Tag Archive for: Evan Minton

The Postmortem Appearances To Paul and James

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

, ,

by Evan Minton

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

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

1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.

3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.

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

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

The Church Persecutor Paul

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

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

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

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

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

3: Paul Had A Reputation

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

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

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

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

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

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

*The Best Explanation: Paul Actually Saw Jesus 

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

The Skeptic James 

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

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

*James Was A Skeptic During Jesus’ Lifetime 

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

1: The Principle Of Embarrassment

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

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

2: The Principle Of Multiple Attestation 

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

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

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

Moreover, he was eventually martyred.

Multiple Attestation

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

*James Was Martyred For His Christian Faith

Multiple Attestation 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.

3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.

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

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

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

Notes 

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

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

[3] H.E. 2.26;

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

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

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

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

 

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

/by
The Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples

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

,

by Evan Minton

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

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

1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3: Parallelism Is Apparent In The Text.

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

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

“and that He was buried” (short)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reason 5: Doubting Thomas Gives Us Reason Not To Doubt 

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

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

Reason 6: Brave Women, Cowardly Disciples 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes 

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

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

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

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

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

[6] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.3.4.

[7] Ibid.

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

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

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

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

[12] Acts 12:1-2

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

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

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

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2I4Kp12

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

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

, ,

By Evan Minton

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

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

Reason 1: The Jerusalem Factor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reason 4: The Empty Tomb Is Multiply Attested

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

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

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

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

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

Reason 6: Multiple Literary Forms 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Notes 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

,

By Evan Minton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source 2: Tacitus 

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

Source 3: Mara Bar Serapion

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

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

Source 4: Lucian Of Samosata 

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

Source 5: The Synoptic Gospels

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

Source 6: The Gospel Of John 

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

Source 7: The Epistles Of Paul 

Paul’s epistles mention the crucifixion of Jesus.

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

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

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

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

Reason 2: Jesus’ Crucifixion Is Enemy Attested 

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

Reason 3: The Principle Of Historical Fit 

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

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

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

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

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

Reason 5: Jesus Was Killed In The Most Humiliating Way 

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

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

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

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

Reason 6: Multiple Literary Form 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summary and Conclusion 

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

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

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

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

Notes 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Hq7aw3

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

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

,

By Evan Minton

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

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

What Is The Minimal Facts Approach?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abductive Reasoning 

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

In logical form, it looks like this:

1: Either P, Q, or R.

2: Not P or Q.

3: Therefore, R.

Don’t Worry About Alleged Contradictions In The Gospels

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

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

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

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

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

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

All four Gospels attest to these facts.

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

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

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

Objection: But The New Testament Writers Were Biased!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summary and Conclusion 

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

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

Notes 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

/by
Why Yahweh Why Not Zeus Why Not Thor Why Not Zoidberg

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

, , ,

By Evan Minton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

/by
The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 1 Why This Matters

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 1: Why This Matters

,

By Evan Minton

Did Jesus really rise from the dead? How can we know? Most people, both Christians, and non-Christians alike, will tell you that if you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, it has to be on either the basis of a religious experience (for example, you were addicted to drugs but prayed to Jesus to free you, and if He did, you would follow him all the days of your life) or blind faith. The general public is under the impression that Jesus’ resurrection cannot be believed on the basis of evidence. However, while this perception is common among the general population, it isn’t true. There is actually a wealth of historical evidence for the truth of Christianity, and many skeptics have become Christians by looking at this evidence.[1]  I’m glad that such evidence exists for a number of reasons. For one, I consider myself a generally skeptical and critically thinking person. I like that I can believe that Christianity is true on the basis of more than “The Bible tells me so.” If there were no evidence for Jesus’ resurrection other than the claims of The Bible, I would have a hard time maintaining belief in it. Especially since other religions make equally radical claims. How would I know to accept The Bible’s claims about God rather than, say, the Quran’s? Secondly, it is important to our eternal fates whether we know that Jesus rose from the dead if He actually did. As C.S Lewis eloquently put it: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance. But if true, it is of infinite importance. The only thing I cannot be is moderately important.”[2]  Christianity is of no importance whatsoever if it isn’t true. If Jesus were just a wise teacher or a false prophet who met an untimely demise, who cares? On the other hand, if The Bible is true, if Christianity is true if Jesus was God incarnate who died and rose from the dead, then it is infinitely important that we listen to what He has to say and that we apply it to our lives. If Christianity is true, and we don’t believe it, we’re in for one Hell of an afterlife (pun intended), since The Bible teaches that whoever does not believe in Jesus will be under God’s wrath (John 3:18, John 3:36), who will be thrown in a lake of fire to be tormented forever and ever (Revelation 14:10-11). It is therefore vital that we believe Jesus’ claims about Himself. Not to do so result in us dying in our sins (see John 8:24). This is why C.S Lewis said that Christianity is infinitely important if it’s true. But if it’s not true, then the warnings of judgment in scripture are nothing but empty threats.

So if it’s true and we don’t believe it, eternal agony awaits.[3] If it’s false and we don’t believe it, no biggie. This is why Lewis said it’s either infinitely important or not important at all. But under no circumstances can it be somewhat important.

Why The Resurrection Is So Important

As you’ve probably noticed, I used “Christianity” and “Jesus’ resurrection” interchangeably in the paragraphs above. There’s a reason I did that. If the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth can be historically established, then that means that the entire Christian worldview is established as well. If Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true and any worldview or religion that contradicts Christianity is false.

Why do I say that? Is this some unjustified leap? “Are you seriously saying that validating one of The Bible’s claims validates the entire Bible? Aren’t you committing the hasty generalization fallacy in making this assertion?”[4]  I understand why you would raise this question. Before I get into making a case for Jesus’ resurrection, I need to first unpack why it would validate the entire Christian worldview.

