Tag Archive for: Evidence

Resurrection Defense Series: Embarrassing Details

We began an investigation into the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. When investigating any claim of history, whether recent or of antiquity, historians use historiographical tools to decipher the probability of the event in question. The criterion of embarrassment is one of the tools used by historians to determine the legitimacy of the claims presented. The logic behind the criterion is that writers will attempt to make their cause look as attractive as possible. If the presented event contains details that are embarrassing to the writer, the earliest leaders, the founder, or the cause; then it could be said that the event is authentic. Craig Evans writes, “This criterion is easily misunderstood. All it means is that material that potentially would have created awkwardness or embarrassment for the early church is not likely something that a Christian invented sometime after Easter. ‘Embarrassing’ sayings and actions are those that are known to reach back to the ministry of Jesus, and therefore, like it or not, they cannot be deleted from the Jesus data bank” (Evans 2006, 49). When it comes to the resurrection of Jesus, numerous embarrassing details are discovered. Ten such embarrassing details will be presented in this article.

1. Women were the first eyewitnesses (John 20:11-18).

Seeing that this topic was the focus of the last article, not much will be said. For those who have not read the article, see the first part of this series. As a recap, the testimony of women did not hold the bearing that the testimony of men in the first century. Thus, if one is inventing a story, women would certainly not be used as the first witnesses. Yet all four Gospels note that it was the women, particularly Mary Magdalene, who first witnessed the risen Jesus. For this reason, the testimony of women serves as an embarrassing detail that speaks to the authenticity of the resurrection event.

2. The cowardice of the first disciples (Mark 15:40-41).

The women watched the crucifixion of Jesus from afar. They attended to the needs of Jesus up until the very end. However, the male disciples were nowhere to be found with the sole exception of John of Zebedee who was instructed to care for Mary, the mother of Jesus (John 19:26-27). Peter and the men ran and hid while it was the women who were brave and remained steadfast to Jesus. In the first century where male bravery was held in high esteem, it is unthinkable that this aspect of the Easter story would have been told unless it were, in fact, true.

3. The inability of the disciples to give Jesus a proper burial (John 19:38-42).

Proper burials were important to ancient Jews. Milton Fisher notes that “a society’s burial customs are a reflection of its spiritual views about death and the afterlife” (Fisher, 386). Failing to give a beloved person a proper burial negatively portrayed the value that the person/people placed on the dearly departed. It was Joseph of Arimathea, one of the members of the Sanhedrin, who gave Jesus a proper burial. A member of the very same Sanhedrin gave Jesus the burial that the disciples could not afford. This is incredibly embarrassing especially in an honor/shame culture found in the Middle East and Asian nations.

4. Doubt of the first eyewitnesses (Matt. 28:16-17).

After Jesus’s resurrection, the Evangelists (the Gospel writers) are honest about the doubts that some disciples hold. In the Gospel of John, Thomas is singled out and identified as one of those who doubted (John 20:24-25). Thomas is often ascribed with the title “Doubting Thomas.” This is unfortunate as Thomas demonstrated his faith by most likely giving his life. Good traditions suggest that Thomas was martyred for his faith by being speared in Mylapore, India on July 2, 72 AD. Even still, the Evangelists would not have reported the first witnesses’ doubt if it had not occurred.

5. The crucifixion is considered a curse (Deut. 21:23).

If a Jewish group was going to invent a movement, the last thing they would do is have their hero die on a cross. The book of Deuteronomy holds that any person who is hung from a tree is cursed (Deut. 21:23). An invented hero of Judaism crucified on a tree would not have been viewed as an admirable man, much less for one claimed to be the Messiah. For this reason, even the skeptical John Dominic Crossan states, “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be” (Crossan, 145).

6. Ignorance of the first disciples of the Scriptures (Luke 24:45-49).

If the age of social media has shown anything, it is that people do not like to be wrong. Furthermore, if they are wrong, they will most likely not broadcast that fact. However, the Evangelists often describe their need for Jesus to explain the Scriptures to them to explain why the things occurred as they did. The disciples anticipated a military hero like Judas Maccabeus. What they received was far from what was expected—he was even better!

7. James did not believe in Jesus during his earthly ministry (John 7:5).

Serving as one of Gary Habermas’s six minimal facts, James was radically transformed by the resurrection event. James, Jesus’s half-brother, served as the first pastor of the Jerusalem Church and was a notable figure in Judea. However, this early Christian leader was not originally a disciple of Jesus. John records that none of Jesus’s brothers and sisters believed in him during his earthly ministry (John 7:5). Furthermore, his family thought that Jesus was “out of his mind” (Mark 3:21) at one juncture. This is not something that a person would record unless it is grounded in some historical truth.

8. The Jewish leaders invented the story of the disciples stealing the body (Matt. 28:11-15).

The Gospel of Matthew records the fabrication of a story by the Jewish leadership. When the guards reported the events to the Jewish leaders, they told the guards to tell everyone that the disciples stole the body of Jesus. This is tremendously problematic. The Roman guards would have been executed if they had fallen asleep or permitted the disciples to steal Jesus’s body. Furthermore, there is little chance that the disciples could have overtaken a fully armed Roman guard which may have consisted of as many as sixteen soldiers. The recording of the story itself illustrates an embarrassing detail that finds merit in history.

9. Jesus’s anxiety in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:42-44).

Jesus was not presented as a hero heading to the cross with no fear or anxiety. Rather, the picture portrayed by the Evangelists is quite different. Jesus was extremely brave going to the cross as he did. Evidence from the geographical layout suggests that Jesus could have easily escaped the Garden of Gethsemane through the shroud of the night. He would have seen the soldiers coming from Jerusalem at a distance. Even still, the Evangelists report that Jesus was so anxious that he sweated great drops of blood (Luke 22:42-44). Hematidrosis is a rare medical condition in which the capillary blood vessels that feed the sweat glands burst under extreme fear and stress. Luke notes that the angels of the Lord came to minister to him before heading to trial. This would not have been recorded unless true as this story counters the hero legends of the day.

10. Peter’s denial of Jesus (Luke 22:54-62).

All three Synoptic Gospels record the betrayal of Simon Peter. Simon Peter was considered to be the first major leader of the Christian church after Jesus ascended to heaven. Nevertheless, the one and same Peter is shown to have denied that he even knew Jesus three times in the courtyard outside of where Jesus was tried. This is extremely embarrassing and would not have been documented unless it was grounded in historical truth.

Conclusion

The ten embarrassing details presented here only scratches the surface of what could be mentioned. Nonetheless, the Evangelists’ willingness to document stories that cast the earliest disciples, and sometimes even Jesus himself, in a bad light illustrates the value they placed on recording the biographies of Jesus accurately. Additionally, the resurrection of Jesus is not based on legendary and mythical data. Rather, it is grounded in historical facts, at least what the early disciples and Evangelists believed to be true.

Sources

Crossan, John Dominic. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1991.

Evans, Craig A. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. Downers Grove: IVP, 2006.

Fisher, Milton C. “Burial, Burial Customs.” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988.

The Evidential Value of 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 to the Case for the Resurrection

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

A popular argument that is wielded by Christian apologists, at both the scholarly and popular level, is based on 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, taken by many contemporary scholars to represent an ancient creedal tradition that goes back to within only a couple of years of Jesus’ death. Indeed, Michael Licona states that “In nearly every historical investigation of the resurrection of Jesus, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 weighs heavily and is perhaps the most important and valuable passage for use by historians when discussing the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.”[1] The text reads as follows:

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

In this article, I want to offer a critical appraisal of this argument, with a view towards evaluating the evidence for this text being a creed as well as the data that bears on its dating. I will conclude by offering an appraisal of the evidential value of this text in relation to the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.

Is 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 a creed?

Several lines of evidence are commonly adduced in support of this text being derived from an oral creedal tradition. The first of those is the use of the words “delivered” (Παρέδωκα) and “received” (παρέλαβον). Craig Keener notes that this “is the language of what scholars call ‘traditioning’: Jewish teachers would pass on their teachings to their students, who would in turn pass them on to their own students. The students could take notes, but they delighted especially in oral memorization and became quite skilled at it; memorization was a central feature of ancient education.”[2] Richard Bauckham notes that “these Greek words were used for formal transmission of tradition in the Hellenistic schools and so would have been familiar in this sense to Paul’s Gentile readers. They also appeared in Jewish Greek usage (Josephus, Ant. 13.297; C. Αρ. 1.60; Mark 7:4, 13; Acts 6:14), corresponding to what we find in Hebrew in later rabbinic literature (e.g., m. ‘Avot 1.1).”[3] Indeed, the Mishnaic tractate of Avot says “Moses received the Torah at Sinai and delivered it to Joshua,” (m. ‘Avot 1.1).

