Reasoning To The Resurrection

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 7: Reasoning To The Resurrection

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by Evan Minton

This is part 6 in a blog post series (and eventually, free Kindle book) on the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 we saw that powerful historical evidence exists for the following 5 facts

1: Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.

2: His tomb was found empty by a group of His women followers the following Sunday Morning.

3: The 12 Disciples believed they saw Jesus alive shortly after His death.

4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. 

5: A skeptic named James converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. 

These are the 5 facts that are granted by nearly every historian and scholar who studies the subject, even the non-Christian ones (e.g., Ehrman, Ludemann, Sanders). These are the minimal facts. In part 1 of this series, I said that the case for Jesus’ resurrection involved two steps. The first step is figuring out what the facts are, and the second step is discerning what the best explanation of those facts are. We accomplished the first step in parts 3-6 of this blog series. Now we come to the second step; what is the best explanation for the 5 aforementioned facts. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Maybe. But let’s see if there’s any other explanation that can account for them first.

Over the two millennia, skeptics have proposed dozens of naturalistic theories to try to account for the resurrection of Jesus. Let’s look at them and see if any of them work. Keep in mind that any acceptable theory must be able to explain all of the evidence, all of the 5 minimal facts. If it fails to explain all 5 facts, then it will be rejected on the basis of lacking explanatory scope.

Theory 1: The Stolen Body Theory (Disciples Edition)

If you recall from part 4, the enemies of Christianity claimed that the disciples came in the middle of the night and stole Jesus’ body (Matthew 28). Then the disciples went out and proclaimed that Jesus rose from the dead. On this theory, the resurrection is nothing but a hoax, a sham. The disciples do a heckin’ bamboozle on the people.[1] Does this naturalistic theory adequately account for the evidence? I don’t think so.

In fact, this is the WEAKEST naturalistic theory there is. Recall from part 5 that church history is unanimous in that all 12 disciples died horrible, gruesome deaths for proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead. James, the brother of John, was beheaded by decree of King Herod Agrippa, Peter was crucified upside down, Thomas was speared to death in India, Matthew died by being dragged by a horse, and Phillip was crucified on an X shaped cross.[2] They could have saved themselves simply by recanting, yet they proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus despite agonizing, brutal torture, despite forfeiting their lives. Why would they do that? Why would they die for a lie?

Now, again, when you bring this point up to skeptics, they’ll say “But that doesn’t prove the resurrection is true any more than Muslims giving up their lives in acts of Jihad proves that Islam is true.” And they’re right. I totally agree with them. But, they’re missing the point. I’m not saying the disciples’ martyrdoms prove that Jesus rose from the dead. I’m saying it proves that they believed he rose from the dead. Martyrdom doesn’t prove the disciples were right; it just proves they sincerely believed what they were saying. To put it another way: while people will die for a lie they think is true, no one will die for a lie they know is false.
And that is the fatal flaw is the Stolen Body Theory. It posits that the disciples stole Jesus’ body and deliberately tried to deceive the masses, and then they willingly endured beatings, torture, and executions for preaching what they consciously believed wasn’t true.

The late Charles Colson, who did prison time for being an accomplice in Watergate but who later became a Christian, wrote:

“Watergate involved a conspiracy to cover up, perpetuated by the closest aids to the President of the United States—the most powerful men in America, who were intensely loyal to their president. But one of them, John Dean, turned states evidence, that is, testified against Nixon, as he put it, “to save his own skin”—and he did so only two weeks after informing the president about what was really going on—two weeks! The real cover-up, the lie, could only be held together for two weeks, and then everybody else jumped ship in order to save themselves. Now, the fact is that all that those around the President were facing was an embarrassment, maybe prison. Nobody’s life was at stake. But what about the disciples? Twelve powerless men, peasants really, were facing not just embarrassment or political disgrace, but beatings, stonings, execution. Every single one of the disciples insisted, to their dying breaths, that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead. Don’t you think that one of those apostles would have cracked before being beheaded or stoned? That one of them would have made a deal with the authorities? None did.”[3]

As if the unreasonableness of positing that the disciples willingly suffered and died for a lie wasn’t bad enough, this theory has other issues. For one, we’ve seen that Paul and James converted to Christianity because they believed they saw the risen Jesus. This theory cannot account for their conversion experiences.

This theory fails because

1: The disciples died for preaching the resurrection. Liars make poor martyrs.

2: It doesn’t explain why Paul believed he saw Jesus post-crucifixion.

3: It doesn’t explain why James believed he saw Jesus post-crucifixion.

Theory 2: Stolen Body Theory (Other Person Edition)

There’s a variation of the theory above which says while the disciples didn’t steal the body, perhaps someone else came along and stole the body. Then, when the disciples came and found that the tomb was empty, they concluded that Jesus rose from the dead. The disciples aren’t hoaxers; they were just as fooled as the people they preached to.

There are several problems with this theory. First of all, in part 5 of this series, we saw that the disciples believed that they had seen Jesus with their own eyes. They weren’t convinced on the basis of the empty tomb alone, but by seeing Jesus alive and well. Secondly, this theory doesn’t account for the conversion of Paul. Theft of the body is probably the first thing that would have come to Paul’s mind. We saw in chapter 4 that Paul went from Christian Persecutor to Christian Missionary because he, like the disciples, believed he saw Jesus appear to him. James likewise went from skepticism to belief on the basis of a postmortem appearance.

This variation of the stolen body theory cannot account for any of the postmortem appearances. The only minimal fact that it can adequately explain is the empty tomb, nothing else.

Finally, this theory is implausible on its face. Who exactly would have had a motivation to steal Jesus’ body anyway? The Pharisees wouldn’t have stolen Jesus’ body. They were well aware that removal of the body might create an appearance of resurrection, which is what they feared, which is why they had guards placed at the tomb (Matthew 27-28). The Romans don’t appear to have any motivation to take Jesus’ body out of the tomb. And we already know the disciples wouldn’t have stolen the body. If they did, they would have known the resurrection was a lie, and people don’t die for what they know is a lie. Who exactly is supposed to be the culprit here?

This theory fails because

1: The disciples were convinced on the basis of a postmortem appearance.

2: Paul was convinced on the basis of a postmortem appearance.

3: James was convinced on the basis of a postmortem appearance.

4: There’s no plausible candidate for corpse thievery.

Theory 3: Hallucination Theory

In parts 5 and 6, we saw that the disciples, Paul, and James, believed that they saw the risen Jesus. They truly believed the risen Jesus appeared to them. Skeptical scholars have tried to explain this belief in the appearances as a result of hallucination. Perhaps they all hallucinated the risen Jesus.

Ask any psychologist you come across and they’ll tell you that hallucinations are occurrences that happen in the minds of individuals. They’re like dreams in this way. Imagine a group of your friends came up to you one day and said: “Boy, we all had one nice dream last night, didn’t we?” You would probably think that they were pulling a practical joke on you. You would never take seriously their claim that they all simultaneously had the exact same dream. This is because dreams are individual occurrences. By the very nature of the case, they cannot be shared experiences. Hallucinations are the same way.

Now, the extremely early creed that I told you about in part 5 of this series tells us that Jesus appeared to several groups of people. He appeared to all of the original disciples, then to James, then 500 individuals at the same time, and finally to Paul. Do you honestly expect me to believe that they all hallucinated? They all had the exact same hallucination!? Impossible! It’s impossible for 500 individuals to have the same hallucination at exactly the same time. This would be just as likely as the entire city of New York having the same dream on the same night! But not only did Jesus appear to 500 people at the same time, but he also appeared to multiple groups on different occasions. Do you expect me to believe that multiple groups of people on multiple different occasions all had the exact same hallucination?
Lee Strobel, during his investigation of the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, asked a medical expert on the possibility of 500 people hallucinating the risen Jesus. This expert said that for a group of 500 people to witness the exact same hallucination of a raised Jesus would “be a bigger miracle than the resurrection itself!”[4]

Moreover, not only are group hallucinations statistically impossible, but hallucinations of any kind are uncommon. Hallucinations are usually induced by sleep deprivation, drugs, a high fever, or mental instability. If none of these 3 factors are present, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to have a hallucination. As far as we know, none of the disciples, Paul, or James were insomniacs, sick, or druggies.

In their book “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus”[5], Gary Habermas and Mike Licona tell of Navy Seals who were enduring through Hell week. At one point, the seals reported starting having hallucinations one night while they were paddling in a raft at night. They all hallucinated at the same time, BUT they did not have the same hallucination. They had different hallucinations. One of them said he saw an octopus come out of the water and wave at him. Another said he saw a train coming towards them on the water. Another said he saw a wall that they would crash into if they persisted in paddling. When the octopus, the train, and the wall were pointed out to the rest of the group, no one saw any of the things except the one who pointed the thing out. They were all hallucinating, but they were having different hallucinations. So, even if on the off chance, all of the disciples, Paul, and James were in the frame of mind to hallucinate, it’s still unlikely that they’d have the same hallucination. Like the Navy Seals, they’d likely all have different hallucinations, perhaps only one of them being Jesus.

Moreover, even if the impossible did occur, and the minds of all these different groups of people produced hallucinations of Jesus, that would still leave the empty tomb unaccounted for. What happened to Jesus’ body? Why is it gone?

This theory fails because

1: Jesus appeared to The Twelve Disciples, Paul, James, and 500 individuals. There were multiple group appearances. It is statistically impossible that all of these people would have the exact same hallucination, even if they were in the frame of mind to hallucinate.

2: It doesn’t account for the empty tomb.

Theory 4: Group Think 

Some skeptics have considered that perhaps the disciples were so in anticipation of Jesus’ return from the dead that they talked themselves into believing that He rose from the dead. One day they went to the tomb and John was like “Peter, I think I see Jesus, over there! Do you see him?” and Peter was like “Oh, yeah! I think I see him too!” and they kind of talked themselves into it. Well, this couldn’t be the case either. Why? Because you have to be in anticipation that you’re going to experience something like that. You have to be primed for it. They weren’t! There are four reasons why the groupthink theory is untenable.

1: Jesus died. Jews weren’t expecting a dying messiah, but a messiah who would be a conquering warrior king, one who would throw off the yoke of Rome.[6]

2: According to the Old Testament (which Jews call the “Tanakh”), anyone hung on a tree was under God’s curse. This is mentioned in Deuteronomy 21:23. Since Roman crosses were made out of wood, they were technically trees, so people would often times speak of the crucified as “being hung on a tree.” And since this was in the minds of Jews, the way in which Jesus died would have only served to convince the disciples that Caiaphas and the others were right in condemning Jesus as a blasphemer and a heretic.

3: Given what the Jews believed about the bodily resurrection, no one would have been anticipating Jesus’ return. Jews believed that all people would rise from the dead at the end of the world, but they never expected any isolated person to get out of their grave right smack dab in the middle of human history.

4: And if that weren’t enough, consider that some of the people who experienced a sighting of Jesus were skeptics… such as James the half-brother of Jesus. We know based on the historical evidence cited in the previous blog post that James did not believe in Jesus during Jesus’ lifetime Saul Of Tarsus was killing Christians because he considered them to be the worst of heretics! He experienced a sighting of Jesus risen from the dead, and he became The Apostle Paul. These former skeptics were not in any way living in anticipation of Jesus’ return.

As you can see, the disciples were not in the expectation that Jesus would rise from the dead. In fact, they had every predisposition to the contrary. And yet, they all believed they saw Jesus alive after His death!

Theory 5: The Swoon Theory 

Some skeptics have tried to adequately account for the 5 minimal facts by saying that maybe Jesus didn’t really die in the first place. Maybe he merely fainted on the cross and then the cool, damp air of the tomb sort of roused him around into consciousness. Jesus then left the tomb, came to his disciples and presented Himself to them. Since they presumed he was dead, it’s only natural that they should infer that Jesus came back to life, right? So, we don’t have a miraculous resurrection, simply a fortuitous resuscitation. This would explain the empty tomb and the postmortem appearances. This theory is known in the literature as “The Swoon Theory,” and there are several problems with it.

The following descriptions are very graphic; reader’s discretion is advised.

First of all, given the nature of pre-crucifixion scourging, and of the crucifixion itself, it is extremely unlikely that a crucifixion victim could walk away alive.

When a to-be-crucified person was scourged, they would be given 40 lashes. History tells us that the Roman 40 lashes were from a whip of braided leather thongs, with metal balls, broken pieces of sheep bone, broken glass, and basically anything sharp that would cut a person. These sharp pieces of sheep bone, metal, and broken glass were woven into the braided leather thongs. When the whip would strike the flesh, these would cause deep bruises, and the flesh would be cut severely. You can easily imagine how shredded a person’s back would be after being cut in 40 different places with multiple blades!

According to Dr. Alexander Methrell, the cuts and force of the beating could shred the back so much that the spine of the victim was sometimes exposed![7] The whipping would have gone all the way down the shoulders to the back, and the back of the legs. One physician who has studied Roman beatings said: “As the flogging continued the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh.”[8]

Eusebius, a third-century historian, described scourging with the following words: “The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.”

The pre-crucifixion scourging was so horrific that the white of the spine was sometimes exposed (according to both Dr. Alexander Methrell and The Journal Of American Medical Association, March edition from 1986), and that the condemned victim’s veins, muscles, sinews, and bowels would become visible from the outside! This is the type of horrific beating that Jesus endured!

The result of such a hellish beating would mean that Jesus would very likely go into Hypovolemic shock.[9] Hypovolemic shock is caused by severe blood loss. It causes four symptoms to occur. First, the heart races in a desperate attempt to replace all the blood that was lost, second, the blood pressure plummets bringing about fainting or collapsing, third, urine production in the kidneys comes to an end to preserve what little liquid is left in the body, and fourth, the person has an overwhelming thirst come over them.

When you read the gospel accounts of Jesus’ execution, these symptoms are evident in Jesus. At one point, Jesus falls while carrying his cross, and Simon of Cyrene is forced to help Jesus carry his cross the rest of the way. Later, when Jesus was on the cross, He said “I thirst,” and then a Roman soldier dipped a sponge in vinegar and stuck it up to Jesus’ mouth for him to drink (see John 19:28-29). Jesus was in critical condition even before He was crucified!

Jesus then carried His cross to the site of the crucifixion, and the Romans nailed Him to it.

Now, how does crucifixion kill its victims? Scientific experiments have been done on volunteers to test what the effects of hanging on a cross would have. These were controlled circumstances, so there was no real danger of these people being harmed. While these volunteers were hanging on the cross, they would mention having difficulty breathing. They would have to push up and down in order to breathe. Eventually, they’d get too exhausted to push up and down anymore, so the scientist would take the person down off the cross at the volunteer’s request.

What these experiments showed was that crucifixion victim die from suffocation. Once Jesus was hanging vertically, the weight of his body and the position of his arms put great stress on the diaphragm, and would put his chest in an inhaled position. So in order to exhale, Jesus would have had to push up on his feet and take a breath, but each time he did this he’d be pushing on the nail in his feet tearing the muscle until it locked against the tarsal bones in his feet (not to mention he’d be scraping his back against the coarse wood of the cross). Finally, with the pressure on his chest eased he’d be able to exhale. He would push up to exhale and then come back down to inhale. Then go up to exhale, and then come back down to inhale. Over, and over, and over. But eventually, exhaustion would take over, and he could no longer push himself up to breathe. He would just sag there and die of asphyxiation. The Roman soldiers would have noticed when a person was dead once he stopped pushing up. And look, you can’t fake the inability to breathe for very long.

In fact, when the Romans wanted to speed up death, they’d break the legs of the people on the crosses with a massive club. Then they wouldn’t be able to push up to breathe, and death would come quickly. However, they didn’t do this to Jesus because they saw that He was already dead, but just to make sure, they drove a spear through him. It punctured both his heart and his lung. The gospel of John tells us that when he did that, blood and water gushed out (John 19:34). This single fact proves that not only was Jesus dead, but it also tells us what He died of; heart failure, due to shock and constriction of the heart detected by the presence of fluid in the pericardium. In this instance, the heart has ceased beating. This brought about an accumulation of fluid in Jesus’ heart, which is called “pericardial effusion.” In addition to this, it also brought about a collection of fluid in the lungs, which is called “pleural effusion.” These two fluids cannot be present if the person’s heart is still beating.

By the way, for those who want to doubt John’s description of the blood and water, I have this to say to you: we have excellent reason to believe that John is telling the truth here. For one thing, John was an uneducated fisherman. Do you think he would know about “pericardial effusion” and “pleural effusion”? Of course not! While anyone would expect to see a pierced body gush blood, not many even today would expect clear fluid to come out. Yet, that’s exactly what occurs in the case of heart failure due to shock and constriction of the heart. I didn’t even know about this phenomenon until I read about it in Lee Strobel’s The Case For Christ. Moreover, this isn’t something John is likely to make up either. Given his lack of medical knowledge, having water come out of Jesus’ side would make as much sense to him as having Skittles pour out. So, despite being mentioned in only one source, we still have reason to believe this description is true.

This theory fails because:

It was impossible for Jesus to survive this whole ordeal.

1: Jesus was in hypovolemic shock from the pre-crucifixion scourging alone! Jesus was in critical condition even on his way to the cross (hypovolemic shock), so he would have bled out quickly.

2: But if bleeding out didn’t kill him, He would have eventually died of suffocation.

3: If neither of those two things got him, we can be sure Jesus’ was dead because (A) you can’t survive a spear jab to the heart and (B) that spear jab revealed Jesus’ heart and lungs collected pericardial effusion and pleural effusion, which isn’t possible if the heart is still beating.

Theory 6: The Wrong Tomb Theory 

There’s another theory that states that on that first Easter morning, the women went down to the wrong tomb and concluded based on that that Jesus had risen from the dead. The whole thing was really a simple misunderstanding! Jesus’ tomb wasn’t empty! They just went to the wrong tomb. This tomb never had a body in it at all.

There are a quite a few problems with this view. First off, I think the burial story in the gospels is historically reliable. Number 1: It’s multiply attested in all four gospel sources plus the 1 Corinthians 15 creed. And number 2: It’s unlikely to be a Christian invention. The gospel authors were unlikely to make up a member of the very group who had Jesus killed and then portray him as the one to give Jesus an honorable burial while all of the disciples (except John) abandon Jesus in his final hours in order to cower in their homes for fear of the Jews. So by the principle of embarrassment, I conclude that the burial story is reliable, but in this case, that means that the tomb of Jesus was known to both Christian and non-Christian alike. As a result, it’s very unlikely that anybody would have accidentally gone to an unused tomb, thinking it was Jesus’ tomb.