First of all, there is strong historical evidence that Jesus claimed to be God. If Jesus said that he was God, but he wasn’t, then he was either a lying heretic or else he was crazy. If that were the case, there’s no way God The Father would resurrect Jesus from the dead knowing that that would vindicate his blasphemous claims and lead many people astray. God would never raise a heretic and a blasphemer. But if God did raise Jesus from the dead, then God implicitly put his stamp of approval on everything Jesus said and did. If Jesus rose from the dead, then that means God The Father agreed with Jesus’ claims for which his enemies killed him as a blasphemer. If God The Father raised Jesus from the dead, then that means He agrees with Jesus’ claims to be divine.

If that’s the case, then whatever Jesus teaches carries a lot of weight. Well, what did Jesus teach? He taught (1) that the Old Testament was the divinely inspired Word of God. He believed and taught that every word in The Old Testament was true. (2) Since he handpicked the writers of the New Testament, this means the New Testament is divinely inspired given that Jesus is God, (3) He also seemed to believe that Adam and Eve were historical individuals, that (4) the flood story in Genesis 6-9 actually happened, that (5) angels and demons really do exist, and (6) that if you place your faith in him, you will have eternal life but that if you don’t place your faith in Him, you’ll end up in Hell (John 3:16-18, John 8:24).

So if Jesus rose from the dead after allegedly blaspheming the One who raised him, we can believe all of these things as well simply because Jesus believed them. This is why you’ll often hear Christian Apologists say “I don’t believe in Jesus because I believe The Bible. I believe The Bible because I believe in Jesus”.

But, how do we know that Jesus actually claimed to be divine and that he believed the Old Testament was inspired, that he believed angels and demons existed, etc.? I unpack this in my blog post “What Is The Significance Of Jesus’ Resurrection?”  

“Oh no! Not Another Blog Series!” 

I’ve come to learn that not everyone likes blog post series[5], so I plan on making this both a blog post series as well as a book. I know of no one interested in researching these matters who hates books, so if you’re one of those people who hate blog posts series, you can wait and the series compiled in book form. Though this particular paragraph and subsection will be missing.

Be Willing To Follow The Evidence Wherever It Leads 

If you understand the importance of knowing whether or not Christianity is true, then you’ll take the time to either read this blog post series or read the book adaption of it. If you do take the time to listen to my arguments, please follow them to their logical conclusions. My friend Neil Mammen has a saying “Don’t let the consequences of your logic cause you to abandon that logic.”[6]  Not everyone who denies the resurrection of Jesus does so purely on intellectual grounds or on the grounds that the evidence isn’t sufficient. Some people deny that the resurrection occurred simply because they want it not to have occurred. Some people aren’t Christians because there isn’t enough evidence to establish that it’s true, but because they don’t want it to be true.

If Jesus rose from the dead, then Christianity is true. If Christianity is true, then several implications follow. It means that if you’re living in sin, you’ll have to repent. Jesus said that if you even look at a woman with lust, you’ve committed adultery in your heart (Matthew 5:28), and adultery is one of the things God said not to do (Exodus 20:14). If you like to spend your evenings downloading and looking at pornography, you’ll have to get that out of your life or answer to God for it (2 Corinthians 5:10). But porn watchers don’t want to do that. Watching porn is fun! It’s exciting! Porn watchers don’t want to give up porn because they enjoy it too much. Others may want to sleep around, bouncing from woman to woman as Charlie Harper did on the hit sitcom Two and A Half Men. According to Hebrews 13:4, this is a no-no. If someone engaged in this behavior doesn’t repent, they’ll be facing judgment. Romans 1:26-28, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and 1 Timothy 1:9-11 prohibit homosexual relationships. Some people don’t want Christianity to be true because it means they’ll have to stop having sex with their same-sex partner. 2 Corinthians 6:14 prohibits a believer marrying an unbeliever. Some people may not want Christianity to be true because they know that if it is, they need to become Christians, or else they face Hell, and if they’re Christians themselves, they’ll be prohibited from marrying their boyfriend or girlfriend who is also an unbeliever.

For many people, it’s a purely intellectual issue. Merely being presented with the evidence in this blog series will be sufficient to persuade them to become Christians. For others, they’re resistant to following the evidence where it leads because they’re in love with their sin, and don’t like the idea of having to exchange their pet sin for a relationship with Jesus. Jesus talked about this when he said “This is the verdict: that light has come into the world. Yet men loved the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will come nowhere near the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:19-20). Echoing Jesus’ words, the mathematician and Christian Apologist John Lennox said: “If religion is a fairytale for those afraid of the dark, then atheism is a fairytale for those afraid of the light.”[7]

So again, “Don’t let the consequences of your logic force you to abandon that logic.” Don’t let the consequences of Christianity being true to force you to swim against the current of evidence pointing against it. The Christian Apologist Frank Turek of CrossExamined.org often exposes someone as resisting Jesus on emotional or moral grounds by asking them one simple question: “If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?” That’s the question I’m posing to you, dear reader. If you knew beyond a reasonable doubt that Christianity is true, would you be willing to give up whatever lifestyle Christ might not approve of in order to follow Him and serve Him? If you were convinced that God exists, would you bow to Him as your Savior and Lord? If you hesitate or if your answer is “no,” then your problem isn’t in your head, it’s in your heart. In that case, this series and its e-book adaption will be of no use to you, since your problem isn’t intellectual, to begin with. So, before you proceed, do some introspection and determine whether you’re on a truth quest or whether you’re on a happiness quest. If your answer to that question is “Yes,” then keep reading! God promises that those who sincerely seek Him find Him when they seek Him with all their heart (see Jeremiah 29:13).

Moreover, if your answer is “No, let me ask you something. Isn’t it better to live in the truth than in a lie? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if life didn’t end at the grave, but that an eternity of uninterrupted bliss followed? Wouldn’t it be infinitely awesome if the death of a loved one wasn’t a final goodbye, but an “until we meet again”? If Christianity is true, life doesn’t end at the grave, death is the beginning of an eternity of uninterrupted bliss, and I will see my loved ones again someday. I would think you would want Christianity to be true, not false! Yeah, you’d have to give up some worldly pleasures, but isn’t an eternal life worth more than a night of porn or a marriage to someone of the same sex?

