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The Tenacity of Christianity

Bart Ehrman, who is a famous critic of the New Testament and Christianity, opens his text book on the New Testament by describing a man who sounded a lot like Jesus. After his description, though, he goes on to explain that the man was not Jesus, but another Messiah "wannabe" from a few decades before Christ. His point was, the New Testament is just a fabrication, and it just so happened that Jesus was the particular Messiah figure that remained, out of the whole bunch of other Messiah figures that became famous in and around 1st Century Palestine. Acts 5 would seem to refute this though, with Gamaliel's advice to his fellow Pharisees on how to deal with the Apostles. He says: "If this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them." Indeed, Christianity's tenacity to endure despite all of the persecution it has undergone is quite a marvelous thing. It's one of those important proofs about our faith that we can rest on, knowing that it really is from God.