Tag Archive for: Minimal Facts approach to the Resurrection

By Wintery Knight

Have you ever heard Gary Habermas, Michael Licona or William Lane Craig defend the resurrection of Jesus in a debate by saying that the resurrection is the best explanation for the “minimal facts” about Jesus? The lists of minimal facts that they use are typically agreed to by their opponents during the debates. Minimal facts are the parts of the New Testament that meet a set of strict historical criteria. These are the facts that skeptical historians agree with, totally apart from any religious beliefs.

So what are the criteria that skeptical historians use to derive a list of minimal facts about Jesus?

Dr. Craig explains them in this article.

Excerpt:

The other way, more influential in contemporary New Testament scholarship, is to establish specific facts about Jesus without assuming the general reliability of the Gospels. The key here are the so-called “Criteria of Authenticity” which enable us to establish specific sayings or events in Jesus’ life as historical. Scholars involved in the quest of the historical Jesus have enunciated a number of these criteria for detecting historically authentic features of Jesus, such as dissimilarity to Christian teaching, multiple attestations, linguistic Semitisms, traces of Palestinian milieu, retention of embarrassing material, coherence with other authentic material, and so forth.

It is somewhat misleading to call these “criteria,” for they aim at stating sufficient, not necessary, conditions of historicity. This is easy to see: suppose a saying is multiply attested and dissimilar but not embarrassing. If embarrassment were a necessary condition of authenticity, then the saying would have to be deemed inauthentic, which is wrong-headed, since its multiple attestation and dissimilarity are sufficient for authenticity. Of course, the criteria are defeasible, meaning that they are not infallible guides to authenticity. They might be better called “Indications of Authenticity” or “Signs of Credibility.”

In point of fact, what the criteria really amount to are statements about the effect of certain types of evidence upon the probability of various sayings or events in Jesus’ life. For some saying or event S and evidence of a certain type E, the criteria would state that all things being equal, the probability of S given E is greater than the probability of S on our background knowledge alone. So, for example, all else being equal, the probability of some event or saying is greater given its multiple attestations than it would have been without it.

What are some of the factors that might serve the role of E in increasing the probability of some saying or event S? The following are some of the most important:

(1) Historical congruence: S fits in with known historical facts concerning the context in which S is said to have occurred.

(2) Independent, early attestation: S appears in multiple sources which are near to the time at which S is alleged to have occurred and which depend neither upon each other nor a common source.

(3) Embarrassment: S is awkward or counter-productive for the persons who serve as the source of information for S.

(4) Dissimilarity: S is unlike antecedent Jewish thought-forms and/or unlike subsequent Christian thought-forms.

(5) Semitisms: traces in the narrative of Aramaic or Hebrew linguistic forms.

(6) Coherence: S is consistent with already established facts about Jesus.

For a good discussion of these factors see Robert Stein, “The ‘Criteria’ for Authenticity,” in Gospel Perspectives I, ed. R. T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1980), pp. 225-63.

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

And you can see Dr. Craig using these criteria to defend minimal facts in his debates. For example, in his debate with Ehrman, he alludes to the criteria when making his case for the empty tomb.

Here, he uses multiple attestations and the criteria of embarrassment:

Among the reasons which have led most scholars to this conclusion are the following:

  1. The empty tomb is also multiply attested by independent, early sources.

Mark’s source didn’t end with the burial, but with the story of the empty tomb, which is tied to the burial story verbally and grammatically. Moreover, Matthew and John have independent sources about the empty tomb; it’s also mentioned in the sermons in the Acts of the Apostles (2.29; 13.36); and it’s implied by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church (I Cor. 15.4). Thus, we have again multiple, early, independent attestation of the fact of the empty tomb.

  1. The tomb was discovered empty by women.

In patriarchal Jewish society, the testimony of women was not highly regarded. In fact, the Jewish historian Josephus says that women weren’t even permitted to serve as witnesses in a Jewish court of law. Now in light of this fact, how remarkable it is that it is women who are the discoverers of Jesus’ empty tomb. Any later legendary account would certainly have made male disciples like Peter and John discover the empty tomb. The fact that it is women, rather than men, who are the discoverers of the empty tomb is best explained by the fact that they were the chief witnesses to the fact of the empty tomb, and the Gospel writers faithfully record what, for them, was an awkward and embarrassing fact.

There are actually a few more reasons for believing in the empty tomb that he doesn’t go into in the debate, but you can find them in his written work. For example, in his essay on Gerd Ludemann’s “vision” hypothesis. That essay covers the reasons for all four of his minimal facts.

So, if you are going to talk about the resurrection with a skeptic, you don’t want to invoke the Bible as some sort of inerrant/inspired Holy Book.