Of course, what we want to be true doesn’t matter one iota. What matters is where the evidence points. My point in the previous paragraph was an attempt to change your desire if you fell into the category of people who say “No” to Frank Turek’s question. I wanted to make you want it to be true, or at least find Christianity attractive so you might be less prone to suppressing the truth (Romans 1:18-20).

Addressing The Elephant In The Room

Moreover, when you examine the evidence, make sure you don’t go in with a presupposition that miracles cannot occur. What is a presupposition? Josh and Sean McDowell explain that “A presupposition is something assumed or supposed in advance. … A presupposition is something that is assumed to be true and is taken for granted. Synonyms include prejudgment, an assumption of something as true, prejudice, for judgment, preconceived opinion, fixed conclusion, preconceived notion, and premature conclusion.”[8] If you go into this concluding from the outset that miracles cannot occur, that will distort your ability to interpret the evidence.

The biochemist Michael Behe gives an amusing illustration of this in his book Darwin’s Black Box:

“Imagine a room in which a body lies crushed, flat as a pancake. A dozen detectives crawl around, examining the floor with magnifying glasses for any clue to the identity of the perpetrator. In the middle of the room, next to the body, stands a large, gray elephant. The detectives carefully avoid bumping into the pachyderm’s legs as they crawl, and never even glance at it. Over time the detectives get frustrated with their lack of progress but resolutely press on, looking even more closely at the floor. You see, textbooks say detectives must “get their man,” so they never consider elephants.”[9]

Behe was writing in the context of Darwinists ruling out Intelligent Design theory out from the outset, but the analogy is just as applicable in looking at the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. If you presuppose that a miraculous resurrection cannot occur and then interpret the evidence in light of that presupposition, you’re like the detectives who refuse to consider that the corpse on the floor may have been killed by the elephant standing directly adjacent to it. Of course, if a naturalistic explanation can account for the data, that’s one thing. But to think, either consciously or subconsciously “No matter what the evidence says, Jesus could not possibly have come back to life” is wrongheaded. If a human culprit could be found, tried, and convicted for the murder of the person in Behe’s analogy, that would be one thing. But to say “No matter what the evidence says, an elephant couldn’t possibly be the culprit” is wrongheaded.

Why I’m Writing A Whole Series On This

I have written about the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection elsewhere. I’ve written about it in “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1” and “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 2”. I’ve also written an abbreviated version of that first article called “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Resurrection.” And I’ve done a 20-page chapter on it in my book Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods. Given this, one may wonder why I’m doing a whole series on it. The answer: because the evidence is far more powerful and plenteous than I was able to present in the space allotted to me in those linked articles and book chapter. For example, I gave three reasons to believe Jesus’ tomb was empty in the writings above, but there are actually a lot more reasons to believe that this is true. Other criteria of authenticity establish that Jesus’ tomb was empty and that Jesus did die by Roman crucifixion. I just didn’t mention these in these above writings because (1) I didn’t know about a few of these arguments until recently, and (2) I didn’t want the above writings to be lengthier than need-be.

In this series, I’ll be covering familiar ground while also talking about the evidence I had not talked about in my prior writings on this subject.

Conclusion 
In the next blog post, I’ll explain the methodology of how we get from the question “Did Jesus rise from the dead?” to the answer “He is risen!” Most of the non-Christians I engage with simply don’t understand the reasoning behind the arguments, and therefore make all kinds of misguided accusations, such as that we’re reasoning in a circle. It’s vital to understand the process of the case for Jesus’ resurrection if one is to properly respond to it (either by falling to their knees or in rebuttal).

Notes 

[1] Such as Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, J. Warner Wallace, Frank Morrison, and C.S Lewis. They came to believe that Jesus claimed to be God and rose from the dead on the foundation of the historical evidence that we will be looking at in this series.

[2] C. S. Lewis Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, Xplore Inc, 2017. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/cslewis164517.html, accessed November 6, 2017.

[3] Some people think The Bible’s teachings on Hell impugn God’s goodness. I don’t, but it’s beyond the scope of this series to get into why. If you’re bothered by The Bible’s teachings on Hell, I recommend checking out my book A Hellacious Doctrine: A Defense Of The Biblical Doctrine Of Hell which addresses this biblical doctrine in depth. Each chapter takes on a different objection to the doctrine of Hell, from the “Eternal torment is overkill” argument to the “What happens to the unevangelized” question.

[4] The Hasty Generalization fallacy occurs when someone takes a small sample of a class and then makes an unjustified conclusion about the totality of that specific class in which the sample was found. For example, someone would be committing the hasty generalization fallacy if they said “All men are pigs” based on their past relationships, or if they said “All white men are racists” just because they knew a couple of white men who were indeed racists.

[5] Tony Lee Ross Jr. expressed his dislike of blog post series in an article he wrote titled “Why You Should Stop Writing Blog Post Series (Part 1). — https://www.sinnersinthehandsofanangryblog.com/2017/09/why-you-should-stop-writing-blog-post.html

[6] Neil Mammen, “Who Is Agent X: Proving Science and Logic Show It’s More Rational To Believe That God Exists”, page

[7] I could never find a place where Lennox said this in writing, but I know he said this in a debate he had with Stephen Hawking. In fact, it’s a rather popular quote of his.

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

[9] Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box (New York: Free Press, 1996), 192.rft

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2DWOwp4

/by
The Divine Council

Reflecting On “The Divine Council”

By Evan Minton

Recently, I read Michael Heiser’s book The Unseen Realm: Recovering The Supernatural Worldview Of The Bible.  I mentally wrestled with his prospect of “the divine council”. Heiser talks about this in this lecture as well btw.

Sometimes I do a soliloquy or write out my thought process when there is subject matter or information that I need to digest, especially if I find that subject matter new or troubling. That is what this blog post is all about.

In the first chapter, Heiser introduces us to “The Divine Council” worldview of The Bible, which is what he based his doctoral dissertation on. The key passage examined is Psalm 82. Heiser’s proposal seems to be that the Jews viewed angels and demons as lesser “gods” (lowercase g) which were subservient to the supreme God; Yahweh. Heiser rightly points out that Psalm 82 must be referring to angelic beings because all other interpretations have fatal flaws. To interpret the second usage of elohim (the Hebrew translated as God and gods) as referring to other persons of the Trinity entails that God The Father is judging the Son and The Holy Spirit for corruption. This is blasphemy. To interpret them as being Jewish leaders doesn’t work either as there is no biblical or extra-biblical evidence that the Jews ever ruled nations outside of Israel (which is what Psalm 82 says the “gods/elohim” did, and did so in a corrupt manner). The only alternative candidates are other supernatural entities.

