A most interesting obsevation! Only recently, I caught several segments of an EWTN series on Jesus - the Son of God, hosted by Raymond deSouza. In one episode, he points to all of the figures throughout history that have been acclaimed as 'religious'. ONLY Jesus claimed to be the Son of the Living God (the others were either prophets or philosophers). So, was His claim true? Was He telling the truth or a lie? He then analyzes the life and actions of Jesus, point by point, ultimately noting that were He a false prophet, He would not have subjected Himself to the humiliation, persecution and crucifixion. As deSouza stated: No one dies for a lie.
It was an excellent series that I plan to purchase for use with the adults in my parish. We could all benefit from his dissertation.
He would have been a fool as well.
If this is the Great Lie, it is a magnificent one, and I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that we would be giving the universe a compliment it didn’t deserve.
How is it that Jesus manages to answer prayers 2000 years later? That’s a neat little magic trick.