Proving The Resurrection By the "Minimal Facts" Approach

[Randy_Carson]

I’m currently reading N. T. Wright’s volume on the resurrection. His approach is to argue for point 2 (he doesn’t see any need to argue for point 1, though I can see why Habermas would, since unlike Wright he regularly engages in debate with atheists who may find “mythicist” arguments plausible–and God bless him for that) and then argue that the best explanation for the fact that early Christians believed in the resurrection is that it really happened. He engages in an extensive study of pagan and Jewish views of resurrection, mostly to refute the idea that the early Christians could plausibly have used the term “resurrection” to refer to some kind of spiritual existence. The entire multi-volume series is well worth reading for someone with your interests.

I don’t, myself, think that point 4 is very useful–point 3 somewhat more so, perhaps, but I still wouldn’t rest much weight on it. Paul’s literary evidence, on the other hand, is very significant as testimony to what the earliest Christians believed.

Edwin

I just finished William Lane Craig’s book, Reasonable Faith, and he makes an interesting observation. Craig writes,

"NT Wright’s massive study, The Resurrection of the Son of God, [is] the most important book on Jesus’ resurrection today. Wright’s argument may be summarized as follows:

1. Early Christians believe in Jesus’ (physical, bodily) resurrection.
2. The best explanation of that belief is the hypothesis of the disciples’ discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb and their experiences of postmortem appearances of Jesus.
   2.1. The hypothesis of the disciples’ discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb and their experience of postmortem appearances of Jesus has the explanatory power to account for that belief.
   2.2. Rival hypotheses such as spontaneous generation within a Jewish context, dreams about Jesus, cognitive dissonance or a fresh experience of grace following Jesus’ death, etc., lack the explanatory power to account for that belief.
3. The best explanation for the facts of Jesus’ empty tomb and postmortem appearances is the hypothesis that Jesus rose from the dead.

Virtually the entirety of Wright’s book is devoted to establishing points (1) and (2); when it comes to (3) he simply laterals the ball to Gary Habermas, referring the reader to Habermas’ treatments of rival hypotheses.* (William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 351-351.)

*Craig’s footnote: (N.T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3: The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 718.)

I have not read Wright, but what are your thoughts on Craig’s comments?

 

[Contarini]

I just finished William Lane Craig’s book, Reasonable Faith, and he makes an interesting observation. Craig writes,

"NT Wright’s massive study, The Resurrection of the Son of God, [is] the most important book on Jesus’ resurrection today. Wright’s argument may be summarized as follows:

1. Early Christians believe in Jesus’ (physical, bodily) resurrection.
2. The best explanation of that belief is the hypothesis of the disciples’ discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb and their experiences of postmortem appearances of Jesus.
   2.1. The hypothesis of the disciples’ discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb and their experience of postmortem appearances of Jesus has the explanatory power to account for that belief.
   2.2. Rival hypotheses such as spontaneous generation within a Jewish context, dreams about Jesus, cognitive dissonance or a fresh experience of grace following Jesus’ death, etc., lack the explanatory power to account for that belief.
3. The best explanation for the facts of Jesus’ empty tomb and postmortem appearances is the hypothesis that Jesus rose from the dead.

Virtually the entirety of Wright’s book is devoted to establishing points (1) and (2); when it comes to (3) he simply laterals the ball to Gary Habermas, referring the reader to Habermas’ treatments of rival hypotheses.* (William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 351-351.)

*Craig’s footnote: (N.T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3: The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 718.)

I have not read Wright, but what are your thoughts on Craig’s comments?

I haven’t finished the book (just got it out from a nearby library the other day). I have seen Habermas in the footnotes but haven’t seen him “lateraling the ball” on 3 yet. I know that he takes quite a while to discuss Paul (plus writing a massive two-volume study of Paul as a followup, plus his book on justification and many other treatments–in fact Wright started out as a Pauline scholar, I believe, and got into historical Jesus research to refute the “Paul founded Christianity” canard), so he may well get to it. I’m still on his discussion of the spectrum of Jewish belief about the afterlife.

Edwin

 

[epostle]

I wouldn’t say “independent authors.” All of the authors of the NT were from the same movement with the same bias and agenda. Not exactly independent or non-partisan.

On that premise, one cannot accept anything written about the American War because it was written by Americans.

 

[Kaninchen]

On that premise, one cannot accept anything written about the American War because it was written by Americans.

