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Historical Evidence of the Resurrection: A Debate with a Skeptical Friend

Historical Evidence of the Resurrection: A Debate with a Skeptical Friend

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By Tim Stratton

While attending Biola University, Dr. Clay Jones gave me the assignment to engage in friendly and respectful debate with a skeptical non-believer regarding the historical resurrection of Jesus. A deep-thinking friend of mine (who happened to be an atheist who would debate my views quite often) graciously accepted my invitation to have this conversation. The following is my conversation with Justin.

I am humbled and honored to have a friend like you, Justin! Thank you!

My initial case

Dear Justin,

Thank you for having this conversation with me! Please feel free to take your time when responding. I will try to get back to you within one week after each of your responses. I will be making a case that we have good reason to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. To accomplish this task, I will not begin with the assumption that the Bible is the Word of God; rather, I will begin by treating the 27 books of the New Testament as they were originally written – as individual historical narratives.

All of Christianity hangs on the Resurrection! Even the Apostle Paul realized this and said, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain” (1st Corinthians 15:14). That is to say, if the Resurrection did not really happen, then Christians are idiots, and wasting their time on Sunday mornings! They should be out playing golf instead! However, if Jesus really did rise from the dead, then life has way more meaning than a game of golf!

Do Christians have good historical reasons to put our faith in Jesus? Can we really know what happened 2,000 years ago? When it comes to studying ancient history, we need to abide by the “Rules of Historical Research.” As Mike Licona has pointed out, to establish something of the ancient past as historical, we need to have multiple, and converging lines of evidence such as:

  • eyewitness data
  • closeness to the facts
  • criteria

We don’t say, “Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great never existed!” In fact, we not only believe they existed, but we believe we actually know many things about them. When it comes to establishing historical data, it does not matter that something happened 2000 years ago — what matters is this: do we have access to an event that happened 2000 years ago? Licona has taught me that historians don’t just take one person’s word for it. They come to their conclusions through converging lines of evidence, such as:

–  written

–  pictorial

– inferential

– archaeological

– Etc.…

Again, no one doubts Alexander the Great, Caesar, or the history written about them. We have great historical reasons to conclude that we actually have knowledge of these individuals and many things they did. However, the sources confirming the historicity of these men, and their lives, are far inferior than the sources we have for Jesus! We not only have New Testament sources (27 individual historical documents collected into one volume) but even trained atheistic scholars and historians will go to the New Testament and use it for their purposes (I am treating it just as they do — I am not assuming anything special or supernatural about the Bible).

With this in mind, skeptical scholars will never say we cannot use the New Testament as a historical document — because it is a historical document — and it is recognized as such. Obviously, atheistic historians don’t conclude it is the inspired word of God, because, they don’t believe in anything “supernatural.” However, they conclude that the books that have been compiled into the Bible, are historical books written by people who lived a long time ago and who believed in God. These skeptics just arbitrarily choose to ignore the parts that have anything to do with the supernatural only because of their assumptions (blind faith) in naturalism (that nature is all that exists).

Moreover, on top of the many independent reports of the New Testament, we also have over a dozen non-biblical sources of Jesus within 100 years after his life! Every single one of them is NON-CHRISTIAN! Plus, we have archeological sources, and other Christian sources apart from the New Testament. When you compile all of this evidence together, it’s an incredible amount of historical evidence and information about the man, Jesus of Nazareth.

Justin, I know what you are probably thinking right now, “But how can you know anything about an event that happened 2000 years ago?”

When it comes to good history, the crucial time gap is not between the time of the event and today; the crucial time gap is between the time of the event and the evidence for the event! As William Lane Craig has pointed out, if the gap between the event itself and the evidence for the event is short, then it doesn’t matter how long the evidence and the event have receded into the past. Craig says,

“Good evidence does not become bad evidence, just because of the passage of time!”

Therefore, it’s irrelevant how long ago the Resurrection occurred. What’s critical is the GAP between the evidence and the event that the evidence is about! In the case of Jesus, that gap is extremely short.

Many volumes have been written providing evidence pointing to a historical resurrection of Jesus (from Josh McDowell to Lee Strobel, to N.T. Wright), but I want to offer some facts that a couple of my profs at Biola have been using in recent debates with famous skeptics. (I highly recommend the work of Dr. Michael Licona, Gary Habermas, and William Lane Craig when it comes to the evidence of the resurrection!) In fact, if you want to do your own study, I highly recommend a book by Michael Licona entitled, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach.”

Let’s examine a little passage of scripture, with HUGE implications! Remember, I am only treating scripture as ancient history, nothing more! Consider this piece of evidence we find in the pre-biblical oral tradition that was handed down to the Apostle Paul, which he then records in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5:

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.

This creed states, “that Jesus was crucified to pay for our sins, and that He died and was buried, and that He rose from the dead on the third day and that He was seen by eyewitnesses.” It is obvious from the wording used in this creed that it did not originate with Paul, the author of 1st Corinthians. This is even accepted by the vast majority of non-Christian scholars, that Paul must have received this creed by someone else in Jerusalem (probably Peter and James) anywhere from two to eight years after the crucifixion.

Paul says, “I gave you what I was given!”

Since this saying already existed when it was first given to Paul, we can logically infer this creed was established even earlier, and therefore, these beliefs would pre-date the oral tradition itself, which amazingly brings us right back to the historical moment of the crucifixion of Jesus!

We have early documentation that hundreds of people saw the risen Jesus and gave testimony of this within months of his death. This provides warrant to believe that the claims stated in this creed are true. Moreover, we must also consider the illogicality of this creed being invented and accepted in the very town Jesus was reported to have lived in and was executed in, at the very time of His execution, if this Jesus story was just a myth. To understand how unlikely it is that such a thing could happen if Jesus had never actually lived, or the resurrection being a myth, imagine the following scenario provided by Amy Hall:

Suppose you decide you would like to start your own religion (because there’s a lot of money in it), so you invent the story of an amazing man named Hobart. You head off for Los Angeles and start proclaiming that just a couple of years ago, Hobart had, in that very city, done countless miracles and caused such an uproar that, eventually, the city officials got involved and held a public execution (on Venice Beach), but then Hobart—amazing as he was—rose from the dead and made numerous appearances around L.A.

How many followers would you get?  Besides Tom Cruise, you would be lucky if you got one! Let alone thousands who would be willing to die for this story!

Everyone in Los Angeles would remember perfectly well that no such man had existed. You would never gain enough followers to get any sort of movement started. Such a plan is obviously ridiculous and doomed to failure. And yet, to claim that Jesus never existed, and the multiple appearances of the risen Jesus never happened, one would have to assume this very scenario occurred successfully in first century Jerusalem—a city with significantly fewer people than Los Angeles! This is not likely.

We can come to our conclusions through the multiple testimonies of people who were either companions of Jesus themselves and of other people who knew the companions of Jesus! This is fantastic and extremely EARLY evidence! When we look at the past to see what actually occurred, we look for multiple independent sources, eye-witness sources, early sources, embarrassing reports, etc… We have all of this in abundance when it comes to the Resurrection! In fact, as Mike Licona once told me,

“We have as much data that Jesus rose from the dead, if not more than we have of Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC!”