Try this approach instead:

  1. Explain the criteria that historians use to get their lists of minimal facts
  2. Explain your list of minimal facts
  3. Defend your list of minimal facts using the criteria
  4. Cite skeptics who admit to each of your minimal facts, to show that they are widely accepted
  5. List some parts of the Bible that don’t pass the criteria (e.g. – guard at the tomb, Matthew earthquake)
  6. Explain why those parts don’t pass the criteria and explain that they are not part of your case
  7. Challenge your opponent to either deny some or all the facts or propose a naturalistic alternative that explains the facts better than the resurrection
  8. Don’t let your opponent attack any of your minimal facts by attacking other parts of the Bible (e.g. – the number of angels being one or two, etc.)

And remember that there is no good case for the resurrection that does not make heavy use of the early creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8.

The best essay on the minimal facts criteria that I’ve read is the one by Robert H. Stein in “Contending with Christianity’s Critics“. It’s a good short essay that goes over all the historical criteria that are used to derive the short list of facts from which we infer the conclusion “God raised Jesus from the dead”. That whole book is really very, very good.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Tfx7jC

by Evan Minton 

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

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

A Message To The Non-Christian Reader

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

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

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

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

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

A Message To The Christian Reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us be salt and light in this skeptical era.

Notes

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

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

 


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

By Aaron Brake

“The evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It’s outstandingly different in quality and quantity.”

—Antony Flew—

INTRODUCTION

The truth of Christianity stands or falls on the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Paul himself said, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”[1] Here the Apostle provides an objective criterion by which to judge the legitimacy of the Christian worldview. Show that Christ has not been raised from the dead and you will have successfully proven Christianity false. Conversely, if Jesus did rise from the dead, then His life and teachings are vindicated. The Christian faith, as it turns out, is falsifiable. It is the only religion which bases its faith on an empirically verifiable event.[2]

Christ Himself testified that His resurrection is the sign given to the world as evidence for His extraordinary claims: “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”[3] Furthermore, the resurrection was the central message proclaimed by the early church as most clearly demonstrated in the book of Acts.[4] Therefore, it is entirely appropriate that an objective examination of Christianity focus on the most pivotal historical event of the faith: the Resurrection.

THE MINIMAL FACTS APPROACH

The approach I will take in this paper is commonly referred to as the “minimal facts approach.” This method “considers only those data that are so strongly attested historically that they are granted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones.”[5] It should be noted this approach does not assume the inerrancy or divine inspiration of any New Testament document. Rather it merely holds these writings to be historical documents penned during the first century AD.[6]

Though as many as 12 minimal facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Christ may be examined,[7] the brevity of this paper limits our examination to four: the death of Jesus by crucifixion, the empty tomb,[8] the post-resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith. I contend that the best explanation for these minimal facts is that Jesus was raised bodily from the grave.

Finally, if these facts “can be established and no plausible natural explanation can account for them as well as the resurrection hypothesis, then one is justified in inferring Jesus’ resurrection as the most plausible explanation of the data.”[9]

A MATTER OF HISTORY

Before looking at the facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is important to identify a set of objective criteria by which the validity of historical events may be judged. In other words, what criteria may be used to establish the occurrence of an event with reasonable historical certainty? New Testament scholars Gary Habermas and Michael Licona list the following five criteria noting that “a historian who is able to apply one or more of the following principles to a text can conclude with much greater confidence whether a certain event occurred.”[10]

  1. Historical claims are strong when supported by multiple, independent sources.
  2. Historical claims which are also attested to by enemies are more likely to be authentic since enemies are unsympathetic, and often hostile, witnesses.
  3. Historical claims which include embarrassing admissions reflect honest reporting rather than creative storytelling.
  4. Historical claims are strong when supported by eyewitness testimony.
  5. Historical claims which are supported by early testimony are more reliable and less likely to be the result of legendary development.[11]

Therefore, when inquiring into a historical event “the historian combs through the data, considers all the possibilities, and seeks to determine which scenario best explains the data.”[12]

Some skeptics argue that the resurrection of Jesus cannot be investigated historically. But this is mistaken. The facts surrounding the resurrection are of a historical nature and available for anyone to examine. Consequently, “the meaning of the resurrection is a theological matter, but the fact of the resurrection is a historical matter.”[13] Thus either the bodily resurrection of Jesus actually occurred in history, or it did not. Either the resurrection is the best explanation for the known historical data, or it is not. Regardless, what we cannot do is simply dismiss it as “supernatural” or “miraculous” in an attempt to remove it from the pool of live options a priori. Moreover, we need to be careful not to confuse “the evidence for the resurrection with the best explanation of the evidence. The resurrection of Jesus is a miraculous explanation of the evidence. But the evidence itself is not miraculous. None of these four facts is any way supernatural or inaccessible to the historian.”[14] So although the resurrection may be classified as a “miraculous event,” it is a historical event nonetheless and should be investigated as such. John Warwick Montgomery provides helpful insight:

