Tag Archive for: CerebralFaith

Did Jesus Exist

¿Existió Jesús?

By Evan Minton

I don’t know why, but 99% of the atheists I talk to on the Internet hold the ridiculous position that Jesus never existed. But then, they’re atheists. I don’t expect them to believe in the divinity of Jesus. How could they? If they did, they wouldn’t be atheists. They would be Christians. No. I’m not talking about believing in the divinity of Jesus here, but about believing in Jesus as a historical figure. That’s what I find so ridiculous. Those who deny the Christ myth are clinging to a historical hypothesis that would make them the laughing stock of every university in the world. Almost every scholar of ancient history holds this view, and those who are in a minority, a minority, a minority are rightly seen as charlatans. By the way, those who believe that Jesus was a flesh-and-blood historical figure are not Christians. Atheist and agnostic scholars also believe that Jesus was a historical figure. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic and one of the most outspoken critics of Christianity, believes that Jesus was a real, flesh-and-blood historical person. He writes: “I think the evidence that Jesus existed is so overwhelming that it is foolish to claim otherwise. I don’t know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is trained in the historical method, or anyone who is a biblical scholar and who works that way, who gives any credence to any of that.” 

Why is this the case? Why do almost all scholars of ancient history believe that Jesus was a flesh-and-blood figure in history? Is the evidence for Jesus’ historicity as overwhelming as agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman claims? Let’s see.

*The existence of Jesus is more than amply attested in secular sources, non-Christian extra-biblical sources, and in the New Testament documents.

Jesus is mentioned in so many sources in the first century and early second century that it is absurd to claim that He never existed. What are those sources? Well, we have the gospels and the epistles of the New Testament. But everyone already knows them, so I am not going to cite them. Instead, I am going to cite merely the non-Christian, extra-biblical sources.

1: Flavius ​​Josephus

Josephus mentions Jesus (and other New Testament figures) in his writings. In Flavius ​​Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews (written in 90 AD), Josephus writes:

“About that time there was a certain Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man, for he was a wonder-worker, a teacher of men who welcomed the truth. Many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles were attracted to him. They called him the Christ, and when Pilate, acting on the suggestion of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him from the beginning did not forsake him; he appeared to them resurrected on the third day, just as the divine prophets had foretold, and they said ten thousand other astonishing things about him. The existence of Christians, the name they took from him from that time on, continues to this day.”

“Antiquities of the Jews”, 18.3.3

Second, in Book 20 there is what might be called a brief reference to Jesus in a paragraph describing the murder of Jesus’ brother James at the hands of the high priest Ananus.

“But as we said, the young man Ananus who received the high priesthood was of a courageous temper and exceptionally bold; he was a partisan of the Sadducees, who were severe in passing judgment on all the Jews, as we have already shown. Since Ananus was of such a temper, he thought he had now a great opportunity since Festus was dead and Albinus was still on the way; so he formed a council of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, the one called Christ, whose name was James, together with others; and having accused them of being offenders, he handed them over to be stoned.”

Here we have an early secular source that mentions Jesus and a handful of followers who clearly believed He was the promised Messiah (or Christ) of their Jewish religion. It also mentions Pontius Pilate and says that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate at the suggestion of the Jewish Sanhedrin. This is pretty good non-Christian and non-Biblical evidence that affirms the existence of Jesus, the existence of Pontius Pilate, that Jesus had a handful of followers who considered Him to be the Christ, and that the Sanhedrin brought Jesus before Pontius Pilate and that he condemned Him to die on a cross. Josephus also claims that Jesus had a brother named James who was murdered by the Sanhedrin.

“BUT!” The one who believes that Christ is a myth may protest . This passage has obviously been interpolated by a Christian. Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian. And yet he says things like “He was the Christ”  and “He appeared to them resurrected on the third day .”  Therefore, we cannot include this passage from Josephus because it was not a genuine passage that he wrote. It was more likely written by a Christian scribe who included this passage in order to subliminally evangelize people. But are the skeptics right? Is this passage really not historical evidence for the existence of Jesus? There are a few things to consider.

First, very few scholars believe that the entire passage was invented by a Christian. Certainly, it is indisputable that there have been interpolations in this passage, but that does not mean that the whole thing was invented. Most scholars believe that there was an original passage about Jesus included in the Flavian testimony, but that it was subtly modified by a Christian scribe.

There are very good reasons why scholars have adopted the theory of “partial authenticity.”

1: A good portion of the text is written in Josephus’s dramatic style and vocabulary. That is, the fragments believed to be original to Josephus reflect his typical writing style.

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 the language and style of Josephus . Moreover, when the obvious Christian references—which are rich in New Testament vocabulary and non-core language—are removed or restored to the original, the remainder of the core passage is coherent and flows appropriately. We can be confident that there was minimal reference to Jesus… for once the clearly Christian sections are removed, the remainder makes good grammatical and historical sense. The peculiarly Christian words are connected parenthetically to the narrative; therefore, they are grammatically free and could easily have been inserted by a Christian. These sections, moreover, are broken up, and when they are removed, the flow of thought is improved and more harmonious.”

Graham Stanton claims that “once the obvious Christian additions are removed , the remaining comments are consistent with the vocabulary and style of Josephus”  (Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, p. 143). The most recent and comprehensive study of the Flavian testimony was undertaken by John P. Meier in A Marginal Jew, Volume 1. According to Meier,  “many key words and phrases in the testimony are either absent from the NT or are used in it in entirely different ways; instead, nearly all of the core words of the testimony are found elsewhere in Josephus’ work—indeed, much of the vocabulary turns out to be characteristic of Josephus”  (Meier, op. cit., p. 63).

  1. The reference to James, the brother of Jesus, suggests an earlier reference to Jesus.

The validity of Josephus’ reference to the martyrdom of James increases the likelihood that the TF is also valid. In Josephus’ reference to James, he names Jesus as “the so-called Christ” without further explanation . That’s all he says. When he refers to James, he says he is the brother of “ Jesus, the so-called Christ.” Josephus gives no further explanation of who Jesus was , what he did, no reference to his death or resurrection from the dead, no mention of any miracles, or anything like that. All he says is that James is the brother of Jesus. The way the passage about James reads makes it seem as if Josephus was assuming that his readers already knew who he was talking about. This would make sense if the Flavian Testimony were a legitimate passage. Because in that passage, Josephus has already briefly explained who this Jesus was and what he did, so that by the time his readers got to the passage about James, no further explanation would be necessary. However, Josephus’ lack of elaboration as to who Jesus was in the passage about James would make no sense if there were no earlier explanation of who he was, such as in the Flavian Testimony. Incidentally, no one doubts that Josephus’ reference to James is authentic.

For these two reasons and several more, most scholars believe that Josephus’ Flavian testimony is a genuine passage, even though it is obvious that some Christian scribe changed a few lines here and there. For more information on why Josephus’ passage was partially interpolated rather than completely invented, please click on the URL below.

“Did Josephus Refer To Jesus?” by Christopher Price —  http://bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm

The Mona Lisa

This topic arose from a talk given by Dr. Timothy McGrew. The talk was about extra-biblical evidence indicating the historical reliability of the New Testament. By the way, you can listen to this talk on YouTube. Anyway, Tim McGrew posted a picture of the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa had a mustache, and he compared it to Josephus’ interpolations of the passage about Jesus with the Mona Lisa having a mustache. He said:

“This is not a Leonardo da Vinci painting, and if the lights weren’t so bright, you can see why. It looks a little bit like the Mona Lisa… but… it has a moustache and a bit of a beard. Should we conclude, then, that there was no original painting? Or should we conclude that there was and that there is something that has been added… by someone else’s hand? What should we make of a moustache on the Mona Lisa? Well, fortunately in 1971, Shlomo Pines published some work he had been doing on an Arabic manuscript that contained this passage.”

And it is in this Arabic text that we find the passage without the confusing fragments that seem to be Christian interpolations.

“whose conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. Many people from among the Jews and from other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to crucifixion and death, and those who were his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him.  THEY  REPORTED that he appeared to them 3 days after his crucifixion. Consequently , they believed that he was the Messiah just as the prophets had said ”  (emphasis mine)

Tim McGrew then asked the audience, “Do you see the difference? My guess is (and this is the opinion of most scholars) is that the passage was originally written by Josephus as we have it in this Arabic text… and then some Christian scribe couldn’t resist the urge to put a mustache on the Mona Lisa. He didn’t realize that what he was doing would raise doubts as to the authenticity of the report of this genuine passage and that of Josephus himself. As with the Mona Lisa, our inference is that there was indeed an original and it was not invented by the person who added the mustache and beard. Our best guess regarding the testimony is that Josephus actually wrote it and that it was interpolated. And fortunately, we have discovered a text that shows us why most scholars think more or less that is how it happened.”

2: Tacitus

Another secular document is the Annals of Cornelius Tacitus. In Annals 15.44, Tacitus recounts the burning of Rome to its foundations and says that everyone blamed Nero for burning the city. Nero tried to shift the blame to the Christians, and so he began to persecute them. Tacitus’ Annals date from 115 AD.

“But all the help that could come from man, all the rewards that the prince could grant, all the expiations that could be presented to the gods, were of no avail to free Nero from the infamy of supposing that he had ordered the conflagration, the burning of Rome. Therefore, to silence the rumours, he falsely accused and then punished the Christians, who were abhorred for their enormities. Christ, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition which had been for a time suppressed, broke out again, not only throughout Judea where the mischief originated, but also throughout the city of Rome, where everything disgusting and disgraceful that springs from all parts of the world finds its centre and becomes popular. Therefore, first of all those who were found guilty were arrested; Then, after his declaration, an immense crowd was accused, not so much of the crime of burning the city, but of their hatred of humanity.”

Again, Jesus and Pontius Pilate are mentioned in secular documents. Tacitus claims that Jesus existed and was crucified by Pontius Pilate. He then states that the movement that arose after Jesus died out for a time, then flared up again originating in Judea, and then spread to Rome. The New Testament claims the same thing; Jesus existed, was crucified by Pilate, his followers kept quiet for the next 50 days, and then at Pentecost, began to spread the gospel throughout the ancient world. And unlike the Josephus passage , no one debates this Tacitus passage. Everyone acknowledges that this passage from Tacitus’ Annals is authentic.

3: Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger (62?-c.113 AD) was the governor of Bithynia. His correspondence with the Emperor Trajan in 106 AD included a report on proceedings against Christians. In an extensive note to his supervisor, Pliny explained that he forced Christians to “curse Christ, which a true Christian cannot be induced to do.” He also described their actions and practices:

“They affirmed, however, that their whole fault, or their whole error, was that they were in the habit of meeting together on a certain appointed day before daybreak, when they would sing in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as if to a god, and bind themselves by a solemn oath never to do any infamous action, except never to commit fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, never to deny the faith if called upon to testify.”

Kyle Butt, author of many articles at Apologetics Press, had this to say regarding the Pliny passage I just quoted. Here is what Kyle Butt of Apologetics Press wrote.

“Pliny used the word ‘Christian’ or ‘Christians’ seven times in his letter, thereby corroborating it as a generally accepted word that was recognized by both the Roman Empire and its emperor. Pliny, moreover, used the name “Christ” three times to refer to the initiator of the “sect.” This is the undeniable case that Christians, with Christ as their founder, had multiplied to such an extent that it attracted the attention of the emperor and his magistrates in the days when Pliny wrote the letter to Trajan. In light of this evidence, it is impossible to deny the fact that Jesus Christ existed and was recognized by the highest officials within the Roman government as a real, historical person.”  – Kyle Butt, Apologetics Press, from the article titled: “The Historical Christ–Fact or Fiction? ”

4: Celsus

Celsus, a pagan philosopher of the second century, produced a vehement attack on Christianity entitled “The True Discourse” (in AD 178). Celsus argued that Christ owed his existence to the result of fornication between Mary and a Roman soldier named Panthera. When this Jesus grew up, he began running around Palestine making extravagant claims of divinity. Celsus tells us that because of Jesus’ wild claims about himself, he displeased the Jewish authorities so intensely that they killed him. Although Celsus harshly ridiculed the Christian faith, he never went so far as to suggest that Jesus did not exist.

5: Mara bar-Serapion

Mara bar-Serapion was a Syrian who wrote about Jesus Christ sometime in AD 73. He left a manuscript as an inheritance to his son Serapion.

“What did the Athenians gain by killing Socrates? Famine and plagues came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What did the men of Samos gain by burning Pythagoras? In a moment, their land was covered by sand. What did the Jews gain by executing their wise king? It was after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and expelled from their land, live in utter dispersion. But Socrates did not die for doing good; he lived on in the teachings of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for doing good; he lived on in the statue of the goddess Hera. Nor did the wise king die for doing good; he lived on in the teachings he had imparted.”

This reference reveals several key points:

1) Jesus was considered a wise king.

2) Jesus was killed.

3) Jesus’ teachings endured.

Several of those who maintain that “Christ is a myth” have tried to argue that the “wise king” to whom Mara is referring is Jesus, but this is really a pathetic argument. For the sake of brevity, I will not address in depth the objections to the Mara bar-Serapion passage, but James Patrick Holding addresses these arguments at the following URL.

http://tektonics.org/jesusexist/serapion.php

In conclusion

For the sake of brevity, I could not go into all the secular sources that mention Jesus. But here is a list of all the historical sources that mention him.

Secular sources: Josephus , Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Lucian, Phlegon, Celsus, Mara Bar Serapion, Suetonius and Thallus

New Testament sources:    Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, the author of Hebrews, James, Peter, and Jude.

Non-biblical Christian sources: Clement of Rome, Clement 2, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, The Martyrdom of Polycarp, Didache, Barnabas, The Shepherd of Hermas, Fragments of Papias, Justin Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Quadratus, Ariston of Pella, Melito of Sardis, Diognetus, The Gospel of Peter, The Apocalypse of Peter and Epistula Apostolorum.

Heretical writings: The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Truth, The Apocryphal Book of John and The Treatise on the Resurrection.

We have an abundance of historical evidence to prove the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, the amount of historical evidence is staggering considering how unclear his person was. He had, at most, a three-year public ministry. Yet, He is mentioned in more sources than the Roman Emperor! If you count all the non-Christian sources that mention Jesus, He is mentioned in one more source than the Roman Emperor Caesar Tiberius! If you count the Christian sources (including the New Testament documents), Jesus beats Caesar 42 to 10! If you consider Jesus a mythological person in light of this historical evidence, you might believe the same about Caesar Tiberius, since we have more evidence confirming the existence of Jesus than Caesar Tiberius. To claim that Jesus is a myth and that Caesar Tiberius was a real person is to be inconsistent.

Now, why is this important? Because when historians examine history, they use certain tests for authenticity. If a passage in a history book passes one of these “tests,” then the historian concludes that the recorded event is more likely to be true than false. There are many such tests, but the one I am using in this post is known as “The Principle of Multiple Witnesses.” The Principle of Multiple Witnesses says that if an event is mentioned in more than one source, and if the sources do not support each other, then it is much more likely that that event actually happened. The more often a recorded event is mentioned, the more certain there is that the event recorded in that document is true. Why? Because the more independent the sources that something is found in, the much less likely it is that ALL of those people involved made up that exact same story.

Here I am applying the principle of multiple witnesses to the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is mentioned in so many early independent sources that it is irrational to claim that ALL of these people made up this same fictional character… and then go on to talk about it as if he were real.

On top of that, several of these sources are hostile sources , as they are not only neutral to the claims of the Christian faith, but they even ridicule Jesus, in fact. These would be sources such as Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. These sources make their accounts historically true due to the principle of enemy testimony.

Objection: But these are not contemporary sources. These are late secondary sources! Show me contemporary sources or else I will not believe that Jesus existed!