You think Americans have a monopoly on writing about the ‘American War’?

 

[Randy_Carson]

You think Americans have a monopoly on writing about the ‘American War’?

As I have pointed out to you before, kaninchen, it is no more logical to say that we cannot trust the gospels because they were written by “biased” Christians than it is to say that we cannot trust the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC because it was funded by Jews.

Sometimes, people with the most “bias” are also the most highly motivated to “get it right” for the sake of future generations.

 

[Kaninchen]

As I have pointed out to you before, kaninchen, it is no more logical to say that we cannot trust the gospels because they were written by “biased” Christians than it is to say that we cannot trust the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC because it was funded by Jews.

Sometimes, people with the most “bias” are also the most highly motivated to “get it right” for the sake of future generations.

Never miss an opportunity for a bit of ‘smoke and mirrors’ do you, Randy?

 

[Contarini]

I wouldn’t say “independent authors.” All of the authors of the NT were from the same movement with the same bias and agenda. Not exactly independent or non-partisan.

Independence means that they were not directly relying on each other. The Synoptic Gospels, Paul, and John are independent sources. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are not independent of each other, although conventional NT scholarship claims to distinguish specific sources within the Synoptic tradition (Mark and “Q” being the two major ones). This is all standard scholarly methodology accepted by a wide range of scholars, including people who are extremely sceptical about basic Christian claims.

All sources are biased. True, some are more biased than others, and obviously the NT authors are highly biased. As Randy says, this may make them valuable sources in some ways, but I think Randy exaggerates that. Obviously it would be really nice, from a historian’s point of view, to have a relatively “non-partisan” witness. (Josephus is the closest thing we have, but he’s certainly got his own biases and then there’s the problem of probable textual corruption through interpolation by Christians.) I think you fail to recognize what a rare luxury a reasonably “non-partisan” source is.

And Randy’s right in pointing out (following Blomberg) that generally it’s people who have a strong investment in something who bother to record it in the first place.

Our strongest evidence, for ancient history (where we don’t have a lot of archives and other kinds of evidence that we have for more modern periods), usually comes from multiple sources with conflicting biases. It would be nice if we had those here, and to a very limited extent we do–but the Roman and Jewish sources are so distant from the events described, and in the Jewish case so much after the fact and so questionable of interpretation (many Jews claim that the Talmudic “Yeshu” is someone quite different from our Jesus), that they’re of very limited use.

So we are essentially stuck with Christian sources. And there is quite a lot we can learn from them. Again, that’s something on which scholars are agreed across the board, although they disagree strongly on the specifics.

For a list of things that scholars generally agree on about Jesus, see here (although the list isn’t entirely free of controversy). For the standard criteria used by most scholars in evaluating the historicity of the NT sources, see here (although, again, people differ on which of these criteria are most important and reliable and how to use them).

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

It’s *very *different. How can you even compare the two?

We have no idea who actually wrote the gospels and who witnessed what 2000 years ago, at a time when religious writers were trying to convince people to follow their beliefs and at a time when the style of writing was routinely “imaginative”…and let’s not forget the stories were passed along orally for 40-80 years before someone wrote them down.

Whereas for the Jewish holocaust, which happened only decades ago, we have hundreds, thousands, of witnesses who were there and saw it with their own eyes…who are still alive today to give first-hand accounts and corroborate each other.

.

The valid point in the analogy, I think, is that bias motivates people to record things. It’s not that the Gospels are as reliable as our evidence for the Holocaust, but that we can’t just dismiss the Gospels because their authors really wanted to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. We don’t have any detailed account of Jesus’ life from non-believers because no non-believer cared enough to write one. It’s particularly unreasonable for the “mythicists” to claim that this somehow casts doubt on the historicity of Jesus.

Edwin

 

[cornbread_r2]

…]

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes:

15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

There are two important phrases in this passage which must be highlighted. First, notice that Paul says clearly “that Christ died…that he was buried…that he was raised on the third day”. This is unquestionable evidence of the belief of the resurrection of Jesus. However, it is the second point that ties this belief directly to the Apostles: Paul writes, “For what I received, I passed on to you…”.

Paul tells us that what he is about to say is something that he himself had “received” from others. Who were they? And when did he receive it? Paul learned the details contained in 1 Co. 15:1-8 from the apostles themselves during his visit to Jerusalem after his conversion. Thus, Paul is telling us of the core belief of the apostles that Jesus rose from the dead.

