I'm Skeptical About Jesus
If you're skeptical, then you have doubts. If you have doubts that's a good thing, because it means you're thinking. This puts you in company with some really smart guys, like the philosopher Rene Descartes who made a pretty good career out of doubting.
You can find a lifetime of reading in works by lots and lots of these guys who like to both think and doubt (and write). I guarantee you that what I have to say will be both shorter and more understandable.
Whatever doubts you have about Jesus have come from somewhere. They may be from what you've heard someone say, or from something you've read or from your own thinking. Just keep this in mind. A doubt is a negative, right? You have to doubt some-thing. The something is the positive and the doubt is the negative.
To get this onto really fair ground, I'd like to ask you to consider the source for BOTH the negative and the positive. If you're having doubts about Jesus, then Jesus is the positive and the doubt about him is the negative. So, first try to lock onto WHERE the doubt concerning Jesus came from. Was it a friend, a teacher, a book, etc? This is your source for the NEGATIVE. Now try to lock onto how you've formed your perspective about the POSITIVE, that is, about Jesus. What is your primary source for credible information about the POSITIVE?
AHA! I'll bet you don't even know where to go to be confident you have a credible source for information about Jesus. Oh, the BIBLE, you say. But you don't actually consider that to be a credible source, do you, or you wouldn't be having doubts about Jesus.
Unfortunately, skeptical voices about the Bible in the past century have been given far more play than the other team, so skepticism about the Bible has become part of the cultural atmosphere we breathe. As a matter of fact, most people are predisposed to be skeptical about the Bible. We're really not in a fair discussion. The fat kid has jumped onto one end of the teeter-totter and we have to overcome massive bias just to get a seat.
This, then, if you're an honest skeptic, is where to begin. You have to recognize that you come to this discussion with your thinking already well along the way. It will take a conscious decision and patience on your part to even get close to giving the Bible an honest hearing.
But let's give it a go. You've identified your negative source, right? (That's the source of your doubt). I can't help you with that, because there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of doubt sources out there.
What I can do is offer you some positive sources to give you very good reasons why, despite all you've been led to believe, the credibility of the Bible is amazingly solid. We can look at sources from historical records, archaeological finds, manuscript evidence, internal factors in the Bible itself, like fulfilled prophecy, internal consistency, and more.
Because you identify yourself as a skeptic you already are giving a lot of weight to your negative source of information. While I could try to offset that by giving you an overwhelming dump of information about the Bible's credibility, I'm afraid that would be tedious and counter-productive. Let me give you just one simple positive source to make a case for the credibility of the Bible. Check out this link about the reliability of the Bible. Once you have read that, you may find it interesting to go to the CARM website where you will find links on the left hand column to just about any question you might have.
If you want to come back and interact about what you're finding, we'd love to hear from you. Follow this contact link to know how to be in touch with us. If you find your interest in Jesus growing, take a closer look by checking out the 'curious' page.