Ah yes. The tired old argument of “There are no contemporary accounts of Jesus.” Actually, we do have contemporary accounts of Jesus – they are known as the Gospels. As I have mentioned in other posts, we have good reason to believe that the vast majority of New Testament documents were written before 60 AD. But even if it were true that there were no contemporary accounts of Jesus, what would that prove? Would that be proof that Jesus never existed? Hardly. We don’t really have any contemporary historical evidence for many of the characters in history, but we know they existed because historical scholarship can compensate with techniques such as “declarations of interest” and independent corroboration. We have 9 secular sources for Jesus’ existence (the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, etc.) that while not contemporary accounts, are still reliable since they are not that far removed from the events they reported on – and yet we do have 9 secular sources for Jesus’ existence (the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, etc.) that, while not contemporary accounts, are still reliable since they are not that far removed from the events they reported on – and we do have 9 secular sources for Jesus’ existence (the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, etc.) that were not contemporary accounts, but are still reliable since they are not that far removed from the events they reported on. And as for the gospels, which are contemporary accounts, they are rejected a priori because they were written by people who believed in Jesus and are allegedly partisan (although almost everyone who writes about history has some kind of partisanship). Furthermore, the kind of partisanship that the New Testament writers had was to say nothing about Jesus and all the things he did because that would get them thrown out of their synagogues, tortured, and killed.

For some reason, just because it is a non-contemporary account does not mean that it is not a reliable source. Secondary accounts, even if they are not highly regarded by a historian as first-hand or eyewitness accounts, are not considered worthless. Regarding some events and people in history, all we have are secondary accounts. So are we to conclude that they never happened? Of course not. Yet that is what those who hold that Christ is a myth do when it comes to the life and death of Jesus. They reject all secondary accounts (Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny) and they also reject the contemporary accounts that we do have (i.e., the gospels). Are they not aware of the fact that historians do not need contemporary accounts for recognized history? (If you think that is so, then you will have to rewrite most of what happened in history.) They accept both first-hand history and secondary accounts, among other factors.

Also, the thing about Josephus and Tacitus is that, although they were not alive when Jesus was on this earth, they were alive when there were still those who knew him and could tell them about him (Jesus, according to virtually all scholars, was crucified sometime between 30 AD or 33 AD and Josephus was born in 37 AD). I used an analogy of me talking about Richard Feynman, an American physicist well known for his work in quantum mechanics and who helped develop the atomic bomb. Although I was born after he died (Feynman died in 1988 and I was born in 1992), I am close enough to the events for them to be relevant. After all, I am growing up in an age when adults who did know Richard Feynman are still alive, and they can tell me about him (just pretend for a moment that I don’t have video recordings; Josephus didn’t have any either to go on). Are you saying that my testimony about Feynman should be invalidated because I was not a contemporary of his, even though I have parents, grandparents, and friends of my parents who were contemporaries of Feynman and from whom I was able to get all my information? Absurd. My point is that they are close enough to the events to be relevant sources, and almost all scholars in the field accept their testimony as valid evidence as to the historicity of Jesus, including non-Christian scholars (so we can be sure that they have no theological foundation to shred).

Objection: Why aren’t there more sources?

Some skeptics complain that there are not more historical sources that mention Jesus. They argue that if Jesus had been as influential an individual as the gospels claim, there would have to be many more historical documents that mention him. Of the secular sources, we only have 9 that mention Jesus. From there, they argue that He either did not exist or was not as influential as the Bible claims.

For some reason, very few documents of ancient history have survived to this day. As Ryan Turner, who works as a writer for CARM (Christian Research and Apologetics Ministry), put it in an article on Carm.org:  “There are a number of ancient writings that have been lost, including 50% of the work of the Roman historian Tacitus, all of the writings of Thallus and Asclepiades of Mendes. In fact, Herod the Great’s secretary Nicholas of Damascus wrote a universal history of Roman history, which consisted of nearly 144 books of which, none have survived. Based on the textual evidence, there is no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.”

The point is that there may have been more secular documents that talked about Jesus than we know about. But they have most likely deteriorated, been destroyed, or have not yet been discovered by archaeologists. If the documents were not copied over and over and over again at a fast enough pace, they probably would not have survived for 2,000 years. Furthermore, the evidence we have for Jesus is still pretty strong. His existence has been very, very, very, very, very amply demonstrated in 9 secular sources, 9 biblical sources, 20 non-biblical Christian sources, and 4 heretical sources.

Now, historians consider themselves extraordinarily lucky when they find 2 independent sources that mention something, but when it comes to Jesus’ existence, we have 42!  Some of these are contemporary sources; others are secondary. We have to ask ourselves: is it really rational to believe that such an individual is a fictional character when so many historians wrote about him? Jesus’ existence and crucifixion are mentioned in numerous independent and early sources. It is possible that there are more than we already know about, but they are eroded by the fact that this happens with documents that last thousands of years.

Objection: Jesus is a copy of pagan myths

Another argument that those who argue that “Christ is a myth” make is that Jesus was merely a copy of pagan gods. They cite the “similarities” between the two and claim that Christianity is simply a religion plagiarized from early pagan myths. Theoretically, let’s assume that we believe that Jesus was merely a myth and not a real, historical, flesh-and-blood individual. I’ve already written two separate articles pointing out the absurdity of this argument, so I won’t go into it here. Instead, I suggest you read these blog posts, and you can check them out when you have the time to do so.

1:  Is Jesus A Copy Of Pagan Myths ?

2:  Cartoons and Comics That Plagiarized Christianity (Satire)

Bottom line:  “Christ is a myth” is absurd. Jesus obviously existed, as did other New Testament characters. You can believe that Jesus was just an ordinary man if you want, but to claim that He never even existed is just ridiculous. The debate among ancient history scholars is not, “Did Jesus exist?” No. The debate is,  “Was Jesus more than a man? Did he say what the gospels say he said? Did he rise from the dead?”  These questions are topics of debate among scholars. But Jesus’ historical existence is taken for granted. And why shouldn’t it be? You’ve already seen the evidence.

If you wish to study this topic in more detail than I have presented here, see James Patrick Holding’s book, Shattering The Christ Myth, as well as Bart Ehrman’s book, Did Jesus Exist?

 

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 participated in several debates which can be viewed in the “My Debates” section of Cerebral Faith. Mr. Minton lives in South Carolina, USA.

Translated by Natalia Armando.

Edited by Maria Andreina Cerrada.

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2DD2a5N

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Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

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By Evan Minton 

Sometimes, in conversations with atheists, they try to say that “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence” Are they right?

One problem with this statement is that it could possibly be self-defeating. Think about it, the claim itself, to say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is to make an extraordinary assertion.  How does the person know that the statement is true?  Think about it.  It is a universal statement!  Isn’t that extraordinary?  Is it a universal principle?  If so, that is amazingly important.  So, please show us the extraordinary evidence that the statement is true. I’m not sure about this, but the claim could be self-defeating depending on whether the claim is itself an extraordinary claim.

ANY claim, whether they seem extraordinary or not, only requires SUFFICIENT evidence. The amount of proof or evidence needed to establish a fact only needs to be sufficient to warrant belief in it. What type of claim is extraordinary or not could possibly be arguably subjective. People vary on what they find unbelievable. Plus, no criteria are given for what counts as extraordinary evidence. Because no criteria are claimed for what would count as extraordinary evidence, no matter how much evidence and rational argumentation you give for your position, the one who holds the opposite view could just keep moving the bar up. He could just keep shaking his head saying “Nope, not enough evidence. You need to provide more.” So that you could never provide enough evidence to warrant support for the position you believe to be true. Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? No. They only require sufficient evidence for belief. Of course, you might ask “What counts as sufficient evidence?” To that, I do not know the answer. Although evidence is objective, how much evidence is enough to convince a person seems somewhat subjective. Now, I’m not saying that truth is subjective (opinion based) nor am I saying that evidence is subjective, but rather that what amount of objective evidence to convince someone of something differs from that another. Some people can come to believe something on less evidence than someone else. Although this seems to raise another issue. It seems the same problem arises from saying “Any Claim Requires Sufficient Evidence” as it would if one were to say “Extraordinary Claims Require Evidence.” Someone could just keep shaking their head, raising the bar higher and saying “Nope, this is not sufficient enough evidence required to believe your claim.” What do we do about this?

Well, for one thing, I think that when I provide evidence to back up my claim, if someone is still skeptical I should like to know why. For example, if I give The Kalam Cosmological Argument and provide evidence for the 2 premises of the argument, then why does the person I’m talking to continue to disagree with the conclusion, that “Therefore The Universe Has A Cause” and that the cause is a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, supernatural, personal cause? Is one of the premises of the argument false? If they’re both true, then the conclusion follows logically and necessarily by the laws of logic (in that specific case, modus ponens; if P then Q, P, therefore Q.) As William Lane Craig has said, “skepticism is not a refutation.” If you’re not convinced by my arguments, I’d like to know why. That’s how debate works. You tell me what’s wrong with the logic of the argument or WHY the evidence is not sufficient enough to warrent the belief of the premises of the syllogism. This is how we solve the problem. Someone could NOT just keep shaking their head, raising the bar higher and saying “Nope, this is not sufficient enough evidence required to believe your claim.” If someone did, we would rightfully ask “Why? How am I wrong? Is my logic flawed? Are my facts flawed? Or are both my logic and facts flawed?” Again, skepticism is not a refutation.

Another problem with the atheists using this slogan is that it can be thrown right back at them. The atheists sometimes tout “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” But it seems to me that all physical reality popping into being, uncaused, out of absolutely nothing, having it’s laws of physics fine-tuned to a fantastic degree, and having an immensely complex factory (i.e. the cell) assemble together all by itself in a so-called primordial soup, to be a claim extremely extraordinary. Yet, the atheist tries to cast all the burden of proof on the theist by claiming a position of neutrality (Atheism is a lack of belief, not a belief that there is no God) and not give evidence and good reasons to believe his ridiculous view.

Don’t get me wrong, theists do bare the burden of proof when we claim that there is a God, but when atheists claim that there is no God, it is THEM that bare the burden of proof. Anyone who makes a positive truth claim bares the burden to provide reasons to believe that truth claim. Anyone who makes a positive assertion needs to provide reasons to believe that assertion if anyone is going to take him seriously. And if they (the atheists) really believed that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” one has to think on just which view is truly more extraordinary, is it harder to believe that outboard motors and codes can assemble by chance + some supposedly undiscovered natural laws, or is it harder to believe that things look designed because they really were designed? I think the latter is far easier to believe. If something looks, sounds, walks and quacks like a duck, shouldn’t at least part of the burden of proof be on those who are claiming that it isn’t a duck? If things appear to be designed, shouldn’t the atheist put forward some reasons to believe they weren’t designed? I think the answer to that question is; yes.

Of course, I would never use the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” slogan on the atheist anyway because I believe the view is false and the reasons I believe it is false are listed above. But it is true that if you make a certain claim, it’s not unreasonable for someone to ask you to back up that claim with reasons.

 

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

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Did Jesus Exist

Did Jesus Exist?

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By Evan Minton

I don’t know why, but 99% of the atheists I talk to on the internet hold the ludicrous position that Jesus never existed. Now, they’re atheists. I expect them not to believe in the divinity of Jesus. How could they? If they did, they wouldn’t be atheists. They’d be Christians. No. I’m not here talking about belief in the divinity of Jesus; I’m talking about belief in Jesus as a historical individual. This is what I find so ridiculous. Those who deny the Christ Myth are holding on to a historical hypothesis that would get them laughed out of every university in the world. Hardly any scholar of ancient history holds this view, and those minority of a minority of a minority who do are rightly viewed as quacks. By the way, those who believe Jesus was a flesh and blood figure of history aren’t just Christians. Atheist and agnostic scholars also believe Jesus was a historical figure. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic and one of Christianity’s most outspoken critics, believes that Jesus was a historical flesh and blood person. He writes “I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it’s silly to talk about him not existing. I don’t know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this.” 

Why is this the case? Why does nearly every scholar of ancient history believe that Jesus was flesh and blood figure of history? Is the evidence for Jesus’ historicity as overwhelming as the agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman says it is? Let’s take a look.

*Jesus’ Existence Is Multiply, Multiply, Multiply Attested in Secular Sources, Extra-Biblical Christian sources, and in the New Testament documents.

Jesus is mentioned in many, many sources from both the first and early second centuries. Because of this, it becomes absurd to assert that He never existed. What are those sources? Well, we have the gospels and the New Testament epistles. But everyone already knows about them so I won’t cite those. Instead, I’ll merely cite the extra-biblical non-Christian sources.

1: Flavius Josephus

Josephus mentions Jesus (and several other New Testament figures) in his writings. In “Antiquities Of The Jews” by Flavius Josephus (written in the year AD 90), Josephus writes

“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a 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. He was called the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; 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 to this day.”

Jewish Antiquities 18.3.3

Second, in Book 20 there is what could be called a passing reference to Jesus in a paragraph describing the murder of Jesus’ brother, James, at the hands of Ananus, the High Priest.

“But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as lawbreakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.”

Here we have an early secular source that mentions Jesus and a band of followers who clearly thought that He was the promised Messiah (or Christ) of their Jewish religion. It mentions Pontius Pilate and says that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate at the suggestion of the Jewish Sanhedrin. This is a pretty good piece of non-Christian, non-biblical evidence affirming the existence of Jesus, the existence of Pontius Pilate, that Jesus had a band of followers who considered Him the Christ, and that the Sanhedrin brought Jesus to Pontius Pilate and had Him condemned to die on a cross. Josephus also states that Jesus had a brother named James and was killed by the Sanhedrin.

“BUT!” The Christ Mythicist will protest. This passage has obviously been interpolated by a Christian. Josephus was Jewish, not a Christian. And yet, he says things like “He was the Christ” and “he appeared to them alive again the third day;” So, therefore, we can’t include this passage of Josephus because it wasn’t a genuine passage written by him. It was likely written by a Christian scribe who included this passage in order to subliminally evangelize to people. But are the skeptics right? Is this passage really not good historical evidence for the existence of Jesus? There are a few things to consider.

First, very few scholars believe that the entire passage was made up by a Christian. Certainly, it’s indisputable that there have been interpolations in this passage, but that doesn’t mean that the whole thing was made up. Most scholars believe that there was an original passage about Jesus included in the testimonium flavianum but that it was slightly modified by a Christian scribe.

There are very good reasons why scholars have adopted the “Partial Authenticity” theory.

1: A good bit of the text is written Josephus’ typical grammatical style and vocabulary. That is to say; the parts believed to be original to Josephus reflect his typical style of writing.

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.”

Graham Stanton states “Once the obviously Christian additions are removed, the remaining comments are consistent with Josephus’s vocabulary and style.” (Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, page 143).  The most recent and comprehensive study of the testimonium flavianum was done by John P. Meier in A Marginal Jew, Volume 1. As stated by Meier, “many keywords and phrases in the Testimonium are either absent from the NT or are used therein an entirely different sense; in contrast, almost every word in the core of the Testimonium is found elsewhere in Josephus–in fact, most of the vocabulary turns out to be characteristic of Josephus.” (Meier, op. cit., page 63).

  1. The Reference to James the Brother of Jesus Suggests an Earlier Reference to Jesus

The validity of Josephus’ reference to James’ Martyrdom increases the likelihood that the TF 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.” Josephus does not go into any further explanation of who Jesus is, what He did, no claims of Him dying and rising from the dead, no mention of any miracles, or anything like that. All he says is that James is Jesus’ brother. The way the James passage reads, it seems like Josephus was presupposing that his readers already knew who he was talking about. This would make sense if the Testimonium Flavianum was a legitimate passage. Because in that passage, Josephus already briefly explained who this Jesus was and what He did, so that by the time his readers come across the James passage, no further explanation is needed. However, Josephus’ lack of elaboration on who Jesus is in the James passage would make no sense at all if there were not a prior explanation of who he was like we have in the testimonium flavianum. By the way, no one doubts that Josephus’ reference to James is authentic.

For these two reasons and several others, most scholars believe Josephus’ testimonium flavianum is a genuine passage, even though it’s obvious that some Christian scribe changed a few lines here and there. For more information on why the Josephus passage has only been partially interpolated rather than completely invented, click on the URL below.

