Jesus: Liar, Lord, Lunatic, or Legend? Jesus claimed to be the Messiah--to be the Lord. The British writer, CS. Lewis, held that Jesus could not have been merely a good man he was who he claimed to be-the Lord, or he was a liar or a lunatic There is no middle ground. The life and ministry of Jesus as depicted in the New Testament shows that Jesus was neither a liar or a lunatic. Is there another possibility Could the New Testament claims about Jesus be simply a legend? It is not reasonable to think that the New Testament account of Jesus is just a legend. There was not enough time between the life of Jesus and the written accounts of his life fora legend to develop. For example, within thirty years after the resurrection of Christ, the Apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15, which tells of Jesus rising from the grave. Inverse he wrote that the resurrected Christ appeared to more than five hundred Christian brothers, most of whom were still alive at the time Paul wrote. Certainly Paul was not proclaiming a legend If he wrote falsely, there were plenty of people who could dispute his words. These living witnesses had seen Jesus before and after the resurrection. The entire New Testament was written within seventy-five years following the resurrection of Christ, so there was not time fora legend to evolve.