This view of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 as being derivative of pre-Pauline tradition seems to command the consensus opinion of the scholarly guild, and is accepted even by skeptics including German New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann[4] and UNC Chapel Hill New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman[5]. In agreement with the scholars cited above, Ehrman notes that “the terms [Paul] uses here of ‘delivering to you’ and ‘having received’ are code language in ancient Jewish circles for traditions that are passed down from a teacher to his students: during his studies the teacher ‘receives’ a tradition and then in his teaching he ‘delivers’ it to his own followers. That’s how traditions get circulated among teachers and students. Paul, good Jew that he is, is simply referring to information that has been given to him by others before he passes it along himself.”[6]

I think this view of the text is most likely the best interpretation of Paul’s introductory formula, Παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον. This is all the more plausible given that Paul belonged to the Pharisaical sect of Judaism, which Mark and Josephus both inform us were zealous for tradition (Mk 7:3,5; Jos. Ant 13.10.6; 13.16.2). There are also various Pauline texts that indicate the importance of tradition to Paul (1 Cor 11:2, 23; 15:1, 2, 3; Gal 1:14; Phil 4:9; Col 2:6; 1 Thes 2:13; 4:1; 2 Thes 2:15; 3:6).

The question remains, however, whether the expression should be taken to simply indicate that the information Paul is passing on is derivative from pre-Pauline tradition, or whether the text of 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 itself represents a verbatim transcript of an earlier oral creedal tradition. Advocates of the latter view have tended to emphasize aspects of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 that appear to be non-Pauline. Michael Licona observes that “with a lone exception in Galatians 1:4, ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν (‘for our sins’) is absent elsewhere in Paul (and the rest of the New Testament), who prefers the singular: ‘sin.’ The phrase ‘according to the Scriptures’ is absent elsewhere in the Pauline corpus and the New Testament, where we read γέγραπται (‘it is written’). Instead of the typical aorist, the perfect passive ‘he has been raised’ is found only in 1 Corinthians 15:12–14, 16, 20 and in 2 Timothy 2:8, which is also a confessional formula believed to be pre-Pauline. ‘On the third day’ is only here in Paul. In Paul, the term ὤφθη (‘appeared to’ or ‘was seen’) is found only in 1 Corinthians 15:5–8 and 1 Timothy 3:16. ‘The Twelve’ is only here in Paul. Elsewhere he uses ‘the apostles.’”[7] This observation, in my opinion, contributes only weak evidence to the case for the pre-Pauline origins of the text itself (as opposed to the facts that the text expresses). Every New Testament author utilizes expressions that he does not customarily use, so caution is warranted before drawing firm conclusions about authorship from word choice, especially when the relevant text is as short as this.

A second argument that this text is of pre-Pauline origin is that “we can see parallelism in the text: the first and third lines are longer, have the same construction (verb, closer modification, proved by the Scriptures) and are followed by a short sentence introduced by ὅτι.”[8] It is possible that Paul constructed the parallelism of this text himself, since it is only here, out of all of Paul’s epistles, that he offers a summary of the key elements of the gospel, presumably with the intent that his readers commit them to memory. Indeed, Paul himself at times constructs his own parallelisms (e.g. Rom 1:26-27; 1 Thes 2:3,5,10). Thus, it is not entirely implausible that he would create this parallelism for ease of memorization, though one may say in response that the parallelism is somewhat less predicted on the hypothesis of Pauline origin than on the hypothesis that this text represents a pre-Pauline creed. The text, with its parallelisms and rhythmic style, does indeed sound like a creed up until verse 8, wherein we read, “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” This verse, I would argue constitute some evidence against the text being of creedal origin, though this is not by any means decisive since Paul could plausibly have transitioned from something more formal into the informal addition of himself to the end of the list. Paul also adds in verse 6 concerning the five hundred, “most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.” This too does not comport well with the claimed creed-like structure of these verses, though it may be Paul’s own editorial insertion into the text of the creed. Thus, the parallelist structure of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 may, again, be taken only as weak evidence in favour of the text being of pre-Pauline origin.

The German New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann has argued that “within the report of the first appearance of Christ to Cephas in verse 5, the clause ‘he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve’ can be detached as an independent unit from the tradition handed down by Paul during his founding visit. This is suggested not only by the parallel to Luke 24:34 (‘the Lord was really raised and appeared to Simon’), but by Mark 16:7 (‘tell his disciples and Peter’).”[9] Concerning the parallelism of “he appeared” in 1 Corinthians 15:5-7, Lüdemann suggests that this “could be explained in two ways: either Paul was modeling his language in verse 7 on verse 5, which employed a tradition about an appearance to James and to al the apostles, or Paul was reproducing two independent traditions. In the latter case either the one formula had already been modeled earlier on the basis of the other or the two formulae have a common origin. In either case, it is clear that verses 5 and 7 both derive from earlier tradition.”[10] Thus, establishing the actual historical origins of this text is more complex than often made out, and more than one plausible scenario exists.

Some scholars have observed a correspondence between 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 and Paul’s words in Acts 13-28-31 that may support the text of 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 being derivative of an earlier creedal tradition.[11] Acts 13:28-31 indicates that,

28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

Bart Ehrman even notes that “Possibly this is the tradition that lies behind 1 Corinthian 15:4 as well: ‘and he was buried.’”[12] If this is so, then 1 Corinthians 15:4 may indeed indicate that Jesus buried in a tomb (as opposed to a common grave), a point that is often contested.[13]

Another line of evidence is Paul’s use of κήρυγμᾶκηρύσσω to describe the tradition.[14] Paul writes that he is going to remind them of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ὃ εὐηγγελισάμην, ὃ καὶ παρελάβετε (“the gospel I preached to you, which you received”). He also uses, when describing this gospel, the phrase τίνι λόγῳ εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν (“the word I preached to you”). When referring back to the content of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, Paul uses οὕτως κηρύσσομεν (“we preach in this way”) (1 Cor 15:11; c.f. 1 Cor 15:12, 14). Licona states that “Κήρυγμα/κηρύσσω is a more formal term than εὐαγγέλιον͂εὐαγγελίζω and can refer to an ‘official or public announcement,’ though this need not be the case. It is interesting, therefore, to see that after citing the tradition, Paul changes his description of his message and the activity of imparting it from εὐαγγέλιον͂εὐαγγελίζω το κήρυγμᾶκηρύσσω.”[15] Licona is correct that the noun Κήρυγμα and its related verb κηρύσσω can refer to an official or public announcement (e.g. LXX 2 Ch 30:5; EsdA 9:3; Pr 9:3; Jon 3:2), though it need not necessarily. However, even if this is the intended meaning in the context of 1 Corinthians 15, I do not think this at all implies the verbatim proclamation of a prescribed text, such as a creedal statement. It could simply be that the content of the gospel message (which is summarized by 1 Cor 15:3-7) was publicly proclaimed. In fact, Paul uses both of those words frequently in his letters to refer to the preaching of the gospel (Rom 16:25; 1 Cor 1:21, 23, 2:4, 9:27; 2 Co 1:19, 4:5, 11:4; Gal 2:2, 5:11; Phil 1:15; Col 1:23; 1 Thes 2:9, 3:16, 4:2; 1 Tim 3:16, 4:2; 2 Tim 4:17; Tit 2:3; 1 Pet 3:19; Rev 5:2). Thus, his use the term in 1 Corinthians 15 is not at all surprising, and I do not judge that I can even call this weak evidence supporting 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 being a pre-Pauline creedal tradition.

Probably the weakest argument I have encountered for the pre-Pauline origins of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 is the use of the Aramaic name Κηφᾶς (transliterated into Greek) for Peter.[16] Since Κηφᾶς is the transliteration of an Aramaic name into Greek, so the argument goes, this is suggestive of an early origin. However, of the ten times in his letters that Paul mentions Peter, five of those he uses the name Κηφᾶς (1 Cor 1:12, 3:22, 9:5, 15:5, Gal 2:9). In fact, the Nestle-Aland text also uses Κηφᾶς in an additional two of those texts (Gal 1:18, 2:11). Of the four times Peter is mentioned in 1 Corinthians, every single one of them uses the name Κηφᾶς. Thus, this argument too I can not even consider to contribute weak evidence to the case for 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 being a pre-Pauline creedal tradition.