The vast majority of the harshest, skeptical, and atheistic historians admit up to twelve things as historical fact about Jesus. These twelve facts create an overwhelming cumulative case for the Resurrection of Jesus. However, we only need three of the twelve to make a minimal case. For our purposes, I will use five to come to the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead:

1- Jesus died by crucifixion.

2- Jesus’ disciples (at least) really believed that Jesus rose from the dead, and appeared to them.

3- The church persecutor and Christian hunter, Saul, was radically transformed into the Jesus preaching Paul.

4- The skeptic James (the brother of Jesus) was suddenly changed into someone who was willing to die for the Gospel.

5- The tomb of Jesus was found empty by his women followers.

These are the accepted facts regarding Jesus. So, as historians, we need to ask what hypothesis best accounts for all of these facts? The Resurrection hypothesis can account for all of them, and no naturalistic hypothesis offered can account for all of these together. I encourage you to come up with one.

To decipher the inference to the best explanation, we use the criteria of the historical method. The hypothesis that best meets all of the criteria is to be preferred and regarded as to what most likely (or probably) occurred. Here are the five points of criteria:

  • Explanatory Scope
  • Explanatory Power
  • Plausibility
  • Less Ad Hoc or Contrived
  • It provides Illumination

With the criteria in mind, Mike Licona said:

“The MAIN objection to the resurrection, is not a lack of historical evidence (we have that); rather, it’s a matter of WORLDVIEW, because the resurrection of Jesus requires a Supernatural Being to exist.

If you consider my essay on the Kalam Cosmological Argument you will notice that we sound philosophical evidence — supported by the scientific data — that a Supernatural “Cause” of the Universe does exist! If we have evidence of a “Supernatural Cause and Creator of the Universe,” the resurrection of Jesus by this Supernatural being would be mere “child’s play!” Therefore, one has no grounds to reject the historical evidence in regards to the resurrection of Jesus.

What do you think, Justin? I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Tim

Justin’s first objection

Hey, Tim. Sorry for the late reply. I haven’t had that much free time as I work anywhere from 60-110 hours a week!

While reading your argument, something popped into mind. We do know about Alexander the Great. But, not as much as we think we know. Just like the possible life/death of Jesus. It’s written in the scripture that he died from the wounds, as a result of the crucifixion.

I ask you this question: Would it be possible that Jesus didn’t really die as a result? 1st century Jerusalem was not very medically advanced. So, it would be possible that the “examiner” would be wrong and placed his body in the tomb. When Jesus awoke, he left the tomb.

It’s not unheard of to hear about people being buried alive, as it happened all the way up to the early 1900’s.

Tim’s response

Those are very good questions, Justin! Is it possible that Jesus did not die as a result of the crucifixion? Is it possible that the Romans thought Jesus was dead when he was just completely “beat up?” Is it then possible that Jesus woke up in the tomb, and walked out?

As I mentioned in my original email, it is accepted as historical fact that Jesus was crucified; however, does this mean we can have certainty about his death? I agree with you, Justin, we have all heard of someone that has been declared dead, and hours later started breathing again. If this still happens today, how can we be sure it didn’t happen 2000 years ago? Let’s label this hypothesis as the “Apparent Death Theory” (ADT), and see how it stands up when compared to historical and medical research.

I think the ADT is highly unlikely, implausible, and NOT the inference to the best explanation for several reasons. First, when considering what we know about Roman scourging and crucifixion, survival seems quite implausible. In the March 21, 1986, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a study was done on the effects of Roman scourging. I won’t bore you with all the details right now, but if you are interested in seeing what it was like, the movie, “The Passion of the Christ” seems to demonstrate quite accurately what a Roman scourging was like.

Something else to consider is that a scourging was just the warm-up! When it came to nailing a convict on a cross, each wound was intentionally inflicted to cause immense physical agony. The Journal reported that when the convict had his wrists nailed, “the driven nail would crush or sever the rather large sensorimotor median nerve. The stimulated nerve would produce excruciating bolts of fiery pain in both arms.” This would eventually lead to death by asphyxiation.

On the cross, the convict wanted to take pressure off of his nailed feet. To accomplish this, he had to allow the weight of his body to be applied to his nailed wrists (Imagine doing pull-ups with nailed wrists!!!). Moreover, while in the down position the convict is being suffocated. Pull-ups become your only means of survival! I don’t care how strong a guy is, a person can only do so many pull-ups, let alone, pull-ups with nailed wrists! Thus, the victim would have to push up on his nailed feet in order to exhale. However, this would be extremely painful causing the nail to tear through the flesh on his feet. This would lead to severe muscle cramps and spasms making the act of breathing extremely painful.

Moreover, if Roman executioners desired to speed the process up, it was common for them to break the legs of the victims with clubs. This would stop the victim from exhaling, as they could no longer use their arms or their legs to lift their torso up to breathe out. The Romans had the “art of death” down to a science, and it was easy to know when the convict was dead as he was no longer pushing up for air. The team that published the article in the medical journal concluded the following:

“Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.”

What’s more, the Romans had back up measures to ensure the death of the crucified convict. The Roman author Quintilian reports that Roman executioners would thrust spears into the side of crucified victims to ensure the convict that appeared dead really was! This is exactly what is reported to have happened to Jesus in the book of John 19:34-35. It is also written that after Jesus was stabbed with the spear, a combination of blood and water flowed out of his body. Two thousand years ago they may not have known why this occurred, but we do now! When the sac that surrounds the heart (the pericardium) is ruptured, water flows out, and if the right side of the heart is likewise pierced, blood and water would be combined as it was described in the book of John. This would ensure the death of Jesus.

The death of Jesus on the cross is known with a very high degree of historical certainty; however, suppose he did somehow survive the scourging and crucifixion. Would it really be possible for him to push the heavy stone of his tomb away with his pierced hands and feet after being recently scourged and crucified, let alone walk many blocks to find his disciples? The skeptical German scholar D.F. Strauss finally concluded that this would not be plausible.

Even if this bizarre scenario were somehow possible, is it plausible that after this beaten, wounded, and mutilated Jesus limped to the disciple’s residence, that the disciples would conclude that Jesus was the risen Prince of life? They would have concluded that he was barely alive, but hardly risen. It’s been said that if this scenario occurred, when Jesus presented his wounds to the “doubting” Thomas, Jesus would have responded with, “Ouch! That still hurts!”

In conclusion, it does not seem plausible that Jesus would have survived the scourging and crucifixion the Roman executors had down to an “artful” science. Moreover, even if one were to grant the survival of the crucifixion, it seems even more unlikely that Jesus would have not only recovered on the third day, but regained the strength to push the giant rock away from the tomb, and then walk a great distance to find his disciples, and then convince them that he was the risen Son of God. This is not the inference to the best explanation.