First of all, I really have no issue with the word “god(s)” being referred to super powerful, supernatural entities. After all, it has traditionally been understood that 2 Corinthians 4:4 is referring to Satan (“The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers”). Elohim, according to Heiser simply refers to some supernatural spirits. Yahweh is an Elohim, but not all Elohim are YWWH. There’s only one Maximally Great Being. For the ancient Israelite, Elohim was like our modern term “Spirit”. We would say God is a “Spirit”, but not all “spirits” are God. There’s The HOLY Spirit, and then there are evil spirits. But certainly, Satan is not on the same level as God. He’s not as powerful as God, not as knowledgeable, and he’s not everywhere present.

To refer to angels and demons as elohim (i.e supernatural, immaterial entities) isn’t theologically objectionable. Just as I wouldn’t object to saying “God is a spirit” and “Satan is a spirit”. If the Hebrew term “elohim” simply carried the same connotations as “spirit”, then to say that there are many gods wouldn’t violate traditional monotheism anymore than saying there are many spirits. There’s only one God (capital G) even though there are many gods (lower case g). There are many spirits, even though there’s only one Great Spirit.

Should “god” Be Taken As A Metaphor?

On the other hand, Heiser’s position seems to open the door for Mormonism. As he himself pointed out, Elohim was applied to Samuel in 1 Samuel 28 when Saul had the medium call upon Samuel’s spirit. If Elohim even applies to the souls of deceased humans, doesn’t that mean that humans become divine upon death? Perhaps angels and demons could be considered “gods” with a lowercase g, but only in a metaphorical sense and divinity proper should not be ascribed to them. Doesn’t it open the door to the Mormon contention that we become gods after we die, that we become divine if the lesser elohim literally posess the property of divinity. There’s only one supernatural entity that literally possesses the attribute of divinity, and that’s YHWH: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There can be many elohim (gods), but there can only be one divine Elohim (God). There are many spirits, but there is only one Great Spirit (YHWH).

Perhaps, then, Psalm 82:1 should be properly translated as “God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the spirits.” or we can take the text at its face value meaning and ascribe the term “gods” as a metaphor. This could possibly be the reason why the NIV places the second rendering of elohim in quotation marks.

What About The Mockery Of Idols?

In the book of Isaiah, Yahweh mocks the idols that people bow to. In the book of Isaiah is where we find the most repeated assertions from God that He is the only God that there is.

“This is what the LORD says— Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come— yes, let him foretell what will come. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God beside me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.” (Isaiah 44:6–8, NIV)

After proclaiming the glory, and majesty and power of the Lord Almighty, the prophet turns his attention toward the idols that Israel is so prone to worship. He reminds them of the shame of idol worship.

“All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit nothing? People who do that will be put to shame; such craftsmen are only human beings. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and shame. The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He cut down cedars or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. It is used as fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, ‘Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.’ From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, ‘Save me! You are my god!’ They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, ‘Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?'” – Isaiah 44:9-20

The implication of Yahweh’s mockery is that the reason it is supremely stupid to make idols and worship them is that they are nothing but man-made objects. God essentially says “Look, you chop down a tree, use part of the wood to warm yourself and cook food, and you use what’s left to make yourself a deity? How stupid could you possibly be?” In Isaiah 46, God says of the idols “They [humans) lift it to their shoulders and carry it;  they set it [the idol] up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot, it cannot move. Even though someone cries out to it, it cannot answer;  it cannot save them from their troubles.” (verse 7). Now, I could perhaps understand it if we say that behind every idol, there is a demon, or perhaps that every idol of wood and stone is inhabited by some demonic spirit. But here, God seems to be denying the idols of any real existence or power at all! He says they cannot move. He says they cannot speak. He says they cannot answer when spoken to, or save people from their troubles. If demon spirits were really behind the idols, Yahweh’s mockery here makes no sense. Certainly, a demon could answer back when spoken to. Demons can certainly move. After all, the book of Job says that when Satan stood before God and God asked him where he had been, he responded “From roaming about the Earth. From going back and forth on it” (see Job 1:6-7).

I don’t know how to reconcile Michael Heiser’s divine council view with the text of Isaiah. It’s one thing to say that demons are, in some sense “gods” and that they are lesser gods than Yahweh, and that they are the ones worshipped by idolaters, but how do we account for the fact that in Isaiah 44-46, Yahweh treats the idols like they don’t even exist? As though they are simply man-made objects and figments of man’s imagination?

The apostle Paul seemed to have been divided on this issue himself, for in 1 Corinthians 8:4 he says that an idol is really nothing at all, using a proclamation of monotheism to justify his claim “For we know that there is no God but one”, so the Corinthians shouldn’t worry about eating meat sacrificed to one. But elsewhere, he seems to say that behind every idol is a demonic spirit, which obviously wouldn’t be “nothing”, (see 1 Corinthians 10:20).

So is an idol a non-existent entity or a demonic one? Either would be consistent with monotheism (there is only one Maximally Great Being). Deuteronomy 32:16-17 also seems to imply that demonic spirits are behind idols. Deuteronomy 32:16–17 states, “They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations, they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded” (ESV).

Perhaps Paul meant that they are “nothing at all” in a hyperbolic term, to denote the powerlessness demons have in comparison with the power Yahweh has. It would be like saying to someone who lost a position of great influence or fame “You are nothing now”. It’s possible that this is what Yahweh was doing in Isaiah 44-46. Not that they are literally nothing or powerless, but that they are in comparison to Yawheh. You can’t even begin to compare finite power with infinite power.

It could also be the case that some idols are inhabited by demonic spirits while others aren’t inhabited at all, and it’s these latter that Isaiah 44-46 and 1 Corinthians 8:4 refer to.