Of the arguments summarized above, the strongest in my opinion are the use of “delivered” and “received” (1 Cor 15:3) combined with the rhythmic structure and parallelisms of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. Given that these features seem at least somewhat more probable on the hypothesis that this text represents a creedal tradition than on its falsehood (and the absence of stronger disconfirming evidence), these data are, in my opinion sufficient to make the pre-Pauline origins of this text somewhat more probable than not, though this conclusion is by no means as certain as it is often implied. What does seem to be secure, however, is that Paul received information from the Jerusalem apostles, which is summarized in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. The only question that is still uncertain is whether Paul is summarizing that information in his own words or whether he is quoting from an earlier formalized creedal tradition that preceded his own writing.

One objection that is sometimes raised is that Paul indicates elsewhere that “I did not receive [the gospel] from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ,” (Gal 1:12).[17] If Paul received the gospel through a revelation of Jesus Christ, so the argument goes, then how can Paul be passing on tradition in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 which he had previously received from the other apostles? However, even though Paul received the gospel by the revelation of Christ Jesus, it does not follow that he did not receive a creed tradition containing that gospel from the Jerusalem apostles. Moreover, if Paul had not known from other people that Jesus had been raised from the dead, then he would not have known who spoke to him on the road to Damascus, or for that matter what was meant by “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). The appearances that Paul lists in 1 Cor 15:3-7 (to Peter, the Twelve, the five hundred, James, and all the apostles) were almost certainly learned about from his conversations with other people.

The Date of the Creed

Having given my assessment of the evidence for 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 representing a pre-Pauline credal tradition, let us inquire as to when this tradition may have been received by Paul. I would agree with Michael Licona and others that “There are good reasons for concluding that this tradition probably came from Jerusalem”[18] since that is where the original church leaders were headquartered. As for when exactly Paul received this tradition, a few possibilities have been proposed. One option is that Paul received this tradition while in Damascus, perhaps from Ananias or other Christians who were present there, which would likely place it within one to three years of Jesus’ death.[19]

Another option is that Paul received the tradition in Jerusalem upon his visit three years following his conversion, where he stayed with Peter for fifteen days (Gal 1:18). During this visit, Paul also saw James (Gal 1:19).[20] Licona notes that “Of interest is the term Paul uses to describe what he did while with Peter: ἱστορῆσαι (‘visit’), from which derives our English term history. The term may mean ‘to get information from,’ ‘to inquire into a thing, to learn by inquiry.’ What was it to which Paul inquired? He could have been attempting to get to know Peter, the leading Jerusalem apostle at the time. But from his letters Paul does not appear to be the type of person who would want to take just over two weeks simply to develop a friendship with a colleague for the sake of having another friend.”[21] Licona is correct that this word can mean “to inquire into” or “to visit and get information.” That Paul received this tradition on this visit to Jerusalem is plausible, though not certain. There are also two other journeys that Paul made to Jerusalem (Acts 11:27-30; 15:1-9; Gal 2:1-10).

These are also both possibilities for when he received this tradition. There are still other possibilities. For example, Paul may have received some or all of the tradition from Barnabas or from James during his first visit to Jerusalem following his conversion (Acts 9:26-29; Gal 1:19). Paul also tells us of a visit by Peter to Antioch (Gal 2:11). He may even have received the tradition from Barnabas during the considerable time they spent together (Acts 11:25-30; 12:25-15:40). Silas also accompanied Paul during his next missionary journey (Acts 15:40-17:14; 18:5-11). This would put Paul and Silas together between 49 and 51 A.D., shortly before he wrote 1 Corinthians. Paul thus may have received it from him during that time as well. The reality is that any attempt to specify precisely when Paul received the oral tradition from the Jerusalem apostles is intelligent guesswork and conjecture. The bottom line is that we just cannot say with confidence when precisely Paul received the tradition.

The Evidential Value of 1 Corinthians 15:3-8

With so much lack of certainty about whether 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 represents a pre-Pauline creedal tradition and the precise dating of such a tradition, is this text of any evidential value to the case for the resurrection? I would argue that the answer is ‘yes’. Regardless of whether this text is pre-Pauline or Paul’s own literary construction, what is well supported is that those verses summarize information that Paul had received from the Jerusalem church leaders. The text thus gives one a window of insight into what was being proclaimed by the Jerusalem apostles, in particular Peter and James, whom we know Paul was personally acquainted with. This is further supported by Paul’s words in verses 8-11:

8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Note what Paul says in verse 11: “Whether then it was I or they [i.e. the Jerusalem apostles], so we preach and so you believed.” Paul thus seems to assume that the Corinthian Christians, to whom he was writing, understand his summary of the gospel to be consistent with what had already been preached by the Jerusalem apostles. We also know independently that the Corinthian church were acquainted with Peter’s preaching (1 Cor 1:12). Thus, it is probable that the message Paul communicates in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 is consistent with what was being preached by Peter, James and the Twelve. Michael Licona agrees. He notes, “even if Paul received the tradition embedded in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7 from someone outside of the Jerusalem leadership, his constant interaction with these leaders in and outside of Jerusalem coupled with his high regard for tradition virtually guarantees that the details of the tradition in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7 are precisely in line with what the Jerusalem leadership was preaching (1 Cor 15:11). We have what amounts to a certifiably official teaching of the disciples on the resurrection of Jesus.”[22] Thus, irrespective of the question of whether Paul is passing on an oral creedal tradition, and when and from whom he may have received it, this text does provide sufficient reason to conclude that the apostles before Paul were claiming that Jesus had been raised from the dead and had appeared to them. The text is also of evidential value since Paul provides his own eyewitness testimony to have encountered the risen Lord (1 Cor 15:8).

One important caveat I wish to make here is that we ought not be overly-reliant on 1 Corinthians 15 to build our case for the resurrection, since it is difficult to make a robust case, as I have done elsewhere [23], for the rationality of the apostles’ belief to have witnessed the risen Christ unless we are able to determine what the resurrection appearances were like. The report in 1 Corinthians 15 is consistent with a floating, non-speaking Jesus, or with a Jesus who appears only once, briefly, and speaks only a few words. The case for the resurrection therefore cannot and should not be divorced from a robust case for the substantial trustworthiness of the gospels and Acts and their grounding in credible eyewitness testimony.

Furthermore, a popular criticism of using 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 in arguments for the resurrection is that Paul makes no qualitative distinction between his own experience of the risen Jesus and those of the other apostles, using the Greek word ὤφθη to describe both.[24] Acts 9:1-9 indicates that Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus, which took place after the ascension, did not involve the sort of physical interactions we read of the apostles having with Jesus following His death in the gospel accounts. On what basis, then, can we be confident that Paul understands the apostles to have had the sort of experiences with Jesus following His resurrection that we read of in the gospels? Again, if we are not able to determine the nature of the claimed experiences of the risen Jesus, it is very difficult to evaluate the rationality of the disciples’ belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. I am not optimistic that this case can be robustly made from the Pauline corpus alone, though the Pauline evidence certainly inclines that way, in particular Paul’s statement, ἔσχατον δὲ πάντων ὡσπερεὶ τῷ ἐκτρώματι ὤφθη κἀμοί (“and last of all as to one untimely born he was seen also by me”). This, it may be argued, draws a separation between his experience from that of those who were apostles before him. Kirk MacGregor notes, “This observation rules out the possibility that Paul is here attempting to convey that he experienced Christ in a manner qualitatively identical to those listed in the creed. But Paul moves one step further. By placing ὤφθη κἀμοί (‘he was seen also by me’) after ὡσπερεὶ τῷ ἐκτρώματι, Paul explicitly shows ὡσπερεὶ τῷ ἐκτρώματι to be a qualifying phrase which modifies ὤφθη κἀμοί rather than a temporal indicator. Hence Paul uses ὡσπερεὶ τῷ ἐκτρώματι to explain how the character of his appearance was qualitatively distinct from those recounted in the primitive tradition. While the previous disciples ‘saw’ Jesus in the normal fashion, Paul admits to have ‘as to one untimely born seen’ Jesus—namely, to have seen him in an abnormal fashion.”[25] This evidence is surely suggestive but it does not seem to me to be conclusive. Paul may simply be indicating that he had an encounter with the risen Lord despite the fact that Paul had not known Jesus during his earthly ministry.

