Everything You Always Wanted to Know about God (But Were Afraid to Ask)

Eric Metaxas

Description

We all have questions about Jesus, but very few of us get the answers we're looking for--if the answers even exist! New York Times bestselling author Eric Metaxas understands how hard it can be to get hard truths, which is why he wrote this hilarious, entertaining guide to the most influential individual to have ever lived on the face of the earth. Like his previous books in this style, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God is a book that takes questions about the Son of God seriously enough to get silly--where appropriate. Metaxas covers questions about Jesus' life (Did he live at all?), his death, (If he truly was the Son of God, why did he have to die?), his resurrection, (Did Jesus really come back after death?), and much more.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 14 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441224217
• Langue: English

Extrait

PRAISE FOR
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God
For his stylish and entertaining treatment of this subject, Metaxas deserves a prize.
Dick Cavett
Emmy Award-winning Host of The Dick Cavett Show
Quick, witty, engaging and often profound…vintage Metaxas. Good and profitable reading.
Chuck Colson
Founder of Prison Fellowship and Author of How Now Shall We Live
Theologically coherent and academically robust answers, written in a readable, informal and often witty style. Brilliant!
Baroness Cox
House of Lords, Westminster, London
I am absolutely smitten with this book! The answers are so good humored and easy to read that you almost forget how profound they are.
Ann B. Davis
Alice of The Brady Bunch
An excellent primer on the most important questions of life, engagingly presented in question-and-answer format. A timely and useful book for a searching, spiritually hungry America.
George Gallup, Jr.
Founding Chairman of the George H. Gallup International Institute
It is a pleasure to recommend this book. It is written simply. It is direct. I’ve never encountered this subject dealt with so beautifully as it is dealt with in this book.
Bob Grant
Host of The Bob Grant Show
I have never seen a book like this…an extraordinary compendium of questions that people find themselves asking. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God is an evangelist’s dream!
Reverend John Guest
Pastor of Christ Church at Grove Farm, Sewickley, Pennsylvania
The difficulty is not to gush. Eric has written a wise, funny, and disarming book, one that will, I’m sure, be handed around dorms, churches and anywhere smart, curious people (both believers and unbelievers) can get their hands on it.
Tim Keller
Author of the New York Times bestselling The Reason for God
Eric Metaxas is one of the funniest people I know.
Moby
Recording Artist
Rarely do a humorist, a logician and an orthodox theological popularizer inhabit the same skin, so—quick now!—join Eric Metaxas in this dialogue with skeptics and let him deftly disabuse you of your vexing bewilderments.
McCandlish Phillips
Author and former New York Times reporter
How anyone writes a book on God that reads like a can’t-put-it-down thriller is a miracle itself. Metaxas doesn’t just knock my socks off—he knocks my robe off!
Judge Jeanine Pirro
Former Westchester County D.A.
Host of the nationally syndicated Judge Jeanine Pirro television program
Finally, a book of apologetics that you can give to your friends without cringing!
Lauren Winner
Author of Girl Meets God

© 2010 Eric Metaxas
Published in Association with Ambassador Literary Agency, Nashville, TN.
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Baker Books edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-2421-7
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2011
Ebook corrections 07.16.2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version . Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Other versions used are:
KJV — King James Version. Authorized King James Version.
NIV —Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. Copyright © 1973,
Introduction
1. Not Just a Figment of Someone’s Imagination
Historical Proof for Jesus
2. A Messiah by Any Other Name
The Name of Jesus
3. The New Testament Proves the Old
Messianic Prophecies
4. Lunatic, Liar or Lord?
Jesus Proved Who He Is
5. He Said What ?
Jesus Claimed to Be God
6. Clueless on the Heights
The Mount of Transfiguration
7. The First Christian Was a Jew?
The Jewishness of Christianity
8. A Rebel with a Cause
Jesus, the Leader to a New Kingdom
9. The Lost Years of Jesus, the Not-Always-Nice Guy
Jesus’ Youth and Sarcasm
10. What Love Has to Do with It
Love Your Enemies
11. Swiped, Swooning or Sprung?
The Crucifixion and the Resurrection
12. The Whole Truth and Nothing But
Scriptures and How Jesus Communicated
13. Clearing the Air
God’s Ways Are Not Our Ways
14. A Sin by Any Other Name Is Still a . . .
Jesus and the Problem of Sin
15. Making the Cut
Forgiveness
16. What Came Down Must Go Up and Out
The Ascension and the Great Commission
17. The Devil Made You Do It?
Satan, the Adversary of Jesus
18. What Do I Have to Fear But
The Second Coming
19. Is Neptune a Christian Planet?
What Being a Christian Means
Endnotes
About the Author
Back Cover
A. Hello there! My name is Eric Metaxas.
Q. Who?
A. The author! In fact, I’ll be the author for the rest of the book.
Q. Oh.
A. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable, and feel free to make your way to the salad bar at any time. I’ll be back in a minute for your drink order…
Q. What are you talking about? I thought this was a question and answer book.
A. I kid around sometimes. Just to make sure you’re paying attention.
Q. Oh.
A. And to lighten things up.
Q. Great. But wasn’t I supposed to go first? To ask a question?
A. What do you mean?
Q. Well, I’m Q—which stands for “Question.” Don’t questions come before answers?
A. I guess you’ve got me there.
Q. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, I’d like a cream soda. No, wait! Make it an orange Fanta.
A. Super. I’ll be right back with that.