CONCLUSION 

This blog post was written immediately after I read the first two chapters of Heiser’s book.

This concluding section, however, was written a week after the fact.

After wrestling with this concept in my mind for a week, I’ve come to this conclusion. I think Heiser’s proposal is a powerful one, and it explains much. It doesn’t threaten monotheism as I first thought. It might entail Henotheism at worst. However, although Heiser never explains it like this (these are my own words), it appears that for the ancients “elohim” carried the same meaning as what we might call “a spirit” to be an “elohim” simply meant to be a powerful, immaterial, supernatural entity. Certainly, Yahweh, angels, demons, and even deceased humans would fall under this definition. We would consider all four categories “spirits”. The ancients would consider all four “elohim”. There is only one Ultimate Supreme Elohim. There is only one Maximally Great Spirit. That is Yahweh (The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). All others are lesser elohim/gods/spirits.

Michael Heiser’s proposal explains much of The Bible’s teaching on the unseen realm.
I think the idea of the pagan gods being demons is very credible. Not only does 1 Corinthians 8, 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, and Deuteronomy 32 say that (and the nearly universal agreement that 2 Corinthians 4:4 is referring to Satan), but when you think about why the angels rebelled against God in the first place, it makes sense. Satan wanted to be God, and part of being God is receiving worship. When tempting Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4, Satan said he would give him all the kingdoms of the Earth if only He would worship him. It’s plausible to think that demons would desire worship, and ergo, plant it in the minds of human beings to build statues dedicated to them and then bow. It is part of the demonic mindset to get what properly belongs to God alone.

Isaiah 44 and 1 Corinthians 8:4 appear to be denying that the “gods” have any real existence at all at face value, but when you interpret these passages in light of the rest of scripture, this interpretation fails. The Bible is quite clear that false gods/idols are demonic entities. So what do we make of the denial passages? I think the most plausible interpretation is that of hyperbolic language. Even today, when we want to belittle someone to the most severe extent possible, we would say “You are nothing! NOTHING! You’re nobody!” Of course, the one who says this doesn’t think he’s talking to an imaginary person. Rather, he’s speaking as though he’s making an ontological denial in order to demote that person’s status or worth. If someone is a nobody, they are of no significance. It makes sense to call the gods/demons/idols “nothing at all” since all of their great-making properties are pitiful when compared to the Maximally Great Being (i.e Yahweh). God and Paul are simply belittling the demons. Compared to Him, they are nothing.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2EIhcU2

/by
Jesus' Deity

3 Syllogistic Arguments For Jesus’ Deity

,

By Evan Minton

The Bible teaches in a variety of ways that Jesus Christ is God incarnate. In some places, The Bible couldn’t possibly be more explicit, and it boggles the mind how anyone who takes scripture as the inspired word of God could avoid any conclusion other than that Jesus is divine. In other places, it’s more subtle, and you need to be paying close attention to catch Jesus’ claim to divinity or one the epistles claims to divinity. In other words, there are explicit claims (on both Jesus’ and the epistle writers’ part) that Jesus is God, and there are implicit claims that Jesus is God.

When it comes to the more subtle and implicit claims, sometimes the conclusion of Christ’s divinity comes from piecing together biblical teachings about God and Jesus, which wouldn’t seem to say anything about Christ’s divinity when taken in isolation. These scriptural assertions can be used to form syllogistic arguments which result in the conclusion that Jesus is God. In my study of The Bible, I’ve come up with 3 such syllogisms. Let’s look at them below:

SYLLOGISM ONE

1: Yahweh is the only Savior of mankind.

2: Jesus is the Savior of humankind

3: Therefore, either The Bible contradicts itself or Jesus is God.

4: The Bible cannot contradict itself.

5: Therefore, Jesus is God.

This is a logically valid syllogism. This means that if the premises are true, then the conclusions follow. So, are the premises true or are they false? Let’s look at them.

The first premise states that Yahweh is the only Savior of mankind. This premise is backed up by Isaiah 43:11, which says; “I, even I, am The Lord, and apart from me there is no Savior.” This is Yahweh speaking through the prophet Isaiah. He says that He is The Lord and that apart from Him, there is no Savior. If Yahweh didn’t act to initiate our salvation, our souls would be doomed to Hell. No one can save us but God.

What about the second premise? It’s indisputable that Jesus is called our Savior. Titus 2:13 says “while we wait for the blessed hope-the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,” This verse clearly calls Jesus “Our great God and Savior.” That alone should end any debate that Jesus is God. Yet, cultists try to avoid the seemingly obvious conclusion by saying that Paul is referring to two different entities “Our Great God” on the one hand, and “our Savior, Jesus Christ” on the other.[1] Very well. For this argument to work, it doesn’t matter whether “Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” is referring to God and a merely human or angelic Jesus, or whether both “God” and “Savior” are both being applied to Jesus. Even the cultists will admit that Titus 2:13 undoubtedly calls Jesus our Savior.

1 John 4:14 says “We have seen as testify that The Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.” 
In his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul is contemplating his impending martyrdom. In Philippians 3, the apostle Paul tells his readers that a relationship with Jesus is far superior to anything else he has obtained in this Earthly life, even to the point of calling all of the goods he’s received “garbage” (verses 1-8). In verses 20-21, Paul says “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (emphasis mine)

In Acts 13:23, Paul also calls Jesus by the title “Savior.”

In fact, not much biblical defense for this premise even needs to be given. Even a casual reading of The New Testament will show even the lousiest exegete that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead, and this act atoned for our sins. This is what Jesus did to save us. No sect will deny that Jesus is the “Savior” any more than they’ll deny that The Father of Jesus is God.

This brings us to premise 3: Obviously, we’ve got a dichotomy here. If only God is the Savior if there is no savior besides God, and yet Jesus is our Savior, then what are our options? Either The Bible erroneously calls God the savior, or it erroneously calls Jesus the Savior. In other words, maybe The Bible is just plain wrong. On the other hand, perhaps The Bible isn’t wrong. Perhaps Jesus is God. I don’t see a third alternative.

Defense of Premise 4: The Bible cannot contradict itself. 