Justin, I think your questions are great and the possibilities you offered must be weighed by any historian worth his salt. However, when considering the criterion of plausibility when coming to historical conclusions, I think the ADT hypothesis must be rejected by the same historians.

What do you think?

Justin’s next objection

Tim- I’ve read your rebuttal. You make very convincing arguments and it even convinced me! I haven’t read much about the Romans (I’m currently studying bugs). But, with all of the facts you’ve backed your argument with, you’ll never hear that objection from me again.

Now, I raise another question, what if it wasn’t actually Jesus on the cross? But instead a “fill-in” of sorts. Someone who put themselves in Jesus’ place? Someone who looked almost exactly like [or very similar to] Jesus?

Tim’s next response

That’s a great question, Justin! Could Jesus have had a “doppelgänger,” a twin brother, or just a disciple who really looked like him who was willing to sacrifice himself on the cross in place of Jesus?

First of all, I might surprise you with my answer: YES, it is possible. With that being said, it is not plausible! 100% certainty eludes us in almost all things in life; however, adequate and even reasonable certainty is quite attainable. So, for example, when we say that a certain hypothesis is “true,” we mean that it corresponds with a good degree of accuracy to accepted conditions or past events.

The question is raised: how does one attain such knowledge? More specifically, how does a historian attain “historical knowledge”? Historians come to their conclusions by weighing hypothesis against specific criteria. Dr. Michael Licona explains this and says:

“Merely stating “what-if” possibilities without supporting evidence does not challenge a hypothesis with strong supporting evidence. What-ifs must be supported by evidence and argumentation. We established the following five criteria for the best explanation (listed in descending order of importance):  (1) plausibility, (2-3) explanatory scope, explanatory power, (4) less ad hoc and (5) illumination.”

From this point, Justin, a hypothesis can be awarded the distinction “historical” when it has either (1) met the five criteria better than competing hypothesis and (2) outdistanced competing hypothesis by significant margins. Remember the accepted historical facts regarding the man, Jesus of Nazareth:

1- Jesus died by crucifixion.

2- Jesus’ disciples (at least) really believed that Jesus rose from the dead, and appeared to them.

3- The church persecutor and Christian hunter, Saul, was radically transformed into the Jesus preaching Paul!

4- The skeptic James (the brother of Jesus) was suddenly changed into someone who was willing to die for the Gospel!

5- The tomb of Jesus was found empty by his women followers.

Let’s examine the hypothesis “Jesus had a clone,” using the criteria to infer the best explanation against the accepted facts regarding Jesus. Could this hypothesis possibly explain fact (1)? Yes, because even though Jesus would not have really died by crucifixion, it explains why everyone would have thought that he did. I do not think that this is necessarily plausible; however, it does have explanatory scope and power. With that said, it fails by being “ad-hoc.” One must assume, without any supporting evidence, that Jesus had a follower who was willing to save Jesus by going to the cross for him and just so happened to look exactly like him. That is quite unlikely.

Does the “clone theory” explain fact (2)? As good historians, let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of the disciples (or at least their sandals)! The disciples were in a position to know if one of the followers of Jesus looked like him, and was willing to sacrifice his life for Jesus as well. Moreover, after three years of spending every single day together, the disciples would surely have been able to distinguish any differences between Jesus and his look-alike. They would have been in a position to know if it was really Jesus who they watched being arrested and crucified.

Furthermore, on the third day when the real Jesus made his appearances to the disciples, they would have immediately come to the conclusion, “Dude… they crucified your look-alike, and not you! They got the wrong guy!”

Moreover, The Clone theory doesn’t explain the existence of the pierced hands, feet, and side which the “doubting” Thomas insisted upon examining.

The question then becomes, “Why would the cowardly disciples be transformed into bold proclaimers of the risen Jesus, even in the face of execution? This would mean that the disciples were willingly committing fraud. However, this goes against the accepted 2nd fact, that the disciples really believed Jesus was raised from the dead.

Fact (2) is held by the vast majority of scholars and historians because the disciple’s lives were radically transformed in the face of imprisonment, sufferings, and martyrdom. People die for lies all the time, but do people die for lies they know are not true? I cannot find any examples of such a thing ever occurring; however, even if one single example could be found, this is not the kind of thing that typically happens. Therefore, the “clone theory” ultimately supposes the disciples were willingly deceptive, and therefore, it is defeated by the martyrdom and sufferings of all of the disciples. This demonstrates that the Clone Theory does not explain fact (2).

Does the clone theory explain fact (3) about Paul’s transformation? At first glance, I think it could because Paul (unlike the disciples) probably was not in a position to know whether or not Jesus had a look-alike clone that was willing to suffer scourging, crucifixion, and death. However, it is unlikely that Paul knew exactly what Jesus looked like anyway since

the FBI’s most wanted posters were not out yet!

With this in mind, a look-alike of Jesus is not even needed. Anyone could claim to be Jesus, but there was something different about this appearance that Paul really believed he had and was willing to sacrifice his status as prominent Pharisee to attest that Jesus was the truth, and ultimately suffer and die for this proclamation. This is a problem for the clone theory.

Does this hypothesis best account for fact (4)? No, because James (the brother of Jesus) would be in a position to know about a supposed “Jesus clone” even more than the disciples. James was a skeptic who was not transformed and converted until after Jesus’ death on the cross. Our conclusions regarding James are arrived at because:

  1. The Gospels report that Jesus’ brothers, including James, were unbelievers during his ministry (Mark 3:21, 32; 6:3-4; John 7:5).
  2. The ancient creedal material in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 (that I listed in my first email), states: “Then He appeared to James.”
  3. Subsequent to the alleged event of Jesus’ resurrection, James is identified as a leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:12-21; Gal. 1:19).
  4. Not only did James convert to Christianity, his beliefs in Jesus and his resurrection were so strong that he died as a martyr because of them. (This is attested by both Christian sources and non-Christian, extra-Biblical sources).

Therefore, James would not only be in an outstanding position to know whether or not his brother had a clone, who was also the most loyal friend a guy could ever have, but his transformation from a skeptic to a martyr would be highly implausible.

The biggest problem for the ad hoc “Clone Hypothesis” comes when it is weighed against the accepted historical fact (5) of the Empty Tomb. If Jesus really did have a clone that was willing to give his life for the real Jesus, the tomb would not be empty. The tomb would still have the dead look-alike decaying inside. Even if the “real” Jesus was making appearances, the tomb would not be empty.

I must admit, the fact (5) is not accepted by all skeptical scholars or as many who affirm the other four facts; however, it is still accepted by most critical scholars (so I am in good company) when comparing it to the “Hobart Scenario” that I explained in my first email.

I think the “Clone Theory” is one of the best “what-if” natural hypotheses to explain the belief in the risen Jesus. However, it has many problems, it is implausible and extremely ad-hoc. Conversely, the hypothesis, “God raised Jesus from the dead,” explains every one of the five accepted facts. In fact, the only additional belief that one must hold to accept that hypothesis is a belief in God. As you know, I believe there are many good reasons based on philosophy and science (like the Kalam Cosmological Argument) to hold to a belief in theism.