The Wrong Tomb Theory expects us to believe that everyone who would have been interested in the tomb totally forgot where it was! Not only did the women go to the wrong tomb, but later John and Peter went to the wrong tomb, and then the Pharisees also went to the wrong tomb, followed by the Romans who also went to the wrong tomb, and of course Joseph of Arimathea went to the wrong tomb. He must have forgotten where the tomb that he himself owned was located.

This is beyond implausible. But even more, devastating to the theory is that it doesn’t explain the beliefs of the disciples, James, or Paul that they had seen the risen Jesus. We’ve already seen in parts 5 and 6 that there’s good evidence that the disciples, James, and Paul believed that they saw the risen Jesus appear to them!

This theory fails because;

1: Tomb’s location was well known. Extremely unlikely everyone interested in the tomb forgot where it was.

2: The disciples didn’t believe because the tomb was empty, but because they believed Jesus appeared to them.

3: Paul was convinced on the basis of an appearance.

4: James was convinced on the basis of an appearance.

Theory 7: The Legend Theory 

Could the resurrection have been a legend? No. Why? Because, as we saw in part 5 of this blog post series, we can trace the claims of the resurrection to the lips of the original disciples! In Paul’s letters, he says he had access to the original disciples and had fellowshipped with them. I’m sure Peter told Paul whether or not he had seen Jesus when he visited them in Galatians 1 and 2. And of course, the creedal tradition dates to within five years after the death of Jesus (as argued in part 5 of this series, it’s likely he got the creed from Peter and James when he visited them three years after his conversion), this is well within the lifetimes of the twelve disciples who could have corrected this oral tradition if He really hadn’t appeared to them. Moreover, the early church fathers Tertullian and Irenaeus attest that the church fathers Polycarp and Clement were students of the apostle John and that they knew several other apostles as well. This is significant because Polycarp and Clement said that the original disciples were claiming that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them. Since they knew and fellowshipped with Jesus’ twelve disciples, they would certainly be in the position to know what the disciples believed.

The above comprise nine ancient sources that attest to the original disciples’ claims to have seen Jesus. And with the seven independent sources that attest to their martyrdom, we can conclude that they didn’t just merely claim that Jesus appeared to them, they really believed it.

We saw earlier in this series that the 1 Corinthians 15 creed dates to within five years after the crucifixion! A.N Sherwin White of Oxford University did a study of the rates at which legend develops in the ancient world, and he discovered that two generations weren’t even enough time for legend to build up and eliminate a core of historical truth.[10] But we don’t have two generations of time here; we don’t even have an entire decade! We only have five years!

Theory 8: The Pauline Conversion Disorder Theory 

This theory is one I found out about in Habermas and Licona’s “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus,” and this theory argues that Paul’s conversion from skepticism was a result of conversion disorder. Conversion Disorder is a neurological malfunction that occurs whenever a major change comes into someone’s life. Habermas and Licona write: “Let us suppose that the year is 1968. A young American named Rick has been drafted into the U.S. Army for a tour in Vietnam. Shortly after he receives his letter from the Department of Defense, Rick begins to feel a sharp pain all the way down his right leg. The pain worsens, and by the time he goes for his military physical, he is limping severely. In this case, Rick is not faking the pain in order to get out of going to Vietnam. He may have conversion disorder. Typical symptoms of conversion disorder are blindness, paralysis, loss of voice, pain, uncontrolled vomiting, tics, and seizures.”[11]

All of these are temporary of course, as conversion disorder does not last forever. Could Paul have experienced something like this? He experienced temporary blindness at the moment he saw a bright light and thought he saw Jesus (see Acts 9). Could Paul have experienced a neurological malfunction?

This theory is plagued with problems. Not the least of which is that it only addresses Paul’s conversion and nothing else. It doesn’t explain the empty tomb, the appearance to the disciples, or the appearance to James. The resurrection hypothesis explains all of these.

But moreover, Paul is unlikely to have experienced conversion disorder anyway. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV,  women are more likely to have conversion disorder than men by as much as a 5-1 ratio. Adolescents, military combatants, and those with a low IQ are also more likely to experience the disorder. Paul doesn’t fall into any of these categories. Paul is not a woman, teenager, warrior, or dummy. This doesn’t mean he couldn’t have experienced the disorder. It just means it’s unlikely. However, when you look at the other problems associated with The Pauline Conversion Disorder theory, it makes it even more unlikely.

Not only must we employ conversion disorder to explain Paul’s experience, but we must also say that Paul experienced an auditory hallucination, as well as a Messiah Complex. Why? Because Paul not only saw a bright light and went blind, but he also heard a voice that told Him to spread the gospel message. Now, it is possible to find people who have experienced conversion disorder, people who have had auditory hallucinations, as well as people who have a messiah complex, but it’s extremely rare to find people who have simultaneously experienced all 3.

This theory fails because

1: It has an inadequate explanatory scope. At best, it gives a natural explanation for Paul’s conversion. But it doesn’t account for the postmortem appearances to the disciples or James.

2: Paul isn’t a likely candidate for conversion disorder.

3: It’s extremely rare to find someone who has conversion disorder, has experienced an audible hallucination and has a messiah complex all at the exact same moment.

Theory 9: The Twin Theory

This theory says that Jesus had an unknown identical twin brother who saw Jesus hanging on the cross one day and decided to prank the disciples by stealing the body, hiding it somewhere, and then appearing before the disciples telling them that He was the risen Lord.

This theory is kind of silly, to be frank… Turek. It’s obviously ad-hoc as there’s no reason to believe it other than a desire to avoid declaring with the Christians “He is risen!”. Aside from the blatant ad-hoc nature of this hypothesis, it has several problems.

For one thing, are we expected to believe that no one was smart enough to figure out that this person was not Jesus?  The twin would not have known the disciples very well. As a result of that, he would not have been able to copy Jesus’ mannerisms and personality. The disciples would very likely have gotten suspicious. “Jesus, you okay? You’re not acting like yourself”. Moreover, the twin would not have been able to walk through walls, nor could the twin have been able to ascend to Heaven.

Theory 10: The Alien Theory

And now for the alien theory. When I first heard of this theory, I literally burst out laughing. This theory simply shows the desperate lengths people will go to in order to avoid declaring Jesus Christ is Lord. The Alien Theory suggests that Jesus was really an alien from outer space and that Jesus was able to do things that were natural for him, but that seemed supernatural for everyone else around him. Jesus’ special alien powers are what caused him to heal from his crucifixion wounds and appear before the disciples.

1: We have absolutely no evidence that aliens even exist. 

Astronomers have not yet located a planet that can sustain life other than our own. Even if we did discover life forms on other planets, it’s still unlikely that they would have the exact same abilities that Jesus has in The Bible.

2: The amount of time spent by the Jesus alien convincing people that he was their Messiah is absurd. 

What alien would spend three years just to pull a prank on some unsuspecting Earthlings? Three years? This is like the longest episode of Punk’d ever! Do you honestly expect me to believe that this Jesus Alien would waste three years of his life fooling these Earthlings into thinking that He was their promised Messiah? Why not just put some whoopee cushions under peoples’ seats, or put some fake snakes in peoples’ cabinets? Why such a long-lasting prank? I know of no prankster who is that dedicated to his hoaxes.

3: There is no motivation for the Jesus alien to endure the suffering of being scourged and crucified.

Forget the fact that there’s absolutely no evidence to support this theory at all, what I’m wondering is why this alien would go through all the trouble in convincing a bunch of Earthlings that he was the messiah of their Jewish religion and then end up being tortured horribly for such a scam. Jesus is either the intelligent designer or a stupid alien. He had many chances to escape his horrible fate, such as when Caiaphas asked him point blank “Are you the messiah? Son of the living God?” By then he should have known he was in deep doo-doo. He should have said “Me? Messiah? No no no no no.” and then he would take off running, be beamed up to his spaceship and got the heck outta dodge. But no, instead, he dug his grave even further by saying “I am and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Father and coming with the clouds of Heaven.” Again, liars make bad martyrs…even if that liar is an alien.

Part of me can’t help but wonder if this theory was posed as a joke. I only addressed it because I wanted to cover all the bases.

The Best Explanation: He Is Risen! 

In his book “Justifying Historical Descriptions,” CB McCullagh[12]  puts forth several criteria which historians use for assessing historical theories. These criteria are (1) explanatory scope, (2) explanatory power, (3) plausibility, (4) not being ad hoc/contrived, (5) being in agreement with established beliefs, and (6) outstripping its’ rival theories. The “He Is Risen” hypothesis passes every single one of these tests with flying colors. The same cannot be said about the various naturalistic theories we looked at.

Explanatory Scope: It explains why the body of Jesus was not in His tomb, why hundreds of people on different occasions believed they saw Jesus alive after His crucifixion, and it also explains the conversion of the church persecutor Saul Of Tarsus (i.e., Paul). It also explains the conversion of the skeptic James. It explains every single piece of data that requires an explanation. The best of the naturalistic theories explain only one minimal fact at most. But the majority don’t even explain that many.

Explanatory Power: It explains why the tomb of Jesus was vacant, why folks kept seeing Jesus alive on numerous occasions, in spite of the fact that He was killed days before on a Roman cross.

Plausibility: Given the background of Jesus’ life and claims, the resurrection is an authentication of those claims.

Ad Hoc: You know a theory is ad hoc if it requires the making of quite a few other theories to save itself from being proven to be erroneous. The resurrection hypothesis is not that kind of explanation. It only requires the subsequent declaration to be true: it is possible that God exists.

In accord with accepted beliefs: I can hear the voice of the skeptic now screaming “People who die stay dead, stupid! Science has proven that dead people don’t come back to life!”, This is not a valid objection. The hypothesis isn’t that Jesus rose from the dead by natural causes, but that God raised Jesus from the dead via a miracle. This does not conflict with the conventional belief that people cannot and do not rise from the dead, naturally.

Outstripping Rival Theories: We’ve seen that none of the naturalistic theories can adequately explain all of the data. Only the resurrection hypothesis succeeds in criteria 1-4 above, and should, therefore, be preferred.

The best explanation of the five minimal facts is that “He Is Risen”!

There are no naturalistic theories that can explain the 5 minimal facts. The only theory that can explain all of them is a supernaturalistic theory.

Notes 

[1] It appears that I’ve been looking at too many doggo and pupper memes.

[2] To see some of the sources reporting these, check out part 5 of this blog post series.

[3] Charles Colson, “An Unholy Hoax? The Authenticity of Christ,” BreakPoint syndicated column 020329, (29 March 2002).

[4] Strobel, Lee. 1997. God’s Outrageous Claims: Discover What They Mean for You. p. 215, Zondervan

[5] Gary Habermas, Michael Licona, “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus,” pages 105-106, Kregel

[6] The Jews of the first century got their prophecies mixed up. Jesus will indeed get rid of all the evil in the world, He will overthrow Israel’s oppressors, but He’ll do this in His second coming. In His first coming, He was to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2 cf. Isaiah 53).

[7]See Dr. Alexander Methrell’s interview with Lee Strobel in “The Case For Christ,” chapter 11, page 195, published by Zondervan

[8] Lumpkin R: The physical suffering of Christ. J Med. Assoc Ala 1978,47:8-10,47.

[9] No, I’m not a trained medical professional. I’m getting all of this information primarily from three sources; Doctor Alexander Methrell, from his interview with Lee Strobel in The Case For Christ, the 1986 edition of The Journal Of American Medical Assosiation, and the documentary “Crucifixion” which I saw on The History Channel a few Good Fridays ago. While I’m not an expert in this field, I’m drawing on the expertise of those who are, so don’t try to argue with me ad hominem. 

[10] A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 188-91.

[11] Habermas, Gary R.; Licona, Michael R.. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (p. 113). Kregel Publications. Kindle Edition.

[12] C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 19.

 

Original Blog Source:  http://bit.ly/2KE8GHW

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No Real Jesus Without The Trinity

No Real Jesus Without The Trinity

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By Marcia Montenegro

The Trinity may be a rather neglected doctrine in the church today, even seen as secondary by many. In this article, we’ll consider some of the responses from Christians and non-Christians objecting to the importance of the necessary doctrine of the Trinity and evaluate them.

Non-Trinitarians may seem to be Christian, especially in their avowal for a love for Jesus, but if the Trinity issue is raised, they will usually denounce it as a non-issue, pagan, evil, a man-made doctrine, not a Bible teaching, etc. All non-Trinitarians deny the personhood of the Holy Spirit.

The main question is this: If the Trinity is not true, then where does that leave Jesus?

There are many Christian scholars who have written books on this topic – both on the Trinity and on anti-trinitarian views, giving responses. I have resources listed at the end for those who want to read further.

Objections to the Trinity and Responses

Objection: “Well, nobody really understands the Trinity, so if people don’t adhere to it it’s okay.”

It is true that no one fully understands the Trinity because we are dealing with God’s’ nature. Since God is not created, we as created beings cannot fully grasp the full nature of God. However, he has revealed his attributes in his word, and we can know a lot of things about God.

Since God is uncreated, the Trinity has no counterpart on earth. That is why there is no analogy for it. Most analogies fit modalism (God taking on the roles of three Persons) or tri-theism (three Persons rather than a unity of one), and quickly break down when examined. I do not use an analogy. I say that God is three co-eternal co-equal Persons who are one substance. “Persons,” by the way, does not mean a human person but is the accepted way to describe the three in the Trinity.

Other ways to describe the Trinity:

  • There is one and only one God.
  • God eternally exists in three distinct persons.
  • The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.
  • The Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father, the Father is not the Spirit, etc.[1]

Objection: “As long as they believe in Jesus, that’s all that matters.”

But who is the Jesus they are believing in?

There are two main heresies on the Trinity:

  • Oneness or Modalism (sometimes called Sabellianism, named after the 3rd century heretic Sabellius) teaches that God is one person (a Unitarian view of God) who manifests as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and/or one God who has 3 roles or “workings” as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
  • Arianism (named after the 3rd/4th-century heretic Arius) teaches that Jesus is a created being and is lesser than God.

The modalist view includes:

  • Jesus is God the Father
  • Jesus is the “flesh” of God
  • The Holy Spirit is part of God/Jesus
  • The Father is the “divine nature,” and Jesus is “the human nature” of God

In contrast, the Bible unequivocally gives this information:

  • Jesus is the Son of God, distinct from the Father; Jesus cannot be the Son of God if he is also God the Father
  • Jesus spoke of his Father in many passages
  • Jesus prayed to the Father
  • Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about how God sent him (Jesus) to earth
  • The Holy Spirit is given the same attributes of deity as God[2]

Illustration of The Trinity

The Holy Spirit is given personal traits and spoken of as a Person, not as a mere force, power, or energy.[3]

Some Oneness followers will say that when Jesus prayed to God in heaven, it was the human nature praying to the divine nature. But natures don’t pray, individuals pray. Also, it would be deceptive on God’s part to make it appear as though Jesus is praying to someone else when, in fact, he is not.

The Arian Jesus of the non-Trinity, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Christadelphians, the Way, and other cults, is a created being. He has a beginning and is not equal to the Father. This is clearly a false Jesus and is easier to refute than the modalist/Oneness Jesus, which is arguably more deceptive and more difficult to refute.

Arius (250-336) taught that Jesus was a created, finite being, and he was declared a heretic by the Council of Nicea in 325. So it is not the true Jesus if it is a Modalist/Oneness Jesus or the Arian Jesus, and therefore, belief in such a Jesus is fruitless.

Objection: “We aren’t saved by perfect doctrine.”

No, we are not saved by doctrine but by faith, but that faith must be an informed faith. If our doctrine about who Jesus or God is is wrong, then we don’t have faith in the right Jesus. We can have minor things wrong, but not about who Jesus is, because then we have a wrong Jesus, making him non-salvific.

Doctrine merely means “teaching.” The teachings about who God and Jesus are must be true and based on God’s revelation in Scripture. Otherwise, it’s a counterfeit God or Jesus. This is really quite basic. This objection is a straw man.

Just because the word “Jesus” is used by Oneness followers or by Arians does not mean it is the right Jesus. Pay attention to statements of faith because Oneness statements of faith can be quite tricky in their deception. They may say they believe in the “Triune God” without meaning the biblical Trinity.

Modalists can affirm the Apostles’ Creed without belief in the Trinity. They read their own meaning into who Jesus is. An example is the Statement of Beliefs on the website of Dan Dean’s Oneness church (Phillips, Craig & Dean). It gives the Apostles’ Creed as their beliefs, along with other statements. There is no affirmation of the Trinity and no statement clarifying the personhood of the Holy Spirit (because they are a Oneness church[4]).

Who is Jesus if the Trinity is Not True

If there is no Trinity, where does that leave Jesus? Here are the choices:

  1. He is a lower god
  2. He is another god
  3. He is not really the Son of God but is God the Father
  4. He is just a man and has no deity

These points clearly answer the question, “If the Trinity is not true, then where does that leave Jesus?” It leaves Jesus as a false Jesus. This should establish why the Trinity is an essential of the faith and cannot be denied by anyone who calls him/herself a Christian. It is good to point these out to someone who says the doctrine of the Trinity is not essential or primary.

Well-Known Anti-Trinitarians

There are many well-known people who were/are Anti-Trinitarians, dead and alive; below each name is a link or two exposing their anti-Trinitarian beliefs.