How, then, can this case be made robustly? It is undeniable that Luke represents the post-resurrection encounters as involving multiple sensory modes. Jesus appears to multiple individuals at once, and those encounters are not merely visual but are also auditory. Jesus engages the disciples in group conversation. The encounters are close-up and involve physical contact. Moreover, Acts indicates that the appearances were spread out over a forty-day time period – thus, the resurrection encounters were not one brief and confusing episode. If, then, it can be shown that Luke was indeed a travelling companion of Paul, it would be quite surprising if his understanding of the apostolic claim concerning the resurrection differed essentially from that of Paul. Thus, the case from 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 should be complemented with a robust case for the author of Luke-Acts being a travelling companion of Paul. I have articulated this argument in detail elsewhere.[26]

Conclusion

In conclusion, the balance of evidence is in favor of the text in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 being derivative from a pre-Pauline credal tradition, though it is not nearly as conclusive as it is often portrayed as being. While it is plausible that Paul received this tradition upon his visit to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, this is by no means certain, and any attempt to pin down the precise date is traipsing into highly speculative territory. Nonetheless, the text is of evidential value given that it allows us to establish, in harmony with other independent lines of evidence, that the resurrection claim goes back to the apostolic eyewitnesses themselves. Having thus eliminated the scenario that the claim of encounters with the risen Jesus arose much later and did not originate with the original apostolic eyewitnesses, we can move towards examining whether the claim originated as a result of deliberate deception on the part of the apostles, their being honestly mistaken, or because Jesus really was raised bodily from the dead, a topic that I have discussed in detail elsewhere.[27]

Footnotes

[1] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Ilinois; Notingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 223.

[2] Craig Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Ilinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993).

[3] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd edition (Michigan: Wiliam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017), 264-265.

[4] Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (New York: Prometheus, 2004), Kindle.

[5] Bart Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014), Kindle. Also see Bart Ehrman, “The Core of Paul’s Gospel,” The Bart Ehrman Blog, June 2, 2016 https://ehrmanblog.org/the-core-of-pauls-gospel/

[6] Bart Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014), Kindle. Also see Bart Ehrman, “The Core of Paul’s Gospel,” The Bart Ehrman Blog, June 2, 2016 https://ehrmanblog.org/the-core-of-pauls-gospel/

[7] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Ilinois; Notingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 224-225.

[8] Ibid., 226.

[9] Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (New York: Prometheus, 2004), Kindle.

[10] Ibid.

[11] William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Colorado: David C. Cook, 2010).

[12] Bart Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014), Kindle.

[13] John W. Loftus, “The Resurrection of Jesus Never Took Place,” in The Case Against Miracles, ed. John Loftus (Hypatia Press, 2019), 336.

[14] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Ilinois; Notingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 226.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Gary Habermas and Michael L. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2004), 221.

[17] John W. Loftus, “The Resurrection of Jesus Never Took Place,” in The Case Against Miracles, ed. John Loftus (Hypatia Press, 2019), 335.

[18] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Ilinois; Notingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 226.

[19] Ibid., 229.

[20] Ibid., 230.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Ilinois; Notingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 232.

[23] Jonathan McLatchie, “The Resurrection of Jesus: The Evidential Contribution of Luke-Acts”, Jonathan McLatchie Website, October 5, 2020, https://jonathanmclatchie.com/the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-evidential-contribution-of-luke-acts/

[24] Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (New York: Prometheus, 2004), 43-44.

[25] Kirk R. MacGregor, “1 Corinthians 15:3B-6A, 7 and the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49, no. 2 (June 2006):225-234.

[26] Jonathan McLatchie, “The Resurrection of Jesus: The Evidential Contribution of Luke-Acts”, Jonathan McLatchie Website, October 5, 2020, https://jonathanmclatchie.com/the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-evidential-contribution-of-luke-acts/

[27] Ibid.

Resurrection Defense Series: The Testimony of Women

3. Are Miracles Possible?, Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Brian Chilton

The month of March has been designated as Women’s History Month. It has often been erroneously suggested that the Bible is misogynistic in its portrayal of women. While this article cannot combat every claim of misogyny weighed against the Scriptures, it is ironic that it was the early testimony of women, those that skeptics claim the Scripture dismisses, that strongly suggests the high historical probability of the resurrection event. This article will look at four ways that the early testimony of women serves as a defense for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. Before doing so, let us first look at what the Gospels state concerning the women’s testimony that Jesus had risen.

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to view the tomb. ²There was a violent earthquake, because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and approached the tomb. He rolled back the stone and was sitting on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. ⁴The guards were so shaken by fear of him that they became like dead men. ⁵The angel told the women, “Don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there.’ Listen, I have told you.” ⁸So, departing quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, they ran to tell his disciples the news. ⁹Just then Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” They came up, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus told them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there” (Matt. 28:1-10).

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they could go and anoint him. ²Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb at sunrise. ³They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?” ⁴Looking up, they noticed that the stone—which was very large—had been rolled away. ⁵When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side; they were alarmed. ⁶“Don’t be alarmed,” he told them. “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they put him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there just as he told you.’ ” ⁸They went out and ran from the tomb, because trembling and astonishment overwhelmed them. And they said nothing to anyone, since they were afraid” (Mark 16:1-8).

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. ³They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. ⁵So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. ⁶“He is not here, but he has risen! Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, ⁷saying, ‘It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’⁸And they remembered his words. ⁹Returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them were telling the apostles these things. ¹¹But these words seemed like nonsense to them, and they did not believe the women. ¹²Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. When he stooped to look in, he saw only the linen cloths.^, So he went away, amazed at what had happened (Luke 24:1-12).

On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ²So she went running to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him!” ³At that, Peter and the other disciple went out, heading for the tomb. ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and got to the tomb first. ⁵Stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶Then, following him, Simon Peter also came. He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there. ⁷The wrapping that had been on his head was not lying with the linen cloths but was folded up in a separate place by itself. ⁸The other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, then also went in, saw, and believed. ⁹For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰Then the disciples returned to the place where they were staying. ¹¹But Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. As she was crying, she stooped to look into the tomb. ¹²She saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus’s body had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³They said to her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “Because they’ve taken away my Lord,” she told them, “and I don’t know where they’ve put him.” ¹⁴Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus. ¹⁵“Woman,” Jesus said to her, “why are you crying? Who is it that you’re seeking?” Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me where you’ve put him, and I will take him away.” ¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Mary.” Turning around, she said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!”—which means “Teacher.” ¹⁷“Don’t cling to me,” Jesus told her, “since I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what he had said to her (John 20:1-18).

The Early Testimony of Women Postulates that the Story was not Invented.

A woman’s testimony did not hold much weight in an ancient court of law. That is not to say that a woman held no importance in court. Nonetheless, if a woman’s testimony contradicted a man’s testimony, the man’s testimony was generally accepted unless two women both testified against the man. Even then, there was no guarantee that the woman’s testimony would be accepted (see m. Ned. 11:10). In rabbinical tradition—not the law of God—a woman could not participate in the reading of the Torah in the synagogue. She was not even permitted to cite the Shema, the greatest commandment found in Deut. 6:5 (Ber. 3:3). Yet it was women who first saw the risen Jesus.

Ironically, the women’s testimony of the resurrection is missing in the creed of 1 Corinthians 15:3-9. Thomas Oden holds that since the women’s testimony was not permitted in the official court of law, the creed was deliberately shortened to provide the best evidence for the Christian faith (Oden, Word of Life, 497-498). If that is the case, then why was their testimony included in the biographies of Jesus? The answer—Because it was true! The women’s testimony is quite bizarre if it were not a genuine event. If one were to invent a story in the first century, the first witnesses would certainly not be women. They would have been the last considered for such a role. Jesus’s great love for his female disciples is found by his choice in disclosing the resurrection event—the greatest miracle in history—first to his female disciples.

The Early Testimony of Women Provides Embarrassing Details.

Women serving as the first witnesses of the resurrection provide several embarrassing factors to consider. Historically, embarrassing details verify the truthful nature of a story. A person will not willingly expose things that intentionally embarrass its authors or primary ambassadors. However, when it comes to the resurrection story, the male disciples were embarrassed by the testimony of women on multiple fronts. First, the male disciples were embarrassed by the devotion of the women. None of the male disciples offered Jesus a proper burial. It was the female disciples who took it upon themselves to anoint the body of Jesus. In the hurried events of Good Friday, Jesus’s body was rushed into the tomb and was not given a proper Jewish burial. This was unacceptable in ancient Judaism. Where were the men? The women were concerned as they approached the tomb about how they would get inside since the stone was so large because they had no male counterparts joining them. Were the men still asleep? As anyone who grew up in church knows—if it were not for the women, nothing would get accomplished.

Second, the male disciples were embarrassed by the women being the first ambassadors of the resurrection. The women were essentially the very first evangelists of the resurrection message. Jesus told them to tell the disciples about his appearance (John 20:17).