For the theist, there are no additional beliefs that must be held to accept the hypothesis that “God raised Jesus from the dead” as the best explanation of the accepted historical facts.

What do you think, Justin?

Your friend,

Tim

Justin’s final objection

I have no arguments against your first four stated facts. But, when reading fact five; I got to thinking, it is possible for the dead “clone” to have been “thrown-out,” much like week-old bread, so it would have appeared that Jesus has risen from the dead [the tomb would be empty] and the wounds on his hands and feet could be superficial.

Admittedly, it has been a few years since I’ve read the bible. So, it is possible that there is a passage that contradicts my argument, and I don’t remember.

What do you think?

Tim’s final response

Thank you for your reply, Justin! I am so thankful for your participation in this conversation. You have pushed me think and do some additional research which has been extremely beneficial to me! I know that you are extremely busy, and I really appreciate you taking the time to have this dialogue with me.

The hypothesis you are offering is fun to entertain and contemplate. With that being said, I hope you see that since the first four stated facts I offered are best explained by the hypothesis, “God raised Jesus from the dead.” Therefore, even if the new “Clone Theory” you offer passes fact (5) of the empty tomb, the Resurrection hypothesis is still the most likely, and therefore, the best explanation as to what actually happened.

Remember, what I wrote earlier regarding the “Clone Hypothesis.” I said,  that I think the “Clone Theory” is one of the best “what-if” naturalistic hypotheses to explain the belief in the risen Jesus. However, it has many problems; namely, it is implausible and ad-hoc.

I don’t think adding these additional ingredients to the recipe makes this cake more believable. One must assume (without any historical supporting evidence) that Jesus had a doppelgänger. If that’s not enough, one must also assume that his close friends, followers, and family members did not know about this clone. Moreover, if that’s not enough, we must also assume that this clone was willing to die for a lie! People die for lies all the time, but they die for lies they think are true (like the Muslim terrorists on 9-11)! This clone would be sacrificing himself for a lie, which he knew was a lie! I cannot think of anybody in the history of mankind who was willing to do that!

On top of this already amazing scenario, this clone (that no one else was aware of) would also have to sneak in, and then trade places with Jesus, while Jesus skipped town for three days. After this, the perfect clone (which fooled all of Jesus’ friends, followers, and family members) was willingly tortured, scourged, crucified, and executed. AND THEN we must believe that the clone was buried in the tomb, but then, the clone’s body was discarded (which just so happened to work out perfectly for the real Jesus). This allowed Jesus to pierce his own hands, feet, and side (superficially), sneak back into town from hiding, just so he could come back to “punk” his friends, followers, and family!

Jesus also could only appear to his friends, followers, and family, because the authorities would have crucified him AGAIN if they caught him “appearing” to the hundreds of people that Paul reports. Speaking of Paul, he also had to appear to Paul, and take the chance that Paul would not have killed him with his own bare hands! He would have had to exist for the rest of his days in hiding or in disguise — kind of like Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie, “Catch Me If You Can.”

Doing all of this with the knowledge that this hoax would probably change the calendar, let alone the entire world, for at least the next couple thousand years.

I don’t even think the late Johnny Cochrane could sell this story to a jury in Hollywood! The principle of Occam’s razor states that the simplest explanation should always be preferred. The different clone hypotheses offered are not simple at all, in fact, they are extremely improbable, not to mention, ad hoc. As I mentioned before, the hypothesis, “God raised Jesus from the dead,” explains every one of the five accepted facts. In fact, the only additional belief that one must hold (to accept that hypothesis) is a belief in God. There are many good reasons based on philosophy and science to hold to a belief in theism.

So, for the theist, there are no additional beliefs that must be held to accept the hypothesis that “God raised Jesus from the dead” as the inference to the best explanation of the accepted historical facts.

Justin, I hope you see that the reason anyone rejects the resurrection of Jesus is not due to a lack of evidence (we have that), but rather, based on their presuppositions in naturalism (The blind faith that nature is all there is). The arguments I referenced above provide a strong case against naturalism, which effectively demonstrates that there is no problem with following the evidence leading to the resurrection. This evidence supports the proposition, “God raised Jesus from the dead!” Thus, we have good reason to place our faith in Christianity. You see, Christianity is a reasonable faith.

Justin, as far as my assignment goes, you have helped me complete it. I want to let you know that I am more than willing to continue our friendly and respectful conversation if you would like.  I hope this doesn’t offend you, but I am praying that you would come to know the Risen Jesus the way I do!

I am honored to have a true friend like you!

Sincerely,

Tim

Notes

Justin gave me permission to publish our dialogue! More importantly, Justin no longer opposes Christianity! Happy Easter!

 

(The FreeThinking Theist) Tim pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska-Kearney (B.A. 1997) and after working in full-time ministry for several years went on to attain his graduate degree from Biola University (M.A. 2014). Tim was recently accepted at North West University to pursue his Ph.D. in systematic theology with a focus on metaphysics.

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

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Jesus' Deity

3 Syllogistic Arguments For Jesus’ Deity

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By Evan Minton

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

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

SYLLOGISM ONE

1: Yahweh is the only Savior of mankind.

2: Jesus is the Savior of humankind

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

4: The Bible cannot contradict itself.

5: Therefore, Jesus is God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Defense of Premise 4: The Bible cannot contradict itself. 

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

SYLLOGISM TWO

1: Only God created the universe.

2: Jesus created the universe.

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

4: The Bible cannot contradict itself.

5: Therefore, Jesus is God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SYLLOGISM THREE

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

2: Jesus accepted worship.

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

4: Jesus was not a blasphemer.

5: Therefore, Jesus is Yahweh.

Defense of Premise 1: 

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

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

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

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

Defense Of Premise 2:

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

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

Defense Of Premise 3

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

Defense of Four: Jesus was not a blasphemer.

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

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

Five: Therefore, Jesus is Yahweh

Given the truth of the premises, the conclusion follows.

CONCLUSION

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

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

Notes

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

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

 

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real messiah

Is Jesus the Real Messiah? with Dr. Michael L. Brown

Podcast: Play in new window

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Dr. Michael Brown and Frank answer the following Jewish Objections to Jesus:

• Isn’t the Messiah supposed to build the third temple? Jesus didn’t do that.
• The Messiah is supposed to gather all the Jews back to the land of Israel and usher in peace. Jesus didn’t do that.
• Doesn’t the NT take OT prophecies out of context, like Isaiah 7:14?
• What do Jews say about a child being born whom will be Mighty God (Isa. 9:6)?
• Isn’t the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 Israel?

http://realmessiah.com/

 

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Christmas Conundrums

Resolving Christmas Conundrums

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By Evan Minton

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays and has been for as long as I’ve walked this Earth. As a kid, it was because I got a boatload of toys on Christmas morning that I got to play with as Mom and Dad prepared Christmas dinner for us and the rest of my family. As someone who is now a born-again Christian, my primary reason has shifted from getting gifts to praising God for taking on human flesh to begin His mission of redeeming fallen humanity. We all know the story: of how Gabriel appeared to Mary, told her she would become miraculously pregnant with Jesus, how Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem where Jesus would then be born, etc. However, those of us who witness to non-believers will encounter some objections about the reliability of the Christmas narrative.