  • William Branham (Modalism), a hugely influential figure on erroneous and cultic movements in the church today; there are Branham teachings and followers around the world [5][6]
  • D. Jakes, Modalism [7][8]
  • Phillips, Craig, & Dean (Modalism) [9][10] [11]
  • Roy Masters, Arianism [12][13]
  • Ron Dart, similar to Arianism, still heard on Christian radio [14][15]
  • The Armstrong cults (Worldwide Church of God), polytheism (the Father and Jesus separate gods) [16] [17][18] [19]
  • The Way (formerly The Way International), Arianism [20][21]

A Few Verses on the Trinity (there are many more)

“And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:16, 17

“Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He [Jesus] has poured forth this which you both see and hear.” Acts 2:33

“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” (Acts. 10:38)

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My [Jesus’] name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” (John 14:26)

“When the Helper comes, whom I [Jesus] will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me…” (John 15:26)

“How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14)

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” (2 Corinthians 13:14)

Additional Resources on the Trinity

(Selected list, not exhaustive)

  • Arianism [22]
  • Modalism [23]
  • Oneness Pentecostalism [24]
  • What are Sabellianism, Modalism, and Monarchism [25]
  • The Athanasian Creed confessing the Trinity [26]
  • CANA post, Modalism is an Attack on God [27]
  • Why the Trinity Is An Essential Doctrine [28]
  • Jesus Christ Our Creator, A Biblical Defence of the Trinity [29]
  • Oneness Pentecostalism from NAMB (North American Mission Board of the SBC) [30]
  • Oneness Pentecostalism and the Trinity [31]
  • The Biblical Basis for the Doctrine of the Trinity [32]
  • Faith Groups that Reject the Trinity [33]

Books on the Trinity

  • A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology: In the Light of Biblical Trinitarianism by Edward Dalcour
  • Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity by Gregory Boyd
  • Jesus Only Churches by E. Calvin Beisner
  • Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses by Robert Bowman

References

[1] Theopedia, https://www.theopedia.com/trinity

[2] The Trinity, CARM

[3] See numbers 3 and 4 on https://carm.org/verses-showing-identity-ministry-and-personhood-holy-spirit

[4] http://theheartlandchurch.com/beliefs/

[5] https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/branhamismprofile.pdf

[6] http://www.apologeticsindex.org/5870-william-branham

[7] http://www.equip.org/article/concerns-about-the-teachings-of-t-d-jakes/

[8] CANA article on T. D. Jakes’ slippery language on the Trinity http://www.solasisters.com/2012/01/td-jakes-through-glass-blurrily.html

[9] http://hereiblog.com/modalism-revisted-phillips-craig-dean/

[10] https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2013/01/05/blurring-the-dividing-linethe-legacy-of-phillipscraig-and-dean/

[11] https://rootedinchrist.org/2008/01/01/phillips-craig-dean-and-the-united-pentecostal-church-upci-oneness-pentecostals/

[12] Walter Martin exposes Masters’ heretical beliefs in a debate with Masters https://soundcloud.com/steven-j-aronfeld/roy-masters-debates-walter

[13] CANA post on Masters, https://www.facebook.com/FormerNewAger/posts/10153497822822237

[14] http://www.soundwitness.org/evangel/ronald_dart_anti-trinitarian.htm

[15] http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2015/07/heresy-alert.html

[16] https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/armstrongismprofile.pdf

[17] https://www.gotquestions.org/Worldwide-Church-God-Armstrongism.html

[18] https://www.gotquestions.org/Worldwide-Church-God-Armstrongism.html

[19] https://www.watchman.org/articles/cults-alternative-religions/history-of-armstrongism/

[20] https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/wayprofile.pdf

[21] https://carm.org/way-international

[22] Theopedia goo.gl/HjnvyY

[23] Theopedia goo.gl/ATjpBY

[24] goo.gl/SwZtUU

[25] Got Questions (4 articles) goo.gl/dsANZ6

[26] goo.gl/5m5Axy

[27] goo.gl/GtFbKZ

[28] J. Warner Wallace, http://bit.ly/1L8KRAT

[29] Jonathan Safarti, goo.gl/jXebGb

[30] goo.gl/ug2AQL

[31] Robert Bowman, Jr. goo.gl/5QWmtn

[32] Robert Bowman, Jr., goo.gl/ehfzUU

[33] goo.gl/nRECCC

 

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Is Christianity useful anymore

Is Christianity useful anymore? The younger generations don’t seem to think so

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By Michael Sherrard

According to recent research, the coming generations have no use for Christianity anymore. I’m sure you’ve seen what these sociological studies have found: the younger the generation, the more post-Christian it is. Young Americans are less inclined to believe in heaven and hell, that scripture is the word of God, that Satan is real, or that God even exists. They pray less, go to church less, and give less money to the church than the older generations.

Many are abandoning Christianity altogether.

One out of five adults considers themselves to be “former Christians.” And to put this in perspective, it means that there are four former Christians for every new convert to Christianity. In fact, the “former Christians” combined with atheists and agnostics now comprise one of the largest religious groups in America, the religiously unaffiliated. And the largest percentage of them are young adults. One out of three young adults claims no religious affiliation.

So why have the younger generations walked away from the faith and what can we do about it? Is it merely that they don’t believe it’s true or useful anymore?

I think an answer is found in Deuteronomy. The sixth chapter teaches us that it is the responsibility of the older generations to pass on the word of God to the younger generations. Particularly, it is the job of parents. Our children must learn from us what it means to follow God.

Have they? Have they learned from us?

Our children have learned many things from us, I’m sure. We have taught them the importance of education. We have paid for tutors and piano lessons. We have plugged them into sports and paid for private athletic training. We have done so much to prepare them for adulthood. But have we passed on to them the thing of greatest importance?

At this point, I can answer with good confidence the question Why have the younger generations abandoned Christianity? The answer is because we have.

Or if we haven’t abandoned it ourselves, we certainly have not passed it on to the next generation. Study after study shows us what we already know to be true. Virtually no young adult knows what the Bible teaches. Young adults simply don’t know anything about Christianity. I’m not sure, then, that it is right to say that young adults are walking away from Christianity. It seems as though they’ve never been introduced to it.

So what are to do? It is simple. Know God’s word yourself and teach it to the next generation. But we must not only teach it. We must use it ourselves. One of the impressive things about the younger generations is that they can spot a phony a mile away. Younger generations need to see Christianity, not just hear about it.

I taught high school for seven years. “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” I’m kidding. I love high school students. Do you know what question students ask more than any other? It’s, “When am I ever going to use this?” And this is precisely the right question for a student to ask.

I wonder. Have our young adults seen an answer to “when they are ever going to use Christianity?” Have they seen it go well for us because we have faithfully obeyed God’s word? Again, if we want the next generation to embrace the goodness of following Jesus Christ they must see it’s goodness in us. Therefore, do not only teach them the word of God but show it to them. Display its power in the way you live.

Finally, along with knowing God’s word and seeing us use it, the next generation must understand God’s word. Deuteronomy 6:20 tells us that we are to give our children an answer when they ask What is the meaning of God’s word? Sadly, far too many children and teenagers are met with a shush and a “just have faith” instead of an answer when they ask a sincere question about Christianity.

But God does not expect us to have blind faith. Moreover, He doesn’t want it. He does not ask us to merely follow because He said so end of story. He expects us and allows us to ask sincere and humble questions. For in asking genuine questions, one is seeking understanding. God wants us to love him with our mind. He wants true, sincere followers, not programmed machines.

So young adults. You should ask Why does God let bad things happen to good people?

You should ask How do you know the bible is the word of God and not some forgery?

You should ask How do you know Jesus actually rose from the dead?

You should ask Why should I follow God’s teachings?

And adult’s, you better get ready to give them an answer. But be encouraged for there are answers. Now, don’t be overwhelmed by this. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers. Nobody does, well, except Google. You can trust everything you find on google.

Seriously, though, “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer to a question you don’t have an answer for. But “just have faith” isn’t. Do not tell our younger generations to be quiet, stop asking questions, just believe and fall in line. If you do, they will eventually fall out. And we are seeing precisely this happen every day.

Church, adults, parents- embrace the questions from the younger generations and find answers. They exist! Christianity is reasonable. It is true. It matches reality. It is the best explanation for the way things are. And it is the answer for all that is wrong.

So, may you know God’s word. May you teach God’s word. May you live out God’s word. And may you grow in understanding of God’s word. And may you and your son and your son’s son reap all the blessings that come from faithfully following Jesus Christ.

 

Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, the director of Ratio Christi College Prep, and the author of Relational Apologetics. Booking info and such can be found at michaelcsherrard.com.

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Theistic Foundation of Science, parte 3

Theistic Foundation of Science, part 3

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By Ken Mann

Think Week: The Foundations of Science Found in Christian Theism, 3

We have been considering five presuppositions of science and how they can be explained by Christian theism. In the previous post we considered first three, here we will address the last two presuppositions, An Understandable World, and An Expressible World.

An Understandable World

We now turn to the significant mystery of why the world is understandable. From the perspective of naturalism, how or why this is the case usually boils down to a story describing how the evolutionary process increased brain capacity which led to a greater ability to survive. The purely physical view says the size and complexity of our brain is the reason we can understand the world.

However, there is a flaw in this argument as described by Alvin Plantinga in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. In short, there is an important distinction between survival and truth. Evolution is a process that favors the capacity to survive, but that does not guarantee that our reasoning processes or our senses can be trusted, merely that they have facilitated our ability to survive. Patricia Churchland, a philosopher who embraces naturalism, made the following observation: “Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive… Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”[1] In other words, what governs survival is behavior, not beliefs. Beliefs do directly cause behaviors. In fact, a combination of beliefs, desires, and other factors lead to behavior. So it is more than conceivable that false beliefs about the world can lend themselves to survival just as well as true ones.

The evolutionary story is in stark contrast to how Christian theism not only explains why

creation is understandable but also the motivated observation as a part of science. Let’s consider three aspects of the intelligibility of creation: the nature of man, the nature of creation, and the transition from reason to observation.

The Nature of Man. The most foundational and misunderstood aspect of the nature of man, as described in the Bible, is that humanity was created in the image of God. I would like to offer three observations about this theologically deep topic.

First, the naturalist’s wooden interpretation of this phrase leads to the idea that God is physical being like us. In truth, God is an immaterial and transcendent being. Therefore whatever “image of God” means it cannot mean something merely physical.

Second, it is helpful to see this phrase in terms of the attributes of God that have been shared with humanity. God is a personal being, meaning He has mind, will, and emotions. In this way, human persons are finite examples of God. We have a mind that allows us to think, to reason.

We have a will that allows us to make decisions, to have intentions and purposes. We have emotions that allow us to experience relationships.

Third, there are attributes of God that cannot be shared with humanity. For example, God is infinite versus humanity being finite. In terms of knowledge, God is omniscient. In terms of time, God is eternal, without beginning or end. God is self-existent while humanity is contingent.

We exist because God created us, but God’s existence is not dependent on anything else.

We have a finite version of God’s rational capacities to reason and have intentions. Humanity and creation are the products of the same rational mind. Therefore, it makes sense we would have the capacity to understand creation.

An Object of Study not Worship. Christianity stands apart from other religions in its perspective toward creation. In contrast to many cultures and religions that believed creation was populated by gods, the Bible de-deifies the world. This allowed humanity to study rather than worship creation. As Nancy Pearcey explains: “The monotheism of the Bible exorcised the gods of nature, freeing humanity to enjoy and investigate it without fear. When the world was no longer an object of worship, then-and only then-could it becomes an object of study.”[2]

From reason to observation. A final observation about how Christian theism explains why creation is understandable can be found in the origins of the theological view know as voluntarism. During the Middle Ages, theologians such as Thomas Aquinas wrestled with reconciling with certain aspects of Aristotle’s views of nature with orthodox views of God and creation. For Aristotle, nature was understood to the extent that the purpose of any object or creature could be discerned. Once the purpose was understood nothing else needed to be known.

Regarding God and the nature of the universe Aristotle believed “that the ultimate rational causes of things in God’s mind could be discovered by the human reason; and that he had in fact discovered those causes, so that the universe must necessarily be constituted as he had described it, and could not be otherwise.”[3]

As various thinkers started proposing views that directly undermined the nature of God, based on an application of Aristotle’s views, the Church reacted. In 1277 the Bishop of Paris published a list of 219 statements condemning any statement that limited God’s freedom of action regarding creation. Some specific examples of physical concepts Aristotle believed clarify the intention of the Bishop’s condemnations. For example, Aristotle believed that a vacuum was physically impossible, heavenly objects can only move in circles, and ballistic motion (e.g. a baseball) was sustained by displaced air pushing the moving object.

The condemnations did not limit the work of natural philosophers (a term that referred to theologians who studied nature). Instead, it freed them from continued adherence to Aristotle’s views on the natural world. A new form of theology, known as voluntarism, was inspired.

According to Pearcey, “Voluntarism insisted that the structure of the universe-indeed, its very existence-is not rationally necessary but is contingent upon the free and transcendent will of God.”[4]

Voluntarism inspired and justified what we would refer to today as an experimental methodology. It established that the nature of creation could not be found via reason alone. We must observe nature to understand what the creator did. The need for observation, a foundational concept within science, was discovered by 13th century Christians attempting to defend the nature of God while thinking about the study of nature.

An Expressible World

Finally, let’s consider the existence of mathematics. As was noted in a previous post, mathematics as a discipline is completely devoted to abstract concepts. These concepts are frequently applied to physical reality as tools of explanation, and description. They sometimes even guide future research in disciplines like physics. Not only is the naturalist viewpoint unable to explain the existence of mathematics, it cannot acknowledge the existence of the abstract objects that make it possible.

The laws of nature, as noted above, are written in the language of mathematics. The character Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact, called mathematics the only universal language. According to Christianity, by virtue of sharing aspects of God’s nature, we are given access to that language. By describing nature via theories and mathematics, we are “thinking God’s thoughts.”

This points to an obvious and delightful concept that God created humanity to know Him directly through Jesus and indirectly through creation.

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;

And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

Day to day pours forth speech,

And night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;

Their voice is not heard.

Their line has gone out through all the earth,

And their utterances to the end of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

We have now completed looking at five presuppositions of science and how they are grounded within Christianity. As I bring this series on foundations of science to a close, I hope I have made it clear that Christianity, far from being hostile or impeding science actually played a significant role in the thinking that made science possible. No matter how many secularists today denigrate Christian theism or the historical role it played, they cannot escape the idea that the study of nature serves two important ends: glorifying God and serving man.

In the next part of this series, we will look at some of the models, which describe how Christianity and science interact.

Biography

Carlson, Richard F., Wayne F. Frair, Gary D. Patterson, Jean Pond, Stephen C. Meyer, and

Howard J. Van Till. Science & Christianity: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.

Collins, C. John. Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003.

DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.

Deweese, Garrett J. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big

Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.

Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Hume, David. “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm (accessed April 14, 2015).

Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. 2nd ed.

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1999.

Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. IVP Academic, 2003.

Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo, Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Books, 1994.

Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-

Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Notes

[1] Journal of Philosophy 84 [October 87], p. 548

[2] Pearcey, The Soul of Science, Kindle Locations 191–193.

[3] Ibid., Kindle Locations 295–297.

[4] Ibid., Kindle Locations 289–290.

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The Postmortem Appearances To Paul and James

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 6: Facts (4) and (5) The Postmortem Appearances To Paul and James

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by Evan Minton

This is part 6 in a blog post series on the evidence for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. The Minimal Facts Case for the resurrection of Jesus is what I’ve been defending the past 5 articles, and in part 2, I explained what a minimal facts approach is. Part of a minimal facts approach is a two-step process: (1) establishing 5 historical facts through the use of “the criteria of authenticity” and (2) discerning what the best explanation is for those 5 facts. In part 3, we saw that the historical evidence that Jesus died by Romans crucifixion is overwhelming, establishing the first of the five minimal facts. In part 4, we examined several pieces of evidence that Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers the following Sunday after His crucifixion. In the previous blog post, we saw that the historical evidence is strong that Jesus’ twelve disciples had visual experiences of Jesus after His death.

There are 5 minimal facts that undergird the inference to the resurrection

1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.

3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.

4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.

5: The skeptic James converted on the basis of what he perceived as a postmortem appearance.
In this blog post, we shall look at the evidence for those last two minimal facts, and then we’ll move on to figuring out what the best explanation of these 5 facts are.

The Church Persecutor Paul

It’s pretty obvious that Paul claimed to be an eyewitness of the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15:8, immediately after citing the early resurrection creed, he said: “last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also.” Earlier in that same letter, he asked rhetorically “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen our Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9:1). So, from Paul’s own pen he tells us that he had a postmortem appearance experience.
However, some skeptics may balk and say “Yeah, he said he saw Jesus raised from the dead. But anyone can claim anything. I can claim I saw Santa Claus leaving toys under my Christmas tree last December. That doesn’t make it true. How do we know Paul isn’t just lying?” This is a fair question. This is why in prior writings, instead of merely pointing to where Paul says he saw Jesus, I made an inferential case for his postmortem appearance. There are several historical facts about Paul which, if you ask me, only make sense if Paul actually had a postmortem appearance experience.

*Before Paul Was A Christian, He Was A Persecutor Of The Church

We have good historical evidence that prior to becoming a Christian, Paul was a persecutor of Christians. How do we know? Because in his epistles, he says he was. In 1 Corinthians 15:9, after citing the creed to the Corinthians, Paul said “For I am the least of the apostles and do not deserve even to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God”, likewise in Galatians 1:13-14, Paul said “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” In 1 Timothy 1:13, Paul said: “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.”
Now, I am inclined to believe that Paul is telling the truth here on the basis of three reasons.

1: The Principle of Embarrassment. The principle of embarrassment states that if an author mentions something that is embarrassing to himself, embarrassing to someone he cares about, hurts an argument he’s trying to make, or is in any way detrimental to him, yet he mentions it anyway, it’s very likely not to be made up. People make up lies to make themselves look good; they don’t makeup lies to make themselves look bad. Paul is mentioning details about himself that cast him in a pretty bad light.

Think it about it for a moment; if you were writing a letter to someone, would you lie about having a drug abuse problem that you don’t actually have? If you were writing a letter to some friends, would you make up lies about how you terrorized your local neighborhood? “Dear Todd, I’m doing well here in my new home in North Carolina. By the way, I became a Christian, but prior to doing so, I went into churches and cut Christians’ heads off en masse. From, Bobby.” Are you going to just make stuff like that up? I don’t think so! You probably wouldn’t even admit something like that even if it were true! But you especially wouldn’t say that if were not true. People don’t makeup lies that make themselves look bad! Paul would never say that he was a persecutor of the church if it wasn’t true. Paul would never say that he purposefully went around terrorizing people if that didn’t actually reflect reality.
2: The Principle Of Multiple Attestation. Not only does Paul say that he was a persecutor of the church, but Luke mentions it as well in the book of Acts (8:1-4, 9:1-2). Paul and Luke are independent sources, and therefore, there are multiple attestations to Paul being a persecutor. It is highly unlikely that both Paul and Luke independently fabricated the same lie. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we have good reason to believe that Paul persecuted the church.