“Did Josephus Refer To Jesus?” by Christopher Price — http://bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm

The Mona Lisa

This issue came up in a talk by Dr. Timothy MgGrew. The lecture was about the extra-biblical evidence that indicated the historical reliability of the New Testament. By the way, you can listen to his talk on Youtube. Anyway, Tim McGrew pulled up a photo of the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa had a mustache, and he compared the interpolations of the Josephus passage about Jesus to the mustached Mona Lisa. He said

“This is not a painting by Leonardo Divinchi and if the lightings not too bright, you may be able to see the reason why. It looks a bit like the Mona Lisa… but… it’s got a mustache and a little goatee beard. Should we conclude that there was no original painting? Or should we conclude that there was and that something has been added to it… by another hand? What should we do with a mustache on the Mona Lisa? Well, fortunately in 1971, Shlomo Pines published some work he had been doing some work on an Arabic manuscript that contains this passage.”

And here in this Arabic text is what we find; it’s the passage without the ham-handed bits that look like Christian interpolations.

“At this time there was a wise man called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die, and those who were his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. THEY REPORTED that he had appeared to them 3 days after his crucifixion. Accordingly, they believed he was the Messiah as the prophets had told wonders” (emphasis mine)

Tim MgGrew then asked his audience “Do you see the difference? My guess is (and this view of the majority of scholars) is that the passage was originally written by Josephus much like we have in this Arabic text… and then some Christian scribe couldn’t resist the impulse to come put a mustache on the Mona Lona. He didn’t realize that he was doing would cause doubt over the authenticity of this report of this genuine passage and that of Josephus himself. Just as with the Mona Lisa, our inference is that there really was an original and it was not done by the person who added the mustache and the beard. Our best bet regarding the testimony is that Josephus really wrote it and that it was interpolated. And fortunately, we’ve discovered a text that shows us which most scholars think is more or less the way it originally was.”

2: Tacitus

Another secular document is called “Annals” by Cornelius Tacitus. From Annals 15.44. Tacitus is reporting on Rome burning to the ground and says that everyone blamed Nero for burning Rome to the ground. Nero tried to pin it on Christians, and he consequently persecuted them. The Annals of Tacitus dates to AD 115.

“But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the Bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements Which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero From the infamy of being believed to have ordered the Conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he Falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were Hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was Put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign Of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time Broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief Originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things Hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their Center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first Made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an Immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of Firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.”

Again, mention of Jesus and Pontius Pilate in secular documents. Tacitus affirms that Jesus existed and that He was crucified by Pontius Pilate. Then he says that the movement named after Jesus died out for a while, then it flared up again, originally in Judea, then spread to Rome. The New Testament says the same thing; Jesus existed, was crucified by Pilate, his followers stayed quite for 50 days after that, then after Pentecost, they started spreading the gospel across the ancient world. And unlike Josephus’ passage, this passage in Tacitus is NOT disputed by anyone. Everyone recognizes this passage is Tacitus’ Annals as being authentic.

3: Pliny The Younger

Pliny the Younger (62?-c.113) was Governor of Bithynia. His correspondence in 106 AD with the emperor Trajan included a report on proceedings against Christians. In an extended explanation to his supervisor, Pliny explained that he forced Christians to “curse Christ, which a genuine Christian cannot be induced to do.” He also described their actions and practices thusly:

“They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.”

Kyle Butt, an author of many articles on Apologetics Press, had this to say about the Pliny passage I just cited. This is what Kyle Butt of Apologetics Press wrote.

“Pliny used the term ‘Christian’ or ‘Christians’ seven times in his letter, thereby corroborating it as a generally accepted term that was recognized by both the Roman Empire and its emperor. Pliny also used the name “Christ” three times to refer to the originator of the “sect.” It is undeniably the case that Christians, with Christ as their founder, had multiplied in such a way as to draw the attention of the emperor and his magistrates by the time of Pliny’s letter to Trajan. In light of this evidence, it is impossible to deny the fact that Jesus Christ existed and was recognized by the highest officials within the Roman government as an actual, historical person.” – Kyle Butt, Apologetics Press, from the article titled “The Historical Christ–Fact or Fiction?”

4: Celcus

Celsus, a second-century pagan philosopher, produced a vehement attack upon Christianity by the title of True Discourse (in A.D. 178). Celsus argued that Christ owed his existence to the result of fornication between Mary and a Roman soldier named Panthera. As he Jesus got older, Jesus started to run around Palestine making extravagant claims to divinity. Celsus then tells us that due to Jesus’ wild claims about himself, he upset the Jewish authorities so badly that they had him killed. Celsus, though he severely ridiculed the Christian faith, never went so far as to suggest that Jesus did not exist.

5: Mara Bar Serapion

Mara Bar-Serapion was a Syrian who wrote about Jesus Christ sometime around A.D. 73. He left a legacy manuscript to his son Serapion.

“What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that their Kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; He lived on in the teaching which He had given.”

This reference reveals several key things:

1) Jesus was regarded as a wise king.

2) Jesus was murdered.

3) Jesus’ teachings lived on.

Several Christ Mythicists have tried to argue that the “wise king” Mara is referring to isn’t Jesus, but this is really a pathetic argument. For the sake of brevity, I cannot go into the objections to the Mara Bar Serapion passage in any depth, but James Patrick Holding addresses these arguments in the URL below.

http://tektonics.org/jesusexist/serapion.php

In Conclusion

For the sake of brevity, I couldn’t go into all of the secular sources mentioning Jesus. But here’s a list of all the historical sources mentioning Jesus.

Secular  sources — Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny The Younger, Lucian, Phelgon, Celus, Mara Bar Serapion, Suetonius, and Thallus

New Testament sources —   Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Author of Hebrews, James, Peter, and Jude.

Non-Biblical Christian sources —  Clement of Rome, 2 Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Didache, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, Fragments of Papias, Justin Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Quadratus, Aristo of Pella, Melito of Sardis, Diognetus, Gospel of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, and Epistula Apostolorum.

Heretical Writings — Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Apocryphon of John, and Treatise on Resurrection.

We have an abundance of historical evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, the amount of historical evidence is SHOCKING considering how obscure a figure Jesus was. He had, at most, a 3 years public ministry. Yet He’s mentioned in more sources than the Roman emperor! If you count all the non-Christian sources that mention Jesus, Jesus is mentioned in one more source than the Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar! Counting the Christian sources (including the New Testament documents), Jesus beats Caesar 42 to 10! If you consider Jesus a mythological person in light of this historical evidence, you may as well believe the same thing about Tiberius Caesar, since we have more attestation to His existence than for Tiberius Caesar. To claim that Jesus is a myth and Tiberius Caesar was a real person is to be inconsistent.

Now, why is this important? Because when historians are examining history, they use certain tests of authenticity. If a passage in a history book passes one of these “tests,” then the historian concludes that it’s more likely than not that this recorded event is true than it is false. There are many of these tests, but the one I’m using in this blog post is known as “The Principle Of Multiple Attestation.” The principle of multiple attestations says that if an event is mentioned in more than one source, and if the sources don’t rely on each other, then it’s far more likely that that event really occurred. The more records an event is mentioned in, the more and more and more certainty we have that the event recorded in that document is true. Why? Because the more independent sources, you find something in, the less and less likely that ALL of these people would make up the exact same story.

I’m applying the principle of multiple attestations here to the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is mentioned in so many early, independent sources, that it just becomes irrational to assert that ALL of these people made up the same fictional character…and the proceeded to talk as if he was real.

In addition to that, a few of these sources are hostile sources. They’re not only neutral to the claims of the Christian faith, but they actually ridicule Jesus. These would be sources like Tacitus and Pliny The Younger. This would make their accounts for historically certain due to the principle of enemy attestation.

Objection: But these aren’t contemporary sources. These are later, secondary sources! Show me contemporary sources or else I won’t believe Jesus existed!

Ahh, yes. The old worn out “There are no contemporary accounts of Jesus” argument. We actually do have contemporary accounts of Jesus; they’re called the gospels. As mentioned in two other blog posts, we have good reason to believe that the vast majority of the New Testament documents were written prior to A.D 60. But even if it were true that there were no contemporary accounts of Jesus, what would that prove? Would it prove Jesus never existed? Hardly. We don’t really have any contemporary historical evidence for lots of figures in history yet we can know they existed because the historical study can compensate with techniques such as “declarations against interest” and independent corroboration. We have 9 secular sources for Jesus’ existence (the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, etc.), that though they aren’t contemporary accounts are still reliable given that they’re not too far removed from the events they report, and as for the gospels which ARE contemporary accounts, they’re rejected a priori because they’re written by people who believed in Jesus and are supposedly biased (even though virtually everyone who writes history has some kind of bias). Moreover, the type of bias the New Testament writers had was a bias not to say anything at all about Jesus and all of the things he did because that ended up getting them excommunicated from their synagogues, tortured and killed.

For one thing, being a non-contemporaneous account does not mean it is not a reliable source. Secondary accounts, though not valued as highly by a historian as firsthand or eyewitness accounts, are not considered worthless. For some historical events and persons, all we have are secondary accounts. Would we, therefore, conclude that they never happened? Of course not. Yet that’s what Christ Mythicists do when it comes to the life and death of Jesus. They reject all secondary accounts (Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny) and they reject the contemporary accounts we DO have (i.e. the gospels). Aren’t they aware of the fact that historians don’t require contemporary accounts for accepted history? (If you think they do, then you’d have to rewrite much of history) They accept both first hand and secondary accounts, among other factors.

Moreover, the thing about Josephus and Tacitus is that even though they weren’t alive during Jesus’ lifetime, they were living within the lifetimes of those who DID know Jesus and could tell them about Him (Jesus, according to virtually all scholars was crucified in either 30 AD or 33 AD and Josephus was born in 37 AD) I have used the analogy of me reporting about Richard Feynman, an American physicist best known for his work in quantum mechanics and who assisted in the development of the atomic bomb. Even though I was born after he died (Feynman died in 1988, I was born in 1992), I’m still close enough to the events to be relevant. After all, I’m growing up in a time where adults who did know Richard Feynman are still around, and they could tell me about him (just pretend for the moment that I don’t have video recordings, Josephus didn’t have these to go on). Are you saying my testimony about Feynman would be invalidated because I wasn’t a contemporary of him, even though I have parents and grandparents and friends of my parents who were contemporaries of Feynman whom I could have gotten my information from? Absurd. My point is, they’re still close enough to the events to be relevant sources, and almost all scholars on the subject accept their testimony as valid evidence for Jesus’ historicity, including scholars who aren’t Christians (so we can be sure they have no theological ax to grind).

Objection: Why Aren’t There More Sources?

Some skeptics complain that there aren’t more historical sources mentioning Jesus. They argue; if Jesus was such an influential individual as the gospels make him out to be, there ought to be far more historical documents that mention Him than what we do have. Of the secular sources, we only have 9 that mention Jesus. From that, they argue that he either didn’t exist or wasn’t as influential as The Bible says.

For one thing, very few documents from ancient history have survived up to the present time. As Ryan Turner, author for CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry) wrote in an article on Carm.org: “There are a number of ancient writings that have been lost, including 50% of the Roman historian Tacitus’ works, all of the writings of Thallus and Asclepiades of Mendes.  In fact, Herod the Great’s secretary named Nicolas of Damascus wrote a Universal History of Roman history which comprised nearly 144 books, and none of them have survived. Based on the textual evidence, there is no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.”

The fact of the matter is; there may have been more secular documents that spoke about Jesus for all we know. But they most likely decayed away, had been destroyed, or they haven’t been discovered yet by archeologists. If documents aren’t copied over and over again at a quick enough pace, they aren’t likely to survive for 2,000 years. Moreover, the evidence we have for Jesus is still pretty strong. His existence is multiply, multiply, multiply, multiply, multiply attested in 9 secular sources, 9 biblical sources, 20 non-biblical Christian sources, and 4 heretical sources.

Now, historians consider themselves extraordinarily lucky when they find 2 independent sources mentioning something, but with the existence of Jesus, we’ve got 42! Some of which are contemporary sources, others, secondary. We have to ask ourselves; is it really rational to believe that such an individual is a fictional character when so many historians wrote about him? The existence and crucifixion of Jesus are mentioned in numerous, independent and early sources. There may have been more for all we know, but they just eroded away due to the fact that that happens to documents which endure through thousands of years.

Objection: Jesus Is Just A Copy Of Pagan Myths

Another argument put forth by the Christ Mythers is that Jesus was just a copy of pagan gods. They’ll cite “similarities” between the two and claim that Christianity is just a plagiarized religion from these earlier pagan myths. Supposedly we’re supposed to believe that Jesus was just a myth and not a real, historical, flesh and blood individual. I’ve already written two different blog posts pointing out the absurdity of this argument, so I will not go into any of it here. Instead, I’ll just redirect you to those blog posts, and you can check them out whenever you have the time.

1: Is Jesus A Copy Of Pagan Myths?

2: Cartoons and Comics That Plagiarized Christianity (Satire)

In Conclusion: The Christ Myth is absurd. Jesus obviously existed as well as several other New Testament figures. You can believe that Jesus was just an ordinary man if you want to, but to claim He didn’t even exist is just ridiculous. The debate among scholars of ancient is history IS NOT “Did Jesus exist?” No. The debate is: “Was Jesus more than a man? Did He say what the gospels say He said? Did He rise from the dead?” These are questions that are debated among scholars. But Jesus’ historical existence is just taken for granted. And why shouldn’t it be? You’ve seen the evidence.

If you want to go into this topic in far more depth than I’ve covered here, check out James Patrick Holding’s book “Shattering The Christ Myth” as well as Bart Ehrman’s book titled “Did Jesus Exist?”.

 

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.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2wDczb2

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Q&A_ Answering Questions Of An Agnostic Brother

Q&A: Answering Questions Of An Agnostic Brother

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By Evan Minton

Hi Evan,

I really like your work, really helped me.

But I have a brother, he is agnostic, and he has a few objections I can’t answer (it’s so uncomfortable), so I decided to ask you.

The first is on skepticism in general. Shouldn’t we be skeptical about anything? Since everything is subjectively perceived? Especially moral values? Also, in a pragmatic sense, shouldn’t we agree we can’t know and just follow Aristotle’s “man is a political animal”?
And then on the fine-tuning argument, well he has a weird objection, but I found it difficult (not very well read in this topic, only read on guard and Strobel), couldn’t a different type of life emerge in different universes with different constants?

I thought it was arguing from ignorance, but another thing he said fine tuning only works from the perspective that we are the final product (carbon-based life).

So, I hope you understood these questions, have any recommended resources that wouldn’t be to difficult for a 14-year-old?

Thanks, Evan.

Hugs

Thanks for your question. I’m glad you’ve found my work helpful in your walk with Christ.
On Skepticism

First, you ask “Shouldn’t we be skeptical about anything? Since everything is subjectively perceived? Especially moral values? Also, in a pragmatic sense, shouldn’t we agree we can’t know and just follow Aristotle’s ‘man is a political animal’?

Based on how you worded this section, it sounds to me like your brother has been reading Immanuel Kant. He seemed to make a similar argument that Kant made regarding the knowability of the world. In his weighty Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and his Religion Within the Limits of Mere Reason (1793) he argued that God is unknowable, and Kant also insisted that our mind and senses are so structured that we cannot know reality in itself (the noumenal realm) but only what appears to us (the phenomena). Thus, as Frank Turek humorously puts it: “According to Kant, you Kant know what the world is really like.”

The major problem with Kant’s argument is that it is self-refuting. That is to say, Kant, in claiming that the external world is unknowable is claiming to know something about the external world! Namely, that it’s unknowable! But how would Kant know that we cannot know reality in itself unless he knew at least one thing about reality? Thus, Kant’s view saws off the branch it’s sitting on. To affirm it, one needs access to the very thing the view says we can’t access.

So should we be skeptical about anything? Not if the basis of that skepticism is that all perception is subjective, for that relies on a self-refuting philosophy.