The only way we can know whether an event can occur is to see whether, in fact, it has occurred. The problem of “miracles,” then, must be solved in the realm of historical investigation, not in the realm of philosophical speculation. And note that a historian, in facing an alleged “miracle,” is really facing nothing new. All historical events are unique, and the test of their factual character can be only the accepted documentary approach that we have followed here. No historian has the right to a closed system of natural causation….”[15]

Therefore, whether or not Jesus rose from the dead is really quite straightforward: “If Jesus was dead at point A, and alive again at point B, then resurrection has occurred: res ipsa loquitur.[16]

FACT #1—THE DEATH OF JESUS BY CRUCIFIXION

Perhaps no other fact surrounding the life of the historical Jesus is better attested to than His death by crucifixion. Not only is the crucifixion account included in every gospel narrative[17] but it is also confirmed by several non-Christian sources. These include the Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historian Tacitus, the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata, as well as the Jewish Talmud.[18] Josephus tells us that “Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us…condemned him to the cross…”[19] From a perspective of historiography, Jesus’ crucifixion meets the historical criteria of multiple, independent and early eyewitness sources including enemy attestation. John Dominic Crossan, non-Christian critical scholar and co-founder of the Jesus Seminar, states, “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”[20]

Objection #1: Jesus Didn’t Really Die (The Swoon Theory)

Some skeptics argue that Jesus may have been crucified, but He did not actually die. Instead, He lost consciousness (swooned) and merely appeared to be dead only to later be revived in the cool, damp tomb in which He was laid. After reviving He made His way out of the tomb and presented Himself to His disciples as the “resurrected” Messiah. Thus the Christian religion begins. This theory is problematic for several reasons.

First, the Swoon Theory does not take seriously what we know about the horrendous scourging and torture associated with crucifixion. As an expert team from the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes, “Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.”[21]

Second, Jesus faking His own resurrection goes against everything we know about His ethical ministry.

Third, a half-dead, half-resurrected “messiah” could hardly serve as the foundation for the disciples’ belief in the resurrection. German theologian David Friedrich Strauss explains:

It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulcher, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror of death and the grave, the Prince of Life, an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression which He had made upon them in life and death, at the most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship.[22]

Fourth, this theory is anachronistic in postulating that the disciples, upon seeing Jesus in his half-comatose state, would be led to conclude that He had been raised from the dead within history, in opposition to the Jewish belief in one final resurrection at the end of time. On the contrary, seeing Him again would lead them to conclude He didn’t die![23]

Fifth, Roman soldiers were professional executioners, and everything we know about the torture and crucifixion of Jesus confirms His death, making this theory physically impossible.

Sixth, no early evidence or testimony exists claiming Jesus was merely wounded.

Finally, this theory cannot account for the conversion of skeptics like Paul who also testified to having seen the risen Lord and willing suffered and died for his belief in the resurrection.

FACT #2—THE EMPTY TOMB

Something happened to the body of Jesus. Of this, we can be sure. Not only was Jesus publicly executed in Jerusalem but “His post-mortem appearances and empty tomb were first publicly proclaimed there.”[24] This would have been impossible with a decaying corpse still in the tomb. “It would have been wholly un-Jewish,” notes William Lane Craig, “not to say foolish, to believe that a man was raised from the dead when his body was still in the grave.”[25] The Jewish authorities had plenty of motivation to produce a body and silence these men who “turned the world upside down,”[26] effectively ending the Christian religion for good. But no one could. The only early opposing theory recorded by the enemies of Christianity is that the disciples stole the body.[27] Ironically, this presupposes the empty tomb.

In addition, all four gospel narratives attest to the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea and place women as the primary witnesses to the empty tomb.[28] Both of these are highly unlikely to be Christian inventions.

First, with regard to Joseph of Arimathea, Biblical scholar James G. D. Dunn explains that he

is a very plausible historical character: he is attested in all four Gospels… and in the Gospel of Peter…; when the tendency of the tradition was to shift blame to the Jewish council, the creation ex nihilo of a sympathizer from among their number would be surprising; and ‘Arimathea, ‘a town very difficult to identify and reminiscent of no scriptural symbolism, makes a thesis of invention even more implausible.’[29]

Atheist Jeffery Lowder agrees that “the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea has a high final probability.”[30]

Second, just as unlikely to be invented is the report of women followers discovering the empty tomb, especially when considering the low social status of women in both Jewish and Roman cultures and their inability to testify as for legal witnesses.[31] If the empty tomb account were a fabricated story intended to persuade skeptics it would have been better served by including male disciples as the primary witnesses. In other words, both the burial and empty tomb accounts demonstrate a ring of authenticity which lends credibility to the gospel narratives.

As with the crucifixion, the account of the empty tomb meets the historical criteria of multiple, independent and early eyewitness sources,[32] including implicit enemy attestation as well as the principle of embarrassment. In addition, the reports of the burial and empty tomb are simple and lack theological or legendary development.