3: Paul Had A Reputation

Let’s keep something in mind here: in all of the epistles, Paul is writing to someone. And in Galatians 1:13, Paul said “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” (emphasis mine). Paul says that he had a reputation for being a persecutor of the church, and tells his readers that they knew of that reputation. Now, if Paul wasn’t really a persecutor of the church, his readers would have immediately called him out for lying. You don’t say “You know about that bad stuff I did. You’ve heard about it.” to someone unless you did the thing you’re talking about.

*Paul Became A Christian, And Then Suffered And Died For Preaching The Gospel

Paul obviously became a Christian himself sometime after persecuting Christians. Like with the disciples, we know that Paul actually believed the message he was preaching because he endured terrible suffering throughout his life for the sake of the gospel, and was eventually killed for his Christian faith. Seven Independent sources attest to Paul’s suffering and martyrdom.

Paul himself recounts instances of his suffering. “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have constantly been on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” – 2 Corinthians 11:24-28

Some of the specific sufferings mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians are also reported by Luke. One of the shipwrecks was recorded in Acts 27:14-44, Paul was stoned in Acts 14:19, and Acts 16:22-24 records an instance of Paul being scourged. The book of Acts records several other hardships Paul endured for being a Christian, but I won’t mention them here.
Clement of Rome[1], Tertullian[2], and Dionysius of Corinth[3] (cited by Eusebius) mention his martyrdom. Polycarp[4] and Origen[5] record it as well. Paul was beheaded during the harsh persecution of Emperor Nero in the A.D 60s.

In all, we have 7 independent sources that testify that Paul suffered and died for preaching the gospel. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we, therefore, have good grounds for affirming that Paul actually did suffer and died for the gospel.

*The Best Explanation: Paul Actually Saw Jesus 

Now, how do we account for Paul’s radical, sudden change from Christian destroyer to Christian leader? From someone who caused martyrs deaths to someone who died a martyr’s death himself? I can think of no other explanation than the one Paul himself gave, “Then he appeared to me also, as to one untimely born.” (1 Corinthians 15:8). I think this is the only logical way to explain why Paul would go from terrorizing Christians to trying to persuade people to become Christians (even to the point of horrid suffering). Again, you can try to explain away Paul’s postmortem appearance experience if you want to, but you have no grounds to deny it altogether.

The Skeptic James 

We now come to our fifth and final minimal fact: the conversion of the skeptic James. The Gospels tell us that Jesus had several siblings. Jesus’ siblings included James, Jude, Simon, plus some sisters whose names were never given. Most skeptics I’ve conversed with love to go after this minimal fact because they say it has the least amount of evidence for it. After all, it’s not mentioned anywhere except in one line, and that line is in the creed cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.

Nevertheless, I still think we have good grounds for affirming that this appearance occurred. First of all, as I said in the previous blog post, we have good reason to believe Paul got the creed from James himself. Secondly, the creed is extremely early (just 5 years after the death of Jesus) so had James not really experienced a postmortem appearance, he could have publically rebuked Paul for lying. The severe earliness of the creedal tradition and the probability that Paul got the creed from James has to count for something, right?
However, I think that just as with Paul, we can make an inferential argument for the postmortem appearance to James.

*James Was A Skeptic During Jesus’ Lifetime 

James and his other brothers, we are told, were not believers during Jesus’ lifetime. We know this based on:

1: The Principle Of Embarrassment

It was embarrassing for a rabbi’s family to not accept him back in those days. It was embarrassing for a rabbi’s family to be opposed to him in some way or another back in those days. So this isn’t very flattering for Jesus, but it gets worse! In fact, Mark 3:20-35 tells us that Jesus’ family thought he was crazy and that they had come to seize him and take him home! This doesn’t paint Jesus or His family in a very good light, given the stigmatism back then. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that the gospel writers would have invented skepticism on the part of Jesus’ brother James.

In fact, John 7 recounts a rather nasty story where Jesus’ brothers try to goad him into a death trap by showing himself publicly at a feast when they knew that the Jewish leaders were trying to kill him! Jesus’ brothers were trying to sabotage him! Why in the world would John place Jesus’ brothers in such an ugly light if such an event never took place?

2: The Principle Of Multiple Attestation 

Not only does Mark mention it (chapter 3), but John mentions it as well (chapter 7). Mark and John are independent sources, and therefore, James’ skepticism is multiply attested. So, we’ve established that James was a skeptic.

*Just A Short Time After Jesus’ Death, James Came To Believe That Jesus Had Risen From The Dead. 

Even though James was a skeptic, we know that later in the early church, James emerges as one of the pillars of the New Testament church, and one of the leaders of the church.

Moreover, he was eventually martyred.

Multiple Attestation

This is mentioned in both the book of Acts (21:17-20) as well as by Paul in his letter to the Galatians (2:9). Again, Paul and Luke are independently reporting this. Thus, we know this on the principle of multiple attestations.

*James Was Martyred For His Christian Faith

Multiple Attestation 

We have the testimony of Flavius Josephus, Hegesippus, and Clement Of Alexandria[6] that James was martyred for his belief in his brother as the risen Christ. James’ martyrdom is multiply attested in these three sources.

*The Most Likely Explanation For Why James Went From Being A Skeptic To Being A Believer Virtually Overnight Is That The Risen Jesus Appeared To Him As 1 Corinthians 5:7 says. 

I think the best explanation for James’ rapid conversion is that he believed the risen Jesus appeared to him.

New Testament critic Reginald H. Fuller says “Even if there were not an appearance to James mentioned by Paul, we should have to invent one to explain the transformation that occurred in James between the time of his unbelieving days when Jesus was alive and his time of leadership in the early church”[7]

That’s exactly the argument I’m making here. 1 Corinthians 15:7 aside, we have historically established that James was (1) a skeptic prior to Jesus’ death, (2) shortly became a Christian following Jesus’ death, and was willing to die for his Christian faith. How can we explain James’ overnight transformation if not that James had an experience which he perceived to be a visitation of the risen Jesus? I don’t think we can.

Conclusion 
We have come to the end of the first step. We have historically established 5 facts which will undergird our inference to Jesus’ resurrection.

The 5 minimal facts that undergird the inference to the resurrection are:
1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.

3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.

4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.

5: The skeptic James converted on the basis of what he perceived as a postmortem appearance.

In the next blog post, we’ll see what is the best explanation of these 5 facts. At face value, it seems like The Resurrection Hypothesis is how we should explain them. However, perhaps we should examine other alternatives before we appeal to the supernatural.

Notes 

[1] Clement Of Rome, 1 Clement 5:2-7

[2] Scorpiace, 15, in Roberts, Donaldson, and Coxe, eds. and trans., The Ante-Nicene Fathers.

[3] H.E. 2.26;

[4] Polycarp, “To The Philippians,” 9.2

[5] Origen, as cited by Eusebius in Ecclesiastical History

[6] Josephus, Antiquities Book 20, Chapter 9, Hegesippus as cited in “Eusebius. Church History Book II Chapter 23. The Martyrdom of James, who was called the Brother of the Lord”, Clement Of Alexandria, also cited by Eusebius in ibid.

[7] Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: Macmillan, 1980), 10.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2GgcRam

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The Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 5: Fact (3) The Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples

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by Evan Minton

This is part 5 in a series of blog posts detailing the wealth of historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. In the last 2 parts of this blog post series, we saw that the evidence that Jesus died by Roman crucifixion is overwhelming to the point that even atheist historians say that it’s an indisputable fact. Then, we saw 10 pieces of historical evidence pointing to the reality of Jesus’ empty tomb which was found by a group of His women followers the Sunday following His execution.

However, if we just stopped there, we wouldn’t have enough evidence to justifiably infer that Christ had gloriously returned to life. After all, an empty tomb by itself, says nothing. An empty tomb can be explained in a dozen different ways. But, Jesus’ death by crucifixion and His empty tomb aren’t the only minimal facts in need of explanation. The minimal facts in need of explanation are:

1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

2: His tomb was found empty the following Sunday morning.

3: The 12 Disciples Believed The Risen Jesus Appeared To Them

4: A Church Persecutor named Saul Of Tarsus converted on the basis of what he believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. And

5: A Skeptic named James converted on the basis of what he believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.

In this blog post, we will look at that third minimal fact. There is evidence that Jesus’ 12 disciples had experiences that they perceived as postmortem appearances of the risen Jesus.

Reason 1: The Early Creed Cited In 1 Corinthians 15. 

The first piece of evidence in favor of postmortem appearances I want to look at is Paul’s list of appearances in 1 Corinthians 15. Most scholars of all theological stripes agree that Paul is citing an early creed in verses 3-8 and that this creed dates to within five years of the crucifixion of Jesus. They also believe that Paul received this creed from the apostles Peter and James just a few years after his conversion. If these scholars are right, this provides us with powerful evidence that the disciples experienced postmortem appearances of Jesus. But what does the creed say? How do we know it’s a creed? How do we know it dates to within five years of the crucifixion and how do we know Paul got it from Peter and James? Let’s look at the reasons why historians have reached these conclusions.

This is what the creed says: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last, of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” – 1 Corinthians 15:3-8

How do we know that this a creed? Maybe this just doctrine that Paul is teaching in his own words. Scholars have come to believe that this is a creed on the basis of the following reasons:

1: Paul Alerts Us That He’s Not Writing In His Own Hand Here.

In verse 3, Paul says outright that his words are not his own. He writes “For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance.” Paul essentially says “I received this information from someone else. I received it from someone else. It’s not a list of things I came up with. Now, I’m going to pass on what I’ve received to you.” So, he’s outright telling us that the information he’s about to cite is something he himself received and is about to pass on to his readers. Additionally, “received” and “passed on” were typical terms used by rabbis who were passing along holy tradition.

2: The Language In Verses 4-7 Are Non-Pauline

Scholars have pointed out that wording of verses 6-7 of 1 Corinthians 15 is not characteristic of Paul. It’s not the way he usually writes. The word choice and grammatical style in this passage are unique to the Pauline epistles. “The Twelve,” “The Third Day,” “He was raised,” and the calling of Peter by his Aramaic name, “Cephas.” These are not phrases Paul is known to use. This implies that Paul is quoting something rather than teaching resurrection facts in his own words.

3: Parallelism Is Apparent In The Text.

Parallelism is a type of wording that was commonly found in oral traditions. The purpose of parallelism was to aid memorization. Parallelism involves writing several lines that go by the pattern of the first line being long followed by a short line followed by another long line and then another short line. Long sentence, short sentence, long sentence, short sentence. When you examine 1 Corinthians 15, this is exactly what you find.

“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” (long)

“and that He was buried” (short)

“and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (long)

“and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve…” (short)

“After that, he appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at the same time, most of

whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.” (long)

4: The Repeated Use Of The Phrase “And That” Suggests This Is A Creed

Just as Parallelism was a wording style to make memorization of creeds easier, putting a common repetitive phrase in creeds also helped aid memorization. In this case, the repetitive phrase is “and that.” Depending on the English translation, you’ll sometimes just see the word “that,” but “and that” is what’s found in the Greek.

“and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” 

For these reasons, we have good grounds for affirming that the material cited in verses 4-7 are part of a creed. Paul received the creed somewhere and then proceeded to cite it to his Corinthian readers. What this means is that the material in 1 Corinthians 15:4-7 predates the actual writing of 1 Corinthians, which virtually all scholars date to around 55 A.D.

But how much earlier does this material date? Well, first of all, it certainly has to predate Paul’s first visit to the Corinthian church. Why? Because in verse 3, he uses the past tense “I passed on to you.” “For what I received, I passed on to you.” In the latter part of that sentence, Paul uses the past tense of “pass.” This implies that the information he’s about to cite in his epistle is information that he already cited to the Corinthians. And since he “received” this creed from someone else, this means the creed predates even Paul’s first visit there.

If this were as far back as we could go, it would still be extremely early information since the creedal data would date no later than 20 years after Jesus’ death.

But, as I said earlier in this blog post, most scholars believe that Paul got this creed directly from the apostles Peter and James, just five years after his conversion. In Galatians 1, Paul is recounting his conversion from skepticism. He describes how he persecuted the church (verses 13-14) that God revealed his son to him (verses 15-16), and then he says that he went away into Arabia and then went to Damascus (verse 17). Paul then writes “Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.” (verses 18-19). This seems like the most likely place and time for Paul to have received the 1 Cor. 15 creed. First of all, two of the explicitly named individuals that appear in the creed (Peter and James) are also the two individuals Paul was talking to. Secondly, As New Testament Historian Dr. Gary Habermas pointed out; “Paul’s use of the verb historesai (1:18), is a term that indicates the investigation of a topic.[1] The immediate context both before and after reveals this subject matter: Paul was inquiring concerning the nature of the Gospel proclamation (Gal. 1:11-2:10), of which Jesus’ resurrection was the center (1 Cor. 15:3-4, 14, 17; Gal. 1:11, 16).”[2]

These seem like very good indications that this is indeed when and where Paul received the creed. In that case, the information in the creed dates to within just a few years of Jesus’ death! By the principle of early attestation, this makes 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 extremely reliable material. This is because there was no time whatsoever for legend or embellishment to creep in. The apostles were proclaiming that Christ rose from the dead within decades of His crucifixion!

The creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15 dates back so early, well within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses, that anyone curious about whether or not Paul was telling the truth could have traveled over to Jerusalem and interviewed the people mentioned in the creed to see if they really did believe Jesus appeared to them. If Paul were lying about these people and they really hadn’t seen Jesus, the cat would have been out of the bag, and the resurrection would have been exposed as a falsehood. Given how fragile a faux resurrection would be in this case, the best explanation is that the twelve disciples, James, and 500 people actually did have postmortem Jesus experiences.

In fact, some have argued that Paul is essentially daring the Corinthians to interview these people if they are in doubt by mentioning that “some of them are still living, though some have fallen asleep.”[3] It’s as if Paul is saying “If you don’t believe that Jesus appeared to these individuals, go talk to them yourselves! Some of them have died, but others are still around to affirm what I’ve said.” That’s a pretty gutsy move on Paul’s part if these people hadn’t actually witnessed the risen Jesus. It could be so easily falsified, so easily undermined. The best explanation is that Paul’s creed was telling the truth.

Reason 2: Paul Had Direct Contact With The Twelve Disciples And Affirmed That They Claimed Jesus Rose From The Dead 

As I said earlier, most scholars believe Paul got the 1 Cor 15 creed from Peter and James when he visited with them just a few years after his conversion, and I gave some of the reasons why scholars have come to those conclusions. But let’s say you disagree with the scholars. Let’s say you don’t think that the two arguments which are given in favor of a Paul receiving the creed during the trip mentioned in Galatians 1:18-20 are sufficient. Nevertheless, the creed still dates to no later than 50 A.D, just 20 years after the resurrection. The creed could have been received two years or 20 years, but no earlier and no later. So my arguments above still stand that this is an early source within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses who could have falsified the postmortem appearances if they hadn’t occurred.
Secondly, even if Paul didn’t receive the creed in the Galatians 1 trip, we still know that he had firsthand contact with the original twelve disciples and were therefore in the perfect position to know what they believed.

Paul makes two trips to Jerusalem. The first trip occurs five years after his conversion (Galatians 1:18-20), and the second one takes place more than 14 years after (Galatians 2:1-2). Paul makes two trips, and he’s there at +5 years and +18 years after the cross. Both trips are very early, and he talks to the eyewitnesses. What are they discussing? The gospel. In 2:2 he specifically says “I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.” In other words, Paul is essentially saying “I just wanted to double check and make sure that I’m preaching the same message as my fellow apostles are. I just want to be absolutely sure that we’re on the same page and that I’m not wasting my time here. I gave them the gospel I preached and wanted to cross-reference it with the one they preach.” What was the result of such an inquiry? Paul says in 2:6 “They added nothing to my message.” Then he said “On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Cephas, and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.” (verses 7-10)

Probably the best thing Paul contributes to our case is interviewing the other eyewitnesses and giving us the data. Paul said that he and the other apostles preached the same message. In Galatians 1 and 2, he’s talking with the twelve disciples and in Galatians 2:6-10, he affirms that what he’s teaching is what they’re teaching. If the disciples were not claiming that Christ had risen from the dead and had appeared to them that would not be the case. Also, in 1 Corinthians 15:11, just after citing the creed, he basically says “I don’t care if you go to them, I don’t care if you go to me, we are preaching the same message about Jesus’ appearances.”
Reason 3: The Disciples Of The Disciples Affirmed That They Preached Jesus’ Resurrection
The early church fathers lived and wrote in the first, second, third, and fourth centuries.

When you investigate the writings of these guys, you find that some of them had physical contact with the apostles. Given this fact, just as we can trace the disciples’ teachings back to them through Paul, we can trace the teachings of the disciples back to them through the church fathers!

The early church father Clement (c. 30– 100) wrote to the Corinthian church in 95 AD. Around 185, Irenaeus gave us some extra info about this Corinthian epistle. Irenaeus wrote:  “Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing, and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone, for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brothers at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians.”[4] Around 200, the African church father, Tertullian wrote, “For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter.”[5] According to Irenaeus and Tertullian, Clement engaged in fellowship with the apostles. Clement writes of their belief in the resurrection thusly; “Therefore, having received orders and complete certainty caused by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and believing in the Word of God, they went with the Holy Spirit’s certainty, preaching the good news that the kingdom of God is about to come.”[6] Clement said that the apostles believed in the resurrection of Jesus! If he knew the apostles (as Irenaeus and Tertullian say he did), Clement would be in the best position to know whether or not they were truly teaching that Christ got out of His grave. Irenaeus wrote that Polycarp (c. 69– c. 155) knew the disciples. He said: “But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles.”[7]

Irenaeus wrote a letter to a person named Florinius. In this letter, Irenaeus also talked about Polycarp. Unfortunately, the letter that Irenaeus wrote to Florinius was annihilated by the sands of time, but while the letter itself is gone, the early church historian Eusebius quoted a portion from it; “When I was still a boy I saw you in Lower Asia with Polycarp when you had high status at the imperial court and wanted to gain his favor. I remember events from those days more clearly than those that happened recently… so that I can even picture the place where the blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, his comings and goings, his character, his personal appearance, his discourses to the crowds, and how he reported his discussions with John and others who had seen the Lord. He recalled their very words, what they reported about the Lord and his miracles and his teaching— things that Polycarp had heard directly from eyewitnesses of the Word of life and reported in full harmony with Scripture.”[8]
Given the fact that Polycarp knew the apostles personally, he would have been in the best position to know what the disciples believed. Polycarp mentioned the resurrection 5 times in his letter to the church in Phillipi.