Third, and here it gets worse, a woman with a checkered past was appointed as the first witness of the resurrection. Some have postulated through the centuries that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. In AD 591, Pope Gregory the Great taught, “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary [of Bethany], we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark.” Contrary to Gregory the Great, there is no biblical evidence to suggest that Mary was a prostitute. However, the Gospels do note that Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons until Jesus cast them out (Luke 8:1-3). So, wait! A woman who had been possessed by seven demons—an indication of the severity of her possession—was chosen as the first witness?!? This makes absolutely no sense unless it were in fact true. If a person were going to invent a story, Mary Magdalene would be the LAST person one would choose as the story’s primary witness.

The Early Testimony of Women Proves Multiple Attestation.

The third point is simple. Historically speaking, the more sources that are found for an event, the higher the probability that the event in question occurred. The early testimony of women is found in all four Gospels. Regardless of how one handles the issue of sharing among the Gospel writers, these stories are independent as noted by the differences in their presentation. All the Gospels serve as four independent sources. This is profound given the absence of women in 1 Cor. 15:3-9. It is unspeakably absurd to invent the women as the first witnesses and then plug them into all four biographies of Jesus unless some historical basis was found in the story. The women’s eyewitness accounts hold a strong historical case for its authenticity, which further verifies the legitimacy of the resurrection event.

The Early Testimony of Women Portrays their Elevated Status.

While this article has been focused on the historical validation of the resurrection event, one cannot bypass the high level of importance that Jesus placed on his female disciples. Jesus was revolutionary in his elevation of women. Because of the value he placed on women, his female disciples played a significant role in the early ministry of the church (Eckman, ECH, 14). Women were among his early financial contributors (Luke 8:3). To the shock of everyone in attendance, Jesus permitted Mary to sit at his feet, an honor that most rabbis only gave to men (Luke 10:39). While women were not permitted to read the Torah in the synagogue, they were in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). Jesus not only highly valued women, but he also gave some of the women who followed him the highest honor imaginable—they were the first witnesses of the risen Jesus!

Conclusion: Norman Geisler says it best, “It is an unmistakable sign of the authenticity of the record that, in a male-dominated culture, Jesus first appeared to a woman” (Geisler, “Resurrection, Evidence For,” BEOCA, 651). The church has often dropped the ball when giving women the value that Jesus affords them. Nonetheless, the testimony of women stands front and center as evidence that Jesus really did walk out of the tomb alive on the first Easter Sunday. The most unlikely individuals to hold value in the first century found themselves as the ambassadors of the greatest message ever given. Jesus had risen, and the risen Jesus chose to unveil this radical new truth to those who had often been neglected and considered unimportant. Isn’t that just like Jesus? Should we have expected anything else?

Sources

Eckman, James P. Exploring Church History. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002.

Geisler, Norman L. “Resurrection, Evidence For.” Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Baker Reference Library. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999.

Mishnah Berakhot 3:3 (sefaria.org).

Oden, Thomas C. The Word of Life: Systematic Theology. Volume Two. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.

Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman, 2017).

From Laws of Physics to Reasonable Faith

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Luke Nix

Many may be surprised to find that knowledge is actually the foundation for faith in God.

A Blind Faith And God’s Hiddenness

Two common challenges to the truth of the Christian worldview are the seeming hiddenness of God and the accusation that Christianity requires a blind faith. Many people see the great amount of suffering in the world and in their own lives and wonder where God is and why He doesn’t seem to care to alleviate the suffering. Many skeptics also see Christians making claims about reality that are demonstrably false, and those people conclude that Christians’ faith is a belief despite evidence to the contrary- a blind faith.

The skeptic knows that there must be continuity between the present and the past (and the future) for us to reasonably believe that what happens in the present can be used to infer what has happened in the past (or make predictions about what will happen in the future). Armed with knowledge of the past, there is a solid, logical foundation to conclude something about the future. This also means that without knowledge of the past, there is no solid foundation to trust something with the present or the future.

This is how the skeptic believes they are being logical as they conclude that the Christian God is hidden (if not non-existent) and unfaithful, and how they also conclude that Christians’ faith is blind. Today, I want to take some time to show an understanding of the physical world will demonstrate that the skeptic has made a mistake in their reasoning to both conclusions about God’s supposed hiddenness and the supposed blind faith of Christianity.

Is Faith In God Really Blind?

Let us start with the very book that claims to accurately describe the Christian God: the Bible, and with the actions of this God: creation. If the Bible accurately describes the Christian God, then we have this series of arguments regarding faith in God for present and future experiences:

If the laws of physics are constant, then God’s character is constant (Jeremiah 33:25-26).
The laws of physics are constant.
If God’s character is constant, then His character can be trusted to be the same across all time.
God’s character is constant.
If God’s character has been faithful in the past, then His character will be faithful in the present and the future
God’s character has been faithful in the past.
Therefore, God’s character will be faithful in the present and the future.

This faith is a reasonable faith that is grounded in what we already know and have experienced. For the skeptic who wishes to claim that Christianity is an illogical and unreasonable faith, they must face in inconvenient reality: If they believe that Bible describes the Christian God, then it necessarily follows from Jeremiah 33:25-26 that the Christian God is faithful to His promises, and our trust in Him (faith) for present and future difficulties and sufferings is logically grounded in God’s past faithfulness through difficulties and sufferings. This means that our faith in God is a most logical faith.

What If The Laws of Physics Are Not Constant?

However, the soundness of the argument and our trust in the constancy of God’s character is dependent upon the reality of the constancy of the laws that govern the heavens and the earth (this universe). If these laws are not constant and have changed and if God is just as constant (the first premise in the argument), then God’s character can change. This means that if the laws of physics change, then God’s character changes, which necessarily implies that God’s promises can be rescinded, His faithfulness is laughable, and He is certainly not to be trusted.

If the skeptic were to deny constant laws of physics to avoid the conclusion that the Christian faith is a reasonable and logical faith, then they would suffer the logical consequence of the collapse of the entire scientific enterprise. While some (non-scientific) skeptics may be willing to live with this logical implication, many would be unwilling to do so. But they would be unwilling to do so at the cost of logical consistency. Because consistency is a necessary feature of logic and because reality is consistent, both logic and reality are abandoned with such a philosophical move.

When logic and reality are abandoned, though, all we have is a delusion guided by blind faith. Ironically, it is the skeptic who would refuse to surrender knowledge of the natural world (the goal of the scientific enterprise), in order to avoid the logical conclusion of God’s faithfulness (or even His existence), who is the one committed to a delusion and blind faith. (See the post “6 Ways Atheism Is A Science-Stopper” for more details on this line of reasoning.)

Now, if the Christians were to deny constant laws of physics for whatever reason (see “Is Genesis History” for an example), they then would suffer the logical consequence of the collapse of God’s faithful character. For a Christian who denies the constancy of the laws of physics, yet affirms God’s faithfulness, they, like the skeptic, do so at the cost of logical consistency- an abandonment of reason. Again, when logic and reason are abandoned, all that is left is a blind faith. And in a second move of irony, the skeptic who complains about a Christian’s blind faith does so only while affirming their own blind faith. (See the post “How Naturalism Defeats Science As A Knowledge Discipline“).

Interestingly, when the skeptic looks at the beliefs of Christians who deny the constancy of the laws of physics, they have an excuse for believing that the Christian faith is a blind faith; however, if the skeptic examines nature, they have no such excuse (Romans 1). So, if we bring together the idea that the Bible accurately describes the Christian God and the idea that the laws of physics are constant, then we have the conclusion that trust in the Christian God is necessarily a reasonable faith.

God’s Hiddenness

But how does this address the idea of God’s apparent hiddenness? If God has been faithful in the past, then it necessarily follows that He will be faithful in the future. As we read through the Bible, we see time after time that God has been faithful despite the sufferings. As Christians get older they often look through their lives and see how God has carried them through their sufferings and has remained faithful to them through the process. We have testimonies of God’s past faithfulness despite suffering from people of the ancient past (the Bible), the recent past (writings of past Christians in history), the present (friends, family, and the rest of the current Church), and even in our own personal lives. It is through his knowledge—this strong body of evidence of God’s past faithfulness and the constancy of God’s character evidenced by the scientific study of the natural realm—that we know that God is being faithful now and will be faithful in the future. Even if we cannot “see” how God is working right now, we can be assured that He is at work and our trust in Him is properly and reasonably placed.

Why the “Odds” Favor the Existence of a Creator

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

With each passing year, science is providing more evidence that the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned to support human life. Change any one of dozens of scientific parameters by even a small amount and life on Planet Earth would never have arisen. These findings provide strong support for the Christian argument that behind this universe lies an all-powerful, super-intelligent Designer who set this all in motion.