Q. Wait a sec! Before we begin, I’d like to point out that the title of this book is…
A. Go ahead, you can say it.
Q. Well, I guess I think it’s a bit ridiculous.
A. You have a point. A lot of folks ask me if the book literally includes everything everybody always wanted to know about God but were afraid to ask. And the answer to that question is the simplest of all: no.
Q. But isn’t that like lying, putting that title on the cover of the book and setting up that kind of expectation?
A. Um, no.
Q. Why not?
A. Because there’s so much to say on the subject of God that a hundred books—or even a thousand—couldn’t do the subject justice. In fact, this book is the Jesus edition , so we really zoom in on Him, and He’s just one-third of the Trinity.
Q. The what?
A. Never mind. Let’s just get started, okay?
Q. Okay!
Not Just a Figment of Someone’s Imagination
Historical Proof for Jesus
Q. Okay, let’s just get super basic: How do we know that Jesus really existed?
A. Well, His mother sure thought He existed.
Q. Now cut that out. Can you be serious for one second? We just started.
A. Of course I can be serious.
Q. Then—seriously—how do we know Jesus was a real person? It’s all so incredibly long ago. I mean, how do we know the disciples didn’t just make Him up?
A. Actually that’s a very good question—and important, too.
Q. Thanks!
A. And the simple answer is that we have firsthand witnesses. And we have gazillions of documents that attest to His actual existence.
Q. Gazillions is not a real number.
A. I know that! I simply meant many documents. But there are literally thousands.
Q. Thousands?
A. Yes.
Q. But how can we trust them?
A. The same way we trust any historical document. Historians are very rigorous that way. They don’t have a dog in the fight, so to speak.
Q. Or a God…
A. Uh, yeah, or a God. Very clever. But it’s true. Historians are über -rigorous on the issue of whether a historical figure was actually born, walked on this earth and then died.
Q. So wait—historians say He existed? Not just theologians, but actual historians?
A. Absolutely. Jesus was a historical figure! You can quibble with what He said. Or you can quibble about exactly who He was. But you cannot seriously question whether He existed. He did. Period.

You can quibble with what Jesus said. Or you can quibble about exactly who He was. But you cannot seriously question whether He existed. He did. Period.
Q. Would you mind giving me some specifics?
A. There are more specifics on this than you might want…
Q. Try me.
A. Okay, first of all there are two kinds of historical documents. There are the historical documents of the New Testament—
Q. Right…
A. And then there are the extra-biblical historical documents.
Q. Okay. If memory serves, you talk about the reliability of the New Testament documents in one of the previous Everything About God books, so maybe we should talk about the extra-biblical documents here.
A. Then you’ve read the other books?!
Q. Of course! I’m in them! I’m Q, remember? I’m in all these books. Didn’t we just go over that?
A. Oh, right…sorry. You look different. Did you get a haircut?
Q. Sheesh…
A. I guess I didn’t know if you were literally the same Q or were just playing the role of Q in this book.
Q. What?
A. I thought you might just be playing the role of Q. That’s not so strange. Did you know that there were actually seven Lassies?
Q. Yes, I did, and I don’t appreciate being compared to a dog, even one as wonderful as Lassie. Besides, I thought you said there wasn’t a dog in this fight!
A. Oh, ha ha.
Q. So where were we?
A. I was going to talk about the extra-biblical documents that refer to Jesus.
Q. Right. Okay, for starters, what exactly do you mean by the term “extra-biblical”?
A. It only means documents that are not from the Bible—like books that were written by the Jewish historian Josephus, for example.
Q. Who was Josephus?
A. Glad you asked. Josephus was a non-Christian historian who lived in Rome in the first century. He wrote several books. In one of them, Antiquities of the Jews, written around AD 94, he refers to Jesus.
Q. An actual ancient