So, through Polycarp and Clement, we can trace the claims of the resurrection right back to the disciples themselves.

“But!” the skeptic may object “Just because the disciples were claiming that Jesus rose from the dead, that doesn’t mean that He actually did. Maybe the disciples were making the whole thing up! Maybe they were lying about having seen the risen Jesus”. I have never found any attempt by non-Christians to make the disciples out to be bald face liars very convincing. This is because church history is unanimous in claiming that all of the disciples (with the exception of John) died a brutal martyrs death. Why would they die for a lie? Why would they die for something that they knew wasn’t true? I could believe someone would die for a lie that they believed was true, but I can’t bring myself to believe that someone would willingly die for something they knew was false.

Some of the sources that record the disciples’ martyrdoms are:

*Clement Of Rome – reported sufferings and martyrdoms of Peter and Paul.[9]

*Polycarp – Reported the sufferings and martyrdom of the disciples in general.[10]

*Tertullian – Reported the martyrdom of Peter and Paul (and specifically says that Peter was crucified and that Nero beheaded Paul).[11]

*Book Of Acts — Reports martyrdom of James the son of Zebedee (beheaded by Herod Agrippa).[12]
*Eusebius — Says in his Ecclesiastical History that all of the apostles were martyred, and says that Peter was crucified upside down.

At this point, skeptics usually respond by saying “Well that doesn’t prove anything. Other religions have martyrs. Does that mean their religious beliefs are true? Think of the terrorists who flew planes into the world trade center, for example. Does the fact that these terrorists were willing to die for their religious beliefs prove that Islam is true?” This rebuttal simply shows that the objector has misunderstood the argument. Neither I nor any Christian Apologist would argue that because the disciples died martyrs death that this proves that Jesus rose from the dead. What we’re claiming is that their willingness to suffer and die proves that they sincerely believed what they were claiming rather than trying to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes. No one would say the terrorists who took down the world trade center consciously thought that Islam was false. If they believed Islam was false, those 3,000 people would still be alive today. Martyrdom doesn’t prove a claim is true; it simply proves sincerity on the part of the one making the claim. Since almost all of the disciples were willing to die (some in horrible, slow, torturous, and gruesome ways), only an idiot would continue to say “Nah, they were simply spouting bald face lies.” I mean, can you imagine St. Peter lying upside down on the cross, having been beaten to a pulp, having had nails driven through his hands and feet, and bleeding and suffocating thinking to himself “Jesus is dead. He didn’t really rise. We stole his body and hid it at the bottom of a lake. He’s still dead, and soon I will be too! This torture was worth it!”

It’s also worthy to note that the apostles differ from modern day martyrs in that they were in a unique position to know for sure whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. The resurrection proclamations originated with them. If it’s made up, then they’re the ones who made it up. And yet, they died horribly for making this claim. Most martyrs, including Christian martyrs of today, die on the basis of secondary evidence (e.g. the minimal facts approach) or no evidence (blind faith). The disciples came to believe Jesus rose from the dead because they claimed that He appeared to them personally, that is, primary evidence! They claimed to have seen him! This places their martyrdom in a totally separate category than all of the ones you read about in “Voice Of The Martyrs.”

What all of this means is that through Paul and the church fathers Polycarp and Clement, we can affirm that the twelve disciples of Jesus claimed Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them. Through the fact that they all died brutal deaths when they could have saved themselves by recanting means that they really believed what they were claiming.

Now, just put yourself in their shoes for a moment. What could make you believe that someone you loved rose from the dead and made you so confident of this, that you would be willing to die for proclaiming that? I know how I would answer this question: seeing him with my own two eyes.

Reason 4: The Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples Are Multiply Attested 

The synoptic gospels (Luke 24:36-43), The Gospel of John (20:19-20), and the 1 Corinthians 15 creed all mention postmortem appearances to the twelve disciples. It is highly unlikely that three independent sources would all make up the same lie, therefore, on the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we have good reason to believe that the disciples saw the risen Christ.

Reason 5: Doubting Thomas Gives Us Reason Not To Doubt 

John 20:24-29 records the postmortem appearance to Thomas. All of the other disciples had seen Jesus alive and were rejoicing at his resurrection, but Thomas was so skeptical of the resurrection that he said that he wouldn’t believe it until he placed his fingers in Jesus’ hands and side. Verses later, we read that Jesus appeared to Thomas and Thomas was convinced. However, why would the writer of the gospel of John depict Thomas in such a bad light? John 20 doesn’t depict one of the apostles in a very good light by making him out to be a hard-headed skeptic, disbelieving the testimony of the rest of the apostles. It seems to me that Thomas’ skepticism is unlikely to be a Christian invention on the basis of the principle of embarrassment. Therefore, this passage is very likely to be telling us a historical fact.

Now, perhaps I can play devil’s advocate and propose an objection to this particular point: maybe the reason John puts Thomas in a bad light is that he disliked Thomas. Perhaps, later on, they got into heated arguments causing a rift between them. John 20’s depiction of Thomas, therefore, is slander. However, this is a possibility that has no historical evidence behind it. If the skeptic wants to undermine this fifth argument, he’ll have to do more than just propose an alternative possibility. He’ll have to back up that possibility with evidence. We have no reason to believe that the writer of John’s gospel (be he the apostle John or whoever) had any dislike of St. Thomas. No church historian hints at any tension between the apostle John and Thomas, nor do any of Paul’s writings indicate that such tension exists. We have no reason to believe that John had anything but the utmost respect for Thomas as he did the other apostles.

Reason 6: Brave Women, Cowardly Disciples 

Before the appearance to St. Thomas, the gospel of John reports that the risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene before He appeared to anyone else (John 20:11-17), and Jesus told her to tell the twelve disciples that He had risen (verse 18). We then read that Mary went and told the disciples what Jesus told her to tell them, but we also read in verse 19 that they were hiding in fear of the Jews!

Now, the principle of embarrassment has got a lot to go on here. First of all, remember that women were second-class citizens back in that culture and their testimony was so worthless that they weren’t even permitted to serve as witnesses in a Jewish court of law. In light of this fact, it is astonishing that not only is a woman the first to witness the empty tomb, but the first to see the risen Christ as well! If John were simply making this narrative up, wouldn’t he have had a man be the first witness of the risen Christ? Oh, no, but he couldn’t do that because he wrote that the men were locked up somewhere hiding in fear in the Jewish leadership. This is also a shocking thing to mention if you’re just making up a narrative. Why would John make the men (which would include John himself if he’s really the author of this book) be hiding like a bunch of wusses and write that only a woman follower of Christ had the guts to go down to the tomb? This paints the disciples in an embarrassing light and exalts a person who, back then, had low social status. By the principle of embarrassment, we can conclude that this account is historical.
But it gets even better! For the specific words, Jesus said to Mary were “Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (verse 17). John’s gospel puts more emphasis on the deity of Christ than any of the other 3, yet he says that God the father is “His God.” When you’ve told your readers from verse 1 that Jesus is God, it’s odd to have him say that The Father is His God, as though Jesus is somehow an inferior being. If Jesus has a God, how can he be God? Now, just like with “Why have you forsaken me” which we examined in part 3 of this series, I think a plausible explanation for this sentence can be given. I don’t think Jesus’ words here in any way diminish His deity. However, the point here is that they seem to. Therefore, rather than having to go through the trouble of explaining this saying, it would have been much easier for John if he had just omitted that part altogether. The fact that it’s in here gives us reason to believe that John is making this up, this is actually what Miss Magdalene heard the postmortem Jesus say. Once again, the principle of embarrassment gives us reason to believe this account is historical.

The principle of embarrassment applies to John 20 in so many different ways:

1: A Woman is the first to see the risen Jesus. She sees him before any of the twelve do.

2: The disciples are hiding like cowards because they’re afraid the big bad Pharisees are going to get them.

3: Jesus calls The Father “My God” which prima facie suggests he isn’t God, in a gospel that emphasized His divinity since literally verse 1.

This gives us yet another reason to believe that the 12 disciples had a postmortem appearance of Jesus. Again, you can try to explain this postmortem appearance by appeal to a naturalistic theory if you want to, but the fact that they believed they saw Jesus post-crucifixion seems well grounded historically.

Conclusion 
We’ve seen that as with Jesus’ death by crucifixion and Jesus’ empty tomb, there is an astounding amount of historical evidence for the postmortem appearances to the disciples. Now, you can try to explain these appearances in some way other than to say Jesus really rose from the dead, but you have no grounds on which to deny that the disciples really believed they saw Him post-crucifixion.

As the agnostic historian, Bart Ehrman said “We can say with complete certainty [emphasis added] that some of his disciples at some later time insisted that he soon appeared to them. . . . Historians, of course, have no difficulty whatsoever speaking about the belief in Jesus’ resurrection, since it is a matter of public record”[13]

The atheist historian Gerd Ludemann put it this way: “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which he appeared to them as the risen Christ.”[14]  For a historian, who is an atheist no less, to say that something like this is historically certain speaks volumes!

The atheist scholar E.P Sanders said “That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know.”[15]

Do we have enough evidence now to infer that Jesus rose from the dead? Actually, I think we do. In my experience, skeptics have a hard time coming up with a naturalistic theory that can account for both Jesus’ empty tomb and Jesus’ postmortem appearances to the disciples. However, I think we can make our case for the resurrection even stronger by examing postmortem appearances of Jesus to two specific individuals: Paul and James. It is these appearances that we will examine in the next blog post.

Notes 

[1] Several studies on the meaning of historesai in Gal. 1:18 have reached similar conclusions.  See William Farmer, “Peter and Paul, and the Tradition Concerning `The Lord’s Supper’ in I Cor. 11:23-25,”Criswell Theological Review, Vol. 2 (1987), 122-130, in particular, and 135-138 for an apostolic, Petrine source for the pre-Pauline tradition.  Also helpful is an older but still authoritative study by G.D. Kilpatrick, “Galatians 1:18 historesai Kephan” in New Testament Essays: Studies in Memory of Thomas Walter Manson, A.J.B. Higgins, editor (Manchester: Manchester University, 1959), 144-149.  Paul Barnett reports that this same term appears in Herodotus, Polybius, and Plutarch, for whom it meant to inquire (41).  Similar ideas are contained in J. Dore, “La Resurrection de Jesus: A L’Epreuve du Discours Theologique,” Recherches de Science Religieuse, Vol. 65 (1977), 291, endnote 1

[2] Gary Habermas: “Experiences of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection,” Originally published in Dialog: A Journal of Theology, Vol. 45; No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 288-297; published by Blackwell Publishing, UK.

[3] See the online article “Authenticating The Resurrection Of Jesus: The Corinthian Creed”, May 3rd, 2012, http://www.thefaithexplained.com/blog/authenticating-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-corinthian-creed/

[4] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.3.3, c. 185. Taken from A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, and A. C. Coxe, eds. and trans., The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 (Oak Harbor, Ore.: Logos Research Systems, 1997).

[5] Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics, 32. In ibid.

[6] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.3.4.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Irenaeus, To Florinus, cited by the fourth-century church historian, Eusebius, who regarded Irenaeus as a reliable source (Ecclesiastical History 5.20). See To Florinus in Roberts, Donaldson, and Coxe, eds. and trans., The Ante-Nicene Fathers. See Eusebius, Eusebius: The Church History, Paul L. Maier, ed. and trans. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), 195–96.

[9] “Because of envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars have been persecuted and contended unto death. Let us set the good apostles before our eyes. Peter, who because of unrighteous envy endured, not one or two, but many afflictions, and having borne witness went to the due glorious place. Because of envy and rivalries, steadfast Paul pointed to the prize. Seven times chained, exiled, stoned, having become a preacher both in the East and in the West, he received honor fitting of his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, unto the boundary on which the sun sets; having testified in the presence of the leaders. Thus he was freed from the world and went to the holy place. He became a great example of steadfastness.” – Clement Of Rome, First Clement 5: 2– 7.

[10] “They are in the place due them with the Lord, in association with him also they suffered together. For they did not love the present age…” – Polycarp, “To The Philippians,” 9.2

[11] “That Paul is beheaded has been written in their own blood. And if a heretic wishes his confidence to rest upon a public record, the archives of the empire will speak, as would the stones of Jerusalem. We read the lives of the Caesars: At Rome, Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith. Then is Peter girt by another, when he is made fast to the cross. Then does Paul obtain a birth suited to Roman citizenship, when in Rome he springs to life again ennobled by martyrdom.” – Tertullian.

[12] Acts 12:1-2

[13] Bart Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York: Oxford University, 1999), 230-231.

[14] Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus? Trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 80.

[15] E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, page 280

 

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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 4 Fact (2) The Empty Tomb

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 4: Fact (2) The Empty Tomb

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By Evan Minton

We saw in the previous blog post that the historical evidence for Jesus’ death was overwhelming. Even several non-Christian scholars affirm it, and even say that it’s the one fact about Jesus that is indisputable. However, what happened to Jesus after He died? The New Testament says that He was placed in a tomb that was found vacant 3 days later by a group of Jesus’ women followers. This is the second minimal fact in our case for Jesus’ resurrection. But what evidence is there that Jesus’ grave was really empty? How do we know that Jesus’ body was really absent from the tomb?

There are several reasons that I know of to believe that Jesus’ tomb was empty. Let’s look at them.

Reason 1: The Jerusalem Factor

All 4 gospels attest that Jesus was crucified and buried in Jerusalem. Now, history tells us that Christianity had a lot of opposition in the first century, from both the Jewish leaders as well as the Roman government. If the enemies of Christianity, like the Pharisees, truly wanted to stamp out the early Christian movement, the easiest way to do it would be to down to Jesus’ tomb, pluck the body out of the tomb and parade it down the streets for all to see. Everyone who gazed upon the dead corpse of Jesus as the Pharisees carried it around Jerusalem would know for a fact that the disciples were lying about Jesus being raised from the dead. Christianity would be destroyed before it even had a chance to get off the ground. However, Christianity did not die in the first century. It’s still alive today? How do we explain this? I think the best explanation is that the Jewish leadership did not go down to Jesus’ grave and exhume his corpse. Why didn’t they do that? I think the best explanation for that is that Jesus’ body wasn’t even in there to be taken out!

If Jesus’ body were still in the tomb, the enemies of Christianity would have definitely taken the body out of the tomb and showed it to everyone, squashing the entire Christian movement and demonstrating it to be a hoax. This would be the easiest way at that time to refute Christianity. If they had done that, we would not be having this discussion right now. But we are having this discussion right now, most likely because they didn’t produce the corpse, and they didn’t produce the corpse because there was no corpse to be produced.

Objection: Jesus’ Body Was Unrecognizable By The Time The Disciples Started Proclaiming The Resurrection, So Producing The Corpse Would Have Done No Good. 

Some skeptics have responded to this argument by saying that Jesus’ body was unrecognizable by the time the disciples started running around telling folks that He rose from the dead, so it wouldn’t really have the effect of demolishing the Christian faith after all. Consequently, the enemies of Christianity either didn’t produce the body, or they did but people just responded: “That’s not really Jesus”.

There are some problems with this objection. First of all, in the arid climate of Jerusalem, a corpses’ distinctive wounds, stature, and hair color, and hair style would have been identifiable even after 50 days (the time when the book of Acts says the disciples started proclaiming Christ’s resurrection).[1] Therefore, it would have been no trouble to figure out whether a corpse belonged to Jesus or not. A person could examine the corpse’ physical stature, weight, distinctive wounds (“does this corpse bear the wounds consistent with a crucified victim?”), and hair color and style to see if it was consistent with what one would expect Jesus’ corpse to be like. You don’t even need to be a trained forensic pathologist to do this. Anyone of any education level could check these things out.

Secondly, even if Jesus’ body truly was unrecognizable, we should still have expected any body at all to have created a mass exodus from the Christian church, even if a small number of adherents remained. Such an exodus would surely have been picked up by Lucian of Samosata, who was ridiculing Christianity in his work and would surely have loved to use such an incident as evidence against the Christians’ claims. Moreover, we would expect the early church apologists like Justin Martyr to try to respond and explain this mass exodus and why there was a body in Jesus’ tomb if Jesus had really risen. Yet, history is silent on such an exodus. None of the non-Christian historians say anything about it, and none of the early church fathers feel compelled to address it.

Reason 2: All Four Gospels Feature Women As Witnesses To The Empty Tomb

All four gospels feature women at the first witnesses to Jesus’ empty tomb. Now, why is that significant? As I briefly mentioned in the previous chapter, women were considered second class citizens in the first century. Talmud Sotah 19a says “Sooner let the words of the law be burnt than delivered to women“! The Talmud also contains a rabbinic saying that goes like this: “Blessed is he whose children are male, but woe to him whose children are female”! And according to the Jewish historian Josephus, their testimony was considered so untrustworthy that they weren’t even permitted to serve as witnesses in a Jewish court of law! Josephus wrote: “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex, nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak truth, either out of hope of gain, or fear of punishment.” (Antiquities, 4.8.15).

Women were (A) second-class citizens, and (B) considered to be so untrustworthy that they couldn’t even stand as witnesses in a court of law! In light of this fact, how remarkable it is that it is women who are said to be the chief witnesses to the empty tomb, rather than men. If the gospel authors were playing fast and loose with the facts, they surely would have made male disciples such as Peter or John the chief witnesses to the empty tomb. The fact that it is women instead of men who are said to be the first witnesses to the empty tomb is best explained by the fact that the empty tomb narratives in the gospels are true!

To make women, your first witnesses to the empty tomb would be to insert words into the mouths of witnesses who would not be believed. Therefore, by the principle of embarrassment, we have good reason to believe the tomb was empty.

