The REAL Reason Scientists Know Jesus Was Real

0:00 Wesley, I have this fascinating uh graph in front of me here

0:04 and it shows several things that I find to be really really interesting.

0:08 One of them is that as of 2024,

0:10 the decline of religion has started to level off and actually increase

0:16 a little bit and now 63% of US adults identify as Christian,

0:21 which is roughly 160 million people.

0:25 In 2025, Bible sales hit a 21-year high

0:28 in the United States with 19 million units sold.

0:32 Weekly Bible reading amongst US adults has increased

0:35 to 42% which is up 12% since 2024.

0:39 And in 2024, Christian and gospel music streams in the US

0:42 increased by roughly 20% according to the Washington Times.

0:46 Wesley, what is going on in society if we zoom out?

0:50 I think we're in a unique bubble where we found

0:54 ourselves in a time frame where we're connected more than ever.

1:01 We've kind of come out of a period

1:04 of time where the new atheism is very very popular.

1:08 You had Dawkins, Daniel, uh Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens,

1:14 and they made a big impact in the early 2000s.

1:17 I think we should probably just give some color to what new atheism is.

1:20 Sure.

1:20 Yeah.

1:21 I've actually got a graph here which I'll throw up on the screen

1:22 which shows the rise and then the fall of new atheism.

1:26 I was pulled in by new atheism

1:29 and that meant that I and again I should probably preface my beliefs because

1:32 people are going to want to know what my bias is when I'm asking questions.

1:35 I grew up in a very Christian household up until the age of 18.

1:37 I then became agnostic/ atheist when I started consuming a lot

1:40 of this stuff from Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and all of these people.

1:43 And then I found myself at a point now where I'm just open-minded and curious.

1:46 But I have lots of questions.

1:48 Yeah, you had these individuals who are writing these very influential works.

1:53 But I sometimes wonder whether the new atheism movement worked a lot

1:56 more effectively in print than it did in actual real life.

1:59 Like in terms of the practicality of the application

2:03 of the things that were being talked about, especially in regards to meaning,

2:08 if you apply ideas like you being a product of time plus matter plus chance,

2:13 what does that actually give you in terms of the ultimate identity questions?

2:18 And so I think I think that's true in a lot

2:21 of circumstances where you have these seeds that are planted

2:24 and they grow and they produce trees that produce fruit

2:29 that are kind of hard to digest in their actual application.

2:32 And along with that, we have a world that's very complex.

2:37 We're more connected than we ever have been.

2:39 I don't know if we're truly we were ever

2:42 truly meant to know as much information as we do,

2:45 especially about things that are going on around

2:48 the world and things that are hard to to comprehend.

2:53 And so what I think that all kind of adds

2:55 up to is people asking questions about, okay, I'm here.

3:00 I'm right now trying to figure out what's going on.

3:04 How do I actually find out the answers to a lot of these questions

3:09 that just go beyond the here and the now that I'm experiencing?

3:12 This is what um individuals like James K.

3:14 Smith called the dynamics of disenchantment where

3:18 people are struggling with these transcendent questions,

3:22 questions that are metaphysical that go beyond just

3:25 the here and the now in the world.

3:27 Why is the three pounds of gray matter

3:30 in my brain able to comprehend the complexities of the universe?

3:34 How do I how do I come up with a solution to that problem?

3:38 So, I think that's part of it.

3:39 I think it's kind of moving on in a world

3:42 that just is probably more messy than it's ever been.

3:46 A lot of countries, the UK, Europe,

3:49 Canada, America, all of these western countries,

3:54 they they were founded on these Judeo-Christian ethics of foundations

4:00 that come from the Old and the New Testaments,

4:03 what we call the Bible.

4:05 And a lot of people kind of attempted

4:07 to divorce the religious aspect from the societies.

4:12 And societies became less and less overtly religious in those natures.

4:18 And then a lot of people saw that their parents were no longer going to church.

4:22 Like the Bible wasn't part of kind of the household any longer.