Finally, there is no competing burial story in existence. Historian and skeptic Michael Grant concede that “the historian… cannot justifiably deny the empty tomb” since applied historical criteria show “the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was indeed found empty.”[33]

Objection #2: The Disciples Stole the Body (The Fraud or Conspiracy Theory)

As mentioned above, the earliest recorded polemic against the empty tomb is the charge by Jewish authorities that the disciples stole the body. This is commonly referred to as the Fraud or Conspiracy Theory. This scenario posits that Jesus’ followers stole the body away unbeknownst to anyone and lied about the resurrection appearances, pulling off what has thus far been the greatest hoax in human history. There are several problems with this view.

First, this theory does not explain well the simplicity of the resurrection narratives nor why the disciples would invent women as the primary witnesses to the empty tomb.[34] This is hardly the way one gets a conspiracy theory off the ground.

Second, this also doesn’t explain why the disciples would perpetuate a story that they stole the body (Matt. 28:11-15) if, in fact, they stole the body! Propagating an explanation which incriminates oneself is again at odds with a conspiracy theory.

Third, as will be discussed below, this theory does not account for the fact that the disciples of Jesus had genuine experiences in which they believed they saw the risen Christ. So convinced were these men that their lives were transformed into committed followers willing to suffer and die for their belief. Liars make poor martyrs.

Fourth, this theory runs opposite to everything we know about the disciples. As J. N. D. Anderson states, “This would run totally contrary to all we know of them: their ethical teaching, the quality of their lives, their steadfastness in suffering and persecution. Nor would it begin to explain their dramatic transformation from dejected and dispirited escapists into witnesses whom no opposition could muzzle.”[35]

Fifth, this theory is completely anachronistic. There was no expectation by first century Jews of a suffering-servant Messiah who would be shamefully executed by Gentiles as a criminal only to rise again bodily before the final resurrection at the end of time: “As Wright nicely puts it, if your favorite Messiah got himself crucified, then you either went home or else you got yourself a new Messiah. But the idea of stealing Jesus’ corpse and saying that God had raised him from the dead is hardly one that would have entered the minds of the disciples.”[36]

Finally, this theory cannot account for the conversion of skeptics like Paul who also testified to having seen the risen Lord and willing suffered and died for his belief in the resurrection.

FACT #3—THE POST-RESURRECTION APPEARANCES

In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul recounts what biblical scholars recognize as an early Christian creed dating to within a few years of the crucifixion. Notice the creedal nature and repetitive structure of this passage when broken down in the following form:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, in which also you stand,

that Christ died for our sins

according to the Scriptures,

and

that He was buried,

and

that He was raised on the third day

                        according to the Scriptures,

and

that He appeared to Cephas,

then to the twelve.

After

that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time,

most of whom remain until now,

but some have fallen asleep;

then He appeared to James,

then to all the apostles;

and last of all, as to one untimely born,

He appeared to me also.[37]

Included in this creed are three of our minimal facts: the death of Jesus, the empty tomb, and the post-resurrection appearances. Furthermore, our fourth minimal fact (the origin of Christianity) is easily explained given the first thee facts. Paul not only mentions the multiple post-resurrection appearances but includes himself as having seen the risen Lord. Several indicators in the text confirm this to be an early Christian creed.

First, as shown above, the passage uses stylized wording and parallel structure common to creedal formulas.

Second, the words “delivered” and “received” are technical terms indicating a rabbinic heritage is in view.

Third, the phrases “He was raised,” “third day,” and “the twelve” are unusual Pauline terms making this unlikely to have originated with Paul himself.

Fourth, the Aramaic term “Cephas” is used for Peter indicating an extremely early origin.[38] New Testament scholar and skeptic Gerd Lüdemann assigns this passage a very early date stating, “the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus…not later than three years…the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in 1 Cor. 15:3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 C.E.”[39]

The early date of this creed rules out the possibility of myth or legendary development as a plausible explanation and demonstrates that the disciples began proclaiming Jesus’ death, resurrection, and post-resurrection appearances very early. Christian philosopher and theologian J. P. Moreland elaborates:

There was simply not enough time for a great deal of myth and legend to accrue and distort the historical facts in any significant way. In this regard, A. N. Sherwin-White, a scholar of ancient Roman and Greek history at Oxford, has studied the rate at which legend accumulated in the ancient world, using the writings of Herodotus as a test case. He argues that even a span of two generations is not sufficient for a legend to wipe out a solid core of historical facts. The picture of Jesus in the New Testament was established well within that length of time.[40]

Again Lüdemann acknowledges, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”[41] There is no dispute among scholars that the disciples experienced something.