As far as the affirmation of moral values, I have always defended the objectivity of moral values and duties in the same way that Craig has. William Lane Craig states that the evidence for the existence of objective morality is on par with the evidence for the existence of the external physical world. We recognize that both are real because we can sense that they’re there. He states “In moral experience, we apprehend a realm of moral values and duties that impose themselves upon us. There’s no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world.”

Craig argues that our moral experience is on par with our physical experience. Our five senses tell us that the physical world is real, that you are really sitting there reading this blog post. In a similar way, your moral senses tell you what is good and what is evil. Now, we can’t get outside of our moral senses to test whether they’re giving us reliable information, but neither can we get outside of our physical senses to test whether they’re giving us reliable information. Should we, therefore, conclude that we can’t know what the physical world is like? Of course not. But then, why should we deny the existence of objective morality because we can’t get outside of our moral perceptions to test their reliability? I’ve noticed that most skeptics, in trying to knock down the epistemological justification of the second premise of the moral argument, they tend to make arguments that would undermine our 5 senses if the same logic was applied to them. For example, some will point out that different people have disagreements on whether a certain action is morally right or wrong (e.g. abortion, the eating of animals). Based on this, they’ll say that we, therefore, can’t trust our moral intuitions. But what if this line of reasoning was applied to our sense of sight? No one could forget that a whole internet sensation was based on a debate as to whether a dress was black/blue or white/gold. People disagreed on what color “The Dress” was. I remember back in the day disputing with my friends on the playground whether James of Team Rocket from the Pokemon anime had blue hair or purple hair. However, would anyone argue that such disagreements on color render color a non-objective feature of reality?

I think the person is within his rational rights in affirming the objectivity of morality on the basis of his moral compass unless he is presented with a powerful argument that his moral compass has a spring loose, so to speak. However, I’ve never encountered such a refutation.

An Objection To The Fine-Tuning Argument

Your brother objects to the fine-tuning argument with “Couldn’t a different type of life emerge in different universes with different constants?” This is an objection to The Fine-Tuning argument that I get all the time in my conversations with non-theists.

Often these people make use of an illustration by Douglas Adams, the well-known author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (although this quote is not from that book):

“Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’”

Richard Dawkins applied this to the fine-tuning at Adams’ eulogy. Now, these atheists argue that just as that man is a fool, so we would be fools to believe the universe was designed so that we could exist.

The problem with this argument is that it radically misunderstands the consequences of what would happen if the physical constants and quantities were off.  Take the expansion rate of the universe for example. If the universe expanded too rapidly, then gravity would not have had the opportunity to collect gas and dust and condense it into galaxies, stars, and planets. The universe would forever
exist as nothing but isolated pieces of matter, gas, and dust. Because if the universe expanded too quickly, then all of the stuff of the universe would fly apart too quickly for gravity to take them and to condense them into galaxies, stars, and planets.  If the ratio of the number of electrons to protons were off by a little bit, electromagnetism would dominate gravity, preventing galaxy, star, and planet
formation. Again, the universe would be completely devoid of galaxies, stars, and planets. If you don’t have galaxies, if you don’t have stars, and if you don’t have planets, you can’t have any life. One reason is that without a planet, there’s no hope for life to evolve and live on. A second thing is that, regardless of whether life must be carbon based, you need stars to “cook” the elements needed for life. No stars, no elements. No elements, no life. Even if one thinks silicon-based life forms are possible, stars are needed to make the silicon.

If the Strong Nuclear Force were slightly weaker, it would be too weak to bind together protons and neutrons inside the nucleus of the atom. Therefore, no atoms could exist in the universe except the hydrogen atom; the simplest atom there is, consisting of a single proton and a single electron. In the case of The Strong Nuclear Force being weaker, the only existing element would be hydrogen. You couldn’t possibly get to any higher levels of complexity in such a scenario.

So, it is my judgment that comparing the fine-tuning to a man waking up in a puddle is an analogy that…. doesn’t hold water.

Recommended Resources

“Have any recommended resources that wouldn’t be to difficult for a 14-year-old?”

Sure! First and foremost, I’d suggest my own Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods, a book that I’m currently working on upgrading in Google Docs. In the book, I talk about The Kalam, Fine-Tuning, Moral, and Ontological Arguments, as well as the historical evidence that Jesus died and was resurrected. According to one reviewer on Amazon, “His easy conversational style throughout the text reminds one of Max Lucado, and he presents material of great import in a comfortable manner that is a joy to read. This book is an excellent introduction to the most significant and well-founded Christian apologetics in the modern era and is well-suited to high school and college students, as well as adults interested in Christian apologetics and philosophy. I highly recommend this book.” another Amazon reviewer wrote “Mr. Minton helpfully surveys some of the best arguments for God’s existence, appealing to the most robust scholars and answering the most difficult challenges to the arguments. While some of the scholars who have written about philosophy of religion might be too academic and difficult to read, this author’s writing style makes the most complicated arguments (even the ontological argument) relatable. Recommended for those who are new to apologetics or those who want to brush up.” 

Another book I’d recommend is J. Warner Wallace’s God’s Crime Scene. Among books on Natural Theology, this one is really unique. Like his previous book Cold Case Christianity, it reads like a combination of a detective novel and apologetic book. He lays out the evidence for a Creator on the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the existence of the moral law, the complexity of the cell, and even argues for the existence of the soul based on the phenomenon of consciousness, and he does it all from the perspective of a detective, in a very easy-to-read manner.

But I think the most accessible book on these topics would be Leslie Wickman’s God Of The Big Bang: How Modern Science Affirms The Creator. Wickman is an internationally respected research scientist, engineering consultant, author and inspirational speaker.and is also executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation (a non-profit organization promoting the dialog between science and faith), and as a Professor of Aerospace-Industrial-Mechanical Engineering at California Baptist University. Her book God Of The Big Bang should certainly be not “be too difficult for a 14-year-old.”

So,
1: “Inference To The One True God” by yours truly.

2: “God’s Crime Scene” by J. Warner Wallace

3: “God Of The Big Bang” by Leslie Wickman

are what I recommend.

God bless you.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/Dsiuae

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Does The Bible Need Defending_

Does The Bible Need Defending?

By Evan Minton 

Sometimes when someone witnesses to an unbeliever by appealing to arguments and evidence that point to the truth of Christianity, some believers will tell the Christian that The Bible does not need them to defend it. “The Truth does not need to be defended. It is like a lion. All you need to do is let it out of its cage” they will say. A Lion can defend itself. It is ferocious; it has sharp, powerful jaws and razor-sharp claws. Its roar strikes fear into its prey. Its roar carries authority. Why would you need to defend such an animal? You don’t. So these Christians will say that The Bible is the same way. This is supposed to be an argument that Christian Apologetics is a pointless exercise.

There are several problems with this argument.

Regardless of whether scripture actually needs defending, scripture commands us to defend it nevertheless.

The Bible commands us to do apologetics. 1 Peter 3:15 says “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks for the reason for the hope that you have, yet do this with gentleness and respect”. This verse of The Bible is clear and unequivocal. Always be prepared to defend your faith whenever anyone asks you to give the reasons for why you have placed your hope in Jesus Christ. So even if we concede the premise that the Christian faith doesn’t need to be defended, we are still commanded to defend it. Ignoring this command would, therefore, be sinful.

The Apostle Paul said in his second letter to the church in Corinth “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). This is what apologetics is all about. We need to “demolish arguments” like the problem of evil & suffering, the hiddenness of God, supposed contradictions people think they have found in scripture, or simply the claim “There is no evidence for God’s existence.” These are arguments that set “itself up against the knowledge of God” that we need to “demolish.” If we do, then we might be able to “take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.”

In Philippians 1:7 Paul speaks of his mission as “defending and confirming the gospel.” Then he says in Philippians 1:16, “I am put here for the defense of the gospel.” This implies that God placed Paul on this planet to be a defender of the Christian faith, which he was. When you read Acts 17, you see that when Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue (Acts 17:1), and then it says that as was his custom, he “reasoned with them from the Scriptures …” (verse 2), “explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.” (verse 3) and then after he explained and proved to the Jews that the Messiah had to suffer and rise, “Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.” This is important because often you will hear some Christians say that no one comes to faith through arguments. But we have an example of some of the people coming to faith after hearing Paul’s arguments. Acts 17:4 refutes that notion.

Then several verses later, Paul was in Athens witnessing to the Athenians. And Acts 17:17 says “he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.” Other translations say he “disputed” with them, or he “debated” them. Now, he was able to reason from the scriptures with the Jews, but he couldn’t do that with the Athenians. Why? Because the Athenians didn’t accept the Jewish scriptures as divinely inspired. So he appealed to natural revelation instead (see Acts 17:22-31).

Jude 3 says, “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” The people Jude addressed had been assaulted by false teachers, and he needed to encourage them to protect (literally agonize for) the faith as it had been revealed through Christ. Jude makes a significant statement about our attitude in verse 22, which we “have mercy on some, who are doubting.”

So, does The Bible need defending? I think the answer to the question is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether God, or The Bible, or Christianity needs defending. The Bible commands us to defend it.

Rational People Naturally Desire Reasons Before They Believe Something.

God created humans to reason as part of his image (Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 9:6). It is by reasoning that humans are distinguished from “brute beasts” (Jude 10). God calls upon his people to use reason (see Isaiah 1:18) to discern truth from error (1 John 4:6) and right from wrong (Hebrews 5:14). The primary standard of rationality is that it should cough up an epistemological warrant for belief.

As Norman Geisler put it in his article “The Need For Apologetics.”

“People rightly refuse to believe without evidence. Since God created humans as rational beings, he expects them to live rationally, to look before they leap. This does not mean there is no room for faith. But God wants us to take a step of faith in the light of the evidence, rather than to leap in the dark. Evidence of truth should precede faith. No rational person steps into an elevator without some reason to believe it will hold him up. No reasonable person gets on an airplane that is missing part of one wing and smells of smoke in the cabin. People deal in two dimensions of belief: belief that and belief in. Belief that gives the evidence and rational basis for confidence needed to establish belief in. Once belief that is established, one can place faith in it. Thus, the rational person wants evidence that God exists before he places his faith in God. Rational unbelievers want evidence that Jesus is the Son of God before they place their trust in him.” – Norman Geisler (emphasis in original)

So, I don’t think it’s sufficient to just give an unbeliever a Bible and walk away and “let the truth defend itself.” For one reason, there are many holy books out there claiming to be “the truth.” The rational unbeliever is going to want you to give some reasons for him to think that The Bible should be believed instead of, say, The Koran, or the Hindu scriptures, or the Buddhist scriptures. He may ask you why you disbelieve in all of the other gods of all of the other religions but not the God of The Bible. That’s not too much to ask. And fortunately, we Christians can meet that challenge if we do our homework. If you simply quote The Bible, you’ll rightly be accused of circular reasoning.

You Can Make The Same Argument About Preaching The Gospel

If The Bible can defend itself, why can’t it preach itself? Why can’t we just leave it up to the non-Christian to go to their local bookstore or library, purchase a Bible, read it, and just hope for the best? Why can’t we do that? Well, because, like defending the gospel, scripture calls us to “Make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). We’re called to preach the gospel to a dark and dying world. We’re called to spread the good news. Does God need us to preach the gospel for Him? No. Probably not. But we’re called to do it anyway. And we’re called to do Christian Apologetics also (see 1 Peter 3:15).

In Conclusion

The Bible, God, Christianity may not need defending. But that’s irrelevant because God commands us to “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that you have,” (1 Peter 3:15). We are called to defend our faith against the attacks of unbelievers. When someone asks us why we believe what we believe, scripture commands us to give them reasons. Moreover, people need evidence to determine whether The Bible even is the word of God. How do we know the Bible is God’s revelation to us, as opposed to the Qur’an or the Book of Mormon? One must appeal to evidence to determine this. No Christian would accept a Muslim’s statement that, “the Qur’an is alive and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword.” We would demand evidence that the Qu’ran is God’s Word. As Norman Geisler put it in his article “Why We Need Apologetics”; the analogy of a lion is misleading. The only reason a lion’s roar has authority is that we have good evidence of what a lion can do. But if you were just born yesterday or came from another planet, would you be fearful of this big lion? Probably not. You might try to go pet it and have your alien arm ripped off.

In addition to all of this, you could make a parallel argument about evangelism in general. Why did Billy Graham hold all of those crusades? Why did he travel all around the world preaching to people? Why didn’t he just leave it up to the non-believer to go to their local bookstores, buy a Bible, read it, and hope for the best? If The Bible can defend itself, why can’t the gospel preach itself?

I’ll end this blog post with a quote from John Calvin. As a Molinist, I feel weird quoting him to make my point, but he’s dead on accurate here. He said “Even a dog barks when its master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.”

Like Calvin, I cannot help but bark when I see skeptics attack Christianity.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2mGGk6e

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Why Yahweh Why Not Zeus Why Not Thor Why Not Zoidberg

¿Por qué Yahveh? ¿Por qué no Zeus? ¿Por qué no Thor? ¿Por qué no Zoidberg?

Por Evan Minton

Una pregunta frecuente que suelen hacer los ateos a los cristianos como yo es por qué creemos en el Dios de la Biblia en lugar de todos estos otros dioses en todas estas religiones inventadas. Ellos preguntarán “¿Crees en un solo Dios? ¿Por qué no crees en Thor, Zeus o Atenea? ¿Afirmas que todos estos dioses no existen? Sin embargo, ¿dices que tu dios sí? ¿Cómo sabes la diferencia?

En realidad, esta pregunta es una de las primeras cosas que me hizo dudar de mi propia fe cristiana. Hace años, no tenía manera de saber la diferencia entre el cristianismo y otras religiones. ¿Cómo sé que Yahveh es el único Dios verdadero? Si estos otros son inventados, ¿cómo sé que mi Dios no lo es? Afortunadamente, el Señor me mostró la Apologética Cristiana y me dio una buena manera de discernir entre ellos. Ahora, no voy a entrar en detalles con toda la evidencia del Dios de la Biblia en este momento. Si lo hiciera, esta publicación del blog sería extremadamente larga, increíblemente verboso. Más bien, voy a enlazar estos argumentos y pruebas que demuestran la verdad del cristianismo, y cuando termines de leer esta publicación en el blog puedes hacer clic en esos enlaces y estudiar los argumentos individualmente si lo deseas. Los enlaces resaltarán en color.

Una forma de saberlo es con el mismo Big Bang. De acuerdo con el Big Bang, ¡el universo entero surgió de la nada! Y según personas que han realizado estudios exhaustivos de las religiones del mundo (por ejemplo, Hugh Ross), las únicas creencias en las cuales Dios ha creado de la nada son el judaísmo, el cristianismo, el islam y el deísmo. Todas las otras religiones tienen a Dios o dioses creando dentro del espacio y el tiempo donde han existido desde la eternidad pasada. Entonces, el mismísimo origen del universo lo reduce a 4 posibilidades. Además, el origen del universo demuestra que la existencia de él debe haber sido creado por un agente causal. Un agente causal cuya existencia no está confinada al espacio, ni tiempo, inmaterial, poderoso, sin causa primera, sobrenatural y personal (ver el argumento cosmológico Kalam).

Si la evidencia científica del Diseño Inteligente pasa (por ejemplo, el ajuste fino del universo, ajuste fino local, la evidencia del ADN, la complejidad irreducible), puedes descartar el deísmo. Porque lo que argumentos como los argumentos teleológicos muestran que este Dios está moldeando activamente el universo y la vida para hacer que esté habitada por criaturas. Eso descarta el deísmo y se ajusta mejor al teísmo.

Además, debo agregar que el argumento ontológico demuestra que existe un ser muy parecido al Dios de la Biblia. El argumento ontológico, si pasa, demostraría que existe un ser que es Omnisciente, Omnipresente, Omnipotente y Omnibenevolente. Esto contradice a muchos dioses como Thor y Zeus. Las únicas religiones consistentes con un ser como este son las 3 religiones monoteístas. Los dioses politeístas como Thor son simplemente súper humanos (Stan Lee se aprovechó de este hecho). Pero no son omnipotentes ni omnipresentes ni nada por el estilo. La belleza del argumento ontológico es que no solo demuestra que Dios existe sino que presenta todas sus cualidades superlativas que no puedes derivar de otros argumentos de la teología natural.