The Bible cannot contradict itself. It is the word of God (2 Timothy 3:16, Proverbs 30:5). The Holy Spirit cannot inspire false teachings. To the person who doesn’t take The Bible as divinely inspired (atheists, agnostics,), this won’t be a problem. But for Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, who do take The Bible as divinely inspired, this is not an option. But in that case, there’s only one possible alternative: Jesus is God.

SYLLOGISM TWO

1: Only God created the universe.

2: Jesus created the universe.

3: Therefore, either The Bible contradicts itself, or Jesus is God.

4: The Bible cannot contradict itself.

5: Therefore, Jesus is God.

This syllogism takes the same logical form as the previous one, so the validity of the syllogism’s logic shouldn’t be in question. Rather, we need to ask whether or not the premises are true. They are.
The first premise is backed up by The Old Testament. In Isaiah 44:24, God says “This is what the LORD says- your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,” (emphasis mine). In this verse, God says that He spread out the Earth by himself. Other translations render it “I alone spread out the Earth.” In Job 9:8, Job says of God “He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.” Both of these verses (Isaiah 44:24 and Job 9:8) state that God alone is responsible for the stretching out of the heavens. This is an act of creation, whether you agree with Hugh Ross in that this is referring to the expansion of the fabric of space from The Big Bang point of origin, or whether you interpret this in its ancient near eastern context which would see this as God spreading out a solid dome over the flat Earth. Whether you take the concordist approach (that this is referring to the expansion of space from the big bang) or the non-concordist approach (that this is referring to God setting the solid dome over the Earth), the “stretching out of the heavens” is a creative act, and The Bible says that God is the sole entity responsible for it.

What about the second premise? John 1:1-3 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made”. This prologue to John’s gospel echoes Genesis 1 (“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” – 1:1). In the beginning, prior to the creation of the physical space-time realm, The Word alone existed. He was with God and was God Himself. The text goes on to say that The Word created all things and that nothing came into being except through The Word. John says essentially “If it exists, Jesus made it.” John asserts in so uncertain terms that Jesus is the Creator of everything that exists, everything!

In Colossians 1, the apostle Paul says the same thing: “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him, all things hold together.” 

Premise 2 is pretty well established. The Old Testament says that God created the universe alone! He had no helpers in the act of divine creation! And yet, The New Testament says clearly that Jesus created the universe.

This leads us to premise 3: “Either The Bible Contradicts Itself Or Jesus Is God.” Again, I don’t see a third option. If Jesus isn’t the same being as Yahweh, then either The New Testament is false in saying that Jesus created the universe, or the Old Testament got it wrong when it said Yahweh had no helpers in creation. Of course, there is a second option: Jesus and Yahweh are one in the same (cf. John 10:30).

Premise 4: If you really believe God breathed both testaments, then the former option is not acceptable. God cannot err. The Bible is God’s word. Therefore, The Bible cannot err.

Since the 4 premises are true, then so is the conclusion: 5: Therefore, Jesus is God.[2]

SYLLOGISM THREE

1: Anyone who accepts worship other than Yahweh is a blasphemer.

2: Jesus accepted worship.

3: Therefore, Jesus was either a blasphemer or He was Yahweh.

4: Jesus was not a blasphemer.

5: Therefore, Jesus is Yahweh.

Defense of Premise 1: 

Revelation 4:11 says, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.” This verse states that God is deserving of worship. In part, it is because we owe our very existence to Him. If God never decided to create us, we wouldn’t exist. We should praise and thank Him for allowing us to come into being and to enjoy a fulfilling relationship in eternity with Him, and even for goods in this lifetime (cf. James 1:17).

That God, and God alone, is worthy of worship is spelled out in the first of The Ten Commandments; “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). This isn’t an arbitrary command of God. It isn’t, as skeptics of The Bible have said, that God is insecure and needs validation and assurance of His goodness. God is deserving and worthy of worship because of two things: we owe our existence to Him and ergo our praise (see Revelation 4:11), and also because God is what St. Anselm called “The Greatest Conceivable Being.” God is a being of which no greater can be conceived. God is great in every way one can be great, and He is great in those ways to the maximal extent. This is generally stated in Bible passages like 1 Chronicles 16:25 which says “For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; He also is to be feared above all gods.” and Jeremiah 10:6 which says “There is none like You, O LORD; You are great, and great is Your name in might.” and Isaiah 43:10 which says “‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.'” and Psalm 77:13 which says “Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God?”

More specifically, it is an entailment from The Bible passages asserting God’s omnipotence (e.g Job 42:2, Jeremiah 32:17, Matthew 19:26), omniscience (Job 21:22, Psalm 139:1-4, Proverbs 15:3, Isaiah 40:13-1, Hebrews 4:13), omnipresence (Jeremiah 23:24, 1 Kings 8:27, Psalm 139:7-10, Acts 17:27), omnibenevolence (e.g John 3:16) which logically flows from his moral perfection (Deuteronomy 32:4).

So, the reason worship is a moral obligation is that we owe it to God. Why? Because He is literally the greatest thing in the universe! To direct our utmost adoration to anything else would be evil. God, being morally perfect, wills for us to direct our utmost devotion to the summum bonum (the highest good). It just so happens to be Him. If something else were the summum bonum, He would will we worship that, but He is the Greatest Conceivable Being. On top of that, we owe our very existence to Him. That we can enjoy anything is thanks to the creative act of God. Therefore, it is the hight of blasphemy for anyone other than the Greatest Conceivable Being who is our Creator to acclaim worship for Himself. As preachers frequently say: “Everyone worships something,” and that’s true. Everyone has something in their number-1-adoration-spot. The Greatest Being deserves that spot. It’s immoral for anything else to occupy that pedestal. This is why Paul and Peter freaked out when people tried to pay them homage (e.g. Acts 10:25-26).