But there’s more. The disciples not only proclaimed that Jesus was raised, but they sincerely believed the resurrection occurred as demonstrated by their transformed lives. Eleven early sources testify to the willingness of the apostles to suffer and die for their belief in the resurrection.[42] For example, we know extra-Biblically that Jesus’ brother James was stoned to death by the Sanhedrin and that the apostle Paul was beheaded in Rome under Nero.[43] Many people will die for what they believe to be true but no one willingly suffers and dies for what they know to be false. Again, liars make poor martyrs. This important point should not be confused by an appeal to modern-day martyrs who willingly die for their religious beliefs. Making this comparison is a false analogy: “Modern martyrs act solely out of their trust in beliefs that others have taught them. The apostles died for holding to their own testimony that they had personally seen the risen Jesus. Contemporary martyrs die for what they believe to be true. The disciples of Jesus died for what they knew to be either true or false.”[44]

As with the crucifixion and empty tomb, the post-resurrection appearances meet the historical criteria of multiple, independent and early eyewitness sources, as well as the testimony of a former enemy of Christianity: Saul of Tarsus. Nine early and independent sources testify to the disciples’ proclamation that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them.[45] To list just one example of this, the appearance “to the twelve” mentioned by Paul above is also attested to in Luke 24:36-42 and John 20:19-20. “The evidence,” says William Lane Craig, “makes it certain that on separate occasions different individuals and groups had experiences of seeing Jesus alive from the dead. This conclusion is virtually indisputable—and therefore undisputed.[46]

Objection #3: The Disciples Experienced Hallucinations (The Hallucination Theory)

The most popular theory offered by skeptics to explain away the post-resurrection appearances is that the disciples experienced hallucinations. This is the position taken by Gerd Lüdemann (quoted above) among others. However, appealing to hallucinations as an explanation simply won’t work for the following reasons.

First, the testimony of Paul along with the Gospel writers is that the appearances of Jesus were physical, bodily appearances.[47] In fact, this is the unanimous consent of the Gospel narratives. This is an important point because if “none of the appearances was originally a physical, bodily appearance, then it is very strange that we have a completely unanimous testimony in the Gospels that all of them were physical, with no trace of the supposed original, non-physical appearances.”[48]

Second, hallucinations are private experiences (as opposed to group experiences). A group of people “may be in the frame of mind to hallucinate, but each experiences hallucinations on an individual basis. Nor will they experience the same hallucination. Hallucinations are like dreams in this way.”[49] Therefore, hallucinations cannot explain the group appearances attested to in 1 Cor. 15, the Gospel narratives, and the book of Acts.[50]

Third, ironically, the Hallucination Theory cannot explain the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection! Just like in today’s modern world, “for someone in the ancient world, visions of the deceased are not evidencing that the person is alive, but evidence that he is dead!”[51] This is a crucial argument to grasp:

Hallucinations, as projections of the mind, can contain nothing new. Therefore, given the current Jewish beliefs about life after death, the disciples, were they to project hallucinations of Jesus, would have seen Jesus in heaven or in Abraham’s bosom, where the souls of the righteous dead were believed to abide until the resurrection. And such visions would not have caused belief in Jesus’ resurrection.[52]

In other words, a hallucination of the resurrected Jesus presupposes the proper frame of mind which the disciples simply did not possess.

Finally, hallucinations cannot explain such facts as the empty tomb, the conversions of skeptics like Paul, nor the multiple and varied resurrection appearances which defy a purely psychological, naturalistic explanation.[53] “To be perfectly candid,” concludes Craig, “the only grounds for denying the physical, corporeal nature of the postmortem appearances of Jesus is philosophical, not historical.”[54]

FACT #4—THE ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

No scholar denies the fact that the Christian religion exploded out of the first century Israel. Within one generation of the death of Christ, this movement is known as “the Way” had spread to Europe, Africa, and Asia. Christianity is an effect that needs an adequate cause and explanation. Where exactly did the Christian faith come from and what best explains its origin?

The most obvious answer to this question is that the disciples truly saw the resurrected Christ. Only an event of this magnitude could turn scared, scattered, and skeptical disciples, with no prior concept and expectation of a crucified and risen Messiah, into courageous proclaimers of the gospel willing to suffer and die for their belief that Jesus rose bodily from the grave. This is what Peter boldly declared: “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses… Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”[55] The origin of the Christian faith is best explained by the disciples’ sincere belief that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Anyone who denies the resurrection itself as the explanation for the origin of Christianity must posit some other explanation. Only three possibilities seem to exist. If the resurrection did not occur, then Christianity was either the result of Christian, Jewish, or pagan influences.[56] Obviously, the disciples could not succumb to Christian influences since Christianity was not yet in existence. But just as unlikely is the idea that the disciples’ belief in the resurrection originated from Jewish influences. The Jewish conception of the resurrection was one final, general resurrection of all mankind (or all the righteous) occurring after the end of the world. Nowhere in Jewish thought do we find the idea of a single individual resurrecting within history never to die again.[57]

Objection #4: Christianity Borrowed From Pagan Religions (The Copycat Theory)

Perhaps then Christianity finds its origin in paganism. Popular internet movies such as Zeitgeist have made ubiquitous the belief that there really is nothing unique about the Christian Savior. Jesus is simply a conglomeration of past dying and rising “messiahs” repackaged for a first-century audience whose zealousness eventually grew into the Christian religion we know today. Despite the pervasiveness of this belief, it suffers from numerous problems.