De hecho, los argumentos de la teología natural pueden decirnos no solo que Dios existe, sino que pueden demostrar muchos atributos acerca de Dios. Atributos que la Biblia describe que Él tiene. El argumento cosmológico Kalam muestra que Dios es un agente afuera del espacio, del tiempo, es inmaterial, poderoso, sobrenatural y personal. Los Argumentos del Ajuste Fino (universales y locales) demuestran que Dios es increíblemente inteligente, al menos lo suficientemente inteligente como para saber cómo fabricar un universo adecuado para que puedan habitar las criaturas. Los otros argumentos teleológicos (ADN y Complejidad Irreducible) hacen lo mismo. El Argumento Moral demuestra que Dios es moralmente perfecto, ya que demuestra que Dios es el estándar por el cual medimos a las personas para determinar cuán buenas o cuán malas son en realidad. Demuestra que, en ausencia de la existencia de Dios, no habría nada que pudiéramos llamar objetivamente bueno y malo porque no habría nada con qué compararlo. ¿A quién o qué exactamente estamos comparando a Hitler o Bin Laden cuando los llamamos malos?

El argumento ontológico demuestra las cualidades superlativas de Dios (como ya lo mencioné anteriormente). Si pasa (es decir, si cumple los 3 requisitos para ser un buen argumento, que son: la conclusión debe seguir desde las premisas por las leyes de la lógica, todas las premisas deben ser verdaderas, y debemos tener buenas razones para pensar que son verdad), si este argumento cumple esos 3 requisitos, demuestra que existe un ser que es omnipotente, omnipresente, omnisciente, omnibenevolente y necesario en su existencia (aseidad).

Estos argumentos de la teología natural/revelación general, cuando se unen, nos dan poderosas razones para creer en la existencia de un Ser que se asemeja mucho, muy cercanamente, al ser que la Biblia describe como Dios. Además, lo bello de la teología natural es que derivan la existencia de este Ser sin apelar a ninguna escritura en absoluto. Entonces el ateo no puede acusarte de razonamiento circular (apelando a la Biblia para probar la Biblia). Podemos concluir que este ser existe basado solamente en la ciencia y la lógica.

Pero si quieres llegar al cristianismo y eliminar las otras 2 opciones, podemos revisar la evidencia de la resurrección de Cristo. Para mí, la resurrección de Cristo resuelve todo. Si se puede establecer históricamente que Jesús hizo afirmaciones de ser Dios, y luego resucitó de entre los muertos, entonces esa es una buena evidencia de que estaba diciendo la verdad. La resurrección significa que Dios puso su sello de aprobación en todo lo que dijo e hizo Jesús. Significa que Él es el Mesías y el Señor. Por lo tanto, cualquier cosa contradictoria a las enseñanzas de Cristo debe ser falsa. Pienso que la evidencia histórica de la resurrección de Jesucristo es muy poderosa. Te aconsejo que mires las publicaciones del blog Cerebral Faith (Fe Cerebral) en el que escribí sobre este tema. En la PARTE 1, doy la evidencia de los 5 hechos mínimos; (1) que Jesús murió por crucifixión, (2), que la tumba de Jesús se encontró vacía, (4) que los discípulos creyeron haber visto a Jesús vivo después de su muerte, (4), que un perseguidor llamado Pablo se convirtió sobre la base de lo que él creía era una aparición del Jesús resucitado, y (5) que un escéptico llamado Santiago se convirtió basado en lo que él creía que era una aparición del Jesús resucitado. En la PARTE 2, examino cuál de las explicaciones mejor argumenta esas hipótesis y muestro que solo la hipótesis “Dios resucitó a Jesús de la muerte” explica mejor los 5 hechos, mientras que las explicaciones naturalistas fallan.

Pero si quieres sumergirte en el estudio de este tema profundamente, te sugiero los libros El Caso de Cristo de Lee Strobel, “The Case For The Resurrection of Jesus” (El Caso por la Resurrección de Jesus) de Gary Habermas y Mike Licona, y también “On Guard” (En Guardia) de William Lane Craig (el libro de Craig también profundiza en 4 de los argumentos de teología natural que he enumerado anteriormente, pero también tiene un capítulo sobre las declaraciones de Jesús a la deidad y un capítulo sobre la evidencia de su resurrección).

Ahí lo tienes. Las razones por las que creo en el Dios bíblico en lugar de cualquier dios politeísta o panteísta. Espero que aunque seas cristiano como yo o un ateo, hagas clic en los enlaces de arriba y tómate el tiempo para leer esos artículos enlazados. Si eres un ateo, puede convertirte en un creyente. Si eres cristiano, es probable que fortalezca tu fe. Dios te bendiga.

Para un estudio más completo sobre esto, mira el libro de Evan  “Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods” (Inferencia al único Dios verdadero: por qué creo en Jesús en lugar de otros dioses).

 

Evan Minton es un apologista cristiano y bloguero en Cerebral Faith (www.cerebralfaith.blogspot.com). Es el autor de “Inference To The One True God” (Inferencia al único Dios verdadero) y “A Hellacious Doctrine” (Doctrina infernal) . Ha participado en varios debates que pueden ser visto en la sección “Mis debates” de Cerebral Faith. El Sr. Minton vive en Carolina del Sur, EE. UU.

Blog Original: http://bit.ly/2qBOgI7

Traducido por JanLouis Rivera

Editado por María Andreina Cerrada

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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 10_ Conclusion

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 10: Conclusion

,

by Evan Minton 

If you’ve taken the time to read through this entire series, I commend you. The resurrection of Jesus is the most important event in human history. If it occurred, the Christian worldview is true. If it did not occur, then we need to search for worldview truth elsewhere. However, we saw throughout the last 9 blog posts that the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is shockingly strong.

You know, there have been times when I myself gave refuting the resurrection a shot. But I could never think of a naturalistic theory other than ones I refuted in part 7 of this series. And according to Dr. Habermas, scholars are the same way. The fact that non-Christian historians admit the 5 minimal facts, and have basically just given up trying to explain them only bolsters my confidence in the resurrection’s historicity.

A Message To The Non-Christian Reader

If you were a non-Christian who became convinced by these arguments in this series of articles that Jesus has risen, I want you to know that you can’t just stop here. It isn’t enough to acknowledge that Christianity is true, you have to place your trust in Christ for salvation. This is the difference between “Belief That” and “Belief In.” Those aren’t my terms; I got those from Frank Turek and J. Warner Wallace. “Belief That” is an acknowledgment that God exists, that God is a Trinity, that Jesus died and rose from the dead, etc. While “Belief That” is certainly a necessary condition for obtaining salvation (see Hebrews 11:6), it is not a sufficient condition. After all, James 2:19 says that even the devil believes that God exists yet Revelation 20:10 says he’s going to Hell! Acknowledging that Christianity is true isn’t enough to get you into Heaven. You need belief that and believe in. What is “e.g. In”? Belief In is when you act on what you know. It’s when you place your trust (the actual definition of faith, by the way) in Christ for your salvation. It’s when you receive Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and devote your life to serving Him.

Lee Strobel explains this in mathematical terms. Believe + Receive = Become. Become what? A child of God (see John 1:12 – “To all who received him, he gave the right to be called children of God.”). “Belief That” is the first part of the equation. “Belief In” is the second part. For years, I had only the first part of the equation until God wore me down and brought me to my knees.

You’re a sinner according to Romans 3:23; “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” The “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a) because God is holy and just (Psalm 9:7-8, Psalm 9:16, Psalm 10, Psalm 11:16, Psalm 103:6). But God isn’t only just; He is also loving. In fact, 1 John 4:8 says that love is a vital part of who God is.“God is love”. Because God’s very nature is love, He “so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16). God loves “the world.” Are you a part of the world? If you are, then this verse applies to you. God loves you and gave his son Jesus to die on the cross to atone for your sins (cf. 1 Peter 3:18). Jesus was crucified in order to experience the wrath of God. He experienced God’s wrath so that you wouldn’t have to. God’s word promises that if you place your faith in Christ, He will be registered as your substitute. His blood will cover you, and God will look at you as though you had never sinned. He will see you the same way he sees Jesus; as a son who is without sin. This is the gift that God offers you. It’s a free gift. You don’t have to work for it. “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23b). Ephesians 2:8-9 says “For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is a gift from God. Not by works lest anyone should boast.” 

Will you receive this gift? Will you receive the free gift of salvation that God offers you? If so, call upon God and ask Him to save you. You don’t need a special “Sinner’s Prayer.” God knows your heart. Just call out to him. “For all who call upon the name of The Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). Your prayer doesn’t have to be eloquent or scripted. It can be as simple as “God, I now know that this Christianity stuff is true. Now that I’m convinced, I want you to save me. Please give me salvation in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

If you have received Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I’d love to hear from you. Send me an e-mail at CerebralFaith@Gmail.com to tell me about your decision. I’d love to know that typing all these blog posts made an impact on someone’s eternity. Also, I’d be happy to talk with you about finding a church to attend.

A Message To The Christian Reader

For readers who are already Christians, I hope you study these articles or the e-book adaption soon to come out and master these arguments so that you will “always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15) And be able to “demolish arguments and any pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. Taking captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5). One of my goals as an apologist is to equip my fellow believers like you to be able to give people the reasons to believe that Christianity is true. Not every unbeliever will take the time to read an apologetics book or even a single article. Either because they just don’t like to read, or maybe they don’t know that good answers to their questions are available. However, they may be more than happy to engage in a conversation with you about God. You may be the only apologist they ever hear, or you may be the first one they ever hear.

You may be thinking “This is interesting and all, but I’m just not smart enough to be an apologist. Don’t you have to get Ph? Ds and spend years in seminary?” Let me tell you a story: I can still remember my first exposure to Christian Apologetics. I was 18. The year was 2010. I had been wrestling with doubts for months, but I didn’t tell anyone, not because I was ashamed of my doubts, but because I was worried that I would spread them around like the common cold if I expressed them. One night, while I was scrolling my timeline on Facebook, one of my Facebook friends had posted a link to a YouTube video. It was the documentary adaption of Lee Strobel’s “The Case For A Creator.” I was blown away at what I was seeing and hearing; several credentialed scientists were talking about scientific evidence for the existence of a transcendent Creator (from the origin of the universe, the cosmic and local fine-tuning, the information content in DNA, etc.). My faith was restored. I bought Strobel’s books and read them. And although the evidence from science and history were ,”, I wasn’t able to articulate the arguments very well because I had only gotten the gist on my first read. I would try to share my faith with non-believers online, and they would pelter me with questions and objections that I couldn’t answer. When I prayed for their souls, I prayed that God would send someone to them who could walk them through the evidence for His existence and the reliability of The Bible.

One day, after I prayed for these atheists a few times, I prayed once more “Lord, please lead these people to salvation. Lead them to a saving relationship with yourself. If they need reasons to believe, please send someone who can articulate the reasons for them.” And then I felt The Holy Spirit say to me “I want you to give them the reasons.” I was confused. I was terrible at articulating the Cosmological Argument or the case for the resurrection. How could God want me to be the one? The very next day, I was scrolling my Facebook timeline, and I saw a captioned image that said; “God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.” That’s when I realized that although I wasn’t currently equipped to deal with the challenges the non-believers I tried to witness to brought my way, I could, through rigorous study and training, become equipped. If God really wanted me to be a Christian Apologist, then he would help me learn the stuff I needed to skillfully contend for the faith (Jude verse 3). I read Lee Strobel’s books cover-to-cover several times, trying to remember what I read. My Mom helped me by getting me several books on Christian Apologetics as presents for my 19th birthday. Those books were “On Guard: Defending Your Faith With Reason and Precision” by William Lane Craig, “Who Is Agent X: Proving Science and Logic Show It’s More Rational To Think God Exists” by Neil Mammen, “The Holman Quicksource Guide To Christian Apologetics” by Doug Powell, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist” by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler, “Intelligent Design 101” by multiple authors, “The Apologetics Study Bible”, and “The Case For Faith” by Lee Strobel. I didn’t just read these books; I studied them. I read them cover-to-cover multiple times. My copy of Tureks and Geisler’s book is actually starting to fall apart due to overuse.

I joined a Facebook group called “Christian Apologetics Alliance,” and I would frequently ask questions that had either occurred to me or was posed to me by someone I was dialoguing with on the internet. I downloaded lectures and debates from Apologetics315.com to my MP3 Player and would listen to these lectures over and over while I did housework and yard work. Later in my 19th year, I attended The National Conference On Christian Apologetics so I could learn even more. I bought Hugh Ross’ book “The Creator and The Cosmos” and Josh McDowell’s “The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict” at that conference. Over the years, I’ve bought many different books by many different authors on theology and apologetics, and I have read many of them multiple times.
In 2012, I decided to start a blog to share what I was learning; Cerebral Faith (www.cerebralfaith.blogspot.com). Since then, I’ve written nearly 500 posts on a variety of different topics; arguments for God’s existence, the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, the problem of evil, the Arminianism/Calvinism debate, the creation/evolution debate, and others.
As of this writing, I confess that I have never been to seminary (though I hope to be able to attend someday). All of my knowledge comes from the self-taught method, with the mindset that I was going to learn and master apologetics no matter what. I was hell-bent on improving my skills. Through hard work, discipline, and determination, you too can become a skillful defender of the faith. The knowledge isn’t locked away in universities. You can gain it simply by studying the books. However, it won’t be easy, and it won’t come quickly. You will have to be dedicated to learning this material, but it’s worth it. It is so satisfying to be able to go toe to toe with unbelievers.

J. Warner Wallace, in a talk called “Call Of Duty” given at 2017’s National Conference On Christian Apologetics, said; “We don’t need another million dollar apologist. We need a million one dollar apologists.”[1] What is a million dollar apologist? What is a one dollar apologist? My friend Zachary Lawson gave this helpful analogy: A million dollar apologist is like Led Zepplin while a dollar apologist is like your friend who can play the guitar really well. A million dollar apologist is someone who has many letters after his name and probably belongs to a few philosophy clubs, and they are experts in their respective fields; people like Dr. William Lane Craig, Dr. Alvin Plantinga, Dr. Gary Habermas, Dr. Michael Licona, Dr. Craig Blomberg, and Dr. Hugh Ross would fall under this category. One Dollar Apologists would be people like me; who do a lot of reading and then write about what they learned. Or they’d be people who didn’t get a degree in a field relevant to apologetics (like philosophy, physics, ancient near eastern culture) but got a degree in apologetics itself.

I don’t mind being called a “One Dollar Apologist.” I don’t find it demeaning or insulting. I believe we need both the million dollar apologists like Craig and Plantinga, but we also need One Dollar Apologists.

This world is full of people who don’t know Jesus. A lot of them don’t believe simply because they don’t want to. They are in rebellion against their Creator. However, there are those who are earnestly searching for the truth, who are open to following the evidence wherever it leads, and if asked “If you knew Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?” would answer with a resounding “Yes.” We need to be equipped to reach these people. Don’t be like I was. Don’t pray “God, please send someone like Evan Minton who can answer all their objections.” God wants you to be that person. Jesus said, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). We are all called to share our faith, and since in many cases, questions will arise, it logically entails that we are all called to defend our faith as well.

I’ve heard way too many stories of people either going to their pastor, their parents, or their Christian friends with tough questions about and even arguments against Christianity, and honestly wanted to know if they could be successfully answered. These people were either rebuked for questioning The Bible, told “You just need to pray and God will give you more faith”, or were simply told that they didn’t know how to respond. Their doubts grew until they finally ended up leaving Christianity entirely, often once they went to a university. You may at some point have someone like this attend your church. Your pastor may not be equipped to deal with the challenges he brings up. But if you take the time to study this blog series/e-book, and some of the other resources I’ve mentioned (e.g my own blog, and some of the books I’ve mentioned reading in the preceding paragraphs), then you will be equipped to deal with them. You will be the friendly neighborhood apologist, and people will start to take notice and will begin coming to you when they have questions. I have often joked that I’m “The Bible Answer Man” of my family. My friends and family come to me with questions all the time. Questions like “What happens to a person who commits suicide?”, “Can people lose their salvation or not?”, “Why did Jesus say He didn’t know the time of His second coming if He’s God and God is omniscient?” are a few examples.

