Has Jesus Been Exaggerated?

I recently went out on the streets to ask people who they think Jesus is. One thing I kept hearing was that Jesus existed but has been exaggerated over the centuries, becoming something he never really was. This view is understandable – these events happened long ago, with plenty of time for them to be misheard, rewritten for dramatic effect, or spiced up for personal gain. So, has the Jesus story been exaggerated? We can be confident the answer is ‘No.’ Here are three reasons why.

1. We have early accounts that match the modern ones

We might assume that modern accounts about Jesus are exaggerated if we didn’t have any early copies – but we do. In the last 100 years, archaeologists have found more complete copies and fragments of the biblical accounts, often dating back to the 1st and 2nd centuries, preserved in their original language. When scholars compare these ancient documents with our modern accounts, they find no significant changes. This isn’t just opinion – it’s been empirically proven that no major change or exaggeration has taken place over time.

If you open the Bible today, you can have full confidence that what you’re reading is what was written back then. It hasn’t gone through endless rounds of translation, either. Modern Bibles are translated directly from the original language. (If you read Greek, you can even read the originals.) Put simply, these early copies strongly refute the idea that Jesus’ story has been exaggerated over time.

2. All the different early accounts match each other

If you play a game of ‘telephone’ (where kids whisper something down a line), you often end up with wild and funny results. If you play with dozens of different groups, you’d expect dozens of different outcomes. But when it comes to accounts of Jesus, all the different groups say the same essential things: he lived, performed miracles, claimed to be God, died on a cross, and rose from the dead. While different accounts may offer unique perspectives on these events, even the intimate details align.

We could easily write Jesus off as exaggerated if each source told a different story – but the early accounts consistently back each other up. There are 42 unique, surviving texts about Jesus from the first 150 years. That’s the same as we have on Tiberius Caesar. Historians consider that very strong evidence, given how few records survive from 2,000 years ago. These include eyewitness accounts in the Bible from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, and others. They also include early writings by those who followed Jesus, such as Polycarp, Clement, Ignatius, and Justin Martyr, and even writings from Jesus’ opponents like Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian, and Celsus. Together, they create a remarkably cohesive picture, giving us confidence in what happened.

3. These early accounts came from trustworthy writers

We might question the accuracy of the Jesus stories if the writers had much to gain from exaggerating – if they all got rich, famous, and bought private yachts, for instance. But the opposite is true. The writers made their lives considerably harder by writing what they did. Many faced rejection from their own people, the Jews, and severe persecution, or even death, from Rome, which tried to cover up the story. Many gave their lives to pass on these accounts to us, making their testimony especially compelling.

The writers had little incentive to exaggerate. In fact, they had every incentive to keep quiet or even downplay their message. This makes their bold testimony about Jesus particularly captivating and persuasive.

There we have it: three reasons we can be confident that Jesus’ story hasn’t been exaggerated over time. We have the early accounts from multiple different authors who were credible witnesses.

This leaves you with a conundrum. If the history is trustworthy and the accounts haven’t been changed, how will you respond to this? If we’re honest, many people use the idea that ‘Jesus has probably been exaggerated’ as a reason to ignore him. But don’t let that assumption become a smokescreen. The truth is too significant to miss.