First, pagan mythology is the wrong interpretive context considering that “Jesus and his disciples were first-century Palestinian Jews, and it is against that background that they must be understood.”[58]

Second, the Jews were familiar with seasonal deities (Ezek. 37:1-14) and found them detestable, making it extremely improbable that they would borrow mythology from them. This is why no trace of pagan cults celebrating dying and rising gods can be found in first-century Palestine.[59]

Third, the earliest account of a dying and rising god that somewhat parallels Jesus’ resurrection appears at least 100 years later. The historical evidence for these myths is non-existent, and the accounts are easily explained by naturalistic theories.[60]

Fourth, the Copycat Theory begs the question. It assumes the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are false (the very thing it intends to prove) and then attempts to explain how these accounts originated by appealing to supposed parallels within pagan mythology. But first, it must be shown that the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are false! In other words, even if it could be shown that parallels exist, it does not follow that the resurrection of Jesus is not a historical event. The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection must be judged on its own merit because “the claims of resurrections in other religions do not explain the evidence that exists for Jesus’ resurrection.”[61]

Finally, to put to rest this outdated and unsubstantiated theory, the late Dr. Ronald Nash summarizes seven important points that completely undermine the idea that Christianity derived its doctrine from the pagan mystery religions:

  1. Arguments offered to “prove” a Christian dependence on the mysteries illustrates the logical fallacy of false cause… Coincidence does not prove the causal connection. Nor does similarity prove dependence.
  2. Many alleged similarities between Christianity and the mysteries are either greatly exaggerated or fabricated. Scholars often describe pagan rituals in a language they borrow from Christianity…
  3. The chronology is all wrong. Almost all of our sources of information about the pagan religions alleged to have influenced early Christianity are dated very late. We frequently find writers quoting from documents written 300 years later than Paul in efforts to produce ideas that allegedly influenced Paul. We must reject the assumption that just because a cult had a certain belief or practice in the third or fourth century after Christ, it, therefore, had the same belief or practice in the first century.
  4. Paul would never have consciously borrowed from the pagan religions…
  5. Early Christianity was an exclusivist faith…
  6. Unlike the mysteries, the religion of Paul was grounded on events that actually happened in history…
  7. What few parallels may still remain to reflect a Christian influence on the pagan systems…[62]

Nash offers this final word regarding the copycat theory: “Liberal efforts to undermine the uniqueness of the Christian revelation via claims of a pagan religious influence collapse quickly once a full account of the information is available. It is clear that the liberal arguments exhibit astoundingly bad scholarship. Indeed, this conclusion may be too generous.”[63] Therefore, it is safe to conclude that “the birth and the rapid rise of the Christian Church…remain an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the Church itself.”[64]

CONCLUSION

If Jesus was dead at point A, and alive at point B, we have a resurrection. The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is the best explanation for the known historical data: His death by crucifixion, the empty tomb, the post-resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith. Furthermore, Jesus’ resurrection fits the context of his life, vindicating His teachings and radical claim to be the unique, divine Son of God. Paul says that Christ “was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.”[65] Naturalistic explanations (swoon theory, legendary development, fraud, hallucinations) fail to account for all the relevant data and in some cases (copycat theories) are outright false and ahistorical. Conversely, the Resurrection Hypothesis accounts for all of the known facts, has greater explanatory scope and power, is more plausible, and less ad hoc.[66] Only if one is guided by a prior commitment to philosophical naturalism will the conclusion “God raised Jesus from the dead”seems unjustified.

Notas

[1] 1 Cor. 15:14, NIV.

[2] Clay Jones, Lecture Notes: In Defense of the Resurrection (Biola University: School of Professional Studies), Spring 2010).

[3] Matt. 12:39-40.

[4] Acts 1:21-22; 2:22, 24, 32; 10:39-41, 43a; 13:30-31, 34a, 37; 17:2-3, 30-31; 24:21; 26:22-23.

[5] Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), 44.

[6] For more information on the historical reliability of the New Testament see Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007), and F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, 6th ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981).

[7] See Gary Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ, Rev. ed. (Joplin: College Press, 1996), 158-167.

[8] Habermas and Licona note that “roughly 75 percent of scholars on the subject accept the empty tomb as a historical fact” (The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 70).

[9] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 361.

[10] Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 36.

[11] Ibid., 36-40.

[12] Ibid., 32.

[13] Wilbur Smith, Therefore Stand (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1945), 386, as quoted in Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 211.

[14] William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman, Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?: A Debate between William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman (Worcester: College of the Holy Cross, March 28, 2006), http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/DocServer/resurrection-debate-transcript.pdf?docID=621 (accessed May 2, 2010).

[15] John Warwick Montgomery, History, Law and Christianity (Edmonton: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology, and Public Policy Inc., 2002), 61.