No, you don’t have to go to seminary to get the skills you need to defend your faith. You don’t need to have an IQ of 130. You just need to study hard, and you should. This world can never have too many apologists. It will be well worth the time and effort you pour into it, I promise you.

C.S Lewis put it well: “If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But, as it is, a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now — not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground — would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”[2]

Let us be salt and light in this skeptical era.

Notes

[1] This talk can be downloaded as an MP3 file at http://www.catapes.com/viewresults.cfm?cid=363

[2] C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2M2gjsv

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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 9_ Probabilities and Plagarism

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 9: Probabilities and Plagarism

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By Evan Minton

This is part 9 in a blog post series on the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In parts 3, 4, 5, and 6, we’ve seen powerful historical evidence that (1) Jesus died by Roman crucifixion, that (2) His tomb was found empty the following Sunday morning, that (3) the twelve disciples believed they saw Jesus alive after His death, that (4) a church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus, and (5) a skeptic named James converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be appearance of the risen Jesus.

In part 7, we looked at various ways that skeptics have tried to account for the minimal facts, and we saw that they all fail. No naturalistic theory can account for all 5 of the minimal facts. The only theory that can account for them is not a naturalistic theory at all, but a supernaturalistic theory: God raised Jesus from the dead. The hypothesis that God The Father miraculous raised Jesus to life explains all of the data perfectly. It explains why Jesus’ tomb was found empty, why His disciples (and Mary Magdalene) believed they saw Him alive after His death. It explains why a hard-headed, hard-hearted terrorist like Saul of Tarsus would become one of the people he sought to destroy virtually overnight, and it would explain why James, despite being skeptical of his brother’s claims, would become such a firm believer that he would be willing to die a martyr’s death. The resurrection explains every piece of data that is in need of explanation, but even the best of the naturalistic theories could explain one of the five facts at most. The majority didn’t even explain that many. The “He Is Risen” hypothesis has exhaustive explanatory scope and power and ergo outshines any other proposed explanation. In part 8 (the previous blog post), we saw that even though some may have some lingering questions about the resurrection (e.g. why didn’t Jesus appear to convince his enemies?), these questions had good answers, but most of them wouldn’t have affected the case for the resurrection even if they went unanswered.

The state of scholarship today regarding the historical Jesus is this; the 5 minimal facts are true, skeptical non-Christian historians can’t come up with a good way to explain them, but they won’t admit a resurrection.

Why is this? It could be (1) they’re on a happiness quest, not a truth quest. They just don’t want it to be true. (2) They have some lingering questions like the ones I addressed in the previous blog post.

I answered some of the more minor lingering questions in the previous blog post, but in this blog post, I’ll address two more. Nine out of ten of the unanswered questions in the previous blog post wouldn’t have affected the case even if left unanswered, but there are a couple of remaining objections that would impact the case if left unrefuted.

Objection 1: The Resurrection Is So Improbable, We Can Never Conclude That It Occurred
Some skeptics will say that we need more evidence for the resurrection than for any other event in history because the probability against a resurrection ever occurring is so extreme. After all, the vast majority of people who have ever lived have remained in their graves. They’ll say “Even though our naturalistic proposals are abysmal failures, they’re still at least more likely than a miraculous resurrection.”  As a result, we can either never have enough evidence to affirm the resurrection, or at the very least we need far more evidence for it than other events. Sometimes skeptics will assert that the experience against miracles (i.e., I’ve never witnessed one, you probably haven’t either) militates against the resurrection hypothesis. The evidence for natural events far outweighs supernatural events by leaps and bounds.

If this objection succeeds, then it would seem that the skeptical scholar’s attitude of “We can’t explain it, but it’s probably not a miraculous resurrection” would be justified. What are we to say to this objection?

1: I’m Not Concerned With Probabilities, But With Explanatory Ability 

I am not arguing here that a miraculous resurrection is the most probable explanation of the data, only that it is the best explanation. The resurrection is the best explanation of the facts no matter what number a person might ascribe to its probability. The resurrection is the best explanation because it explains all of the data, every single fact, while the naturalistic explanations we looked at in part 7 and fail miserably. The resurrection succeeds in explanatory power. Moreover, it also succeeds in explanatory scope. Even the best of the naturalistic explanations explain, at most, one, but most of them don’t even explain that many. Most of them explain 0 of the facts. Every single possible naturalistic theory one could come up with fails, but the resurrection, the supernaturalistic explanation, succeeds. And therefore, we ought to conclude that this hypothesis is the true explanation. Detective Sherlock Holmes would agree with me. Sherlock Holmes once said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” (emphasis mine).[1] The Resurrection is the only explanation that remains, and it’s the only one that adequately accounts for all five facts. Ergo, in Detective Holmes’ reasoning, it must be the truth. If you can think of another explanation, be my guest, but until then, I’m sticking with “He is risen”.

It’s not ad hoc or contrived. It’s plausible in light of the religious-historical context of Jesus’ life and claims (i.e. His claim to be God, see here). It outstrips its rival theories in the aforementioned. It passes all 6 of C.B Mcullah’s tests for a viable historical theory. And therefore, I believe we are epistemologically warranted in affirming that it occurred. It’s the only hypothesis that works! I don’t care about probability. To quote General Han Solo “Don’t tell me the odds,” instead, give me a viable naturalistic theory. If you can’t, and if the best and brightest minds in scholarship haven’t been able to after all this time, then maybe, just maybe, Jesus rose from the dead.

2: If Jesus Did Not Rise From The Dead, Either The Minimal Facts Shouldn’t Exist Or A Naturalistic Theory Should Be Able To Explain Them 

I would argue that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then it’s extremely improbable that the minimal facts should be facts. I would argue that in light of the hypothesis “Jesus did not rise from the dead,” then His tomb should be occupied, His disciples should never have claimed and come to believe that they had seen him, and Paul and James should have remained skeptical the rest of their lives.

Here’s an analogy; let’s say that a woman is brought before a jury on charges of murder. She’s accused of having killed her young son. Now, at the start, you might think that it’s extremely unlikely that she is guilty. After all, the vast majority of mothers who’ve ever lived do not harm their children. They love and care for them. In light of this background information, the claim that she is guilty is enormously improbable, and you’d be justified in thinking that if that background knowledge was all you had to go on. However, investigators found a bloody knife in the back seat of her car next to a mud-covered shovel. In her house, they found a pair of pants that also had been chemically spot cleaned. They also have several eyewitnesses who said that they heard a child screaming just before seeing the defendant carrying a black garbage bag and a shovel out her house in the middle of the night, the same night as the murder. When investigators found the dead child, he was in a black garbage bag. The defendant also had a history of mental illness and domestic violence. In light of these “minimal facts,” the claim “She is not guilty” becomes improbable. The defendant’s attorney throughout every alternative explanation he could think of, but the Jury all saw the various holes in them and rejected them. They knew that the claim “This woman murdered her child” could explain all of the evidence. Even the best of the defense attorney’s explanations could account for one piece of evidence at the crime scene at most, but the majority of his alternative explanations didn’t even go that far. The only explanation that worked is “This woman murdered her child.”

Now, it would be an invalid move on the part of the defense attorney to argue that the majority of mothers care for their children rather than killing them, and he’s never witnessed a woman murder her child, and so the probability against any mother ever killing her child is so great that they should return with a “not guilty” verdict. Sure, the hypothesis “this woman killed her child” is improbable in light of the background information that mothers usually don’t kill their sons and that we’ve personally never witnessed a mother kill her son, but the guilty verdict is still justified.

In fact, the existence of the evidence is improbable if she is not guilty. If she’s not guilty, the detectives should not have found what they found. If she didn’t do it, what are the odds that “the minimal facts” at the trial (the blood-covered knife in the back of the car, the muddy shovel in the trunk, the dead child being found in a black garbage bag, the eyewitness statements of her leaving the house with a black garbage bag and shovel, and the history of mental illness and domestic violence) should all exist? In the same way, the existence of the minimal facts (2) Jesus’ Empty Tomb, (3) Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples, (4) Postmortem Appearance To The Skeptic James, and (5) the postmortem appearance to Paul, should not exist if Jesus did not rise from the dead. It’s enormously improbable that these five facts would be true if Jesus did not rise from the dead.

At the very least, if the woman didn’t kill her child, there should be a viable alternative theory than “she is guilty.” Likewise, there should at least be a viable explanation for the minimal facts than “He is risen.” Alas, there is no other explanation.

3: The Existence Of God Bolsters The Probability Of A Resurrection 

The objection I’m addressing in this subsection would never be made by Muslims or adherents to Judaism. Why? Because they believe miracles can, do, and have occurred. Why? Because they believe that a God powerful enough to perform miracles exist. They would object to the resurrection on theological grounds, but not on the grounds that an event like this is improbable.

If an omnipotent God exists, then the likelihood of this God raising Jesus from the dead increases. Of course, I think the resurrection can be an argument for the existence of God in and of itself,[2] but nevertheless, if God’s existence can be demonstrated, any improbability of a miraculous resurrection shrinks drastically. I have argued in several articles on CerebralFaith.blogspot.com and in my book Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods that there are several good arguments for the existence of God. And in my book, I argue that only the Christian God matches the attributes that the God that these syllogistic arguments prove exists.

Conclusion
Imagine a scale in your mind’s eye and picture bricks on each side of the scale. On one side of the scale, the bricks are labeled, “The Existence Of God”, “The Five Minimal Facts”, “No Theory Other Than The Resurrection Hypothesis can explain the 5 minimal facts”, “Jesus made claims to divinity prior to being executed”[3], and “Jesus Predicted His Resurrection”[4]. On the other side, there are bricks labeled, “The majority of dead men stay dead,” “I’ve never personally seen a miracle,” “I have a cosmic authority problem.” Okay, I’m joking about that last one.

Which side of the scale is leaning more? The side in favor of Jesus’ miraculous resurrection. In light of the full scope of the evidence, in light of all the scale’s “bricks,” Jesus’ resurrection becomes more probable than not. Now, it’s true that I haven’t demonstrated that all of the aforementioned bricks are there in this series, but they are there, and I talk about one of them in footnote No. 5 and the other in Appendix A (of the e-book adaption of this series). When you take all of the data into consideration, Jesus’ resurrection comes out to be probable.

By the way, William Lane Craig responds to this objection in Part 23 of “The Doctrine Of Christ” section of his Defenders 2 class. But it’s rather technical. I gave a more accessible response, but for those interested in a more technical response, click here. 

Objection 2: Jesus Was Just Plagiarized From Dying And Rising Gods Of Pagan Religions

The irony of this blog post is that I’m addressing two different objections that come from two different groups of people. The first one is made widely by skeptical historians and scholars, but the second one is only reported by lay people, skeptics you encounter in internet chat rooms and on social media. No scholar would ever put forth this objection.

What is the objection? Well, if you surveyed atheist blogs at all, you’ve probably heard that Jesus is just a copy of pagan gods in mythology. Jesus’ story mirrors the story of Horus, Mithras, Krishna, and others. Therefore, Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a historical event, but a plagiarized story. Many skeptics use this argument to go so far as to say Jesus of Nazareth didn’t even exist at all! This argument was popularized by the movie Zeitgeist. There are several problems with this claim.

1: The similarities are so vague, claims of plagiarism are implausible

When you actually compare the gospels’ claims about Jesus with the stories of Horus, Mithras, etc. what you find is that (A) some of these similarities don’t exist at all, and (B) the ones that do are so vague and ambiguous that it’s a stretch to say that the New Testament copied these stories.

Let’s look at just a few examples: One example is that Dionysius is said to have died and risen again like Jesus. But when you examine the stories, you find that Dyonisis wasn’t miraculously raised from the dead by his deity Father, but that his mother pieced him back together. Other stories say that Dionysus was killed by Zeus swallowing his heart and his heart was made into a potion given to Semele. Does this sound like Jesus at all? Dionysis was born on December 25th just like Jesus. This proves plagiarism, right? Well, first of all, it isn’t strange for multiple people to share the same birthday. I share a birthday with actor Zachary Quinto, but that doesn’t mean that if biographies were written about our lives that you could claim one copied the other. Secondly, The Bible never says that Jesus was born on December 25th. That date for Christmas was chosen by The Pope hundreds of years after Jesus was born.[5] Most modern scholars believe Jesus was born in the summer, sometime between June and September. The people behind Zeitgeist were so ignorant of the facts that they didn’t even know The Bible didn’t give us Jesus’ birthday date!

It is said that Mithras was born of a virgin, just like Jesus. Newsflash: Mithras was born out of a rock. Now, I guess technically one could say that since rocks can’t have sex, the rock was a virgin, and therefore you do have a virgin birth. But by that logic, Frosty The Snowman was also born of a virgin since I’m pretty sure that old soot hat of his wasn’t gettin’ any! This is ridiculous. The birth of Mithras was nothing like the birth of Jesus. Jesus was born of a human woman, not a rock.

What about Horus? During his battle with Set, he lost an eye, but he never died. Since he never died, he couldn’t be resurrected. Death is a prerequisite to resurrection.

Osiris was killed by his brother, chopped up into 14 pieces and the pieces were scattered all over Egypt. The goddess Isis retrieved all of these pieces (except for one) and put him back together again. Moreover, Osiris wasn’t resurrected but merely given the status as god of the gloomy underworld.[6] Now, does this sound like Jesus’ death and resurrection? Sure, you have a guy who is killed, and he’s brought back to life in a sense, but Jesus wasn’t chopped up into 14 pieces by one of his brothers and had his body parts scattered all over Israel, He was crucified by the Roman government. Moreover, when Jesus rose from the dead, He had all of his parts (unlike Osiris). The only thing Jesus and Osiris have in common is that they both died and came back to life, but the skeptics aren’t taking the various differences between these two into account.

These are just a few of the not-so-similarities between Jesus and pagan gods.

2: This Logic Would Bring Us To Believe Doctor Who Is Copied From Jesus 

If you want to cherry pick vague similarities to prove plagiarism, then you should believe that the writers of Doctor Who ripped off The New Testament.

Doctor Who — Is 2,000 years old as of season 10 of the modern series. He even said in one episode “I’m old enough to be your messiah!”

Jesus – is 2,000 years old as of the 21st century.

Doctor Who — has an archnemesis called “The Master.”

Jesus — has an archnemesis called “The Devil.”

Doctor Who — Came to Earth from another world (Gallifrey)

Jesus — Came to Earth from another world (Heaven).

Doctor Who — called a Time “Lord.”

Jesus — Called “Lord”

Doctor Who — traveled around with many companions.

Jesus — Traveled around with many companions.

Doctor Who — Regenerates when he is fatally wounded.

Jesus — Rose from the dead.

Doctor Who — Isn’t recognized by people who knew him prior to regenerating (e.g. Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart).

Jesus — wasn’t recognized by the two men on the road to Emaus after rising from the dead.

You can see how ridiculous this line of argumentation is. It’s no wonder why professional historians and scholars of ancient history give this objection no credence. Yes, there are some similarities between The Doctor and Jesus, but they’re vague similarities. The differences between them far outnumber whatever they might have in common. The same goes for the pagan myths and Jesus.

3: This Logic Would Lead Us To Believe The Titanic Sinking Wasn’t A Historical Event

A long time ago, there was an incredible tragedy that occurred. A huge passenger ship, which people said was unsinkable, on a cold night in the North Atlantic about 200 miles off of Newfoundland, struck an iceberg and sank. Many people died because there weren’t enough lifeboats. Now, you believe I’m talking about The Titanic, right? Nope. I’m talking about a ship called Titan, in a novel written in 1898, fourteen years before the wreck of the Titanic, called The Wreck of the Titan written by a person named Morgan Robertson.