Many atheists try to sidestep the problem these scientific discoveries create for their worldview. Darwinism, after all, made belief in the possibility that life simply arose from inert matter a bit more respectable, so discoveries that make this seem unlikely, indeed implausible, cannot be ignored for long. After decades of Darwinism giving them false solace, atheists face a serious problem making sense of these discoveries, which challenge the wisdom of believing in random self-assembly over a long period of time as an adequate explanation for the magnificent complexity of the life we find on Earth.

A favorite way to dodge the issue goes something like this: there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about fine-tuning in the universe because, had it not been so, we would not be here to make any observations. We simply happened to arise because we just happen to be in a universe – probably one of an infinite number – that can support our form of life.

This is a clever argument because it makes the extraordinary nature of the universe seem, well, ordinary and in fact predictable. But the argument does not survive scrutiny, because it deliberately misses the point of the fine-tuning argument. It assumes that there is no designer, then asks to make sense of this fine-tuning we see all around. It does this by assuming that other universes exist, and with enough such universes, the existence of our particular universe, with its unique characteristics, becomes inevitable. But there is no evidence – at present anyway – that we inhabit one of a limitless number of other universes. In fact, since these other universes are separate and apart from ours, there is no way to even test for their existence, no way to establish whether they are there or not. The existence of this infinite number of alternative universes, this “multi-verse,” is assumed so that our presence in this one can be viewed as “no big deal.” It is apparent that the skeptic is assuming the conclusion he wishes to reach. Instead, the question we are trying to answer is whether such fine-tuning can truly be an accident – a true “billion to one shot” – or whether, by contrast, this evidence of design is the result of, well, a Designer. Because our existence is the result of the coinciding of hundreds of highly improbable events, basic probability theory tells us that to determine the cumulative probability requires that we multiply these probabilities. Increase the number of “just so” parameters and life becomes incredibly unlikely to have arisen by chance.

Some examples might help make the point. The Apollo 11 mission successfully landed men on the moon and returned them safely to Earth. Imagine that on his return, someone asked Neil Armstrong to comment on the stunning success of the mission. If he thought like the new atheists, he might have said: “There was nothing amazing about the mission’s success. After all, if something failed, I wouldn’t be here to discuss the effectiveness of the mission.” Such an answer is ludicrous; it simply avoids the question of what the odds were that each of hundreds of systems would work as designed. That such novel technology achieved its goals is a tribute to the intelligence and workmanship of its designers. To say that Armstrong just happened to live in the universe in which his mission succeeded is, in reality, to say nothing at all.

To this, the atheist will likely respond: your example is flawed, because we already know that the Apollo mission was designed by an intelligence, and we don’t know that about the universe. But this too misses the point. The Apollo mission was fine-tuned for success. If the universe shows signs of similar fine-tuning, then we can logically conclude that it too bears the marks of an intelligent designer.

Which leads me to a different example: a condemned man stands before a firing squad, awaiting the crack of rifles that will precede his demise. The signal is given, he hears the shots and feels the bullets whizzing nearby, but not a single round strikes him. He has survived the execution and is here to comment on the probability of so unlikely an event. Imagine if he answered: “there was nothing special about this execution. After all, I wouldn’t be here to comment on it if it had been otherwise.” But this too would be so much nonsense. The question is whether we can infer from this result that each of the marksmen just happened to miss, or whether the better inference would be that missing was “designed,” that the marksmen were following a plan to miss.

Following the evidence where it leads should cause skeptics to question their deeply held beliefs. But if they do, the odds are in their favor that they will eventually find the truth – the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned to support life because it was designed that way.

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

Podcast

If you believe in the Resurrection or the biblical miracles, skeptics will often dismiss your beliefs by saying that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Is that claim true? What does “extraordinary” mean? Do skeptics and atheists apply that standard to their own beliefs? In this show, Frank lays out some of the evidence for Christianity— some of which is extraordinary— and then examines the counterclaims of atheists. It turns out that atheist claims are extraordinary, yet they have no evidence for them! Frank also addresses these questions: Why is there evidence for anything? Why is does this orderly universe exist and why can our minds gather and understand that evidence? What best explains ordinary cause and effect? You might become amazed at the ordinary all around you.

If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at Hello@CrossExamined.org.
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February 12, 2021/by Guest

Would Jesus have Really Received a Proper Burial?

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

Critics of Christianity like to suggest that a crucified victim like Jesus never would have received a proper burial. They point to cases where the Romans left victims on the cross for days while birds ate away at their flesh to serve as a reminder to everyone who walked by not mess with Rome. What’s more, the Romans usually tossed the remains into a common grave. The theory goes, in no case would Rome give permission for a crucified victim to receive a proper burial.

It’s no secret that crucifixion was a horrendous experience. It was so terrible, that ancients made up a new word to describe the agony of crucifixion — excruciating. Furthermore, Rome only crucified non-Romans guilty of the worst of crimes. When you consider this, it seems plausible that the Romans would have forbidden Jesus’ burial in a tomb. But just because something is plausible doesn’t mean that’s what actually happened.

Let me illustrate my point. A few years ago, the U.S. Navy Seals carried out a secret mission to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden. It’s standard procedure for United States special forces to capture the enemy and bring them back to a high security prison for interrogation. In this instance, however, they killed Bin Laden on the spot and dumped his body in the ocean. Now let me ask you this: Should future Americans one hundred years from now be skeptical that the U.S. Navy Seals killed Bin Laden since it was implausible — not an ordinary occurrence? No, of course not, because history is filled with implausible events.

Politics and Jewish Customs

So is it inconceivable that Jesus received a proper burial in a tomb? I don’t think so for a few of reasons. First, Pontius Pilate was a politician who wanted to keep his post. As the Roman governor, it was his responsibility to keep the peace in the region — the Pax Romana. Thus, it was in Pilate’s best interest to cooperate with the Jewish leadership and be considerate of their customs lest he instigate the masses. Jewish historian Josephus writes that emperor Tiberius had previously chastised Pilate for being insensitive to the Jewish culture when he placed pagan symbols inside the temple. This act, of course, led to a mob, which ultimately subsided when Pilate removed the artifacts. Pilate was down to his final strike; therefore, he had extra motivation to cooperate with Jewish leadership.

Now John’s gospel tells us why the Jews wanted to take Jesus’ body down from the cross instead of leaving it up indefinitely. We read in John 19:31, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.” In other words, Pilate needed to honor the Sabbath, and the text indicates that he did just that — although the soldiers didn’t need to break Jesus’ legs. Remember, Emperor Tiberius had already rebuked him once. Pilate needed to navigate this situation carefully.

Archeological Evidence

Second, we have archeological evidence that Pilate allowed crucified victims to receive a proper burial. Before I disclose what that evidence is, let me first describe ancient Jewish burial practices. When a Jewish loved one died, they were wrapped in a cloth, adorned with perfumes and spices, and placed in a tomb. After one year, the family members would return to the tomb to collect the bones of their deceased relative and place them in a smaller box called an ossuary. This allowed for more space in the tombs so that all the deceased family members could be near each other.

Amazingly, in 1968, archaeologists discovered an ossuary of a Jewish man named Yehohanan in the north-eastern quadrant of Jerusalem. This young man noticeably had been crucified. I say noticeably, because a six-inch iron spike was still attached to his heel bone with wood fragments from a cross still attached to the spike (see image above). Experts date the bones to the late 20’s — less than a decade before Jesus’ death and still during Pilate’s rule¹. Here is evidence that Pilate permitted Jewish crucifixion victims to receive a proper burial. It seems, then, that Jesus’ burial in a tomb isn’t without precedent.

Joseph Of Arimathea

Third, each of the Gospel writers indicate that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus’ body in his tomb. This meets the criteria of multiple attestation which states that if multiple, independent sources report an event, it’s more probable that it happened.

More than that, it also meets the criteria of embarrassment because it makes a Jewish council member look more compassionate than Jesus’ disciples. If the gospel writers lied, why would they go out of their way to make themselves look bad? To be sure, they indicate that Joseph was a believer, but why give credit to a member of the council that was responsible for most Christianity’s early persecution? It’s hard to imagine that the early Christians wanted to give credit to the Jewish leaders for anything.

Furthermore, it makes no sense to credit a prominent member of Jewish society whom everyone knew and could be talked to — someone who could debunk the story if it was false. If the disciples lied about the story, it would have been more prudent to give themselves credit for the burial or invent a character that no one could question. The only reason, therefore, the early Christians had for giving credit to Joseph of Arimathea is that he must have, in fact, buried Jesus in his tomb.

Was Jesus Buried in A Tomb?