4:26 And I talked to a lot of young people who look

4:29 at that and they say in almost like a rebellion against their parents,

4:34 they're now interested in that.

4:35 Their parents rebelled by disassociating from religion.

4:39 And now I wonder if there's part of a rebellion in kind

4:44 of looking back and trying to reclaim some of that religious stuff.

4:49 I think in part as well this younger

4:51 generation Gen Z's and I guess to some extent

4:54 also millennials have been told to live more

4:58 individualistic lives and that's really been glamorized like be

5:00 your own boss and now we work remotely and stand on your own two feet and we're

5:06 even seeing people getting into sort of relationships later

5:08 and later in their lives and having less children.

5:10 So they're more it appears people are more unanchored than

5:13 they've ever been and that was to some degree glamorized.

5:17 Um but it also appears that when we are unanch anchored when we don't have

5:21 responsibilities or we're not part of something mental

5:25 health issues um are quick quick to follow

5:28 and for this generation they're suffering

5:29 the most with those types of mental health

5:31 issues and then one would assert that they would therefore be searching more for

5:35 answers to some of these existential questions

5:38 expressive individualism I think it rose that's the kind

5:40 of the terminology in soc in the sociological literature that they

5:44 refer to it but I I think you touched

5:46 on a good point in that like as we've removed God,

5:49 part of the intellectual light enlightenment was

5:52 that we would move away from the shackles

5:56 of religiosity and the concept of a creator

5:59 and that would lead us into a utopia.

6:02 And I think the more and more we've removed that from society

6:06 that hasn't decreased our levels of anxiety and depression and meaning.

6:10 I I think it's increased it.

6:12 Yeah.

6:12 And especially celebrity worship, social media,

6:16 building a following of your own like sort of low-key narcissism.

6:22 Yeah.

6:21 Has made us more and more and more and more important.

6:24 And that seems to correlate with worse and worse and worse mental health

6:27 when you start to become more individualistic

6:29 and think more and more about yourself and self-importance

6:34 versus others and a bigger picture.

6:36 Mhm.

6:37 I think we were created for community.

6:39 I think we are as human beings a creature

6:42 that is created for community ultimately like cards on the table

6:45 as a Christian because I believe we are created in the image

6:48 of a God who exists in a set of living loving

6:51 relationships like that's what the trinity is when we talk

6:55 about that idea within Christian theology God exists in father son

7:01 and holy spirit and so being created in the image

7:04 of God part of that is you are created for relationship ship.

7:09 And so in a society that's continually removing us,

7:12 you know, you need to be an influencer.

7:14 You're influencing everybody else

7:16 when I think we're not created to be lone wolves or lone rangers.

7:21 We're created to live amongst community and have

7:26 that be something that likewise gives us fulfillment.

7:29 It's not that people who are leaders are, you know,

7:32 rise to the top are wrong by any stretch, but in a society where we're alone

7:37 together because we are sitting behind computer screens

7:43 and we're talking to hundreds of thousands

7:45 if not millions of people in some cases, but but we're secluded.

7:49 I think that that does something to our souls because

7:53 we were made to be in relationship with other people.

7:57 I agree with everything you've said as it

8:02 relates to the sort of crisis of meaning

8:03 in society and I also agree with many of your reasons as to why that's occurred.

8:07 The part that I've always struggled with is

8:09 then the answer being Christianity or any other religion.

8:14 Sure.

8:14 I agree with, you know, so many of the things you've said,

8:16 but then I my brain has, I think, especially after the age of 18 when I

8:20 started reading about all this new atheist stuff

8:22 and these questions of evil and am I going to hell and all these other things,

8:28 I've not been able to get there.

8:30 But I'm having this conversation with you today because I

8:32 am open-minded and although I've got like difficult questions to ask,

8:36 I'm in pursuit of the truth, not any particular ideology or answer.

8:41 So, how do you take someone like

8:43 me who agrees that there's clearly something missing,

8:45 who believes that there's something transcendent?

8:48 Like, it'd be a crazy thing to assume that this is it.