Unlike Jesus and the pagan gods, the parallels between the fiction of The Wreck Of The Titan and the historical event of The Titanic actually are striking! However, I don’t know of anyone who would argue that there never really was a ship called The Titanic that sank. Thanks to this silly theory, I now have Celene Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” playing in my mind now. Thanks, atheists who don’t do their research.

4: Most Of These Stories Come After The Rise Of Christianity 

As if the above 3 points weren’t enough to refute this silly objection, most of the pagan myths post-date Christianity. Therefore, if any plagiarizing were being done, it would be done in the opposite direction![7]

5: Jews were committed to an exclusive faith.

Jews were adamantly committed to their religious beliefs and traditions and refused to blend their religious ideas and traditions with that of others (a view known as syncretism). Mystery religions were inclusive. They would adopt any doctrine or theological concept that they wanted to. They were very loose and didn’t have a measure of orthodoxy, but Judaism and Christianity were exclusive. In general, Jewish people adamantly resisted outside religious ideas, most likely due to the fact that they had, by the time of the first century, learned from The Old Testament that God did not tolerate mingling with other nations.
In Antiquity of the Jews, the Jewish historian Josephus talks about an event in which the Romans try to force something on the Jews and how the Jews responded to it.:

“But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar’s effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the nighttime; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days, that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them round, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.” (Josephus, Works Of Flavius Josephus, 18:55–59)

It is undeniable that Christianity sprung up out of a thoroughly Jewish culture. The idea that a group of devout Jews would see ideas in other religions and then adopt them into their own religious views is incredibly implausible in light of what we know about ancient Jews.
6:  Even If This Went Unanswered, It Wouldn’t Hurt The Case For The Resurrection 

The 5 minimal facts were true even if the similarities between Jesus and these pagan myths were as strong as the chatroom atheists would have us believe. None of the arguments given in favor of Jesus’ death by crucifixion, his empty tomb, or the apostles claiming and believing to have seen him alive after his death would be affected by this objection even if went unanswered.

As I said in part 8, poorly attested miracles (as the pagan myths certainly are) cannot be used to rule out well-evidenced ones.

Conclusion 

These two last-ditch efforts on the part of skeptics to keep us from being justified in believing in Jesus’ resurrection are failures.

To skeptics: are you convinced yet? If so, what are you going to do about it? Now that you’re convinced, what are you going to do with Jesus? Check out the next and final blog post in this series to know where to go from here.

Notes 

[1] Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, ch. 6 (1890) Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four (Doubleday p. 111)

[2] My argument goes like this

1 – If Jesus rose from the dead, then a miracle has occurred.

2 – If a miracle has occurred, then there exists a miracle working God.

3 – Jesus rose from the dead.

4 – Therefore, a miracle has occurred.

5 – Therefore, God exists

In order for the conclusion to be true, the three premises have to be true. I think everyone would agree with premises 1 and 2. The only debatable one is premise three. Premise three can be arrived at through The Minimal Facts Approach.

[3] See the article “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Divine Self Understanding” if you’re reading this on Cerebral Faith. If you’re reading the e-book adaption of this blog series, see Appendix A. The blog post will be found copy-pasted there, though it will be edited slightly to avoid repetitiousness (e.g I’ll remove the explanation of historical methodology).

[4] Did Jesus Predict His Resurrection? There are at least four reasons for affirming that He did. First of all, Jesus’ predictions concerning his resurrection are usually denied because the resurrection itself is denied as a historical event. If the resurrection is historical, and we’ve seen in parts 2-7 that it most likely is, then this is not a good reason for rejecting the prediction accounts. Secondly, when Jesus predicted his resurrection from the dead, the gospels depict the disciples as being confused, as not knowing what the heck Jesus is talking about (see Mark 8:31–33;9:31–32; 14:27– 31; Luke 24:13–24). On the basis of the principle of embarrassment, we can conclude that these instances are historical. The gospel authors wouldn’t depict the disciples as dim-witted. If Mark really wrote Mark and got his gospel from Peter (as church tradition says), then it would be especially unreasonable to believe Mark 8:31-33, Mark 9:31-32, and Mark 14:27-31 to be made up. Can you imagine Peter telling Mark “Hey, write this down! Even though Jesus explained his death and resurrection to us over and over, we just didn’t get it.” if it weren’t true? However, even if one wants to attribute these to some early church fathers or something, the principle of embarrassment can still be applied, as the early church had a high respect for the disciples. Thirdly, Jesus’ use of the title “Son of Man” in reference to his resurrection predictions (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34) weighs in favor of authenticity. As I point out in Appendix A (of the e-book adaption of this blog post series), this saying of Jesus is multiply attested. And moreover, the principle of dissimilarity applies since Jesus was never called “Son Of Man” anywhere else in The New Testament, and the early church fathers never referred to Jesus by this title. If this saying were made up by the early church and retroactively inserted into the mouth of Jesus, we would expect the early church fathers and NT epistles to use this title of Jesus more frequently. Finally, the principle of multiple attestations applies to Jesus predicting that He would get out of his grave (see Matthew 12:38–40; 16:1–4,21; 17:23; 20:19; Mark 8:31–32; 9:31; 10:33; Luke 9:22; John 2:18–21. Cf. Mark 14:58; Luke 11:29–30).

[5] https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th.shtml

[6] My sources for this information: https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=10&article=186, and https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/jesus-and-pagan-mythology/ , and http://i.stack.imgur.com/29UE7.jpg, and “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus” by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, pages 90-91, Kregle.

[7] I have several sources for this information. (1) – Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions,” Journal of Religious Studies 25 (1989): 167–77. (2) – Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 197–201. (3) Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus,” page 90, Kregle.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2l364c3

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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 8_ Some Unanswered Questions

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 8: Some Unanswered Questions

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by Evan Minton 

This is part 8 in a blog post series on the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this series, we’ve seen powerful historical evidence that (1) Jesus died by Roman crucifixion, that (2) His tomb was found empty the following Sunday morning, that (3) the twelve disciples believed they saw Jesus alive after His death, that (4) a church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus, and (5) a skeptic named James converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be appearance of the risen Jesus.

In part 7, we looked at various ways that skeptics have tried to account for the minimal facts, and we saw that they all fail. No naturalistic theory can account for all 5 of the minimal facts. The only theory that can account for them is not a naturalistic theory at all, but a supernaturalistic theory: God raised Jesus from the dead. The hypothesis that God The Father miraculous raised Jesus to life explains all of the data perfectly. It explains why Jesus’ tomb was found empty, why His disciples (and Mary Magdalene) believed they saw Him alive after His death. It explains why a hard-headed, hard-hearted terrorist like Saul of Tarsus would become one of the people he sought to destroy virtually overnight, and it would explain why James, despite being skeptical of his brother’s claims, would become such a firm believer that he would be willing to die a martyr’s death. The resurrection explains every piece of data that is in need of explanation, but even the best of the naturalistic theories could explain one of the five facts at most. The majority didn’t even explain that many. The “He Is Risen” hypothesis has exhaustive explanatory scope and power and ergo outshines any other proposed explanation.

So Why Do People Still Deny It?

In fact, In a lecture titled “Evidence For The Minimal Facts” given on October 14th, 2017 at The National Conference On Christian Apologetics in Charlotte, North Carolina,[1] Dr. Gary Habermas said that in scholarship today, the vast majority of non-Christian historians affirm the 5 minimal facts as true, and they also will admit that they can come up with no naturalistic explanation to account for them. Their attitude can basically be summed up in this sentence: “We admit these 5 facts are true, and we admit that we cannot come up with a good alternative to explain them, but we will not conclude that Jesus rose from the dead.”

Why is that? If you have an empty tomb, and various people claiming and believing that they saw Jesus alive after his death, and every single naturalistic theory that can be posed is an abject failure, why would you not conclude that the best explanation is that Jesus rose from the dead? I mean, it has the ability to explain all of the data, it meets C.B Mcullah’s 6 tests for being a good historical theory[2], why would you just dig in your heels and say “I don’t know how to account for this data, but I know Jesus didn’t rise from the dead”?

*It’s A Heart Issue, Not A Head Issue

Well, one reason could be what I said in Part 1 of this series; namely that this is not merely a matter of whether the evidence is sufficient, this is a moral and/or emotional issue for them. As I point out in my blog post “What Is The Significance Of Jesus’ Resurrection”, if Jesus rose from the dead, the entire Christian worldview is vindicated. For some non-Christians (scholars and laypeople alike), they just don’t want Christianity to be true. If Christianity is true, then they know that they’ll either have to change the way they’re living so they can have a nice afterlife or else face God’s judgment for living in rebellion against him. Atheism is a crutch for these people; if they can make themselves believe there’s no God, then they can live however they want and not have to worry. If there’s no God, there’s no soul. If there’s no soul, there’s no afterlife. If there’s no afterlife, there’s no Hell. If there’s no Hell, then they can sin, sin, sin away and have a perfectly clear conscience about it. It may also be that they had family or friends die who weren’t Christians, and they know that if Christianity is true, those people are in Hell now, so it’s more comforting for these people to just continue believing it isn’t true.[3]

Read this candid statement from a famous atheist, for example:

“[A fear of religion] has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life. […] I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact… that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” – Thomas Nagel[4]

Of course, this applies to atheists and agnostics. For other non-Christians, like Muslims or Mormons, their non-intellectual aversion is slightly different. Ask any Christian who has been converted out of Islam and he or she will tell you that it’s hard. Your family turns your back on you, perhaps they’ll try to murder you in an honor killing, your friends will leave you, every loved one you had who was also a Muslim will shun you and maybe even try to kill you.

Let me just quickly say something to those of you who may fall into the above category; having a relationship with Jesus Christ is worth more than anything you could ever have in this world. The apostle Paul, who, as we saw in part 6, endured severe hardships for being a Christian, wrote; “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:7-8). According to Paul, having a relationship with Jesus Christ is worth so much, that everything else is garbage by comparison! Nabeel Qureshi, whose family turned his back on him when he converted to Christianity wrote; “All suffering is worth it to follow Jesus. He is that amazing.”[5]

Speaking as a Christian myself, I wholeheartedly agree with Paul’s and Nabeel’s statements. My relationship with God means more to me than anything this world has to offer.

*Unanswered Questions May Linger

Of course, for others, it may be the case that unanswered questions still linger. Some readers may be thinking “Gosh, there sure is a lot of evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, but I still have unanswered questions. Why didn’t Jesus appear to any of His enemies after He rose, such as Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas? This would have convinced them that they were wrong to crucify Him, they would repent and become Christians? Also, why is it that Mark’s gospel records no appearances? If Mark’s gospel is the earliest gospel as most scholars say, does this imply that the appearances were legendary embellishments? I don’t think I can commit my life to Christ when there are still so many answered questions.”

Dealing With Unanswered Questions 

First of all, you shouldn’t need to have all of your questions answered before you can make a decision for Christ. We will never have every question answered in this life. What you should do is weigh the evidence. Imagine a scale with the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection on one side and your unanswered questions on the other. Does the totality of the evidence tip in favor of Jesus’ resurrection? If so, then you should conclude that Jesus rose from the dead, despite there being a few unsolved mysteries about it. Would your question, if left unanswered, affect the weight of the arguments in any way? If not, then you should be comfortable with it being left unanswered.

  1. Warner Wallace, cold case homicide detective, and Christian Apologist said this about unanswered questions:

“After a long career as a cold-case detective, I’ve learned to get comfortable with unanswered questions. In fact, I’ve never investigated or presented a case to a jury that wasn’t plagued with a number of mysteries. As much as I wish it wasn’t so, there is no such thing as a perfect case; every case has unanswered questions. In fact, when we seat a jury for a criminal trial, we often ask the prospective jurors if they are going to be comfortable making a decision without complete information. If potential jurors can’t envision themselves making a decision unless they can remove every possible doubt (and answer every possible question), we’ll do our best to make sure they don’t serve on our panel. Every case is imperfect; there are no cases devoid of unanswered questions. Every juror is asked to make a decision, even though the evidential case will be less than complete. As detectives and prosecutors, we do our best to be thorough and present enough evidence so jurors can arrive at the most reasonable inference. But, if you need ‘beyond a possible doubt,’ rather than ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ you’re not ready to sit on a jury. The standard of proof is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ for a good reason; no case is evidentially complete; no case maker can eliminate every possible reservation.”[6]

I think the evidence is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead and Christianity is true, even in spite of some unanswered questions. Think about it for a moment; would the absence of an answer as to why Jesus’ didn’t appear to Pilate and the Pharisees undermine the powerful historical evidence that He did appear to the disciples, Paul, and James? How would an inability to answer that question undermine the evidence for those 3 minimal facts? Would it undermine the evidence for the empty tomb? Would it mean that the resurrection isn’t the best explanation for the 5 minimal facts? Certainly not. I think we could say “Why didn’t He appear to his enemies? It’s kind of weird that he didn’t do that. But the evidence that he did appear to the disciples, Paul, and James is strong enough, and since no naturalistic theory can account for them, I’m still justified in concluding that Jesus rose from the dead.”

Answering The Unanswered Questions 

But do answers to these questions exist? I think they do. Let me take the time address these one by one.

Question 1: Why Didn’t Jesus Appear To Pilate And The Pharisees? 

This is a common question that skeptics and believer alike have asked. If Jesus really rose from the dead, then why didn’t he appear to Pontius Pilate, the Pharisees, and all who doubted him? Surely He would have done this for scripture teaches that God wants all people to be saved (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4) and that Christ died for the entire world (John 3:16, 1 John 2:2), and that confession of Jesus’ lordship and in His resurrection are requirements for salvation (Romans 10:9), so then why didn’t Jesus appear to Pilate and the Pharisees so that they could believe in Him so that they could be saved? I propose several answers.

1: Who Says He Didn’t Appear To Them? 

This is often overlooked, but there’s a passage in the book of Acts that suggests that Jesus did appear to at least a few of the religious leaders, resulting in their conversions. Acts 6:7 says  “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” (Emphasis mine). Now, granted, it could be that these might not be the same Pharisees who were constantly trying to trip him up and voted to condemn him to death, but they could be. It’s possible that some of the people who ridiculed Jesus, opposed him throughout his ministry, and voted for his death were among the 500 individuals whom Jesus appeared to in 1 Corinthians 15, and that these are the priests Acts 6:7 referred to. So, while this verse isn’t irrefutable proof that Jesus appeared to those who opposed him throughout his ministry, it does at least open to the door.

2: It’s Possible That It May Have Done No Good

If the skeptics of today are any indication, it doesn’t matter how good the evidence is; they will always find a way to avoid following it where it leads. People who don’t want to believe something, won’t believe it, no matter how strong the evidence is. It could have been the case that had Jesus appeared to Caiaphas; he would have said that Satan was trying to deceive him. After all, the religious leaders appealed to demonic forces to try to explain away his other miracles, like his exorcism in Mark 3:20-30, for example. Pilate might have explained his appearance away as a hallucination or a vision, and blamed it on a guilty conscience. Only God knows how these people would have responded to a postmortem appearance of Jesus. If it would have done no good, then Jesus would have just been wasting his time appearing to them. In the book of Exodus, Pharoah had more than enough evidence to know that Yahweh existed and wanted him to let the Israelites go free. Yet, it took about a dozen plagues over a period of time before he finally consented. But even after consenting, Pharoah changed his mind again and chased after the Israelites who were on their way to The Red Sea. People who truly desire not to believe and repent, won’t.

Question 2: Why Are There No Appearances In Mark’s Gospel? 

According to most scholars, Mark’s gospel is the earliest gospel to have been written. Matthew and Luke were written sometime later, and John’s gospel was written last. However, Mark’s gospel contains no appearances. There is a longer ending to Mark which does include appearances, but most scholars agree that these were added by a scribe later on. Most are in agreement that Mark’s gospel ends at verse 8. If this is true, then the earliest gospel contains no appearances while the later ones do. Is this a sign of theological embellishment over time?

1: Mark Doesn’t Include Appearances, But He Does Predict Them 

While it’s true that the ending to Mark’s gospel includes no narrative where Jesus shows up and says “Hi, Y’all. I’m back!”, Mark includes predictions that there will be appearances. The young man told the women “Don’t be alarmed; You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (Mark 16:4-5, emphasis mine).