Reason 3: The Enemies Of Christianity Presupposed The Vacancy Of The Tomb When They Said That The Disciples Stole The Body

When a child tells his teacher that the dog ate his homework, that presupposes that the homework is not in the child’s possession. When the enemies of Christianity have to resort to accusing the disciples of stealing the body, that presupposes that there is no body in the tomb.

“While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.” – Matthew 28:11-15

This is powerful evidence due to a historian’s principle known as The Principle Of Enemy Attestation. Now, you might be wondering why we should view this as good evidence for the empty tomb, since it’s comes from Matthew’s gospel and not directly from the Jewish leadership themselves. It’s not like it’s coming out of a book written by Caiaphas where he writes “The tomb was empty because the disciples took his body” or anything like that. Couldn’t Matthew have made this up simply to make the empty tomb story seem more credible? Well, no. I don’t think so. I say that for three reasons.

First, consider the fact that Matthew says “This story has been widely circulated to this very day.” Now, what does “to this very day” mean? Clearly, Matthew is saying that the opponents of Christianity were running around spreading this story even at the very time period that he was penning these words! They were making this claim to potential converts even during the very time period that Matthew was writing his gospel. If the anti-Christian Jews were not making that accusation, then Matthew could have easily been falsified. People could have gone to the Jewish leadership and asked them “We read in the gospel of Matthew that you deny Jesus rose from the dead. You explain his empty tomb by saying they stole the body. Is this true?” If it wasn’t true, the Jewish leadership could have said “What? We said no such thing! What are you talking about?” Would Matthew really open himself up to such easy falsification?

Secondly, people don’t usually respond to accusations unless someone actually made that accusation of them. Imagine you walk into your front yard and discover that your car is missing. In a panic, you cry out “My car is gone! My car is gone! What happened to it!? Dude, where’s my car!?” and then your friend shows up and says “Gee, that’s a shame. I don’t know what happened to your car, but it’s not like I stole it or anything!!!” You would look at your friend funny and say “I never said that you stole my car. Wait a minute, is there something you’re not telling me?” People simply don’t respond to accusations unless there is truly an accuser. In those rare moments that they do respond to non-existent accusations, they cause themselves to look guilty of the very thing they’re denying.

Thirdly, the claims of the opponents of Christianity is multiply attested. In Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue With Trypho,” he responds to this accusation from the Jews, and Tertullian rebuts it as well in his work “De Spectaculous.” This implies that the enemies of Christianity really were making this claim. It originated in the first century and persisted throughout the second and third.

Reason 4: The Empty Tomb Is Multiply Attested

The empty tomb is mentioned in multiple, independent sources. It’s mentioned in (1) The synoptic gospels, (2) the gospel of John, and (3) the early creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15.

Given the fact that the tomb is attested in 3 independent sources, it is very probable that Jesus’ tomb was in fact, empty. Remember what Paul Maier said in the previous chapter? This former professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University said that if an event is mentioned in two or three sources, it’s impregnable. That is to say; it almost certainly occurred. Well, that’s what we have with the empty tomb. Three independent sources. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we have good reason to believe Jesus’ tomb was empty.

Now, some may object “Wait a minute! Paul never mentions the empty tomb in 1 Corinthians 15!” And these objectors would be right. However, while the empty tomb is not explicitly mentioned in the creed, it is implicitly mentioned. Dr. William Lane Craig explains that “The old tradition cited by Paul in I Cor. 15.3-5 implies the fact of the empty tomb. For any first century Jew, to say that of a dead man ‘that he was buried and that he was raised’ is to imply that a vacant grave was left behind.”[2]

Reason 5: Mark’s Account Is Simple And Lacks Signs Of Embellishment

Dr. William Lane Craig explains that “All one has to do to appreciate this point is to compare Mark’s account to the accounts which are found in the later apocryphal gospels. These are forgeries that arose during the centuries following the appearance of the New Testament. These do contain all sorts of wild, legendary accounts about the resurrection. For example, in the so-called Gospel of Peter, which is a forgery from the second half of the second century after Christ, the tomb is surrounded not only by a Roman guard, but also by all of the chief priests and the Pharisees, as well as a huge crowd of people from the surrounding countryside who have come to watch the tomb. Suddenly, during the night, a voice rings out from heaven, and the stone over the door of the tomb rolls back by itself, then two men are seen descending out of heaven and entering into the tomb, then three men, gigantic figures, come out of the tomb, the heads of two of the men reach to the clouds, the head of the third man overpasses the clouds, and then a cross comes out of the tomb, and a voice from heaven asks, “Hast thou preached to them who sleep?” and the cross answers, “Yea.” Now, these are how real legends look. They are colored with all sorts of theological and apologetical motives, motives which are conspicuously lacking from the Markan account which by comparison is stark in its simplicity.”[3]

Reason 6: Multiple Literary Forms 

Repeated as a miracle (John 20), creed (1 Corinthians 15:4), didactic (see Acts 2:24-32), and apocalyptic.

Reason 7: The Reason The Women Went To The Tomb – Historical Fit/Coherence

The reason the gospels say the women even went down to the tomb, to begin with lends credence to the accounts. It was a standard practice of Jews to anoint the bodies of dead friends and family members. Why the women didn’t go on Saturday is very likely due to the fact that it was the Sabbath, the shops were closed, and they couldn’t buy perfumes and ointments with which to anoint the body. They would have had to wait until Sunday when the shops were open before they could get the perfumes to anoint Jesus’ body. See Mark 16:1-5, Luke 23:56-24:1-3.

So, the principle of historical fit (also known as The Principle Of Coherence) is applicable here.[4]

Reason 8: Archeological Evidence Presents An Edict That Makes The Most Sense In Light Of Jesus’ Tomb Being Empty 

Dr. Frank Turek and Dr. Norman Geisler make mention of this in their book I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. Geisler also makes mention of this in another work. He wrote: “A slab of stone was found in Nazareth in 1878, inscribed with a decree from Emperor Claudius (A.D. 41-54) that no graves should be disturbed or bodies extracted or moved. This type of decree is not uncommon, but the startling fact is that here “the offender [shall] be sentenced to capital punishment on [the] charge of violation of [a] sepulcher” (Hemer, BASHH, 155). Other notices warned of a fine, but death for disturbing graves? A likely explanation is that Claudius, having heard of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection and Jesus’ empty tomb while investigating the riots of A.D. 49, decided not to let any such report surface again. This would make sense in light of the Jewish argument that the body had been stolen (Matt. 28:11-15). This is an early testimony to the strong and persistent belief that Jesus rose from the dead.”[5]

Why would Claudius issue the death penalty for disturbing graves? That seems like an extreme overreaction. However, as Geisler said in the citation above, it makes sense if Claudius knew of the Jewish polemic against Jesus’ empty tomb and was trying to prevent any alleged resurrections from occurring again.

Reason 9: Jesus’ Tomb Was Never Venerated As A Shrine 

The philosopher and apologist J.P Moreland explains that: “In Palestine during the days of Jesus, at least fifty tombs of prophets or other holy persons served as sites of religious worship and veneration. However, there is no good evidence that such a practice was ever associated with Jesus’ tomb. Since this was customary, and since Jesus was a fitting object of veneration, why were such religious activities not conducted at his tomb? The most reasonable answer must be that Jesus’ body was not in his tomb, and thus the tomb was not regarded as an appropriate site for such veneration. . . . It seems, then, the lack of veneration at the tomb of Jesus is powerful evidence that the tomb was empty.”[6]

Conclusion

We have seen in this blog post that the empty tomb has a lot of historical evidence in it’s favor. It is this evidence that has lead 75% of scholars and historians, both Christian and non-Christian to accept the empty tomb as a historical fact. Former Oxford University church historian William Wand writes, “All the strictly historical evidence we have is in favor of [the empty tomb], and those scholars who reject it ought to recognize that they do so on some other ground than that of scientific history.”[7]

Do we have enough evidence to conclude that Jesus rose from the dead? No. If the empty tomb were all the evidence we had, we would not be justified in concluding that Jesus rose from the dead. After all, an empty tomb can be accounted for in any number of ways. It will only be when the empty tomb is combined with the 3 other minimal facts we’ll look at in this blog series (the postmortem appearances to the disciples, Paul, and James), that we’ll see that the inference to the resurrection is justified.

Notes 

[1] Gary Habermas and Michael Licona responded to this objection in their book “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus,” and in the footnotes, they said they got this information from the Medical Examiner’s Office for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Habermas and Licona said “The physician in charge said that even in Virginia, which has a climate warm and damp enough to promote quick decomposition, an unprepared corpse undergoing a normal rate of decomposition should still after fifty days have its hair and an identifying stature. The wounds would ‘definitely’ be identifiable. Thus, a corpse in a much worse state than what would be expected for arid Jerusalem would still be identifiable after fifty days.” — Habermas, Gary R.; Licona, Michael R.. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (p. 287). Kregel Publications. Kindle Edition.

[2] William Lane Craig, “The Resurrection Of  Jesus”, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/jesus-of-nazareth/the-resurrection-of-jesus/

[3] William Lane Craig, “Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection”, from a lecture given at Southhampton Civic Hall UK, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/lectures/evidence-for-jesus-resurrection-southampton-uk/

[4] Byron R. McCane, “Burial Practices in First Century Palestine”, n.p. [cited 16 Nov 2017]. Online: http://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/people/related-articles/burial-practices-in-first-century-palestine

[5] Norman Geisler, When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences (1990), p. 206. The exact same paragraph appears even more recently in Geisler’s Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (1998), p. 48.

[6] J.P Moreland, “Scaling The Secular City”, Bakerback Academic, pages 161–162

[7] William Wand, Christianity: A Historical Religion? (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 1972), 93– 94.

 

Evan Minton is a Christian Apologist and blogger at Cerebral Faith (www.cerebralfaith.blogspot.com). He is the author of “Inference To The One True God” and “A Hellacious Doctrine.” He has engaged in several debates which can be viewed on Cerebral Faith’s “My Debates” section. Mr. Minton lives in South Carolina, USA.

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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 3_ Fact (1) Jesus Died By Crucifixion

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 3: Fact (1) Jesus Died By Crucifixion

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By Evan Minton

In the previous blog post, I explained what the minimal facts approach was, and how it employed standard historical criterion to the New Testament text rather than it being a “Thus sayeth The Lord” approach. The New Testament is used, but only as an ancient set of documents, not as scripture. Additionally, the minimal facts approach employs a two-step process (1) Determining the facts to be explained and (2) Determining the best explanation of those facts. At this stage of the game, we are determining the facts to be explained.
Of the 5 minimal facts that there are, the first one is this: Jesus died by Roman crucifixion. What historical evidence is there to establish this as a historical fact?

Reason 1: Jesus’ Death By Crucifixion is multiply attested
Jesus’ death by Roman crucifixion is overwhelmingly multiply attested. It is mentioned in 4 secular sources, the synoptic gospels, John’s gospel, and Paul’s epistles.
Source 1: Josephus 

The first-century Jewish historian named Flavius Josephus (37-100 A.D) wrote about Jesus’ crucifixion in his book Antiquities Of The Jews in book 18. Josephus wrote: “Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it is lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”  

Here we have a first century, non-Christian historian saying that a man named Jesus existed, drew a crowd of people who listened to His teachings, but was killed by Roman crucifixion under the governor Pontius Pilate at the request of “some of the principal men among us” which we can infer to be the Jewish Sanhedrin. This is historical evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus coming from a source with no theological ax to grind.

Now, some skeptics will object that this passage, known as “The Testimonium Flavianum,” really isn’t good historical evidence for the crucifixion because the passage seems to have been interpolated by a Christian scribe. I would agree that it has clearly been interpolated by Christian scribes as would a large number of historians and scholars who study ancient history. We have no evidence that Josephus ever became a Christian, so it would highly unlikely that he would say things like “If it be lawful to call him a man” for such a sentence implies that Jesus was more than human, or that Josephus would say “He was the Christ” as this is an explicit declaration that Jesus is the Messiah, a statement only a Christian would make. What’s worse is that near the very end of this passage, Josephus says that Jesus rose from the dead! Again, only Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead. Josephus, being a non-Christian, would never make these statements. This passage was obviously altered by a scribe who did believe these things; a Christian scribe.

But while I agree with the skeptic that the Testimonium Flavianum was altered by a Christian, I don’t believe it follows that we can’t use this passage as extra-biblical evidence for the death of Jesus. The majority of scholars today hold the position that The Testimonium Flavianum was only partially interpolated. That is to say; most of the passage is legitimate (it’s not like a Christian scribe made the entire Testimonium Flavianum up, but only certain phrases were inserted by a Christian scribe. There are two primary arguments that historians give for adopting this “Partial Interpolation” view.

*When You Remove The Obvious Christian Additions, The Passage Remains Coherent

Christopher Price wrote “Perhaps the most important factor leading most scholars to accept the partial-authenticity position is that a substantial part of the TF reflects Josephan language and style. Moreover, when the obvious Christian glosses — which are rich in New Testament terms and language not found in the core — are removed or restored to their original the remaining core passage is coherent and flows well. We can be confident that there was a minimal reference to Jesus… because once the clearly Christian sections are removed, the rest makes good grammatical and historical sense. The peculiarly Christian words are parenthetically connected to the narrative; hence they are grammatically free and could easily have been inserted by a Christian. These sections also are disruptive, and when they are removed the flow of thought is improved and smoother.”[1]

I think that Price is right. Compare the clearly interpolated version of the Testimonimum Flavianum which I included above with the version below:

“Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,–a teacher of such men as receiving the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”  

You can see that the flow of thought isn’t bothered by the removal of the obvious Christian additions. How often is it that you can erase whole sentences from a paragraph and still have it make complete sense? Not often. On this basis, therefore, it’s highly probable that there was an original passage about Jesus’ crucifixion and it did not include phrases that expressed belief in his messiahship and resurrection.

*The Reference to James the Brother of Jesus Suggests an Earlier Reference to Jesus

Later on in Josephus’ writings, Josephus makes a reference to Jesus’ brother James and records his martyrdom at the hands of the Jewish Sanhedrin. While the Testimonium Flavianum is hotly debated, I know of no scholar who doubts the validity of Josephus’ reference to James. The reference to James’s Martyrdom increases the likelihood that the Testimonium Flavianum is also valid. In Josephus’ reference to James, he refers to Jesus as “the so-called Christ” without further explanation. That’s all he says. All he says about James is that he’s the brother of “Jesus, the so-called Christ.” In the passage about James, Josephus doesn’t go into any explanation of who Jesus was, what He did, no claims of Him dying and rising from the dead, no mention of any miracles, or anything like that. The only thing Josephus says about Jesus in this latter passage is that He’s James’ brother. What this implies is that Josephus presupposed that his readers already knew who he was referring to. But why would Josephus make such a presupposition? If The Testmonium Falvianum is legitimate, then it makes sense why Josephus assumes his readers already knew who he was talking about; i.e. because He already briefly explained who Jesus was and what He did earlier.

For these and other reasons, most scholars think that the Testimonium Flavianium is an authentic passage. If it’s an authentic passage, then we can certainly use it as evidence for the existence and crucifixion of Jesus. However, even if the Testimonium Flavianum couldn’t be used, that wouldn’t hurt our case very much as we would still many other sources that record the event, as you’ll see below.

Source 2: Tacitus 

Tacitus was a Roman historian writing in the early second century. In the 15th volume of his work Annals, Tacitus recounts the terrible burning down of Rome by Emperor Nero and mentions how he tried to get the suspicions off of himself and onto the Christians by unleashing a terrible persecution against them. It is in this passage that he makes a reference to Jesus’ crucifixion. The Annals of Tacitus dates to AD 115.  Tacitus writes “Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign Of Tiberius…” (Cornelius Tacitus, Annals, 15:44)

Source 3: Mara Bar Serapion

Mara Bar-Serapion was a Syriac stoic philosopher in the Roman province of Syria. At some point, he was arrested, and while in prison, he wrote a letter to his son. In this letter, mentions how wise teachers who were persecuted and killed for their teachings were eventually avenged by God. He rhetorically asked what the Athenians gained from putting Socrates to death and then mentioned how famine and plague came upon them, for example. As for Jesus, Mara wrote: “What did the Jews gain from murdering their wise king? It was after that that their kingdom was abolished.”[2] 

About this passage, Josh and Sean McDowell write “Though Mara never uses Jesus’ name, we can be certain he is referring to him because no one else at that point in history would fulfill the requirements of being known as a “wise king” who was killed by the Jews shortly before they were driven from the land. Jesus is obviously in view.”[3]  

Source 4: Lucian Of Samosata 

Lucian Of Samosata was a second-century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early Christians as follows: “The Christians… worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account…” (Lucian of Samosata, from the book The Passing Peregrinus)

Source 5: The Synoptic Gospels

Everyone knows that the synoptic gospels (i.e. Matthew, Mark, and Luke) refer to the crucifixion of Jesus, so I don’t see any need to unpack this sub-subsection any further. I will clarify one thing though; the reason I’m throwing the synoptic gospels together as a single source is that many scholars believe that Luke borrowed material from Matthew who in turn borrowed from Mark. There is some good evidence that this is the case, such as the fact that there are passages in the Synoptics that read identically to one another.

Source 6: The Gospel Of John 

The gospel of John likewise tells us that Jesus died by Roman crucifixion. Most scholars believe that John was writing independently of the other 3 gospels. Therefore, I treat John as an independent source.

Source 7: The Epistles Of Paul 

Paul’s epistles mention the crucifixion of Jesus.

In all, we have at least 7 early sources that state that Jesus died by Roman Crucifixion. 4 of those sources are secular in nature, and 3 of them come from The New Testament.

According to the principle of multiple attestations, this makes it extremely, extremely probable that Jesus’ death on a Roman cross at the hands of Pontius Pilate was a real event of history. The principle of multiple attestations says that if you find any event mentioned in two or more sources, it is more likely that the event actually occurred. This is because the more and more independent sources an event is mentioned in, the less and less likely it is to be made up. Think about it: how likely is it that SEVEN INDEPENDENT SOURCES all made up the same fictional story? Seven independent historians! Do you honestly expect me to believe that seven independent writers all just happened to make up the same thing? That is statistically impossible! It is statistically impossible for 7 independent writers to all make up the same event and treat it as history!