Defense Of Premise 2:

Jesus definitely received worship, and unlike Paul and Peter, he never rebuked anyone for it. Even when Jesus was a baby, he received worshiped. As soon as the Magi laid eyes on the infant Christ, “they bowed down and worshiped Him” (Matthew 2:11). Of course, one may object that Jesus, being a baby, had no ability to rebuke the Magi for worshipping him. Therefore, this instance proves nothing. I agree, so let’s fast forward to Jesus’ adulthood. In the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Jesus received worship: “So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’” (Matthew 21:9; John 12:13). The gospels of Matthew and John do not record a single word of rebuke out of Jesus’ mouth for this. Hosanna is a plea for salvation and an expression of adoration. This is definitely a form of worship.

But perhaps the most startling example is found in John 20, where St. Thomas falls to his knees and cries out “My Lord and my God!”. Jesus never says “Don’t call me God, you fool! I’m merely a man just like you!” instead he says “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who believe but have not seen”. No rebuke, no warning. Jesus acts as if being called God and being bowed to is totally normal.

Defense Of Premise 3

Once again, we reach a dichotomy. Since only God is worthy of worship and Jesus received worship happily, it follows that either Jesus was blaspheming or He was simply accepting what was rightfully His. Which one is it? This leads us to premise 4:

Defense of Four: Jesus was not a blasphemer.

How do we know whether or not Jesus was blaspheming? If God raised Jesus from the dead, then He put His stamp of approval on everything Jesus said and did. He agreed with Jesus’ teachings and conduct. God would not have raised a liar or a lunatic. For the cultists who believe The Bible is God’s Word, one need only point out that The Bible teaches that Jesus rose from the dead.
This blog post isn’t intended to convince skeptics of The Bible, but believers of The Bible who deny the deity of Christ. When trying to convince atheists, agnostics, Muslims, or other non-Christians that Jesus is God, I take a different tactic. First, I apply the criteria of authenticity to sayings of Jesus in the gospels that entail that Jesus believed that He was divine. I do this, for example, in my blog post “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Divine Self-Understanding.” Then, I argue that if Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, then that means that Jesus was telling the truth. After all, the God of Israel would never resurrect a heretic and a blasphemer. So if Jesus rose from the dead, then God put His stamp of approval on Jesus’ teachings, including his teachings that He is divine. Obviously, the resurrection would be a miracle (i.e. an act of God). Atheists are right in claiming that science has proven resurrections don’t happen naturally. The more scientific knowledge we gain, the more we can be sure that a dead corpse isn’t just going to spontaneously regenerate. That only helps the Christian’s cause, as it keeps anyone from saying that if Jesus truly came back to life, there was some natural explanation behind it. If a corpse returns to life (especially one in as bad a shape as Jesus’), you can be sure that a miracle has taken place. Of course, that only raises another question: how do we know Jesus rose from the dead, apart from presupposing The Bible’s inspiration. Here is where I apply “The Minimal Facts Approach” which utilize the aforementioned “criteria of authenticity” mentioned above in examining both the New Testament documents as well as extra-biblical documents. I give a brief presentation of The Minimal Facts argument in my blog post “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Resurrection,” but I go into more depth in “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1” and “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection, PART 2”. This Easter, I’ll have an entire 10 part blog post series giving an exhaustive treatment of the subject.

However, since this is aimed, not at people who disbelieve The Bible, but people who believe The Bible (Christadelphians, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.), then merely pointing out that The Bible teaches that God resurrected Jesus will be sufficient. You can simply quote the latter parts of the gospel and leave it at that.

Five: Therefore, Jesus is Yahweh

Given the truth of the premises, the conclusion follows.

CONCLUSION

For an argument to be successful, it must meet three criteria. It must have valid logic (i.e., it must follow the rules of inference such as modus ponens, modus tollens, hypothetical syllogism, disjunctive syllogism, etc.), it must have true premises, and it must have evidence to demonstrate the truth of the premises. If an argument meets these three criteria, then one is justified in believing the conclusion.

In order to refute an argument, one must either show that the argument’s conclusion doesn’t follow even if all the premises were true (i.e. the logic is invalid), or that at least one of the premises is false. There is no other way to refute an argument. For cultists to deny the deity of Jesus, I ask this question: which premise(s) of each of these arguments do you reject, and why do you reject it?

Notes

[1] For an explanation of why this maneuver doesn’t work, see James White’s book The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering The Heart Of Christian Belief.

[2] Oneness Pentecostals and other modalists use this exact same argument but come to a slightly different conclusion. They are correct in inferring from these two sets of scripture passages that Jesus is God, but that doesn’t at all entail that Jesus and The Father are the same person. The doctrine of The Trinity does not insert that The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different Gods who all worked together in creating the universe. Rather, the Trinity states that there is only one God but that this God consists of 3 persons (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit). This argument supports the conclusion that Jesus is God and is of the same divine essence as His father, but it doesn’t prove that there is no distinction in their personhood. To make that conclusion is to beg the question in favor of modalism. Trinitarians and modalists both agree that Jesus and His Father are God (the same God). We just disagree on whether God consists of a plurality of persons or not. So, modalists should certainly use this argument to defend Christ’s deity, but they need to stop using it against Trinitarians.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2orQ7Ox

/by
COMPUTER SIMULATION

Is The Universe A Computer Simulation?

Por Evan Minton

Some atheists, in an attempt to avoid the conclusion that The Big Bang origin of our universe was caused by a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused, powerful, supernatural Being (i.e God), have posited that perhaps our universe and everything in it is just a computer simulation being run by aliens in a laboratory. The Big Bang was the launch of the program and the development of the universe by its finely tuned laws were all a part of the program-universe’s code.

If you think I’m making this up, check out this quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson in his award-winning book Astrophysics For People In A Hurry:

“Or what if everything we know and love were just a computer simulation rendered for entertainment by a superintelligent alien species?” [1][2]

I also saw this idea flushed out in a cartoon where a couple of aliens were at this massive particle accelerator. The aliens were your typical little green men, with no hair, giant black eyes, and silvery space suits. And the picture depicts our universe as being the result of an experiment the aliens were doing with the large particle accelerator/collider.

Are these atheists right? Was The Big Bang the result of aliens messing around with a particle accelerator in their universe?[3] Or are we just a simulation in a program by beings more advanced than we are? Refuting this proposal is the aim of this blog post.

