Many people will say Jesus is a myth and that having faith in Him is basically the same as having faith in the Easter bunny or Santa Claus or fairies. There are two parts to this discussion, one being the historical fact of Jesus Christ existing, the other being if faith in Jesus is really just like faith in a Greek myth or Santa Claus. Today, we will be covering the latter.

To start, let's consider things that are considered mythological. Mythological creatures are magical beings that were created in the minds of men to explain events they could not understand. They often have origins that are known to be suspiciously poorly grounded at best and consequently are believed by very few people, if any, today.

Is Jesus Christ like this? The facts point to no.

Let's take something like Santa Claus. Santa Claus was a fictional person based on what people believe were historical events. The information was totally passed down by word of mouth. When they were finally formally recorded, it was long after the events happened. And when it was accepted by society, differed very much than the actual events. As time went on, people added myths to it, varying by region. Also the children who believe in Santa Claus are being purposefully told something that is not true by their parents. I don't want to make it sound like parents are evil liars when I say that, but the basic idea is that parents for better or worse choose to deceive their children to think Santa Claus is real. Jesus Christ is nothing like this.

Rather, He is known about by being written down by people who heard Him speak personally, saw Him, and lived with Him. The New Testament is not like the Old Testament where a man sat down and wrote down events that had happened long before he was born, but was written immediately after the events happened. It also was not passed down by word of mouth, like most myths are, making it more likely that the text and message has stayed the same. We also have manuscripts of the New Testament back to the second and even first century, which means we can know with confidence that these books about Jesus were written near the events and not centuries later. A majority of these texts say the same things. Even though there are different versions, you will find that they all say almost exactly the same thing. There are no drastically different stories. While there are some gospels that say different than the accepted ones, these ones do not have good evidence to prove they were written by an authentic source, neither are many of them old enough to prove they were not invented. oldest manuscript dates to after the turn of the millennium.

Besides this, parents who teach children about Jesus are not making a choice to tell their child something they know is not true and actively charade is true, but something they themselves have a total faith in.

For those who do not consider the Bible to be reliable and claim it is biased, please consider this with an open mind.

Let's say someone tried to start a religion today. This person claims last year, a man named John Smith who lived in your home town did all these miracles, helped all these people, and then died. Now, you've lived in this town your whole life yet never heard a single solitary thing about this man or all of the extraordinary things he did. The writer claims John Smith was extremely famous, flocked by hundreds of people, and was hated by the most powerful men in government, yet not a single person you know has heard of him. Would you believe this writer? Would anyone? Maybe a few, but only those who are uneducated or who do not live in the area. This is exactly what people are doing though when they say Jesus Christ never existed! Do you believe that a religion that was growing at such a fast rate would be based off of events that the people of the town would have known without a doubt did not happen in the very city they lived in? That is just silly. For the religion to spread so fast among the people where the events were supposed to have happened, Jesus either would have had to existed or the people of that town were literally the most naive and ignorant people that ever existed. Besides this, there would be numerous records that say Jesus never existed from the same period, trying to convince people of the massive folly.

If you still do not accept the Bible though, there are still references to Him. Josephus references Him and John the Baptist in His writings. He is written quite negatively about by the writing of Jewish religious leaders. Some Romans even mention Him, more peeved by His followers than anything.

Jesus Christ was a real person who had gathered a lot of fame as a religious teacher, claimed to be God, and was killed on these claims. These are facts that some of even the most firmly rooted atheist knows is true. Those that deny His existence do not have a firm knowledge of Middle Eastern or documentary history.

This is very different than believing in something like the Greek myths which were based on a book of poetry made to entertain people or fairy tales created to teach a moral lesson. Those things were works of fiction and some even known to be works of fiction when they were created. The New Testament is made up though of carefully dated historical documents. Even if you doubt its divine inspiration, it must be admitted that they are at least documents recording a set of events that really did occur, even if you believe the events are a bit inaccurate or biased. They had to have for the most part occurred in some way or another for people to believe them and for the writers to have any credibility whatsoever.

So, Jesus Christ isn't like Santa. He isn't the demi-god of a myth. He is a real person, a real teacher, and a real Savior.