[16] John Warwick Montgomery, “The Jury Returns: A Juridical Defense of Christianity,” in Evidence for Faith: Deciding the God Question, ed. John Warwick Montgomery (Probe Books, 1991), http://www.mtio.com/articles/bissart1.htm (accessed May 1, 2010).

[17] See Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:33, and John 19:18.

[18] Josephus Jewish Antiquities 18.3.3; Tacitus Annals 15:44; Lucian of Samosata The Death of Peregrine 11-13; Talmud Sanhedrin 43a.

[19] Flavius Josephus, The New Complete Works of Josephus, Rev. ed., trans. William Whiston (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), 590.

[20] John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2009), 163.

[21] William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association 255, no. 11 (March 21, 1986): 1463.

[22] David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus for the People (London: Williams and Norgate, 1879), 1:412, as quoted in Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1977), 91.

[23] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 373.

[24] Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 70. See also Acts 2 and Tacitus Annals 15:44.

[25] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 361.

[26] Acts 17:6, NKJV.

[27] See Matt. 28:12-13; Justin Martyr Trypho 108; Tertullian De Spectaculis 30.

[28] See Matt. 27:57-61, 28:1-8; Mark 15:43-16:7; Luke 23:50-24:12; John 19:38- 20:18.

[29] James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 782.

[30] Jeffrey Jay Lowder, “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig,” in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder (Amherst: Prometheus, 2005), 266.

[31] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 367.

[32] For example, 1 Cor. 15:3-5, Acts 13:28-31, and Mark 15:37-16:7

[33] Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (New York: Scribners, 1976), 176.

[34] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 371.

[35] J. N. D. Anderson, Christianity: The Witness of History (London: Tyndale Press, 1969), 92, as quoted in Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1977), 92.

[36] Craig (citing N.T. Wright), Reasonable Faith, 372.

[37] 1 Cor. 15:3-8, NASB.

[38] Jones, In Defense of the Resurrection, Spring 2010.

[39] Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 38.

[40] J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 156.

[41] Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus?: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection, trans. John Bowden (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 80. Lüdemann appeals to hallucinations as an explanation.

[42] Luke, Paul, Josephus, Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Polycarp, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Tertullian, Origen, and Hegesippus. See Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 56-62.

[43] Josephus Jewish Antiquities 20.9.1; Tertullian Scorpiace 15.

[44] Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 59.

[45] Paul, Creeds (1 Cor. 15:3-8), Sermon Summaries (Acts 2), Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Clement of Rome, Polycarp. See Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 51-56.

[46] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 381.

[47] 1 Cor. 15:42-44; Matt. 28:5-6, 9; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:5-6, 22-24, 30, 39-43; John 20:1-20, 27, 21:13.

[48] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 383.

[49] Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 106.

[50] Matt. 28:9, 16-20; Mark 16:7; Luke 24:33-36; John 20:19-30; 21:1-22; Acts 1:3-9.

[51] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 385.

[52] Ibid., 394.

[53] See The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 104-119, and Reasonable Faith, 384-387, for more on the hallucination theory.

[54] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 384.

[55] Acts 2:32, 36, NASB.

[56] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 390.

[57] Ibid., 392.

[58] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 391.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 90.

[61] Ibid., 91.

[62] Ronald Nash, “Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?” Christian Research Journal (Winter 1994), http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0169a.html(accessed May 2, 2010).

[63] Ibid.

[64] C. F. D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the New Testament, Studies in Biblical Theology 2/1 (London: SCM, 1967), 13, as quoted in Craig, Reasonable Faith, 394.

[65] Rom. 1:4.

[66] Craig, Reasonable Faith, 397-399.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2t4i2c9

By Evan Minton

The Minimal Facts Approach is an approach to establishing the truth of Jesus’ resurrection using two criteria; (1) they must be facts that have a lot of evidence in their favor, and (2) these facts must be universally or nearly universally agreed upon by scholars and historians who study the subject, even the skeptical ones. Then, once the facts are established as facts, we then examine which explanation best explains them, and it turns out that only the He-Is-Risen hypothesis best explains all of them. These facts are (1) Jesus’ death by crucifixion, (2) Jesus’ empty tomb, (3) Jesus’ post-mortem appearances to His disciples, (4) Jesus’ post-mortem appearance to Paul, and (5) Jesus’ post-mortem appearance to James.

We establish these 5 facts by looking at secular historical documents as well as applying the standard historical “criteria of authenticity” to The New Testament documents. In doing so, we can establish the truth of Jesus’ resurrection in an evidential and non-question-begging way. I make the case for the resurrection in “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 1” and “The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection PART 2”, but if you think those are too lengthy, I have an abridged version of that first article titled “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Resurrection”. So, check those out if you want to go into the arguments and evidence. I also argue for the resurrection in chapter 8 of my book “Inference To The One True God”. 