ANY UNIVERSE OF ALIENS CREATING A COMPUTER SIMULATION MUST HAVE A BEGINNING

First of all, even if we conceded this idea (which even Tyson only throws out as a bare possibility), it wouldn’t get rid of God. It wouldn’t eradicate the conceptual analysis of The Kalam Cosmological Argument. Why? Because in the universe in which the computer simulating ours exists, that universe must be enduring through time. If this universe is enduring through time, then it must have a beginning and therefore a transcendent cause.

How did I reach this conclusion? From one of the same philosophical/mathematical arguments that lead me to conclude that our universe had a beginning. First of all, we know that these aliens would have to be enduring through time because the aliens are living in a world of cause and effect, of before-and-after relationships. There was a time before these alien scientists were born and a time after they were born. There was a time before they got their degrees in computer engineering and a time after they graduated. There was a time before they built the computer which caused our simulated universe and a time after they ran the simulation. Before-and-after relationships are impossible without time. According to the description of this theory, our alien creature creators are temporal beings. This leads me to my next point.

1: It is impossible to traverse an actually infinite number of temporal moments.

2: If it is impossible to traverse an actually infinite number of moments, then the present moment cannot be reached.

3: The present moment has been reached.

4: Therefore, we have not endured through an actually infinite number of temporal moments (i.e the universe had a beginning).

This is a logically valid syllogism. If the premises are true, so is the conclusion. So, are the premises true? I think they are.

Let’s look at premise 1. If the universe of our alien creators were eternal and beginningless (unlike the universe they simulated), then that means their world endured through an actually infinite number of moments to reach the point in time in which they caused their simulation. Before the day of the simulation, the day before the simulation had to dawn. And before the day before the day of the simulation could dawn, the day before the day before the day before the simulation could dawn. Before that day could dawn, the day before it had to dawn. Before that day could dawn, the day before it had to dawn, and so on and so forth. As you can see, the day in which the alien scientists caused their universe simulation could never have arrived, because there would need to pass an infinite number of prior moments. In fact, no moment in their universe at all could dawn. Before each day in the infinite series of days, there would always have to be a day that had to dawn first.

Getting to the present moment while having to first cross an infinite number of past events is analogous to jumping out of a bottomless pit, or causing a bottomless coffee pot to overflow. No matter how much coffee you pour into the cup, it will never fill up to the brim.

But if an infinite past could not be crossed, then that means the day of the start of the simulation could not arrive. And that means our present day could not arrive. The start of our 14 billion year history could never have occurred (this is premise 2). But clearly, the present moment has arrived (premise 3). We’re here. You’re reading this blog post right now. It is self-evident that the present has arrived. This means that the universe of our alien creators could not have endured forever, but must have a beginning. And since everything that begins to exist must have a cause, it follows that the universe of our alien creators must have a cause.

BUT MAYBE WE’RE IN A SIMULATION THAT’S INSIDE A SIMULATION
At this point, the atheist might respond “Okay, but maybe the universe of our alien creators is a simulation as well. We’re in a simulation that’s inside a simulation. Just like how a nesting doll can be inside of another nesting doll”. This doesn’t solve the problem. It only pushes it back a notch. Are those aliens subject to time? It would seem so if they evolved, were born, grew up, went to universities to get degrees in computer programming, and then created a universe-simulation that would have a universe-simulation within it. In that case, you run into the same problem. That universe must also have a beginning.

But perhaps the atheist could say “Well, perhaps we’re a simulation within a simulation within a simulation?” Again, the same problems apply.

What happens is that in this alien-scientist-creating-a-universe-simulation scenario is that you get thrown into an infinite regress of aliens creating universe simulations which themselves contain aliens that create universe simulations which themselves contain universe simulations with themselves contain universe simulations ad infinitum.

As already explained above, traversing an actually infinite number of things is impossible. Our own simulation could never have arisen if a past infinite number of universe simulations had to come into being first. Before the aliens could simulate our universe, their universe had to be simulated, and before their universe could be simulated, their universe had to be a simulation, and so on ad infinitum. No simulation could ever come to past, and ergo the present simulation (and present moment within the simulation) could never come to be.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

It means that even in a scenario which posits super advanced aliens creating a computer program of a universe, you eventually get traced back to a universe that is not a computer simulation, but nevertheless contains super advanced alien creatures and (wait for it….) had a beginning. In this scenario, we must come to a first universe, the first beginning, and therefore, the first cause.

But what properties would this cause have? It wouldn’t be a team of super advanced aliens since this first-universe is not itself the result of a prior team of alien scientists. The cause would transcend all physical reality, all of space and time, and therefore be immaterial and uncaused. In other words, God rears His holy head again.

God is exempt from the problems the aliens creators would have. He had no beginning and is uncaused, and therefore needs no prior cause to explain Him. God being beginningless wouldn’t imply that He endured through an actually infinite number of moments because God, sans creation of time, existed outside of time. There was no time. Once God flicked the first domino, time began. This is a bit of a heavy subject, and Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has devoted an entire book the to the subject,[4] but I just wanted to point out that being timeless sans creation, God avoids the problems associated with being beginningless in a temporal manner.

CONCLUSION 
Unfortunately for the atheists, this alien computer simulation idea only forces God to go upstairs at most. It doesn’t get rid of Him. The conceptual analysis of The Kalam Cosmological Argument still stands.

Notes 

[1] deGrasse Tyson, Neil. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Kindle Locations 170-171). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

[2] Don’t let this wild idea deter you from getting Tyson’s book by the way. He only mentions the simulation idea in this one place. Astrophysics For People In A Hurry It is a fantastic introductory course in astrophysics. Tyson does not put forth wild theories like this throughout, and he only shows his atheistic sleeve a total of two times. The first in this part of the book, and the second, in the final chapter. It’s an overall religiously neutral work. I recommend anyone who loves science (and is especially not well read in science) to pick up the book.

[3] By the way, this happened in a Doctor Who episode (titled Extremis). I won’t describe what happened in the episode. Watch it yourself. Watch the whole series in fact. It’s an awesome show!

[4] The book is called “Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship To Time”.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2ErH4n3

/by