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Jesus According to Napoleon

"Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and his will confounds me. Between him and whoever else in the world, there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by himself... I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature, offer me anything with which I am able to compare it or to explain it. Here everything is extraordinary." Napoleon (Found in Chapter 5, The Jesus I Never Knew)

Historian Latourette on the Influence of Jesus

"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." (Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette, as quoted in More Than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell, Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Ill., p. 8)

History Incomprehensible Without Christ

Philosopher, theologian and orientalist Ernest Renan observed, "Jesus was the greatest religious genius that ever lived. His beauty is eternal, and his reign shall never end. Jesus is in every respect unique, and nothing can be compared with him. All history is incomprehensible without Christ." (Source: More Than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell, Tyndale House, Wheaton, Illinois, copyright 1977, p. 8.)

Historian Lecky on Impact of Jesus

"It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice?. The simple record of these three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists." (Noted British historian William Lecky, from his History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1903, Vol. 2, pp. 8,9)

Psychiatrist on Sermon on the Mount

"If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene - if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbiage - if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison. For nearly two thousand years the Christian world has been holding in its hands the complete answer to its restless and fruitless yearnings. Here?rests the blueprint for successful human life with optimism, mental health, and contentment." - Psychiatrist J.T. Fisher (J. T. Fisher and L. S. Hawley, A Few Buttons Missing, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1951, p. 273)

Harvard Law Professor Puts the Resurrection on Trial

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Simon Greenleaf "won a high reputation for legal scholarship early in his career. He accepted Joseph Story's invitation to teach at Harvard Law School. "Much of the excellence of Harvard Law School is attributed to these two men. Greenleaf?s Treatise on the Law of Evidence (3 vol., 1842?53) has been considered "the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure" (Knott, The Dictionary of American Biography). Not a believer at the time he was first teaching at Harvard, Greenleaf was challenged by some of his students to take the testimonies of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John concerning the resurrection of Jesus and subject them to the rigors of a legal investigation. He took their challenge seriously, looked at the gospels painstakingly through the eyes of a careful lawyer, and became a believer. He ended up writing a defense of Christianity entitled "Testimony of the Evangelists." In case you're interested, here's a portion of what he wrote about the testimony of Jesus' disciples: "Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, [early Christians received] contempt, opposition... and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate, and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only [continued] their work with increased vigor and resolution... The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of like heroic constancy, patience, and unblenching courage... If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. From these [considerations] there is no escape but in the perfect conviction and admission that they were good men, testifying to that which they had carefully observed...and well knew to be true." [Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists (Kregel, 1995-reprint from 1847 edition), pp. 31-32.] British Legal Mind on the Resurrection Evidence, Resurrection, Jesus An Englishman, John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst, is recognized as "one of the greatest legal minds in British history." He was the solicitor-general of the British government, attorney-general of Great Britain, three times high chancellor of England, and elected as high steward of the University of Cambridge, "thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him." After Copley's death, some personal papers were discovered which contained his comments concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the light of legal evidence. He wrote, "I know pretty well what evidence is; and, I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet." (Source: Wilbur Smith, Therefore Stand, Baker Book House, 1974, p. 425. He gives extensive documentation on p. 584.)

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