During this lecture, I played a video of William Lane Craig making a case for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. What’s so brilliant about Craig’s approach is that he doesn’t assume the bible is true to make his case. He treats the Gospels and Paul’s letters as normal historical sources and uses the standard historiography of skeptics and atheists to establish this ancient miracle. He employs the minimal facts strategy, arguing that (1) the honorable burial, (2) the empty tomb, (3) the appearances, and (4) the resurrection belief are agreed to by critical scholars. Thus, the hypothesis, “God raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead,” is the best historical explanation of facts.
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Notes:
Four Historical Facts Agreed upon by Most Historical Jesus Scholars
1. Honorable Burial: Jesus was buried by Joseph Arimethea in a known grave
attested by very old tradition in 1 Cor 15
uses technical rabbinic terminology for tradition
formulaic
Paul received this within 5 years of his crucifixion
burial story is part of an old source used by Mark when he wrote
most of Mark is like pearls on a string, but once we get to the passion narrative it is smooth and chronological….which suggests that the passion narrative was from an actual written source
gospels don’t diverge until after the burial account
as a member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention
strong resentment toward Jewish leadership responsible for the execution of Jesus so it is highly improbable that Christians would invent that a member of the very court that condemned Christ would be the one to give him an honorable burial
no competing burial story exists
no controversy over the issue
if it were false, we should expect to find some historical trace of what really happened
2. Empty Tomb: On Sunday after the crucifixion women found the empty tomb
empty tomb is in pre-Markan passion source
Mark’s source did not end with burial but with empty tomb
old tradition in 1 Cor 15 implies an empty tomb
“that he was buried and that he was raised” clearly implies an empty grave was left behind
apostolic preaching in the book of Acts
Mark’s story is simple and lacks signs of legendary embellishment
compare to Gospel of Peter (from 2nd half of 2nd century)…tomb is surrounded by Roman guard and by chief priests, Pharisees, and a huge crowd….suddenly during the night a voice rings out….three gigantic figures come out of the tomb with heads reaching to the sun….the cross comes out of the tomb and speaks
women’s testimony was less trustworthy than men counts in favor of the women’s role in the discovery of the empty tomb
Josephus says, “due to the levity and temerity of their sex, women should not be allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a court of law”
any later legendary account would have made male disciples like Peter and John to be the first to discover the empty tomb
earliest Jewish allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body presupposes that the body was in fact missing from the tomb
3. Appearances: on multiple occasions and under a variety of circumstances, individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus after his death
list of eyewitnesses quoted by Paul in 1 Cor 15
Paul actually knew these people
appearance traditions in the Gospels provides multiple early independent attestation
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul
appearances have earmarks of historicity
neither James nor his brothers were believers during Jesus’ life time but they became pillars of Christianity (cf. Josephus)
what would it take to convince you that your brother is the Messiah so that you would be willing to die for this belief?
4. Resurrection Belief: origin of disciples belief in resurrection despite having every reason to the contrary
their leader was dead
Jews had no belief in a dying, much less rising, Messiah
according to a Jewish law, his execution showed him to be a man under God’s curse
crucifixion proved that Jesus was not on God’s side
Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone’s rising from the dead to immortality prior to the general resurrection at the end of the world
yet the disciples did believe in his resurrection and went to their deaths for that belief
some sort of powerful transformative experience was necessary to launch this movement
Six Tests for Best Explanation
has great explanatory scope
explains empty tomb, appearances, Christian faith came into being
has great explanatory power
plausible
given the historical context of Jesus’ own unparalleled life and claims resurrection provides vindication
not ad hoc (contrived)
requires only one additional hypothesis, i.e. that God exists
in accord with accepted beliefs
the belief “God raised Christ from the dead” does not conflict with the belief that “people do not normally rise from the dead”
outstrips rival hypotheses in meeting criteria 1-5
other naturalistic hypotheses have been universally disproved by scholars
Possible Explanations
God raised Jesus from the dead
Conspiracy hypothesis
disciples stole the body
Apparent dead hypothesis
swoon theory
Hallucination hypothesis
Twin hypothesis
Evidence Is So Good that…
twin hypothesis
Jewish scholar was convinced that the God of Israel raised Jesus