So, certainly, Mark believed there would be appearances. He just didn’t record any interactions between the risen Jesus and his apostles.

2: The 1 Corinthians 15 Creed Predates Mark 

Secondly, remember that in part 5 of this series, we saw that the earliest tradition of Jesus’ postmortem appearances is the creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15. This creed contains several appearances, including appearances to the twelve disciples, and this creed dates to within 5 years of Jesus’ death. Moreover, all scholars, Christian and non-Christian alike affirm that all of Paul’s letters predate the gospels. So, if any embellishment went on, it was going in the opposite direction; appearances to non-appearances!

3: The Evidence From Paul and The Church Fathers Let Us Trace The Claims Of Resurrection Back To The Disciples 

Even if we threw out the gospels entirely, we could affirm that the disciples claimed they saw Jesus alive and that they really believed it through the writings of Paul and the church fathers. I talked about this in part 5 of this blog post series. Paul says that the disciples were claiming that Jesus appeared to him since he took two trips to Jerusalem to meet with them. One of these trips is recorded in Galatians 1, the other in Galatians 2. In Galatians 1, Paul says he spent 15 days with the apostles Peter and James. Don’t you think that the resurrection would have come up once in that conversation? Indeed, in Galatians 2, he specifically says that that’s why he went to Jerusalem; to compare the gospels that he and the other apostles were preaching. He wanted to make sure that the gospel he was preaching was the same gospel the twelve disciples were preaching, and he said: “They added nothing to my teaching.” After citing the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, he says in verse 11 “Whether it is they or I, this is what we preach” (i.e., Jesus’ postmortem appearances). Paul gives us a direct link to what the disciples were claiming. Moreover, the early church fathers Irenaeus and Tertullian said that Polycarp and Clement were students of the apostle John. Polycarp and Clement wrote in their writings that the disciples claimed that Jesus rose from the dead. Polycarp and Clement are a direct link to what John and the other disciples believed. They say that the disciples were preaching Jesus’ resurrection.

Additionally, church history is unanimous that all of the disciples were brutally killed for making this claim. No one would ever die for something they consciously believed is a lie. The fact that they died for preaching that Jesus rose from the dead, proves they really believed it. Why did they believe it? Because they saw him.

In conclusion, the faith that Mark doesn’t report any postmortem appearances doesn’t hurt my case one iota.

Question 3: Don’t Miracle Stories In Other Religions Discredit The Resurrection? 

It has been argued by skeptics, both scholars, and layman, that miracle stories in other religions disprove or cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus and the other miracles reported in The Bible. Sometimes this is posed in the form of this question “You reject all of these other miracles as being credible or true, so why do you accept the resurrection of Jesus as being a fact of history? Aren’t you being inconsistent? Aren’t you cherry-picking which miracles you want to believe and which you want to disbelieve? Moreover, if you’re going to accept the miracles of The Bible, you should accept the miracles of Islam and Buddhism, and Mormonism.”

What should the Christian Apologist say in response to this objection? I can give 3 reasons why this objection doesn’t carry any weight.

1: The Historical Evidence Establishes That Jesus Rose From The Dead

Most people who make this objection don’t even realize that there is any evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. But as we saw in parts 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of this blog series, there is excellent evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Just using the standard criteria of authenticity that historians use, we’ve determined that (1) Jesus rose from the dead, (2) His tomb was empty, (3) his twelve disciples believed they saw him alive after his death, (4) that a church persecutor named Paul converted on the basis of what he perceived to be a postmortem appearance of Jesus, and (5) a skeptic named James became a Christian because of what he perceived to be a postmortem appearance of the risen Jesus. In part 7, we saw that no theory can account for these 5 facts other than that Jesus rose from the dead, and therefore we are within our rational rights in coming to this conclusion.

Now, by contrast, other miracle claims in other religions tend to be rather poorly attested. Sometimes the sources come centuries after the event is alleged to describe (such as the miracles of Buddha and Krishna)[7], and/or is found in only one source (like Islam’s Hadith, which report the miracles of Muhammad). This isn’t the case with The New Testament records. Even the most skeptical liberal scholars date all of them to within the first century, only mere decades after the event.[8]

The fact that other miracles are poorly attested or are made up cannot be used as an argument that the resurrection of Jesus is likewise poorly attested and made up. In fact, each miracle claim has to be examined on an individual, case-by-case basis.

2: If Christianity Is True, We Need Not Necessarily Explain Away Or Reject Other Miracle Claims 
If the Christian worldview is true (and we’ve seen good evidence throughout this series to believe that it is), then we should expect to find at least a few miracle claims in other cultures at different points in time. Even in Scripture, God acted supernaturally among unbelievers, such as healing Naaman’s leprosy (see 2 Kings 5). According to The Bible, demons can perform actual supernatural wonders or counterfeit miracles intended to confound people, such as the magi of Pharoah (in Exodus 7-8), the Anti-Christ (see 2 Thessalonians 2:9, Matthew 24:24), and the fortune teller who harassed the apostle Paul (in Acts 16:16-18), for examples.

Thus, Christians have no obligation to disprove miracle claims in other religious traditions and writings. In fact, I’ve sometimes conjectured whether an actual angel appeared to Muhammad, but that it was a demon. This would be plausible given the fact that The Bible says that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

3: Miracle Claims In Other Religions Can Usually Be Explained By A Naturalistic Theory

Often times, these supposed miracles can be explained by a natural explanation. For example, legendary embellishment can account for the miracles of Muhammad and Buddha. But this explanation fails for Jesus since (1) The epistles of Paul which mention the resurrection only dates to within a few decades after Jesus’ death (1 Corinthians being dated to A.D 55), (2) There’s good evidence, as we saw in part 5 of this series, that the creed contained in 1 Corinthians 15 dates to within only 5 years after the death of Jesus (WAY too early for legend to develop), and (3) through the apostle Paul, and the church fathers Clement and Polycarp, we can trace the claim that Jesus rose from the dead back to the very lips of the apostles, as explained above and in part 5. Since the claim that Jesus rose from the dead can be traced to the very lips of the apostles, the resurrection of Jesus isn’t a legend that developed over time.

Question 4: Isn’t This Whole Approach Dishonoring To God’s Word? I Mean, You’re Scrutinizing It and cross-examining The New Testament documents like a witness on trial. 
This objection comes, not from skeptics or seekers, but Christians. Isn’t The Minimal Fact Approach Dishonoring to God’s Word? Isn’t it sacrilege to subject the inspired text to the same historical scrutinizing that we subject secular texts to? Aren’t we expressing that we doubt God’s word when we need some criterion of authenticity to tell us whether an event mentioned in it is true?

It’s important to realize that The Minimal Facts Approach is trying to reach people who don’t believe The Bible is the inspired word of God, and maybe believers who are doubting. It’s not meant to reach people who already believe its claims. The Minimal Facts Approach reaches unbelievers where they are epistemologically. It’s not that I personally doubt or am skeptical of what The Bible says, but the people I’m trying to reach are. This approach is entirely biblical. The Apostle Paul was a skilled apologist. Acts 17 records two occasions on which Paul argued with people, trying to convince them of Christianity’s truth. The first occasion was with Jews in a synagogue and the second occasion was with the Greeks on the hill in Athens. In the first occasion, Paul appealed to Old Testament prophesies to convince his fellow Jews that Jesus truly is the Messiah. But when speaking to the Greeks, he didn’t use the New Testament. He appealed to general revelation (i.e. the natural world), he quoted their Greek poets, and he used philosophical arguments to reach his gentile hearers. He knew that the Athenians didn’t care about The Old Testament or what it had to say, so he changed his tactics. His message didn’t change, and neither did his goal. But his method did change.

To help you get in their shoes: imagine if a Muslim tried to convince you of Islam by citing from the Quran. You wouldn’t be persuaded, would you? Why? Obviously, because you don’t think the Quran is inspired! You think it’s a fabrication by Muhammad. Well, atheists, agnostics, Muslims, and other non-Christians see The Bible the same way. If a Muslim were to convince me of Islam, he would have to take an approach to proving his religion that didn’t presuppose the inspiration of his holy book.

The Minimal Facts Approach does this. When we Christian Apologists argue for the 5 minimal facts undergirding the inference to the resurrection, we don’t quote from The New Testament as inspired scripture. We do use The New Testament, but not as scripture. We use it as we would any other ancient document that claims to tell of historical events.

Question 5: Why Did The Women Go Down To The Tomb To Anoint The Body Of Jesus If They Knew That It Was Sealed? Do Their Actions Really Make Sense?

This is a question Lee Strobel posed to William Lane Craig in their interview in the book The Case For Christ. Craig responded to Strobel with the following:

“Lee, I strongly feel that scholars who have not known the love and devotion that these women felt for Jesus have no right to pronounce cool judgments upon the feasibility of what they wanted to do. “For people who are grieving, who have lost someone they desperately loved and followed, to want to go to the tomb in a forlorn hope of anointing the body— I just don’t think some later critic can treat them like robots and say, ‘They shouldn’t have gone.’ … Maybe they thought there would be men around who could move the stone. If there were guards, maybe they thought they would. I don’t know. Certainly, the notion of visiting a tomb to pour oils over a body is a historical Jewish practice; the only question is the feasibility of who would move the stone for them.”[9]

I find Craig’s response to Strobel to be intellectually satisfying. Also, notice that even if this question went unanswered, it wouldn’t have altered our case. It wouldn’t have undermined any of the arguments for the 5 minimal facts nor would it have given us a non-supernatural way to account for them. This question, like the others in this blog post, have answers to them. But even if they went unanswered, it wouldn’t affect the case for the resurrection.

Question 6: You Said In Part 3 That Jesus’ Death By Crucifixion Was Multiply Attested in 7 Independent Sources. But Why Aren’t There More Sources?

For one thing, very few documents from ancient history have survived up to the present time. As Ryan Turner, author for CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry) wrote in an article on Carm.org:  “There are a number of ancient writings that have been lost, including 50% of the Roman historian Tacitus’ works, all of the writings of Thallus and Asclepiades of Mendes.  In fact, Herod the Great’s secretary named Nicolas of Damascus wrote a Universal History of Roman history which comprised nearly 144 books, and none of them have survived. Based on the textual evidence, there is no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.”[10]

The fact of the matter is; there may have been more sources that spoke about Jesus and his death by crucifixion for all we know. But they most likely decayed away or they simply haven’t been discovered yet by archeologists. If documents aren’t copied over and over again at a quick enough pace, they aren’t likely to survive for 2,000 years.

Moreover, the evidence we have for Jesus’ death by crucifixion is still overwhelmingly strong. Four secular sources and 3 biblical sources attest to His death by crucifixion, which adds up to a total of 7. As I said in part 3, it is statistically impossible for 7 independent sources to all make up the same fiction and then proceed to treat it as a historical event. The principle of multiple attestations applies here. Secondly, Jesus’ death is attested in two enemy sources (sources which are ridiculing Christianity in the very passage they mention Jesus’ death by crucifixion, those sources would be Tacitus and Lucian. So this minimal fact is likely to be true on the basis of the principle of enemy attestation. Also, the principle of embarrassment verifies Jesus’ death by crucifixion in 3 different ways; (1) Crucifixion was not only a painful death but a shameful one. If the gospels fabricated a tale of Jesus’ death, they would have had him die in a more dignified way, such as death by stoning. (2) All of the disciples except John abandon Jesus, and only the women stand before the cross to be with Him in His final moments (save for John). Why the author of John’s gospel paint the disciples in such a bad light if that didn’t actually happen? (3) Jesus said on the cross “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!” Although an explanation for this saying exists, it’s still extremely awkward as it makes Jesus look like He’s doubting the Father and forgot his mission. It’s unlikely this saying of Jesus is made up, but this saying is in the context of Jesus dying by crucifixion.

You can ask “Why aren’t there more sources?” but it’s foolishness to say that the evidence we do have is insufficient.

Question 7: Aren’t Jesus’ Postmortem Appearances Like Elvis Sightings? 

Several years ago, when I was debating the evidence for the resurrection with an atheist on Twitter (Twitlonger to be precise), he compared the postmortem appearances of Jesus to alleged sightings of Elvis. People have claimed to have seen Evil after he died, yet we don’t give these claims any credibility. In fact, we have a tendency to dismiss them out of hand. Why don’t we do the same with sightings of Jesus?

First of all, Jesus left an empty tomb behind (see part 4 of this series), Elvis didn’t. Anyone interested in disproving any resurrection of Elvis could go down to his tomb, exhume the corpse and prove that Elvis didn’t re-enter the building. Had the opponents of Christianity did this back in the first century, they would have persuaded everyone that Jesus was still dead. Christianity would have died before it even began. Since it’s still around, we can conclude that they didn’t exhume Jesus’ corpse, and they didn’t exhume Jesus’ corpse because there was no corpse in the tomb to be exhumed.

Secondly, Elvis sightings can be explained naturalistically. If only one person saw him at one time, that might have been a hallucination. Certainly, we know that Elvis impersonators are about, so maybe what these people are seeing are just these impersonators. Thirdly, it’s possible that Elvis never died, but faked his death. While this is somewhat unlikely, it’s still possible. But we saw in part 7 that multiple people on multiple different occasions (including 2 skeptics) saw the risen Jesus, and group hallucinations (especially ones that occur over and over) are impossible. We also know based on medical evidence, that Jesus was dead when they took him down from the cross. There’s no way Jesus could have faked his death. So while there are plenty of plausible non-supernatural explanations for Elvis, none exist for Jesus.

Thirdly, Elvis never claimed to be divine or performed any miracles. Jesus did. Jesus’ resurrection occurred in what scholars call “A religious-historical context.”

Conclusion
We’ve seen that the lingering questions some of my readers may have had up until this point have good answers to them. Most of them wouldn’t affect the case for the resurrection of Jesus even if they went unanswered.

So, at this point, if you’re an unbeliever, let me ask you a question: are you convinced yet? If so, what are you going to do about it?

Notes 

[1] This lecture can be purchased as an MP3 file at http://www.catapes.com/viewresults.cfm?cid=363

[2] See the previous blog post in this series.

[3] I tackle this issue in chapter 9 of my book A Hellacious Doctrine: A Defense Of The Doctrine Of Hell. Losing a loved one who wasn’t saved can be hard, but that’s no reason why you should shake your fist at God and end up there yourself.

[4] Thomas Nagel, The Last Word, Oxford, 1997

[5] Nabeel Qureshi, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity”, February 11th 2014, Zondervan, page

[6] J. Warner Wallace, from the article “How Can You Trust Christianity When There Are So Many Unanswered Questions?”, March 26, 2014, http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/how-can-you-trust-christianity-is-true-when-there-are-so-many-unanswered-questions/

[7] See Edwin Yamauchi, Jesus, Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates, Mohammad, Revised Edition (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1972), esp. 4– 7, 18, 38– 41.

[8] This is because the early church fathers quote from The New Testament very frequently in their writings. These church fathers, like Polycarp, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Tertullian, etc. are writing in the second, third, and fourth centuries. Obviously, the books they’re quoting from had to pre-exist their own writings. I can’t quote from a book in a book of my own unless the former had already been written and published. This is why all scholars from all theological perspectives agree that the entirety of The New Testament had been completed before the end of the first century. Most scholars date Mark in the 60s, Matthew and Luke in the 70s, and John in the 80s, with Paul’s epistles being completed between 50 and 60 A.D. More conservative scholars, like Craig Blomberg, have given very compelling arguments for gospel dates between 50 and 62. And I happen to agree with these arguments for more conservative dating.

[9] Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee. Case for Christ Movie Edition: Solving the Biggest Mystery of All Time (Case for … Series) (Kindle Locations 4436-4443). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[10] Ryan Turner, “Did Jesus Ever Exist?”, CARM – Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, https://carm.org/jesus-exist

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2J0LXWs

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Reasoning To The Resurrection

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

,

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.

 

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