It is the point of this blog post to wrestle with these challenges to the gospels’ reliability.

1: The Census 

Luke 2:1-3 says “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.” 

The Bible is clear that Jesus was born when Herod The Great was in power and when Quirinius was governor, but (A) Flavius Josephus says Herod died in A.D 4 and (B) secular history attests that Quirinius didn’t become governor until A.D 6?  Did The Bible get it wrong?

First of all, I think we should give Luke the benefit of the doubt. In The Book Of Acts In The Setting Of Hellenistic History, the classic scholar Dr. Collin J. Hemer shows that archeology proves that the book of Acts got it right in 84 incidental details. The first chapter of Luke and the first chapter of Acts both give us clues that these books are written by the same author (Luke), such as the fact that they’re both addressed to a man named Theophilus and in Acts, the writer alludes “to my former work” (Acts 1:1). This is one piece of internal evidence that Luke and Acts had the same author. Now, if Acts gets it right in 84 different places, then is it really reasonable to suspect that this same writer would be so sloppy in his previous work? In fact, the famed scholar and archeologist Sir William Ramsay once said: “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense…in short, this author should be placed along with the greatest of historians.”[1] Click here to read about some of the things Luke got right in both of his books.  

Secondly, there are proposed solutions which could resolve the issue. One proposed solution has been that there were two different men named Quirinius governing on two different occasions. That possibility isn’t entirely out of the question. After all, we’ve had more than one president whose first name is George. The two-Quirinius explanation would be analogous to George Bush’ presidency in the 90s and George W. Bush’ presidency in the 2000s.

Another proposal is that the Qurinius reigned on two different occasions. As Daryl E Witmer of ChristianAnswers.net explains: “There is good reason to believe that Quirinius was actually twice in a position of command (the Greek expression hegemoneuo in Luke 2:2 which is often translated ‘governor’ really just means ‘to be leading’ or ‘in charge of’) over the province of Syria, which included Judea as a political subdivision. The first time would have been when he was leading military action against the Homonadensians during the period between 12 and 2 B.C. His title may even have been ‘military governor.’ “[2]

Either of these proposals would solve the timing of Quirinius’ governorship. Either there were two governors by this name, or, as seems most likely, Quirinius was the governor on two separate occasions. This latter view is the one that archeologist William Ramsay endorsed.[3]

But what about the census itself? Was this really a practice that the Roman government did?

Here’s a quote from an official governmental order dated AD 104. Gaius Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt [says]:

“Seeing that the time has come for the house to house census, it is necessary to compel all those who for any cause whatsoever are residing out of their provinces to return to their own homes, that they may both carry out the regular order of the census and may also attend diligently to the cultivation of their allotments.”[4]

As you can see, that practice is confirmed by this document. And another papyrus from AD 48 implies that the entire family was involved in the census. Moreover, there have been scholars who argued that Romans were known to occasionally allow a census to be taken according to local customs in order to avoid ticking off the population.

According to ancient Semitic culture, what this means is that Mary and Joseph would have had to trek to the home of their ancestors.

2: The Christmas Star

In Matthew 2:2, the magi appear before King Herod and ask him where the baby Jesus is. They said“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” The Magi knew how to get to the town Jesus was born because a huge shining star in the sky acted like a celestial GPS system. This incident of the star that guided the magi has baffled historians and astronomers for years. What kind of event could this be? What astronomical phenomenon could have occurred in the universe to have caused a star to shine noticeably bright for the duration of the magis’ journey?

Some Christians have responded to this challenge by asking why it even has to be a literal star at all? Why can’t it just be a supernatural light caused by God? Or why couldn’t it be supernatural light given off by an angel? The problem is that the text specifically calls it a star, or at least some kind of celestial body in this universe. The Greek Word translated as “star” is aster, and according to Hugh Ross, this Greek word can indicate a number of different astronomical bodies, including a star, planet, comet, asteroid, or meteor. If we’re to read the plain meaning of scripture, we should probably conclude that this is a star, planet, meteor, or some other astronomical body rather than an angel or a miracle light. This would be to stick to the hermeneutical principle that The Bible should be interpreted literally unless good reasons can be given to take a term metaphorically.

The astrophysicist Hugh Ross once argued that the star was a recurring nova. He wrote “The brighter novae are rare enough that they could catch the attention of the Magi (who, it seems, were waiting for a sign), yet also dim enough to escape the notice of other observers. And, unlike supernovae, a few novae actually can erupt several times.”[5]

However, he himself said there was “a snag” in this explanation. He said that all the recurring novae that astronomers had observed had a recurrence rate of 10 years or even a century! Nevertheless, Dr. Ross said that believed it was possible for a nova to recur in less than two years. In 2014, new scientific evidence came to light to vindicate Ross. Ross wrote about these findings, saying “Astronomers observed nova M31N 2008-12a recurring within a period of only one year. Following this discovery, a team of four astronomers demonstrated that a certain kind of white dwarf star could exhibit recurring nova eruptions with a period as short as two months. Such a white dwarf star’s rotation rate would need to be close to zero and its mass would need to be 1.38 times the Sun’s mass. It also would need to be accreting mass from a companion star at a rate of 0.00000036 solar masses per year. The team also showed that a one-year nova eruption period requires a white dwarf with a mass = 1.30 solar masses and an accretion rate = 0.00000015 solar masses per year.”[6]

Dr. Ross says that this is a rare occurrence in the Milky Way Galaxy, but that nevertheless, these kinds of white dwarfs exist in a sufficient enough number to make the account of the star of Bethlehem credible.

3: Herod’s Slaughter Of Innocent Babies 

Matthew 2 records that King Herod sought to kill all of the babies in Bethlehem who were 2 years old or younger because he believed the prophecies in The Old Testament about the coming of the Messiah (the giant star talked about in the previous subheader being a sign that he had arrived). Historians and scholars of ancient history have doubted whether this incident ever really occurred. Why? Because the only place it’s recorded is in the gospel of Matthew. Surely a person of such prominence as King Herod committing an act as heinous as murdering all of Bethelem’s infants would have been talked about by more people than Matthew, right?. You would expect Josephus or Tacitus to have at least made a passing reference to this event, right?

