Jesus was about 30-years-old, He started His public ministry around the Sea of Galilee. He was known for powerful teaching and a series of recorded miracles... It seems His main teachings in public were:
-God loves us.
-Love each other.
-People have unique value.
-The Kingdom of God has come to earth.
-God will judge us in the end.
-God forgives those who ask.
Jesus was mocked, tortured, and hung on a wooden cross just outside Jerusalem. His simple followers scattered. Three hours later, He was dead.
HISTORICAL INFLUENCE OF JESUS
It would seem that the historical account of Jesus - and any long-lasting historical influence - should end right there… with His death.
Within a couple months, there were thousands in and around Jerusalem that became His disciples. Within a couple centuries, there were hundreds of thousands in the Mediterranean region that called themselves “Christians” – or followers of Jesus Christ. In 325 AD, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Within 500 years, Greek temples to pagan gods were being converted to Christian churches all over the Roman world.
What could have happened to cause such a powerful movement in the name of one simple man?
GROWTH OF JESUS’ INFLUCENCE
Indeed, about one-third of the world is considered “Christian” today. That’s a pretty staggering number – that’s a pretty influential life after nearly 2,000 years. Yes, some religious institutions have confused and cluttered the original message of Jesus over the centuries, but His simple life and powerful words still speak for themselves.
That’s why we spent over 2 years producing this series of Drive Thru History. We returned to the original texts - the Gospels - and the original landscape - Israel - and take the time to explore the history, geography, and culture surrounding the life of Jesus. The question, “Who is Jesus?” obviously still matters. Against all odds, the historical influence of Jesus continues to expand throughout the world.
JESUS IS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MAN IN HISTORY
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The book that tells the story is the most sold and read book in the world.
The bible has been translated in whole or in part into 2500 languages. It’s the number one best seller of ALL TIME. Let me put that in perspective. The Da Vinci code was on the best seller list for 3 years. It sold over 80 million copies. That’s a ridiculous amount of books. If Bible sales stopped today, for the Da Vinci code to pass the bible in circulation it would have to be on the best seller list for another 263 YEARS. Unfortunately, the Da Vinci code doesn’t have a chance because the Bible sales keep rolling to the tune of 100 million sales a year.
“Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life and therefore to lay Christ as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.” - Harvard University student handbook
He is the single most influential person in the history of the world. The method of His death, the cross, is the single most recognized symbol in the world. More hungry people have been fed in His name, more hospitals built in His name, more colleges started in His name than all other names. More marriages have been saved in His name. More addicts have been set free in His name. More habits have been broken in His name. He is simply the most influential man in the world.
“Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about [H]im, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of western culture for almost 20 centuries.” - Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan
It takes a massive amount of faith to believe that Jesus is just a guy.
JESUS EFFECTS EVERYONE (WHETHER YOU WANT HIM TO OR NOT)
=AT2k_pC_-SenC1daF7aUihyP8dOqfiuNW6tDjDNO1uWxYQt2kYpemBJEIKfEkv5LJI89JVwr7xlnVeNMuI6KJXcdJ8n-1Zi24eRlkb-hDBzfY6G4BYDqIX5kZTcIN0lyAWDS]https://www.fccmboro.org/.../jesus-effects-everyone...
Public Education was founded by Christians, our universities the world over are proof of that. No other world view that has founded a school has had the impact that Christ has had on education.
Medicine is also proof: most hospitals are named after saints, as it was Christians who founded them to (originally) bring inexpensive health care to as many as possible.
Science (in spite of common false allegations) was pushed forward by Christian men who, in a Christian environment were allowed to explore and experiment in God’s creation to find out more about the world we live in.
Human rights, equality among gender and ethnicities, and basic human rights are ideas that first sprang up within Christian communities, and spread to the rest of the world (not perfectly, but in some way, shape or form). In contrast, since the secularization (by and large) of the world, more people have been killed or murdered in the name of humanist movements since the 1900s than every other war and century combined. We see, as the world grows more secular, more violence, more depravity, more division, more hate than we’ve ever seen before, all while the claim “getting rid of religion will bring us peace” is screamed in our faces.
JESUS RANKED THE MOST SIGNIFICANT PERSON IN WORLD HISTORY
https://opentheword.org/.../jesus-ranked-the-most.../
https://www.keepbelieving.com/.../the-most-important.../
Two computer scientists, Professor Steven Skiena of Stony Brook University in New York and Charles Ward used quantitative analysis to decide who the most significant people were in world history. They studied thousands of historical figures to determine which person’s opinions had the most impact on world affairs.
Using an algorithm similar to Google’s ranking system and “other data sources,” they ranked the various historical figures by importance as referenced in the English version of Wikipedia - an online encyclopedia. To establish their “significance” ranking, they assessed more than 800,000 names, calculated scores of celebrity and achievement or gravitas, and then factored in how long, and how long ago, someone lived.
Their analysis concluded that Jesus Christ was the world’s most influential person.
In an interview with the Pacific Standard, Skiena said:
“We would call Jesus the most significant person ever. We measure meme strength, how successfully is the idea of this person being propagated through time. With over two billion followers a full 2,000 years after his seat, Jesus is an incredibly successful historical meme.”
“The significance of Jesus is shown by his mindshare today fully 2,000 years after his death."
Skiena said the list is fluid and will change over time. However, he added Jesus is fairly entrenched at first and he doesn’t expect Him to lose His spot any time soon.
(Thanks to =AZUKg3UlqiZurjk9nS5YYg-WYmQ060SkElNc8hBqEWGuBhtmbsi8vIvYHJOnQ0Oct-d-V94ggtFQ9ZrK9eIQz05NRrL4rdZYetO5xTb808aL9w&__tn__=-]K-R]Michael Mote for sharing the above else where. God bless you Michael.)

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ElShamah - Reason & Science: Defending ID and the Christian Worldview » Bible / Christian faith / Apologetics » JESUS CHRIST: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL INDIVIDUAL EVER

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