8:50 I I think Yeah.

8:51 How do you take them from this position to

8:54 believing that what's written in this book in front of me, the Bible, Yeah.

8:58 is the thing that should guide my life, right?

9:01 Because I I like again, I say, I'm going to say this again, that like

9:05 I think I require a really high standard

9:06 of evidence because of the way that I am.

9:09 Yeah.

9:09 You know, I think there's a historical case for it which

9:11 I'm very much invested in because my training formerly is in historioggraphy.

9:16 I study ancient biblical manuscripts and their kind

9:19 of reliability and fidelity over the last couple of millennia.

9:26 So looking at some of those manuscripts that actually

9:28 can trace back to the actual time frame

9:31 of Jesus and answering questions like is what we

9:33 have now what the original authors wrote back then?

9:35 So, I think there's a historical question to it.

9:38 And I in my own personal investigation genuinely think that the evidence,

9:42 the publicly available evidence gets us back

9:45 to not only the time frame of Jesus,

9:48 but to early eyewitness testimony that proclaims that this first century

9:52 Jewish itinerate rabbi who was walking the dusty streets of first

9:56 century made these claims and then there is sufficient evidence to say

10:01 that he predicted his own death and resurrection and did it.

10:05 How do I know Jesus Christ was real?

10:07 And then how do I know what's written in that book is

10:10 real versus just some guys thousands of years ago made a book?

10:15 Yeah.

10:15 So that is a question of historical reliability.

10:19 So there are a couple different ways we could go about it.

10:21 First, we have four biographical accounts of Jesus's life,

10:24 which is very unusual.

10:26 So we call them the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

10:29 Um those aren't actually our earliest source material for the life of Jesus.

10:32 that comes in the person of Paul.

10:35 Paul is actually writing before the gospel accounts and he is uh

10:41 someone who was hostile originally

10:43 to the Christian message and he's persecuting Christians.

10:47 He comes along and he has this radical conversion experience when he's

10:51 traveling to Damascus where he says he's he's literally thrown off a horse.

10:55 He hears God's voice and it's Jesus and he says, "Paul,

10:59 why are you persecuting me?" And then he writes these things

11:02 about his experience and and then ultimately goes and connects

11:07 with the individuals who are who we call the disciples who

11:10 are like this this close Jesus community and connects with them.

11:14 So he's our earliest source but then

11:16 you have these gospel accounts these these biographies

11:18 and the gospels are interesting because they fit

11:21 within the historical framework of ancient Greco Roman biography.

11:26 So let me give you an example.

11:28 The most well-known person in Jesus's day was the emperor.

11:32 His name is Tiberius.

11:33 Tiberius has four biographical accounts that are written about him.

11:37 Valasculus, Casiodio, Sutonius, and Tacitus.

11:41 So, this these are the four guys.

11:42 Okay.

11:43 And what's interesting in sort of a comparative analysis of Jesus

11:47 and those people is that they're all writing around the same time period.

11:52 So the biographies are coming from the first century for Jesus.

11:58 They're coming in this time period where you have an early eyewitness

12:01 testimony for the emperor for the most well-known person in the ancient world.

12:07 All of the sources except for uh

12:09 Valas Peterculus are coming from the second century.

12:13 Val Petculus is coming from the first century.

12:15 He's very close to the source, but he's a paid propagandist.

12:18 So even though he's the earliest, he's the least reliable.

12:21 And for the gospels that comes around to the 4th century.

12:26 So there's a comparison with the source material for someone

12:31 like Jesus even though we really shouldn't have anything about him

12:36 because he's he's kind of a nobody from nowhere in terms

12:40 of the Roman Empire and the grand scheme of things.

12:43 But we have a phenomenal amount of source information for his life.

12:47 If you love the D CEO brand and you watch this channel,

12:50 please do me a huge favor.

12:52 Become part of the 15% of the viewers

12:55 on this channel that have hit the subscribe button.

12:57 It helps us tremendously and the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests.