MERGED: The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 1) & (Part 2)

[Jenny A]

H-M,

You keep suggesting we have as much reason to believe in Jesus as we do in George Washington.

So, I'm going to do a little thought experiment in which I adjust the evidence we have for George Washington to match what we have for Jesus. We'll set the stage by re-writing history so the English won the war in 1780 and we're still all living under British rule here in the U.S.

We have a collection of letters written to grange halls between 1810 and 1830 concerning why people should not be taxed without representation. Paul, the writer of these letters claims to have spoken with George Washington in a dream. Rather than talk to George's fellow patriots who were supposed to be living in Boston, Paul goes on a speaking tour through the deep south. According to his letters Paul speaks with George's brother and one of George's early converts four years later. But Paul still only talks about what George revealed to him in his dream. The letters refer to a doctrinal struggle between Paul and other supporters of George Washington.

The letters we have are copies of copies of copies. Some of them are obvious forgeries as they don't match the style of Paul's other letters. Others have obviously been tampered with.

Between 1830 and 1850 several biographies of George Washington are published anonymously. The biographies describe Washington's birth and a couple stories about his childhood. The biographies also talk about what Washington said. Unlike Paul, they quote Washington often and at length concerning a political philosophy that concerns many things in addition to taxation without representation. Three of the biographies are very much alike though they can't agree about the dates for important events in Washington's life. The fourth is quite different. All of them allude to crowds of people following Washington around while he give anti-British speeches. In all of the biographies George Washington is hung by the British for sedition sometime between 1778 and 1785. In one of the biographies American loyalists asked the British to hang him and an American governor was persuaded to do it. All of the biographies state that Washington survived the hanging and fled to Canada after appearing before large cheering crowds in Washington.

The author of the fourth biography also writes a book about how the followers of Washington spread out over the U.S. to preach the good news about democracy. That book includes much about Paul, though it appears to contradict Paul's letters in many places. It suggests that Paul and Washington's followers never had any political disagreements. Paul is shot by a firing squad for sedition.

In the 1890s three people mention in letters that there are followers of George in America who are being harassed for sedition. It's not clear from the letter who George is, but the people following him are sure he was hung.

About 1890 an American traitor living in London writes a history of the American Colonies in which he attributes the philosophy of John Locke to early American Colonists who taught it to the French. He portrays the Blue Ox Babe as a real ox. In a couple of lines towards the end he mentions that there was a great American philosopher named George who convinced the Americans and the French in no taxation without representation sometime in the late 1700s. Parts of these two sentences about George including the claim that he was hung are obviously forged.

From 1890 until about 1980 no one but George Washington seditionists studies George Washington, and what they study is not his life but his political sayings in the four biographies and Paul's letters.

All of these George Washington scholars agree that George existed. Do you?