On the surface, the claim that Jesus wouldn’t have received a proper burial sounds compelling. Yet, when you dig a little deeper and understand more of the context, Jesus’ burial in a tomb makes the most sense of all the data. Therefore, I think we can confidently say that Jesus’ burial is not fake news.

Does Archaeological Evidence Confirm Names, Dates, And Places In The Bible?

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Wintery Knight

I spotted this post on Be Thinking by UK apologist Peter S. Williams. (H/T Eric Chabot at Think Apologetics)

So let me pick the ones I liked most for this post.

Here’s a good one:

Jerusalem and The Pool of Bethesda

John 5:1-15 describes a pool in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, called Bethesda, surrounded by five covered colonnades. Until the 19th century, there was no evidence outside of John for the existence of this pool, and John’s unusual description “caused bible scholars to doubt the reliability of John’s account, but the pool was duly uncovered in the 1930s – with four colonnades around its edges and one across its middle.”[38] Ian Wilson reports: “Exhaustive excavations by Israeli archaeologist Professor Joachim Jeremias have brought to light precisely such a building, still including two huge, deep-cut cisterns, in the environs of Jerusalem’s Crusader Church of St Anne.”[39]

And this one:

Jerusalem and The Pool of Siloam

In the 400s AD, a church was built above a pool attached to Hezekiah’s water tunnel to commemorate the healing of a blind man reported in John 9:1-7. Until recently, this was considered to be the Pool of Siloam from the time of Christ. However, during sewerage works in June 2004 engineers stumbled upon a 1stcentury ritual pool when they uncovered some ancient steps during pipe maintenance near the mouth of Hezekiah’s tunnel. By the summer of 2005, archaeologists had revealed what was “without doubt the missing pool of Siloam.”[40] Mark D. Roberts reports that: “In the plaster of this pool were found coins that establish the date of the pool to the years before and after Jesus. There is little question that this is in fact the pool of Siloam, to which Jesus sent the blind man in John 9.”[41]

I just read this one because I am working my way through John. In case you haven’t read John, you really should it’s my favorite gospel.

Here’s another one:

Herod the Great

We have a bronze coin minted by Herod the Great. On the obverse side (i.e. the bottom) is a tripod and ceremonial bowl with the inscription ‘Herod king’ and the year the coin was struck, ‘year 3’ (of Herod’s reign), or 37 BC.

In 1996 Israeli Professor of Archaeology Ehud Netzer discovered in Masada a piece of broken pottery with an inscription, called an ostracon. This piece had Herod’s name on it and was part of an amphora used for transportation (probably wine), dated to c. 19 BC. The inscription is in Latin and reads, “Herod the Great King of the Jews (or Judea)”, the first such that mentions the full title of King Herod.

Herodium is a man-made mountain in the Judean wilderness rising over 2,475 feet above sea level. In 23 BC Herod the Great built a palace-fortress here on top of a natural hill. Seven stories of living rooms, storage areas, cisterns, a bathhouse, and a courtyard filled with bushes and flowering plants were constructed. The whole complex was surrounded and partly buried by a sloping fill of earth and gravel. Herod’s tomb and sarcophagus were discovered at the base of Herodium by archaeologist Ehud Netzer in 2007.

And one more:

The ‘James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus’ Ossuary

James, the brother of Jesus, was martyred in AD 62. A mid-1st century AD chalk ossuary discovered in 2002 bears the inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” ( ‘Ya’akov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua’). Historian Paul L. Maier states that“there is strong (though not absolutely conclusive) evidence that, yes, the ossuary and its inscription are not only authentic but that the inscribed names are the New Testament personalities.“[68] New Testament scholar Ben Witherington states that: “If, as seems probable, the ossuary found in the vicinity of Jerusalem and dated to about AD 63 is indeed the burial box of James, the brother of Jesus, this inscription is the most important extra-biblical evidence of its kind.”[69] According to Hershel Shanks, editor in chief of the Biblical Archaeological Review: “This box is [more] likely the ossuary of James, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth, than not. In my opinion … it is likely that this inscription does mention James and Joseph and Jesus of the New Testament.”

And finally one short one:

Tiberius Caesar

The Denarius coin, 14-37 AD, is commonly referred to as the ‘Tribute Penny’ from the Bible. The coin shows a portrait of Tiberius Caesar. Craig L. Blomberg comments: “Jesus’ famous saying about giving to Caesar what was his and to God what his (Mark 12:17 and parallels) makes even more sense when one discovers that most of the Roman coins in use at the time had images of Caesar on them.”[48]

This is a good article to bookmark in case you are ever looking for a quick, searchable reference on archaeology and the Bible. There are many more examples in that post.

Now some people might be wondering why archaeology doesn’t confirm every detail in the New Testament. And here’s what J. Warner Wallace has to say about that:

But what are we to say to those who argue the Biblical archeological record is incomplete? The answer is best delivered by another expert witness in the field, Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, historian, and Professor Emeritus at Miami University. Yamauchi wrote a book entitled, The Stones and the Scripture, where he rightly noted that archaeological evidence is a matter of “fractions”:

Only a fraction of the world’s archaeological evidence still survives in the ground.

Only a fraction of the possible archaeological sites have been discovered.

Only a fraction have been excavated, and those only partially.

Only a fraction of those partial excavations have been thoroughly examined and published.

Only a fraction of what has been examined and published has anything to do with the claims of the Bible!

See the problem? In spite of these limits, we still have a robust collection of archaeological evidences confirming the narratives of the New Testament (both in the gospel accounts and in the Book of Acts). We shouldn’t hesitate to use what we do know archaeologically in combination with other lines of evidence. Archaeology may not be able to tell us everything, but it can help us fill in the circumstantial case as we corroborate the gospel record.

I think you can form an opinion about the whole New Testament based on the record of confirmations. The verdict is in: the New Testament should be presumed trustworthy.

Evidence in the Flesh for Apologetics

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Dawn Simon

I was raised in a family and a community where religious beliefs were considered personal and virtually never discussed. I attended a Catholic grade school and continued with religion classes through high school. I was a good student and knew what I was supposed to believe – but no matter how hard I tried, I just could not convince myself that any of it was true.

I had a long list of questions but mostly kept those to myself. I was pretty sure that these doubts made me a bad person and I was not eager to advertise this fact. The few times I did seek help left me feeling that there were no answers to my questions. I developed an idea that belief in God was some sort of magical thinking – and while I too desperately wanted this magic, it clearly was not meant for me. Another difficulty I faced was that believers always seemed so sure about their faith. I am not a person who is certain about anything – this too made me think that Christianity – or faith of any kind was not for me.

Moving ahead to my time now in Kearney, Nebraska – I moved here in 2009 and met Tim Stratton a few years later when he was in the early stages of developing his FreeThinking Argument for the existence of God. At this time, there was a fair bit of noise being made in the local newspaper about issues related to evolution and it was attracting attention at work. Because of this I started regularly reading the opinion pieces, as well as associated comments. The name Tim Stratton appeared frequently. To be clear, I did not agree with a single thing he wrote. However, he was unfailingly kind, whereas some people on “my side” were behaving atrociously. This was the first thing I noticed about Tim – and if not for that, I truly might still be an atheist today.

I was able to meet Tim in person at a local public outreach event about evolution. This was a brief meeting – but a short time later he added me as a Facebook friend. This is when the arguing started in earnest (and to be honest has not completely ceased to this day – we just argue about different things now). For a period of about two months, we exchanged messages almost daily that initially were centered on his FreeThinking Argument for the Existence of God. Those discussions could probably best be summarized as exchanges where I would tell him I was not convinced of some specific point (which is my default position) and then Tim would both encourage me and try to convince me. If you know either of us, you already know that these were not short discussions.

About a month into this I was forced to admit — contra many scientifically-minded atheists — that while I was not certain, I did think humans possessed libertarian free will. It is worth noting here that in my discussions with Tim, I had already been relieved of the notion that one needed to be absolutely certain to believe something was true. The natural extension of this was that if I believed I had free will, according to Tim’s argument (which despite my best efforts seemed strong) meant I also believed in God. This realization took my breath away (and the memory of it still does the same) – I know exactly where I was and what I was doing when for the first time in my life I felt like God was talking directly to me.

This was just the beginning though – it took at least 6 months more before I called myself a Christian (Mike Licona’s work on the historical Resurrection eventually sealed the deal). It was an incredibly tumultuous time in my life. I was starting to really believe that Christianity was probably true and while part of me found that exciting, a bigger part was truly terrified at the prospect. Tim helped me at every single step of the way – I have countless stories of doubts and fears that he helped me through with reason and kindness.

