My Case for God. My Case for Christ. A Case for Jesus (Introduction)

Most people I encounter actually do believe there’s a God—some sort of higher power that created “all of this”. But when it comes to Jesus, that’s where the water gets murky.

I’ll save my actual “God and Jesus encounters” for later on in the book, and for now focus on some of the facts surrounding Jesus Christ. 

Here are a few commonly used terms that I’d like to define for the sake of clarity:

The Messiah: The Anointed King; Savior of the World; Jesus Christ.

Prophecy: A prediction of what will happen in the future.⁴

BC / AD: Our entire calendar system of years is based on BC/AD. BC means “Before Christ’s birth” and AD means “Anno Domini”, which is a Medieval Latin term meaning “in the year of our Lord”. People commonly think AD means “After Death” (i.e., after the death of Jesus), but this is not the case. Otherwise, there would be a period of about 33 years (associated with the life of Christ), which would not be present in the BC or AD time scales. 

The Bible: A collection of 66 books written by about 40 authors, in three different languages, on three different continents, over a span of ~1600 years. The Bible claims to be inspired and inerrant. This means that the Bible asserts that it is from God and is without error in everything it addresses.⁵

Old Testament: The first part of the Christian Bible, comprising thirty-nine books and corresponding approximately to the Hebrew Bible.⁶ It was written between ~1500 BC and ~400 BC.⁷

New Testament: The second part of the Christian Bible, originally written in Greek, recording the life and teachings of Jesus and his earliest followers. It includes the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, twenty-one epistles by St. Paul and others, and the book of Revelation.⁸ Scholars don’t all agree on when the books of the New Testament were written, but the general consensus is that it was written sometime between ~30 AD and ~100 AD.⁹

The book of Genesis: First book of the Bible, written
~1445 BC.¹⁰ Located in the Old Testament.

The book of Psalms: 19^th book of the Bible, completed by ~460 BC.¹¹ Located in the Old Testament.

The book of Isaiah: 23^rd book of the Bible, written
~740 - 680 BC.¹² Located in the Old Testament.

The book of Jeremiah: 24^th book of the Bible, written
~627 - 585 BC.¹³ Located in the Old Testament.

The book of Micah: 33^rd book of the Bible, written
~700 BC.¹⁴ Located in the Old Testament.

The book of Zechariah: 38^th book of the Bible, written ~520 - 518 BC.¹⁵ Located in the Old Testament.

The book of Matthew: 40^th book of the Bible, written
~60 AD.¹⁶ Located in the New Testament.

The book of Mark: 41^st book of the Bible, written ~60 AD.¹⁷ Located in the New Testament.

The book of Luke: 42^nd book of the Bible, written ~60 AD.¹⁸ Located in the New Testament.

The book of John: 43^rd book of the Bible, written ~80 AD - 90 AD.¹⁹ Located in the New Testament.

The book of Romans: 45^th book of the Bible, written
~55 AD.²⁰ Located in the New Testament.

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