What are we to do about this objection? Did King Herod’s genocide not occur? Did Matthew make the whole thing up? Lee Strobel brought this objection up in his interview with Archeologist John McCray in his book The Case For Christ. In that interview, McCray responds with the following:

“‘You have to put yourself back in the first century and keep a few things in mind. First, Bethlehem was probably no bigger than Nazareth, so how many babies of that age would there be in a village of five hundred or six hundred people? Not thousands, not hundreds, although certainly a few. ‘Second, Herod the Great was a bloodthirsty king: he killed members of his own family; he executed lots of people who he thought might challenge him. So the fact that he killed some babies in Bethlehem is not going to captivate the attention of people in the Roman world. And third, there was no television, no radio, no newspapers. It would have taken a long time for word of this to get out, especially from such a minor village way in the back hills of nowhere, and historians had much bigger stories to write about.”[7]

So, in other words, Bethelem was extremely tiny so the slaughter wouldn’t have been a major holocaust. Secondly, Herod was known for heinous acts (see the writings of Josephus), and thirdly, it would have taken a long time for this to have circulated. Given the second point, it wouldn’t have probably been of much interest to people outside of Bethelem.

I would add to McRay’s points by pointing out that much of ancient writings have been lost in the sands of time, decayed away. Sometimes portions of these writings survive as citations in other works, such as Thallus’ mention of the darkness at Jesus’ crucifixion quoted in a work by Julius Africanus which was itself quoted by a historian named George Syncellus[8]. Both Thallus’ and Africanus’ works are lost, but both partially survive in Syncellus’ work. That’s one way we know that they didn’t survive; because historians see these authors quoted yet the quoted works are nowhere to be found. So, it may be the case that some other historians did make mention of it, but their works either haven’t been found yet or none of the manuscripts survived to the present day. We just don’t know.

Conclusion 

Archeology and astronomy have helped to shed light on these Christmas Conundrums. We have reason to believe that Matthew and Luke accurately recorded the story of Jesus’ birth.

Notes 

[1] Sir William M. Ramsey, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, Hodder & Stoughton, 1915.

[2] Daryl E. Witmer, “When Did The Luke 2 Census Occur?”, https://christiananswers.net/q-aiia/census-luke2.html 

[3] John McRay, Archaeology and the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 155, emphasis added.

[4] William Mitchell Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament (London: Forgotten Books, 2012, reprint of 1909 edition), 277.

[5] Hugh Ross, “Astronomy Sheds New Light On The Christmas Star”, December 1, 2014, http://reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/tnrtb/2014/12/01/astronomy-sheds-new-light-on-the-christmas-star 

[6] Ibid.

[7] Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee. Case for Christ Movie Edition: Solving the Biggest Mystery of All Time (Case for … Series) (Kindle Locations 2256-2263). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[8] George Syncellus, quoting Julius Africanus, “History Of The World, Book 3”.

 

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Who Is Jesus, According to Other Religions?

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People trying to discover the truth about God would be wise to take a hard look at Jesus before looking anywhere else. While that may sound like a bold assertion in and of itself, it really isn’t when you consider Jesus is the one religious leader who is most frequently mentioned by religious groups, whether or not they happen to be Christian. Every major religious movement considers Jesus to be an important religious figure. Every movement makes some effort to account for His existence and teaching. This ought to give seekers a reason to pause and consider the life of Jesus seriously.

Judaism
While we recognize Judaism pre-existed (and gave birth to) Christianity, Judaism has also had over two-thousand years to consider and respond to the claims of Christ. Much has been written about Jesus from a Jewish perspective, most interestingly by those early Jews who described Jesus in the centuries immediately following His life. Ancient Jewish believers (as recorded by the Talmud and the Toledot Yeshu) described Jesus in the following way:

READ MORE

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Cup Jesus Father Take Away

What Is The Cup That Jesus Asked The Father To Take Away?

By Evan Minton

“Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you will not fall into temptation.’  He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” – Luke 22:39-44

This passage records the events preceding Jesus’ trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. As anyone would be the night before facing a death sentence in which one is executed via long, drawn-out torture, Jesus was experiencing severe anxiety. The second person of The Trinity spent fervent prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane talking to the first person (i.e The Father). He asks if it is possible to remove the cup from Him, but that he doesn’t want His will to be done, but The Father’s.

Whatchu Talkin about Yeshu?
This one sentence out of the whole narrative raises questions in the minds of anyone who reads The Bible; Christian and non-Christian alike. Why did Jesus say “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done?” The usual explanation from apologists and preachers is that Jesus was asking for The Father to not allow Him to be crucified. Basically, Jesus was saying “Look, this is going to be extremely unpleasant. I don’t want to go through with this. If there’s any other way to save humanity from their sins, let’s do that thing instead. Yet, I want to what you want to do, not what I want to do.” Additionally, it is argued that this is an instance of Jesus’ human nature taking over. God cannot get hungry, thirsty, tired, or scared in His divine nature, but given that He took on human nature (John 1:14, Philippians 2:5-8), He can experience these things in His human nature. Jesus was willing to go to the cross, no doubt, but in this passage, He was just checking with The Father to see if there was a slightly more pleasant alternative to saving mankind.

These explanations never really set right with me, but I didn’t really know of any alternatives on the table. Why is the above explanation untenable

Why Are The Above Explanations Not Tenable?
There are three problems with the usual interpretation of the “Take This Cup From Me” passage.

First of all, if Jesus was actually asking for The Father to not allow Him to be crucified, it would mean that Jesus’ will is in contradiction to The Father’s will. If Jesus and The Father are both members of The Godhead, we would have God contradicting God. Moreover, it is a sin, by definition, to desire the opposite of what God desires. If Jesus desired the opposite of what The Father desired, then Jesus would be in sin. Yet, The Bible tells us “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet he did not sin.”(Hebrews 4:15). Secondly, Jesus said that anything He asks The Father to do, The Father will do it (John 11:41-42). If Jesus was asking The Father to not let Him be crucified, there would be no atonement. Thirdly, Jesus knew all along that He was going to die and He knew why. In fact, He predicted it many times (e.g. Matthew 17:22). Fourthly, Jesus said that He lays His life down of His own accord, that He has the authority to lay it down and take it up again (John 10:18), so Jesus wasn’t forced to die against His will by anyone. He didn’t have to ask anyone “Don’t let this happen,” not even the Father.

So, What Did Jesus Actually Mean?
Recently, as you know, I attended The National Conference On Christian Apologetics in Charlotte North Carolina, staying at Jorge Gil’s house during the duration of the conference. After the second and final day of the conference, we went to an Applebees for dinner with some of Jorge’s friends. One of his friends who was pursuing a doctorate of divinity and currently holds a master brought up this question at the table and asked what we all thought about it. I had no clue. This part of The Bible had been a giant question mark for me for a long time.

After explaining the problems with the usual explanation of this passage, he then gave his own commentary on the issue, which I found much more intellectually satisfying. First, keep in mind that the specific account we’re examining is written by a doctor: Luke. Jorge’s friend pointed out that in the context of Luke’s account in which Jesus prays this prayer, he sweats drops of blood. This is a condition known in the medical literature as Hematidrosis. Hematidrosis occurs when someone is under such extreme stress and anxiety that their capillaries rupture and blood gets into the sweat glands. I knew about hematidrosis, but what I didn’t know is that it can be much more serious than a little bit of blood getting into the sweat. If the rupturing of the capillaries is severe enough, it can result in death by internal bleeding.