During this time, I could not help but compare my conversion story to that of others – and I will admit I found it frustrating. Tim would tell me about other people he had helped and how in a 24-hour period they accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. It was hard for me to understand how this was possible and to be honest, I didn’t think it was fair. Why was it so much work for me? What I came to realize – surely with God’s help – was that my conversion story had to be different because of how I am wired. If God had appeared to me in the flesh, I am certain I would be more convinced of a brain tumor than God’s existence. Reason and argument was the only way it could work for me. I am not proud of that, but it is the truth. I am profoundly grateful that God is able to reach people in a myriad of ways – and specifically that he used Tim and apologetics to reach me.

The arising of our Universe: Design or Chance?

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Julie Hannah

How likely is it that our universe is the result of random physical operations? Scientists point out that shaping the universe into its present form required a very precise balance of many finely-tuned physical constants such as these:

Gravitational attraction—This had to be in perfect balance with the rate of expansion to enable structures to form.
The ratio of gravitational force to electromagnetic force—A slightly different ratio would have created stars that were either white dwarfs or blue giants, neither of which can support complex life.
The electrical charge of electrons—If this were even slightly different, stars would not be able to burn hydrogen and helium, or would not explode to distribute heavy elements.
The strong nuclear force—A slightly weaker force would have prevented the formation of heavy elements, but a slightly stronger force would have converted all hydrogen into other elements, resulting in no water and no fuel for stars to burn.
Formation of carbon—Stars are only able to produce carbon from helium because the carbon nucleus has very specific values of spin and resonance energy.
Initial entropy (disorder)—The entropy of our universe continues to increase, but it is still not at its maximum. Its initial value must therefore have been exceptionally small, with an extremely low probability of 1 out of 10^(10^123 ). This ridiculously large number has more zeros than the total number of protons and neutrons in the entire universe!

For carbon-based life such as ours to be possible, approximately twenty-six such physical properties had to have extremely precise and statistically improbable values. In addition, pairs of matter-antimatter particles annihilate each other, and matter only exists because one extra matter particle somehow came to be formed for every billion pairs. Scientists still do not understand how this imbalance could have arisen.

What about the theory of an infinite number of universes?

To avoid the implication of design, some scientists propose that there is an infinite number of universes with different physical laws. In that case, it is to be expected that ours could arise by chance with the specific properties necessary for human life. But there are problems with this theory.

Paul Davies writes: “It flies in the face of Occam’s razor, by introducing vast (indeed infinite) complexity to explain the regularities of just one universe. I find this ‘blunderbuss’ approach to explain the specialness of our universe scientifically questionable” (Mind of God, 218–19). (According to the principle of Occam’s Razor, the most likely explanation should have the least number of assumptions and conditions.)
The multiverse theory cannot be scientifically proven because it does not provide testable predictions. In the opinion of physicist Peter Woit, the theory, therefore, does not lie within the domain of science: “Maybe we really live in a ‘multiverse’ of different possible universes . . . [But] this way of thinking about physics does not seem to lead to any falsifiable predictions, and so is one that physicists have traditionally considered to be unscientific” (Not Even Wrong, xi).
Cosmologist George Ellis, co-author with Stephen Hawking, is critical of the theory. He argues that universes which actually exist, rather than merely being theoretically possible, would still require specific laws and would probably share a common causal connection. (See “Multiverses and Physical Cosmology.”)
Any inflationary universe must have a beginning in time, which would still need an explanation. (See Borde and Vilenkin, “Eternal Inflation,” 1.)
There are serious difficulties with trying to apply the mathematical concept of infinity to a physical situation. As mathematician David Hilbert pointed out, “The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality” (“On the Infinite,” 151). George Ellis and others argue that an infinite collection of universes is highly problematic and does not solve the problem of origins. He and his co-researchers ask: “Can there really be an infinite set of really existing universes? We suggest that, on the basis of well-known philosophical arguments, the answer is no. The common perception that this is possible arises from not taking seriously enough the difficulties associated with this profoundly difficult concept. . . Many universes in the ensemble may themselves have infinite spatial extent and contain an infinite amount of matter, with the paradoxical conclusions that entails . . . The phrase ‘everything that can exist, exists’ implies such an infinitude, but glosses over all the profound difficulties implied.” As Ellis points out, “Existence of the hypothesized ensemble remains a matter of faith rather than proof. Furthermore, in the end, it simply represents a regress of causation. Ultimate questions remain” (“Multiverses and Physical Cosmology,” 921; 927–28; 935).

In general, there is a problem with the popular belief that infinity renders anything possible. For example, monkeys typing for an infinite length of time are supposed to eventually type out any given text, but if there are 50 keys, the probability of producing just one given five-letter word is

This is a tremendously low probability, and it decreases exponentially when letters are added. A computer program that simulated random typing once produced nineteen consecutive letters and characters that appear in a line of a Shakespearean play, but this result took 42,162,500,000 billion years to achieve! (See Wershler-Henry’s History of Typewriting.) According to scientists Kittel and Kroemer, the probability of randomly typing out Hamlet is, therefore, zero in any operational sense (Thermal Physics, 53).

Against this background, what is the probability that all the universe’s required physical constants arose by chance? The improbability of this fine-tuning has led some scientists to argue that random operations are not sufficient. Below are some examples.

Paul Davies: There is “powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all…It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe…The impression of design is overwhelming” (Cosmic Blueprint, 203). “I belong to the group of scientists who do not subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a purposeless accident” (Mind of God, 16).

Physicist Frank Wilczek: “It is logically possible that parameters determined uniquely by abstract theoretical principles just happen to exhibit all the apparent fine-tunings required to produce, by a lucky coincidence, a Universe containing complex condensed structures. But that, I think, really strains credulity” (“Absolute Units,” 10–11).

Fred Hoyle, atheist astrophysicist: “A common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature” (“The Universe,” 12).

Freeman Dyson, theoretical physicist: “The more I examine the Universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the Universe in some sense must have known we were coming” (Disturbing the Universe, 250).

Stephen Hawking (in his forties): “The initial state of the Universe must have been very carefully chosen indeed if the hot big bang model was correct right back to the beginning of time. It would be very difficult to explain why the Universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us” (Brief History of Time, 133–34).

Allan Sandage, a prominent cosmologist who converted to Christianity: “The world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone” (“A Scientist Reflects on Religious Belief,” 57).

Even an atheist professor of astronomy, George Greenstein, makes this admission about the fine-tuning of the universe: “The more I read the more I became convinced that such ‘coincidences’ could hardly have happened by chance”; “As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency—or, rather, Agency—must be involved.” However, he passionately rejects this implication: “As this conviction grew, something else grew as well . . . It was intense revulsion, and at times it was almost physical in nature”; “I will have nothing to do with it. My conviction is that the world obeys laws, the laws of nature and that nothing can ever occur that stands outside those laws” (Symbiotic Universe, 27, 24, 87). Greenstein speaks for many people who are offended by suggestions of any influence beyond blind physical laws, but evidence from cosmology and physics strongly suggests that the existence of our universe cannot be explained as the result of purely random events.

It is therefore not intellectually weak, scientifically ignorant, or logically unsound to consider the possibility of a directing Intelligence at work behind the physical laws of the universe.

References

Borde, Arvind, and Alexander Vilenkin. “Eternal inflation and the initial singularity.” Physics Review Letters 72 (1994) 3305–309. https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9312022.pdf

Davies, Paul. The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature’s Creative Ability To Order the Universe. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

———. The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning. London: Penguin, 1992.

Dyson, Freeman J. Disturbing the Universe. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.

Ellis, George F. R., U. Kirchner, W. R. Stoeger. “Multiverses and Physical Cosmology.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 347 (2004) 921–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07261.x

Greenstein, George. The Symbiotic Universe: Life and Mind in the Cosmos. New York: William Morrow, 1988.

Hawking, Stephen W. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York: Bantam, 1989.

Hilbert, David. “On the Infinite.” Translated by Ema Putnam, and Gerald J. Massey. 1925. In Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings, edited by Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam, 134–51. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964.

Hoyle, Fred. “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.” Engineering and Science 45 (1981) 8–12.

Sandage, Allan. “A scientist reflects on religious belief.” Truth: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Christian Thought 1 (1985) 56–57. http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth15.html

Wilczek, Frank. “On Absolute Units, III: Absolutely Not?” Physics Today 59 (2006) 11. http://ctpweb.lns.mit.edu/physics_today/phystoday/Abs_limits400.pdf

Woit, Peter. Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law. New York: Basic, 2006.

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