Jesus’ death by Roman crucifixion is multiply, multiply, multiply attested, and this makes it extremely probable that the event actually occurred. If this criterion of authenticity were the only one this minimal fact passed, it would be enough to conclude it occurred.

Paul Maier, retired distinguished professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University said “Many facts in the ancient world are established on one source. Two or three sources often make an event impregnable.”[4]  Two sources? You can’t beat it. That’s how source material works in ancient history. Meyer says two independent sources make the historical event “impregnable.” But we don’t have two sources here; we have seven!

Reason 2: Jesus’ Crucifixion Is Enemy Attested 

Moreover, not only is Jesus’ death by crucifixion multiply attested in seven independent documents, but it’s also enemy attested. Those who are your enemies are not likely to say things to help your cause.  People who are hostile to you are not going to say things to make you look good or to bolster your cause.  We have enemy attestation when it comes to Jesus’ crucifixion. Neither Tacitus nor Lucian Of Samosata was friendly to Christianity. In Tacitus’ account, he calls Christianity a “pernicious superstition”! Lucian was ridiculing Christians in the very same passage in which he affirms that Jesus died by crucifixion! So, in addition to multiple attestations in seven independent sources, we have enemy attestation in two of those sources!

Reason 3: The Principle Of Historical Fit 

Moreover, the principle of historical fit comes into play here. We know for a fact from the writings of ancient first-century authors like Josephus, Tacitus, and even Archeology (e.g. the Yehohannan discovery from 1975), that Romans crucified people back in the first century. And we know that one of those reasons was in the case of treason. Jesus being crucified on the grounds of claiming to be the Messiah fits right in with what we know of Roman executions.

Reason 4: Only Women Had The Guts To Stick With Jesus In His Final Hours

If you were making up a story of any kind, you most likely wouldn’t depict yourself, your friends, or people you respected in a bad way. You wouldn’t make up lies about them that hurt them or made them look bad. If you were going to lie, you’d make up things to help them or to make them look good. This is why the principle of embarrassment counts in favor of an event’s historicity. The principle of embarrassment gives us good grounds to believe the crucifixion of Jesus occurred in three different ways.

John 19 records Jesus’ crucifixion. However, John writes “So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle. Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the jews. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, ‘Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.’ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written, I have written.’ When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.  ‘Let’s not tear it,’ they said to one another. ‘Let’s decide by lot who will get it.’ This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, ‘They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.’  So this is what the soldiers did. Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” – John 19:16-27

John records that 3 women stayed with Jesus during his final hours; Jesus’ mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the wife of Clopas (there were a lot of women named Mary in first century Israel). The only male disciple that John records as sticking with Jesus is himself. According to Mark’s account, the rest of the disciples all ran away in terror when the Romans came to arrest Jesus (Mark 14:43-52). The fact that most of the disciples abandoned Jesus in his darkest hour is not something the gospel writers would have made up. It gets worse when you consider that women are mainly those stay behind. In first century Jewish culture, women were considered second-class citizens, and Josephus says that they weren’t even allowed to witness in a Jewish court of law (more on this in the next blog post). In light of this fact, how remarkable it is that it is women who stay by Jesus’ side in his final moments rather than the male disciples! If John were making this up, he would have included at least a few other of the male apostles with him. Yet John puts the women in a good light and most of the men in a bad light! The women are the brave ones, and the men are cowards!

Reason 5: Jesus Was Killed In The Most Humiliating Way 

As I said above, If you were making up a story of any kind, you most likely wouldn’t depict yourself, your friends, or people you respected in a bad way. The gospel writers, whoever they were, clearly respected, Jesus. Why would they make up a story about his death that was considered at that time to be the most degrading and humiliating way to die. I mean, these people thought Jesus wasn’t just the Messiah, but God incarnate (John 1:1-3, 14)! Why would you write a story about your own God that demeans Him?[5]

As Dr. Gary Habermas said “Our Lord was killed like a slave? And, he had the best arguments in the universe, and he never opened His mouth? …..He might possibly have been crucified nude. May have happened. Didn’t always happen to crucified victims, but it did sometimes. We have a tendency to not add embarrassing things about those we love, and there are many.”[6] 

Put yourself in the shoes of a first century Jew. If you were going to make up a story of your leader dying and rising, wouldn’t you at least have him be killed in a more dignified way? Stoning was one way Jews killed people back in the first century, as we know from the book of Acts (chapter 7) and Josephus’ (Antiquities of The Jews, book 20, regarding James’ martyrdom by stoning). Maybe it’s just me, but I think being killed by having a large rock thrown at your head is a far more dignified way to die than being nailed to a stake either half-naked or fully naked. The gospel authors, if they were making up the story of Jesus’ death, would most likely have had him die by stoning.

So, once again, the principle of embarrassment gives us good reason to believe the first minimal fact is true.

Reason 6: Multiple Literary Form 

Different Kinds Of Stories about Jesus’ Death. Jesus’ death is recorded in different books of different genres of the first century. The genres are Miracles, Parables, Creeds, Didactic, Greco-Roman Biography, and Apocalyptic.

The Greco-Roman biographies would obviously be the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The apocalyptic genre would be the book of revelation in which Jesus shows up in Revelation 5 as a wounded lamb, and Jesus was very likely as the child born in the wilderness in chapter 12.
Creeds — We’ll talk more about creeds in part 5 of this blog post series, but Jesus’ crucifixion is mentioned in the early resurrection creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15, and in the creed cited in Philippians 2.

Parables — Jesus’ death is told in The Parable Of The Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9-16).

Didactic – Jesus’ crucifixion is mentioned in Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. See Acts 2:36

Reason 7: The King Of The Jews and The Principle Of Dissimilarity 

When the Romans were crucifying Jesus, they nailed a plaque above his head that read “The King Of The Jews” (Mark 15:26, John 19:19). We know that this is historical on the basis the principle of dissimilarity. “The King Of Jews” was never a title used for Jesus by the early church. If this title was just made up by the early church and retroactively inserted into the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, then we would expect the early church to call Jesus “The King Of The Jews” a lot more frequently than we do, but in fact, the early church never called Jesus by this title. Indeed, Jesus isn’t even called “The King Of Jews” in any other place in the synoptic gospels, or the gospel of John except for this one place! Additionally, none of the New Testament epistles call Jesus by this title! If this title was just made up by the early church and retroactively inserted into the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, then we would expect the early church to call Jesus “The King Of The Jews” very frequently. Therefore, by the principle of dissimilarity, we have good reason to believe that this plaque really was nailed above Jesus’ head while he was being crucified, which of course entails that Jesus actually was crucified.

Reason 8: “Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me” — Principle Of Embarrassment 

In Matthew 27, Matthew’s account of Jesus’ death on the cross, Jesus cries out “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” we can conclude that this is an actual utterance of Jesus on the basis of the criterion of embarrassment. Why would Matthew make Jesus ask God why He has forsaken him? It makes it seem as though Jesus doesn’t know why he’s being crucified even though he’s recorded as predicting it earlier (Matthew 20:17-19) and even said why he had to die (Matthew 20:28). Why would Matthew make this saying up? It just raises too many questions. Even today, this saying of Jesus strikes people as something odd for him to say. After all, he predicted his death and even explained why it had to take place, why is he all of a sudden crying out “Why”?

Now, I do think there’s a satisfying explanation for why Jesus said this. It’s the first verse of Psalm 22 verbatim. Most biblical scholars consider this to be a prophecy of the way the Messiah would die. When you compare the contents of Psalm 22 with what happened to Jesus in the gospels, there are striking similarities,  but I won’t go into them now. I’ll leave it up to you to look into that yourself. Jesus was calling attention to this Psalm in order to proclaim to the people that he was fulfilling yet another messianic prophesy.

Nevertheless, even though an explanation exists for this cry of Jesus’, wouldn’t it be easier for Matthew to just omit it altogether rather than go through the trouble of explaining it? Certainly. And that’s why we can conclude that Jesus actually made this statement. Of course, since the context of this statement is Jesus dying by crucifixion, that logically entails that the crucifixion actually occurred as well.

Summary and Conclusion 

We’ve seen that the historical evidence for Jesus having been executed via Roman crucifixion is overwhelming. Jesus’ death by Roman crucifixion is multiply, multiply, multiply attested in 7 independent sources. 4 of those sources are secular, and 3 of them are from The New Testament. It is statistically impossible for 7 different writers to all fabricate the same fictional event and then treat it as history. Moreover, Jesus’ crucifixion is enemy attested by two secular sources (Tacitus and Lucian), sources that were actually ridiculing Christianity in the same breath that they affirm the historicity of Jesus’ crucifixion. Moreover, Jesus’ death is coherent with the well-established facts of Roman history. Moreover, Jesus’ crucifixion meets the criterion of embarrassment in three different ways; (1) John makes women the brave ones to stay by Jesus’ side during his final hours while the disciples abandoned him, and (2) If you’re going to make up a story about someone you cherish dying, you’d make the specific way he died much more dignified. Roman crucifixion was not only an extremely painful way to die, but it was an extremely shameful way as well. Additionally, “My God! My God! Why Have You Forsaken Me” is an awkward saying of Jesus, so it’s unlikely to be made up. Also, Jesus’ death is told in multiple literary forms. Finally, the principle of dissimilarity supports the historicity of the crucifixion because a title is ascribed to Jesus that isn’t ascribed to him anywhere else, in The New Testament or in the writings of the early church fathers.

Of the 5 minimal facts, the death of Jesus on a cross is the one that I don’t think I’ll ever doubt. The evidence for it is so overwhelming and so plenteous, it passes so many of the principles of historical authenticity in so many different ways, that I am baffled how anyone could possibly deny it. In fact, no one does. At least not among scholars. The only people who deny that Jesus existed and died via Roman crucifixion are laymen.

The agnostic historian Bart Ehrman states that “One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. “[7] The highly critical scholar of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, writes, “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”[8]  Like Ehrman, Crossan is not a Christian. Yet both Ehrman and Crossan agree that Jesus’ death by crucifixion is a historical fact. Gerd Ludemann, an atheist historian, said: “Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is an indisputable fact.”[9] 

Now, why did I go to such lengths to establish the historicity of Jesus’ crucifixion? One reason is that you have to have a death before you can have a resurrection. Additionally, most of the people who will be reading this blog post series are not scholars or trained historians, but laymen. And many of them deny that Jesus even existed altogether, but much less died on a cross. But among scholars, both Christian and non-Christian, the crucifixion of Jesus is just taken for granted.[10] It isn’t even debated among Christian and Non-Christian scholars. I think that’s why Dr. William Lane Craig skips this one and goes right to Jesus’ burial or the empty tomb. Which, by the way, is the next minimal fact in our case that we’ll examine.

Notes 

[1] From the online article “Did Josephus Refer To Jesus?” by Christopher Price http://bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm

[2] British Museum, Syriac Manuscript, Additional 14,658

[3] McDowell, Josh; McDowell, Sean. Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World (p. 150). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

[4] Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 197.

[5] The American Biblical Scholar John P. Meier makes this same argument in “How do we decide what comes from Jesus” in The Historical Jesus in Recent Research by James D. G. Dunn and Scot McKnight 2006 ISBN 1-57506-100-7 pages 126–128

[6] Dr. Gary Habermas, transcribed from the lecture “Evidence For The Minimal Facts,” given at The National Conference On Christian Apologetics, October 14th, 2017.

[7] A Brief Introduction to the New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman 2008 ISBN 0-19-536934-3 page 136

[8] See John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 145; see also 154, 196, 201.

[9] Dr. Gerd Ludemann, “The Resurrection Of Christ: A Historical Inquiry,” 2004, page 50.

[10] See RE Brown, The Death Of The Messiah, 1994, page 1373

 

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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 2 How To Do History

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 2: How To Do History

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By Evan Minton

In the previous blog post, I talked about how important it was that we affirm that Jesus rose from the dead if He actually did, I warned not to let one’s dislike of Christianity’s implications get in the way of interpreting the evidence, and I warned not to let one’s naturalistic bias (provided the reader is an atheist) to not get in the way of their investigation. Be open-minded to the supernatural.

However, what kind of historical evidence could there be for the resurrection of Jesus? Where does one find this evidence? How does one come up with it? It’s important to understand how historical conclusions are derived. It’s important to understand the reasoning behind the case for Jesus’ resurrection, that is; the procedure at which we will come to the conclusion: Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. If one doesn’t understand the methodology of how historians come to this conclusion, then one won’t be convinced and might even respond with a straw man argument.

What Is The Minimal Facts Approach?

The approach to evidentially demonstrating Christ’s resurrection I will be taking in this series is what’s come to be known as “The Minimal Facts Approach”. New Testament scholars Gary Habermas and Michael Licona use this method in their book The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus.

The Minimal Facts Approach only employs data that meet two criteria:

1: It has a lot of historical evidence in its favor.

2: It is nearly universally accepted by nearly all scholars and historians who study this subject, even the skeptical non-Christian scholars.

A minimal fact, in order to be a minimal fact, must meet those two criteria. It must be very well attested and have near universal acceptance among scholars and historians who study this subject, even the skeptical non-Christian scholars.

The Minimal Facts approach argues for the historicity of the resurrection by a two-step process:
1: We give a list of facts and the historical evidence that proves they are facts.

2: We arrive at the resurrection as the best explanation of those facts by means of abductive reasoning.

Historical Methodology, Not “Quoting The Bible To Prove The Bible”

With regards to that first step, you’ll notice that I appeal to both extra-biblical sources as well as The New Testament documents. This is where non-Christians get hung up. They think that just because I cite a book or letter from The New Testament that I’m somehow “begging the question” or “reasoning in a circle” because they say that I’m “Quoting from The Bible to prove that The Bible is true.” They think I’m saying that because, for example, The Bible says that the tomb of Jesus was empty, that therefore Jesus’ tomb was empty. They think I’m arguing like this: “The tomb of Jesus was empty because The Bible clearly says it was empty, and The Bible’s the word of God, so you know that what it says is true!”

However, that’s not at all how I’m arguing for the factuality of the minimal facts. Yes, I use The New Testament documents, but I am not citing from them as divinely inspired scripture. Rather, I’m treating the New Testament documents as I would any other document from ancient history: as a set of ancient documents that claim to be telling us about historical events. I do not presuppose the inspiration, inerrancy, or even the general reliability of The New Testament when I appeal to it.

When I use the New Testament documents, I treat them just as a historian would any secular document. And I do that by applying the “principles of historical authenticity.” When historians are examining documents and are trying to figure out whether what those documents say are true, they will employ certain principles or criteria which will make a recorded incident more likely true than it would be without the use of that principle. By doing this, they can come to a conclusion with some degree of certainty that what they’re reading about actually happened.

These principles, known as “the principles of historical authenticity” or the “criteria of authenticity” are the following: the principle of multiple attestation, the principle of embarrassment, the principle of early attestation, the principle of enemy attestation, the principle of historical fit, the principle of dissimilarity, and the principle of multiple literary forms. I will be applying these to the gospels and New Testament epistles to see what kind of data we can extract about what happened to Jesus. This procedure isn’t peculiar. Historians do this all the time when examining secular documents. Now, let me explain these criteria:

The Principle Of Embarrassment — If a document records an event that is embarrassing to the one writing it, embarrassing to someone the writer cares about, weakens an argument he’s trying to make or hurts his cause in any way, it is more likely to be true than false. This principle is built on the common sense belief that if people are going to make up lies, it’s going to make themselves look good, make their loved ones look good, strengthen their arguments, or helps their cause. No one makes up lies to make themselves or a loved one look bad, or to weaken an argument they’re trying to make.

Here’s a hypothetical example of this principle in play. Let’s say we had a letter written by George Washington, the first president of The United States, and in that letter, he records an incident where he was riding a horse along the countryside, and he had a bad case of diarrhea, and he soiled himself. Then he says that he went behind a tree, removed his undergarments, and went commando for the rest of the day. A historian examining that document would conclude that this story is more likely to be true than not because such a story is embarrassing to the one who wrote it (i.e., George Washington). This would be to apply the principle of embarrassment to the letter. Now, no such letter written by George Washington exists (at least to my knowledge). This is merely an illustration to help you see how a historical investigation is done.

The Principle Of Multiple Attestation — The more independent sources an event is mentioned in, the more likely it is to be true. The more independent sources you have reporting an event, the smaller the odds it is that the event is made up since it’s highly unlikely for multiple people to concoct the same fiction.

Let’s say that not only did Washington write about his embarrassing case, but three of his friends each wrote documents recounting the incident. If this were the case, the incident of Washington soiling himself would be even more likely to be true. Why? Because of the principle of multiple attestations. When you have two or more independent sources record an incident, it’s far more likely to be true than not, because the more and more independent sources an event is mentioned in, the less and less likely it is to be made up. If you had three or four different sources recording the same event, what are the odds that all four sources are making up the same thing? So on top of the principle of embarrassment, we would add multiple attestations to this incident, and it would be even more likely that Washington soiled himself out in the countryside.

The Principle Of Early Attestation — The earlier a document dates relative to the event the document purports to describe, the more reliable the account. The earlier a document is, the less time there was for legend and embellishment to creep in.

The hypothetical documents of Washingtons’ friends were written only 2 years after the event. This short timescale makes it less likely that they would embellish things and accurately recall the day.

The Principle Of Enemy Attestation — If Document X is saying something that benefits a person, message, or cause, that X is hostile or opposed to, we have an indication of authenticity.
This principle’s logic runs mirror to The Principle of Embarrassment’s. The logic behind this principle is that people who hate you are not going to make up lies to make you look good. People who are opposed to your cause are not going to make up lies that help it.

The Principle Of Historical Fit — If details in an account conform to well established historical facts of the period, this makes the event in said account more credible.
For example, if Washington’s letters and the writings of his 3 friends described the countryside accurately, described what kind of trees were in bloom in the area that they said they were horseriding in, described the kind of clothes the people back in town wore, etc. these things would heighten the credibility of the accounts.

The Principle Of Dissimilarity — As far as I know, this principle is solely used in examining The New Testament. This principle says that If an event or saying of Jesus cannot be derived from the Judaism that preceded him or the Christian church that came after him, then it’s highly unlikely that the church made up the saying and attributed it to Jesus.

The Principle Of Multiple Literary Forms — Greco-Roman Biographies, creeds, miracles, didactic (these would be sermon summaries), apocalyptic. These are the genres of writings in the first century Roman-Palestinian world. If an event can be found in writings that fall into more than one genre, then it’s more likely to be true than not.

So, even though I’ll be appealing to the New Testament documents, I won’t be “quoting from The Bible to prove The Bible.” Instead, I’ll merely be treating The New Testament documents like I would any other set of ancient documents. By the way, even non-Christian historians treat The New Testament this way! People like Bart Erhman and Gerd Ludemann come to conclusions about the historical Jesus by applying these “criteria of authenticity” to the New Testament documents. As resurrection expert and New Testament scholar Gary Habermas once said: “If you don’t use The New Testament, the skeptics will.”[1] So here’s something to ponder; if the skeptics are allowed to use the New Testament, why aren’t Christian Apologists? If atheists can say “This aspect of Jesus is historical because of criteria of authenticity X,” then why can’t I? These non-Christian historians don’t presuppose the inspiration or inerrancy of scripture. They’re certainly not “Quoting The Bible to prove The Bible.”
Now, when one applies these criteria, what one comes up with are several facts which undergird the inference to the resurrection. These 5 facts are

1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

2: Jesus’ tomb was found empty the following Sunday morning.

3: Jesus’ disciples believed that Jesus appeared to them after His death.

4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived as an appearance of the risen Jesus. 

5: A skeptic named James converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived as an appearance of the risen Jesus. 

According to Doctor Habermas, these 5 facts meet the two criteria required to be a minimal fact. They both have a lot of historical evidence in their favor (as we’ll see in the upcoming chapters), and moreover, they are nearly universally accepted by scholars and historians who study ancient Palestinian history, even the skeptical ones.[2]

By the way, let me just get a quick word in about these criteria regarding how they can be misused. Some people have tried to disprove things about Jesus through the negative use of these criteria. For example, they’ll say that because some event or saying of Jesus is not multiply attested or not embarrassing, that therefore, it isn’t historical. You can’t use the criteria in that way. They can only be used positively to show that something is true, they can’t be used negatively to show something isn’t true. Just because something isn’t embarrassing to an author, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Just because something is found in only one source, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Just because something isn’t attested by an enemy source, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The criteria only say that if something is multiply attested, embarrassing, enemy attested, etc. then that means it probably happened. Think about it this way; Event X may be mentioned in only one source and therefore is not multiply attested. However, Event X may be embarrassing to the author. So even though event X isn’t mentioned by two or three other writers, we’d still be justified in concluding X happened on the basis of the criterion of embarrassment. Or something may not be embarrassing, but it may be mentioned by two or three independent writers and ergo is multiply attested.

Abductive Reasoning 

Once the 5 facts are established through the historical, methodological approach, we then use abductive reasoning to arrive at the resurrection as the best explanation of those 5 facts. Now, what is abductive reasoning? Abductive Reasoning, also known as inferring to the best explanation, is a form of reasoning that takes a collection of evidence and eliminates the list of possible explanations for that evidence until you arrive at only one remaining possibility. If this remaining possibility has the power to explain all of the evidence in question and if it’s truly the only one left, then the most logical conclusion is that this possible explanation is the true explanation.

In logical form, it looks like this:

1: Either P, Q, or R.

2: Not P or Q.

3: Therefore, R.

Don’t Worry About Alleged Contradictions In The Gospels

In conversations with skeptics about the evidence for the resurrection, almost inevitably, someone will bring up the charge that the gospel accounts are contradictory. They’ll say “How can we believe what the gospels tell us about Jesus!? They’re hopelessly filled with contradictions!” Or they’ll quote Bart Ehrman saying:

“Did he [Jesus] die on the day before the Passover meal was eaten, as John explicitly says, or did he die after it was eaten, as Mark explicitly says? Did he die at noon, as in John, or at 9 a.m., as in Mark? Did Jesus carry his cross the entire way himself or did Simon of Cyrene carry his cross? It depends which Gospel you read. Did both robbers mock Jesus on the cross or did only one of them mock him and the other come to his defense? It depends which Gospel you read. Did the curtain in the temple rip in half before Jesus died or after he died? It depends which Gospel you read. Or take the accounts of the resurrection. Who went to the tomb on the third day? Was it Mary alone or was it Mary with other women? If it was Mary with other women, how many other women were there, which ones were they, and what were their names? Was the stone rolled away before they got there or not? What did they see in the tomb? Did they see a man, did they see two men, or did they see an angel? It depends which account you read.”[3]

Listening to Eherman or another unbeliever list these supposed contradictions off can seem a little overwhelming, and some apologists feel tempted to respond to every one of them and provide some sort of plausible harmonization scenario for each alleged discrepancy. However, in a minimal facts approach, we need not bother with any alleged contradictions in the gospel accounts. For one thing, while I think apologists should provide scenarios to harmonize these differences, since I take biblical inerrancy to be very important (and I think Norman Geisler does a great job at this in his book The Big Book Of Bible Difficulties), nevertheless, since inerrancy isn’t something being presupposed in our case, we can ignore any errors The New Testament may or may not have made.

Moreover, I want you to notice something: all of these discrepancies are in the secondary details, not the primary details.

The gospels are completely in harmony when it comes to the primary details. All 4 gospels agree on the following facts:

Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem on Passover Eve under Pontius Pilate at the instigation of the Sanhedrin, and afterward, he was buried in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea, which was sealed by a huge round stone. The following Sunday morning, at least one woman went to the tomb and found it empty. Jesus then appeared to the women and to the disciples alive. 

All four Gospels attest to these facts.

The only places that seem to be discrepancies are in the peripheral details, which don’t really make an impact on the story. For example, who went to the tomb? One woman, or several? How many angels were at the tomb? One angel or two? Do the answers to these questions really matter in the overall scheme of things? No. If the gospels contradict each other, they only do so in the minor, secondary, peripheral details. They’re completely harmonious in the core details of the story.

Dr. William Lane Craig said “Historians expect to find inconsistencies like these even in the most reliable sources. No historian simply throws out a source because it has inconsistencies”[4] and he’s absolutely right. Historians look at whether accounts harmonize in the primary details. If they conflict only in the peripherals, they don’t throw the sources out. Let’s use a non-biblical example to demonstrate this point.

When the Titanic sank, there were differing accounts as to how it sank. Some said the Titanic went down in one piece; others said it broke in half and went down. Some said people continued to play music as the ship sank, others said there was no music. Some said there were shootings happening when the Titanic was sinking, but others disagreed. How in the world could eyewitnesses not agree on these things? I don’t know! But I don’t hear anyone claiming that because of these discrepancies in the eyewitness accounts here that therefore the Titanic didn’t sink.[5] Eyewitnesses may differ as to whether the Titanic broke in half, but they all agreed that it sank. The gospel authors may disagree about how many women went to the tomb, but they all agree that the tomb was empty. The gospel authors may disagree as to how many thieves ridiculed Jesus at His crucifixion, but they all agree that Jesus was indeed crucified.

Objection: But The New Testament Writers Were Biased!

Some non-Christians would object to me using The New Testament even if they fully understand that I’m not treating it like divinely inspired scripture. They say we can’t trust what The New Testament writers wrote because they were biased. They said that they have an invested interest in writing down the things they wrote down. They say it’s propaganda. It’s a religious text. It’s meant to be a tool for converting people and nothing more. So, therefore, these non-Christians argue, we should only look at extra-biblical sources in trying to figure out the truth about what happened to Jesus.

But this argument doesn’t work for three reasons. First of all, everyone is biased to some degree or other. Jews have an invested interest in writing about the Holocaust (namely to try to prevent such an atrocity from ever happening again), and African Americans have an invested interest in writing about the unfairness of slavery, so rejecting what a document says because they’re supposedly biased is just fallacious. Basically, it’s just another example of the ad hominem fallacy (rejecting what a person says as true simply because of who they are). If you’re going to reject a source on these grounds, you would throw out every history book ever written. In fact, you’d have to reject not only every source from ancient history, but you’d have to reject every blog, every news site, every radio program, every newspaper, you’d basically be forced into a state of hyper-skepticism. You couldn’t even believe your mother when she tells you she loves you! I’m not joking! Isn’t she biased? No one writes about anything unless they’re interested in their subject.

Secondly, bias does not automatically mean someone is wrong. Someone can be biased, and someone can be right at the same time. In fact, ironically, bias can actually drive a person to be more accurate in their reporting. For example, one might say (and in fact, some have said) that I’m biased in favor of Christianity and that I have an invested interest in winning unbelievers to the faith and equipping believers to defend their faith. True enough. I’ve said so outright in various places on this blog. However, I would submit to you that my bias drives me to be more accurate, more truthful, and more careful in my writing. The reason is that I don’t want to discredit myself. If I even misattribute a quote to someone or take a Bible verse out of context, I’m mortified! I want to ensure that everything I say is true so that my credibility doesn’t suffer.

Thirdly, the criterion of authenticity that I mentioned several subsections ago help to establish facts as historically true regardless of whether an author has a bias or not. Multiple attestations, embarrassment, enemy attestation, etc. These can be used to extract historical pieces of information.

As Dr. William Lane Craig said, “Notice that these “criteria” do not presuppose the general reliability of the Gospels. Rather they focus on a particular saying or event and give evidence for thinking that specific element of Jesus’ life to be historical, regardless of the general reliability of the document in which the particular saying or event is reported. These same “criteria” are thus applicable to reports of Jesus found in the apocryphal Gospels, or rabbinical writings, or even the Qur’an. Of course, if the Gospels can be shown to be generally reliable documents, so much the better! But the “criteria” do not depend on any such presupposition. They serve to help spot historical kernels even in the midst of historical chaff. Thus we need not concern ourselves with defending the Gospels’ every claim attributed to Jesus in the gospels; the question will be whether we can establish enough about Jesus to make faith in him reasonable.”[6]

So the criterion of authenticity does an end-run around the historical reliability of the gospels (which might be affected by a bias). Even if the most unreliable of sources, these criteria can extract nuggets of historical data. For example, one might say “X is an unreliable source, but we can still believe what it says when it reports Y because it’s embarrassing to X to mention such a thing.” or “X is an unreliable source, but X’s mentioning of Y is corroborated by several other sources, so it’s multiply attested and therefore, likely to be true.” Therefore, this objection to the use of The New Testament documents falls flat.

Summary and Conclusion 

Hopefully, you now know how history is done and how the minimal facts are arrived at. Hopefully, you’ll see that the approach we apologists take when arguing for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a question-begging “The Bible says it! I believe it! That settles it!” kind of approach. Rather, this approach treats The New Testament documents the same way we would treat any set of ancient documents. Moreover, non-Christian historians approach the New Testament in the same way and come to the same conclusions. Using the historical, methodological approach, they agree that the minimal facts are indeed facts. They just disagree with Christian scholars on how to explain those 5 facts. That’s where abductive reasoning comes in. We need to see whether any of the proposed naturalistic explanations non-Christian scholars propose are any good. I submit to you that they are not, and only the miraculous resurrection can account for all 5 facts. Finally, we need to not get distracted by claims that the gospel accounts are contradictory. For one thing, they’re all in the peripheral details that don’t make an impact on the story. Moreover, if historians threw sources out because of such differences, little could be known about history.

Now that you know the reasoning process behind the minimal facts approaches, it’s now time to begin looking at evidence for the minimal facts themselves. Once we’ve done that, we’ll eliminate all of the possible explanations until “He is risen!” is the only one left on the table (abductive reasoning).

Notes 

[1] Gary Habermas said this in a lecture at the “To Everyone an Answer: 10th Annual EPS Apologetics Conference”. The lecture was titled “The Resurrection Evidence that Changed Current Scholarship” and can be viewed on Youtube here, uploaded by Biola University’s Youtube account à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5znVUFHqO4Q

[2] Doctor Habermas came up with the number that around 95-99% of non-Christian scholars accept the 5 minimal facts presented above. The empty tomb, while not having such near unanimity at the other 4 facts, does have support from an impressive majority of 75% of scholars. He came up with this number by surveying the literature.

[3] (Bart Ehrman vs. William Lane Craig Debate, Is there Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus? debate transcript http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman).

[4] William Lane Craig, “Q&A: Inerrancy and The Resurrection,” https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/inerrancy-and-the-resurrection

[5] See “Titanic: First Accounts,” by Tim Maltin (Editor, Introduction), Nicholas Wade (Afterword), Max Ellis (Illustrator), Penguin Classics

[6] William Lane Craig, “Q&A: Establishing The Gospels’ Reliability,” http://www.reasonablefaith.org/establishing-the-gospels-reliability 

 

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Why Yahweh Why Not Zeus Why Not Thor Why Not Zoidberg

Why Yahweh? Why Not Zeus? Why Not Thor? Why Not Zoidberg?

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By Evan Minton

One common question atheists often ask Christians like me is why we believe in the God of The Bible as opposed to all of these other gods in all of these made up religions. They will ask “You believe in only one God? Why don’t you believe in Thor, or Zeus, or Athena? You claim all these gods don’t exist? Yet you say your god does? How do you tell the difference?”

Actually, this question is one of the first things that made me doubt my own Christian faith. Years ago, I pretty much had no way to tell between Christianity and other religions? How do I know Yahweh is the one true God? If these others are made up, how do I know my God isn’t? Fortunately, The Lord showed me Christian Apologetics and gave me a good way to discern between them. Now, I’m not going to go into all of the evidence for The God Of The Bible right now. If I did, this blog post would be extremely long, just incredibly wordy. Rather, I’m going to link to these arguments and evidence which demonstrate the truth of Christianity, and when you’re done reading this blog post you can click on those links and study the arguments individually if you’d like. The links will be highlighted in blue.

One way to know is The Big Bang itself. According to The Big Bang, the entire universe popped into being out of nothing! And according to people who have done exhaustive studies of the world’s religions (e.g Hugh Ross), the only beliefs that have God creating out of nothing are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Deism. All other religions have God or gods creating within space and time that have existed from eternity past. So, the very origin of the universe itself narrows it down to 4 possibilities. Moreover, the origin of the universe demonstrates that the existence of the universe must have been brought into being by a causal agent. A causal agent whose existence is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, uncaused, supernatural and personal (See The Kalam Cosmological Argument).

If the scientific evidence for Intelligent Design goes through (e.g The Fine Tuning Of The Universe, The Local Fine Tuning, The DNA Evidence, Irreducible Complexity), you can rule out Deism. Because what arguments like the teleological arguments show is that this God is actively shaping the universe and life to make it’s inhabited by creatures. That rules out Deism and fits better with theism.

Moreover, I might add that the Ontological Argument demonstrates that there exists a being much like the God of The Bible. The Ontological Argument, if it goes through, would demonstrate that there exists a being who is Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent. This contradicts many gods like Thor and Zeus. The only religions consistent with a being like this are the 3 monotheistic religions. Polytheistic gods like Thor are merely superhumans (Stan Lee took advantage of this fact). But they’re not omnipotent or omnipresent or anything like that. The beauty about the Ontological Argument is that it not only demonstrates that God exists but it puts forth all of his superlative qualities which you can’t derive from other arguments from natural theology.

In fact, arguments from natural theology can tell us not just that God exists, but it can demonstrate a lot of attributes about God. Attributes that The Bible describes Him as having. The Kalam Cosmological Argument shows that God is a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, supernatural and personal agent. The Fine Tuning Arguments (universal and local) demonstrate that God is incredibly intelligent, at least intelligent enough to know how to fabricate a universe suitable for creatures to inhabit. The other teleological arguments (DNA and Irreducible Complexity) do the same thing. The Moral Argument demonstrates that God is morally perfect since it demonstrates that God is the standard by which we measure people to determine just how good or just how evil they really are. It demonstrates that in the absence of God’s existence, there would be nothing we could objectively call good and evil because there would be nothing to compare it with. Who or what exactly are we comparing Hitler or Bin Ladin to when we call them evil?

The Ontological Argument demonstrates God’s superlative qualities (as I’ve already noted above). If it pulls through (that is, if it meets the 3 requirements for being a good argument, which are: The conclusion must follow from the premises by the laws of logic, all of the premises must be true, and we must have good reasons to think that they’re true), if this argument meets those 3 requirements, it demonstrates that there exists a being that is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and necessary in its existence (aseity).

These arguments from natural theology/general revelation, when put together, give us powerful reasons to believe in the existence of a Being that very, very closely resembles the being that The Bible describes as God. Moreover, the beautiful thing about natural theology is that you derive this Being’s existence without appealing to any scripture whatsoever. So the atheist can’t accuse you of circular reasoning (appealing to The Bible to prove The Bible). We can conclude that this being exists just from science, and logic alone.

But if you want to get to Christianity and eliminate the other 2 options, one may want to look at the evidence for Christ’s resurrection. For me, Christ’s resurrection settles everything,. If it can be historically established that Jesus made claims to be God, and then rose from the dead, then that is pretty good evidence that He was telling the truth. The resurrection means that God put His stamp of approval on everything Jesus said and did. It means that He is both Messiah and Lord. Therefore, anything contradictory to Christ’s teachings must be false. I happen to think that the historical evidence for Jesus Christ’s resurrection is very powerful. I admonish you to look at the Cerebral Faith blog posts I wrote on this topic. In PART 1, I give the evidence for the 5 minimal facts; (1) that Jesus died by crucifixion, (2), that Jesus’ tomb was found empty, (4) that the disciples believed they saw Jesus alive after his death, (4), that a persecutor named Paul converted on the basis of what he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus, and (5) that a skeptic named James converted based on what he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus. In PART 2, I examine which of the explanations best explains those hypotheses and show that only the hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” best explains the 5 facts while naturalistic explanations fail.

But if you want to dive into studying this topic even deeper, I suggest the books “The Case For Christ” by Lee Strobel, “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus” by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, and also “On Guard” by William Lane Craig (Craig’s book also delves into 4 of the natural theology arguments I’ve listed above, but it also has a chapter on Jesus’ claims to deity and a chapter on the evidence for his resurrection).

So there you have. Reasons why I believe in The Biblical God instead of any polytheistic or pantheistic gods. I hope that whether you’re a Christian like me or an atheist, that you will click on the links above and take the time to read those linked articles. If you’re an atheist, it might make a believer out of you. If you’re a Christian, it will likely strengthen your faith. God bless you.

 

For a fuller treatment on this, check out Evan’s book ‘Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods’.

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