So, “This cup” that Jesus was asking The Father to take from Him could very well have been the death-by-internal-bleeding resulting from Jesus’ hematidrosis. When something is going on inside of your body, and it’s about to cause you to die, we sometimes know about it in advance. Not always, but a great deal of the time (e.g. heart attacks). Jesus probably knew He might die right there in the Garden of Gethsemane and not even make it to the cross, and therefore there’d be no atonement. He was asking The Father not to let that happen. Jesus was essentially saying “Father, don’t let me die right here in this garden. I need to die on the cross. Yet, I know that whatever your plan is, it’s right, and it’s my desire to do that.”

This interpretation is strengthened by the verse that says that an angel came and ministered to Him. In the Greek, this is a medical term. Its used in contexts of when doctors administer first aid or surgery to heal a sick or injured patient. So, basically what this implies is that the angel cured Jesus from the condition that would have lead to His premature death.

Jesus trusted that The Father could bring Him back from the dead even if it was His will that he experiences a pre-crucifixion death, much like how Abraham trusted that God would bring Isaac back if it was His will that he sacrifice Isaac on the alter (see Hebrew 11:19). This is an important lesson for us to: trust in God and submit to His will. He knows what He’s doing.

Conclusion
The explanation I just gave you is the one he gave. When I heard it, I was blown away! Now, Jesus’ prayer made perfect sense! When I got back to Jorge’s house, I jotted it down on 2 pages of notebook paper so that it wouldn’t leave my memory. I just had to blog about this. I never expected to learn something new post-conference. I thought it would be at the conference itself.

 

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

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Christ Death Sacrifice

Was Christ’s Death A Sacrifice?

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By Al Serrato

The blood-curdling scream signaled that she had not yet given up. Hours of pushing and the baby had still not descended. The OB was weighing her options, while dad wiped mom’s forehead and encouraged her on. She screamed again, pushing and puffing and praying that this agony might soon draw to a close. The pain was so… intense, so utterly mind-numbing that she wondered, for the thousandth time, why she had wanted to have another child…

This is a scene that plays out day after day in hospitals all over the world – women experiencing extreme pain as they do their part to bring new life to – and into – the world. But what does this have to do with Christian apologetics?

Recently, I corresponded with a skeptic who posed some interesting questions about the Christian faith. She began by arguing that if indeed Christ rose from the dead, this would have been no sacrifice on his part, but a bargain, as he traded a normal body for a perfect one.

This, I responded, misses the point of what Jesus did: because his body was human, he experienced the pain and suffering that the crucifixion brought with it, in the way that any flesh and blood human would. There are many things that may result in the eventual gain that is exceedingly painful. You wouldn’t tell a mother who is about to deliver that her “sacrifice” and pain are any less real because she will be getting a healthy child “in return.” The mother’s suffering doesn’t “cause” the child to be born; it simply accompanies it, a feature as it were of the nature of things. But willingly enduring pain or suffering, in the service of others, is worthy of recognition and praise. What she endures still constitutes a sacrifice for her, even if she too gains in the process.

So too for Christ: though something better was in store, it nonetheless was a sacrifice for him to go through the steps necessary to complete his “substitutionary atonement.” And it wasn’t the pain that brought salvation; like the child birth referred to above, pain isn’t the point of the process; it is simply, and sadly, a byproduct of it.

Christianity does not teach that Christ’s suffering “caused” our salvation as if he needed to satisfy the whims of some sadist. The mistake implicit in the challenge is the assumption that God is some kind of monster, who measured the pain Jesus suffered until it reached some point where he was finally satisfied. No, it was not Jesus’ experience of agony that God was measuring. It was, instead, Jesus’ perfect life, while a man, that put him in a position to accept in our stead what we in fact deserved. Many people have suffered similar, or even worse, deaths, but they could not take on for others what they themselves deserved based on their own conduct. Since sin is something that we all do, and since sin results in separation from God, then a sinless man would be the only kind of man who could take, on our behalf, the consequences that we merited. This is why Jesus made a point of saying that no one took his life; he did what he did voluntarily, which is the only way it would, or could, have been accepted.

Had he been a sinner himself, this “sacrifice” would have been of no avail, as he would have had his own debt to pay. Had he been simply another man, chosen at random to be the scapegoat for God’s wrath, a colossal act of unfairness would have resulted. But God took the punishment upon himself. Since God the Father and God the Son are “consubstantial” – of the same essence – God’s infinite wrath is absorbed and balance by an infinite and all-powerful being.

Skeptics often claim that perfect justice and perfect mercy cannot coexist; one or the other must give way. But hasn’t God done just that? Has he not balanced perfect justice and perfect mercy through his perfect love – satisfied for eternity within the persons of the Godhead? Those who accept God’s gift receive forgiveness through Christ, while those who die in rebellion receive the just consequence of their choice.

In dying for our sins, Jesus did more than “sacrifice.” He demonstrated the sublime elegance that can solve even apparently insoluble problems, and open for us a path back to the Father.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2zbCw1v

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One Right Religion

Can There Be One Right Religion?

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Recently I was in a conversation with a friend, and he asked how I could say that Jesus is the only way. I simply responded, “I’m not saying it. Jesus said it. Take it up with him.”

He certainly didn’t expect that response. And I didn’t mean to be rude or abrupt. My point was that Jesus was the one who first made the claim, and he has the credentials to back it up. If Jesus is really divine, then he has more credentials to speak on eternal life than anyone. He is the only virgin-born, miracle-working, sinless, resurrected Son of God! You may not like the idea of Jesus being the only way (and there being one right religion), but if he truly is the Son of God and said he was the only way to salvation—can you afford to ignore his claim?

It would be nice if everybody could be right, but as a simple reason and basic common sense tell us, all religions cannot be true in their core beliefs. By its very nature, the truth is exclusive. If 1 + 1 = 2, then it doesn’t equal 3, 4, 5, and every other number. While all religions could possibly be wrong, it is not logically possible for all of them to be right when their claims differ so radically. Either they are all wrong, or only one is right.

The chart below shows that all religions, even by their own claims, differ from one another substantively, having their own specific ideas of who God is (or is not) and how salvation may be attained.

Religion Beliefs about God Beliefs about Salvation Beliefs about other Religions
Buddhism No God Enlightenment False
Hinduism Many Gods Reincarnation All True
Islam Unitarian (Allah) The Five Pillars False
Judaism Unitarian (YHWH) The Law False
Christianity Trinitarian (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) Grace False

Many criticize Christianity for its exclusivity, but Christians are not the only group claiming to have the truth. Notice in the chart above that four of the five religions claims exclusivity. They believe that all other religions are false. Hindus often do not claim exclusivity. In fact, many are happy to say that Christianity is true. But the key is what they mean by it. Hindus believe all religions are true when they are subsumed within the Hindu system. In other words, according to Hinduism, Christianity is one medium by which people can experience reincarnation.

But what Hindus don’t mean is that Christianity is true on its own terms. So, like adherents of all other religions, Hindus actually believe Christianity is false, thereby joining every other religious group (including atheists and agnostics) in the belief that only their own worldview is true.

And yet, in another sense, Christianity is not exclusive at all but is the most inclusive religion. Christ invites all unto himself. Christianity excludes no one who will believe, even though Christ himself offers the only way to be reconciled with God.

If Jesus rose from the dead, then Christianity is the one right religion. If Jesus did not rise, then Christianity is false, and possibly some other religion is true (see 1 Cor. 15:14-17).

This is why the resurrection of Jesus is the most important historical event for consideration. If you haven’t examined the evidence yet, such as my father and I lay out in the updated Evidence that Demands a Verdict, now may be the time.

 

Sean McDowell, Ph.D. is a professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, best-selling author, popular speaker, part-time high school teacher, and the Resident Scholar for Summit Ministries, California. Follow him on Twitter: @sean_mcdowell and his blog: seanmcdowell.org.

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Know Bible

Why We Should Get To Know the Bible

By Al Serrato

Is there a way to use the Bible to get someone interested in knowing more about the Bible? I’ve thought about this question for many years. As I learned more about the Word, and spoke more with people who called themselves Christian but knew little or nothing about what the Bible teaches, I wondered about the best approach to take. Here, in a nutshell, is one possible approach to make the case for studying the Bible from the Bible.

Most people who call themselves Christian will acknowledge that the Bible is the inspired word of God. What this means to them varies. Usually, they will insist that the Bible is not literal, leaving them free to add meaning as they choose, and to ignore passages that are difficult. But why do such people seem to have no interest in ever learning Scripture? After all, even if the Bible is not literal, it must mean something. Why think of it as “inspired” if its wisdom is largely ignored? There are many possible answers to this question, but the most likely seems to be that they don’t see the need to do the hard work of learning not just what the Bible says, but also its history and context.

So, I sometimes begin by asking such a person whom Jesus might have been referring to in Matthew 7:21-22, where He warned about false prophets and added that not all who “prophesied,” “cast out demons” and “performed miracles” in His name will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Instead, it is “he who does the will of My Father.” In John 8:12, Jesus calls himself the light of the world; “he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.” And then in verses 31-32: “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Finally in 1 John 2:3-6: “By this, we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

It seems pretty obvious that the Bible teaches – including the words of Jesus Himself – that there are those who know of Him, who may even invoke His name, who He will not recognize because they have not in truth followed Him. But if invoking His name, or calling oneself a believer, is not enough, what then must one do to follow Him? Scripture provides the answer: we must love God not just with our heart and soul and strength, but also with our mind. (Mark 12:30) We must study and know the Word of God. How else can we be “salt and light” to a fallen world (Matt. 5:13) or represent Christ as His ambassadors (2 Corinth. 5:17)?

The Bible tells us that we should “not be conformed to this world” but instead be “transformed” by the renewal of our minds, that by testing we can discern what is the will of God, “what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2). We must “abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good” (Rom. 12:9). God intends the Scripture to be this source of the knowledge of good, as it is “inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

In studying the Word, we are to “be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). Writing to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul thanked God that when they received the word of God which they heard from him, they “accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” (1 Thess. 2:13). And to Timothy, Paul urges him “retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me” and to “guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.” (2 Tim 5:13-14).

In short, as the Apostle Peter wrote, we are to always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, doing so with gentleness and reverence. (1 Peter 3:15) It takes knowledge, and thoughtfulness, to do this. Studying and knowing the Bible is, necessarily, the first step.

Changing someone’s view of the importance of Scripture is easier said than done. This approach may be a start, but there are no doubt many other, and better, ones. If you’ve had some success in this endeavor, please take a moment to write to me at Al@pleaseconvinceme.com with the approach you took.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2zy0tUw

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Christianity Service Teaching

What Christianity Teaches About Service

By Al Serrato

I attended an awards assembly recently with my teenage son. He had written an essay on the value of military service, so the speeches and theme this night had to do with the traditions of service. And though this assembly was conducted at a Christian school, none of the comments made addressed the question of why people are willing to sacrifice in service to another. As I sat listening, a comment I had heard many years ago occurred to me: we are living on the fumes of past generations. Especially in the United States, many of us are living out the finest traditions of service, but few seem to remember what the generations that came before us – especially that first group of Patriots that set this great experiment in ordered liberty into motion – knew. Not only do our freedoms derive from the God that created us, but the idea of “service” makes the most sense within the context of a Christian worldview. Their vision of the benefits of service lingers with us, but many seem to be forgetting the reason – the value – behind service.

Consider: many people draw satisfaction and a sense of purpose from serving others. They may never wonder why this is so, but simply recognize the satisfaction it allows them to feel. Others seek out and enjoy – whether secretly or not – the recognition that service to others may entail. However worthy their efforts, they are being done not exclusively for the benefit of the other, but also for the benefit of the doer. This may seem an unfair criticism, especially when one considers that a growing number of people seem to have no interest in serving others, regardless of motivation. But this comment is an observation, not a judgment. It is simply the case that in serving others, we usually obtain some level of reward, whether purely psychological or not.

If, then, these efforts are but an approximation of something else – some purer sense of service that we approximate but never quite reach – just what is that something else? In the Christian tradition, it is referred to by the label agape love: the love of the other for the sake of love. It is a love freely given, a love that seeks no reward. In its highest forms, it manifests in acts of great self-sacrifice, such as when a person lays down his life for the safety of – for the sake of – the other.

And where do we learn about the value of such love? Where does such love find its grounding? Certainly not in the world of Darwinian evolution, a world characterized by random selection and the “survival of the fittest.” No, it is from Jesus’ own lips that we hear these stirring, yet challenging and troubling, words:

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12-13)

Consider also the Christian command to love one’s enemies:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matt. 5:43-45)

Finally, what example does Jesus give during his last hours on Earth? He could not have made the point clearer, as he washed the feet of his disciples, an act of profound humility and love (John 13).

The apostle John said that all things that have ever come into being have come through the Logos, the son of God. (John 1) So perhaps it is to be expected that we, the image-bearers of God, would have within us the seed of such great love. Perhaps there will always be something tugging at us, that God-shaped whole in our heart that draws us out of ourselves and toward others in acts of loving service. That draws us ultimately back to the One who created us.

But to an increasingly secular world that has forgotten its roots, the debt owed to Christianity for improving our world is worth noting. From the hospitals and other institutions that bear the names of Christian saints to the great universities that were founded to train up new generations to bring the message of Christianity to a fallen world; from the many people of faith who have fallen in the service of this great country to those faithful still among us serving unnoticed wherever there is need – we owe indeed a great debt of gratitude for a faith that inspired such selfless love.

Vigilance is said to be the price of freedom. But that vigilance cannot be directed solely outside the gates. We must look inward and return our hearts and our minds to faith in the One who emptied himself to become one of us and who took on our sins to restore us to right relationship with God.

And showed us the true meaning and value of service in the process.

Notes

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

 

 

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