One objection to this method of establishing Christianity’s central doctrine that I have encountered a few times is this: it dishonors God’s holy inspired word. Some Christians don’t like the minimal facts approach because it treats The New Testament documents as if they were ordinary documents written by ordinary people rather than inspired scripture. We don’t argue that Jesus’ tomb was empty “because The Bible says so” but rather, for example, “The tomb was likely empty because all 4 gospels mention women as the chief witnesses. They wouldn’t have done this if they were making it up because it was commonly thought that women were untrustworthy witnesses, to such an extent that they weren’t even permitted to serve as witnesses in a Jewish court of law. If they were making up this narrative, they would have had males the first one on the scene. Therefore, by the principle of embarrassment, we can conclude the tomb was empty.” As you can see, these two approaches are very different. The former takes the words of the New Testament at face value and concludes they’re true because The New Testament was inspired by God, whereas the latter approach has to apply some historical method to determine whether or not it’s true. This makes some Christians uncomfortable because it seems to suggest that God’s Word cannot be trusted to give us truthful information. It seems to treat the holy scriptures as just common literature which may or may not be true, or which may be true in some places but false in others.

The conclusion reached is that we, therefore, shouldn’t try to prove the resurrection (fideism), or if we do try to prove it, to prove it some other way that doesn’t demean The Bible (presuppositionalism). How might evidentialist Christian Apologists respond to this objection? Do we really demean God’s holy word when we argue for Jesus’ resurrection this way?

The Minimal Facts Approach Meets The Unbelievers Where They Are 

It is very important that we reach unbelievers in a way that will be most effective to them. The Minimal Facts Approach reaches unbelievers where they are epistemologically. The non-Christian does not accept The Bible as God’s holy and inspired word and because of this, he, therefore, does not consider it authoritative, infallible, or inerrant. Therefore, it’s useless to just quote a passage from it and expect him to say “Well if it’s in The Bible, it must be true!” He doesn’t accept The Bible as authoritative, so he isn’t going be persuaded by this.

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

The Minimal Facts Approach does this. When we argue for the 5 minimal facts undergirding the inference to the resurrection, we don’t quote from The New Testament as inspired scripture. We do use The New Testament, but not as scripture. We use it as we would any other ancient document that claims to tell of historical events. We proceed to use the “criteria of authenticity” that historians use on many non-biblical documents, and we’ll see what we can affirm as true by that method. Principles such as multiple attestation, the principle of embarrassment, the principle of early attestation, the principle of dissimilarity, and so on. These are principles that historians use on secular documents all the time, in order to discern whether or not what they record is true.

Many non-Christians have come to faith through this approach, such as Lee Strobel, J. Warner Wallace, and Frank Morrison, just to name a few. These men went on to share this evidence they discovered with unbelievers they witnessed to.

We believe all of The Bible is inspired, but we pretend the gospels and epistles aren’t for the sake of the argument. The Christian Apologist is basically saying “Even if I conceded these weren’t inspired, I can still establish that the resurrection of Jesus is true.” All we are doing is simply meeting the unbeliever where he is.

This approach of meeting unbelievers where they are epistemologically is biblical. I noticed that Paul dealt with the unbelieving Jews in Berea and the unbelieving Pagans in Athens quite differently in Acts 17. With the Jews, he used scripture to reason with them, using arguments from fulfilled prophecy to prove to them that Jesus really is the messiah. With the Pagans, he didn’t use The Old Testament prophecies as evidence at all. Instead, he used philosophical arguments, and he appealed to their own Greek poets and pagan authors to establish his points. Click here to read the passage. 

In 1 Cortinthians 9:20-23, Paul wrote: “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

The Apostle Paul saw the importance of changing his tactics depending on who he was witnessing to. We should too. When I’m witnessing to atheists, agnostics, or other people who don’t believe The Bible is inspired, I employ arguments that don’t hinge on that presupposition. However, if I’m witnessing to a heretic who does believe scripture is inspired but has interpreted some passages in such ways as to come up with heretical doctrines (e.g Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons), then I will appeal to scripture to make my points. In the case of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’ll even refute their doctrines using the New World Translation (a twisted translation, but the only one they accept). I change my approach based on who I’m talking to. The Message doesn’t change, but the method of conveying the message does.

Conclusion 

The Bible is the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). It brings no shame to a sword just because you swing it differently in different battles. Sometimes you need to slash vertically, sometimes you need to slash horizontally, other times you need to stab. You need to wield a sword in the most effective way you can to deal with the particular fighting style of your enemy. This holds true for literal swords, one would think it would hold true of “The Sword Of The Spirit” (i.e The Bible) as well. Depending on our audience, we will either use The Bible as inspired scripture or as a collection of ancient writings which we will apply the historical method to.

When we use The Minimal Facts Approach, we are not at all suggesting that we distrust God’s word. Rather we are acknowledging that our audience distrusts God’s word, and we respect that, and we witness to them with that fact in mind.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2r3yJTa