How, then, do you account for Paul’s claim in Galatians 1:11,12?

11 For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.

12 For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

It is also interesting to note that some mythicists also use these passages in Corinthians to argue that all of the earliest Christians knew Jesus only through visions like the one Paul had.

 

[cornbread_r2]

The valid point in the analogy, I think, is that bias motivates people to record things. It’s not that the Gospels are as reliable as our evidence for the Holocaust, but that we can’t just dismiss the Gospels because their authors really wanted to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. We don’t have any detailed account of Jesus’ life from non-believers because no non-believer cared enough to write one. It’s particularly unreasonable for the “mythicists” to claim that this somehow casts doubt on the historicity of Jesus.

Edwin

Do you reckon we have all of the writings of non-believers down through the ages? As I understand it, non-believers had good reason to keep a low profile from the time that Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire up until after the Enlightenment.

 

[Kaninchen]

We don’t have any detailed account of Jesus’ life from non-believers because no non-believer cared enough to write one.

Or nothing out of the ordinary happened - “Romans crucify itinerant rabbi” would be business as usual.

What I described to Randy in another thread as the ‘Silver Blaze’ effect can’t just be dismissed as ‘no non-believer cared enough’.

 

[Contarini]

Do you reckon we have all of the writings of non-believers down through the ages? As I understand it, non-believers had good reason to keep a low profile from the time that Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire up until after the Enlightenment.

Are you talking about post-Theodosian non-believers? Obviously they would have no privileged perspective on the point at issue.

Or do you mean that pagan writings from earlier times were destroyed or lost?

That certainly did happen, and extracts were preserved in Christian authors. There are actually some such extracts that are sometimes cited as corroborating the NT, but it’s hard to be sure because we don’t have the original context. Later Christian writers mined pagan historians for references to eclipses that might be linked up with the “darkness at noon” mentioned in the NT, and some Christian apologists today cite such references as evidence for the accuracy of the NT account.

Edwin

 

[MarkInOregon]

I wouldn’t say “independent authors.” All of the authors of the NT were from the same movement with the same bias and agenda. Not exactly independent or non-partisan.

You always throw out this bias claim but you refuse to look in the mirror at the bias that you bring to the table and to your evaluation of the offered evidence. Or perhaps you don’t even realize it is a bias?

The peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[SonOfMan]

You always throw out this bias claim but you refuse to look in the mirror at the bias that you bring to the table and to your evaluation of the offered evidence. Or perhaps you don’t even realize it is a bias?

The peace of Christ,
Mark

Ironically, my “bias” is for Catholicism. I want to believe. But what am I to believe when things don’t add up to me?

And since I am open to hearing from all sides (objectivity), that isnt really a bias, is it?

 

[Contarini]

Or nothing out of the ordinary happened - “Romans crucify itinerant rabbi” would be business as usual.

What I described to Randy in another thread as the ‘Silver Blaze’ effect can’t just be dismissed as ‘no non-believer cared enough’.

I’m not sure what you mean exactly by the “Silver Blaze effect” (is that the business about the dog not barking?), but I fail to see the difference between what you’re saying and what I’m saying.

Or are you saying that if the resurrection had happened, someone would have recorded it?

The NT does not claim that Jesus appeared publicly after the resurrection to people who had not been his followers in life.

That is, of course, arguably a point against the thing having happened at all.

Are you suggesting that the empty tomb would have been recorded if it had happened?

Are you questioning the proposition that Jesus’ earliest followers did, in fact, claim he had risen from the dead, and arguing that this was a later idea?

Edwin

 

[SonOfMan]

The NT does not claim that Jesus appeared publicly after the resurrection to people who had not been his followers in life.

The Bible does say that the Resurrected Jesus cooked breakfast for the Apostles and spent time with them amongst the whole village.

 

[Randy_Carson]

How, then, do you account for Paul’s claim in Galatians 1:11,12?

I have no doubt that Paul received his “gospel” from the Lord. Jesus showed Paul much in the course of reworking his theology from Judaism into Christianity.

I also have no doubt that Paul received his knowledge of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection NOT from the Lord but from the apostles during his first visit.

It is also interesting to note that some mythicists also use these passages in Corinthians to argue that all of the earliest Christians knew Jesus only through visions like the one Paul had.

Mythicists cannot account for Jesus eating a meal with the apostles and allowing them to put their fingers into his wounds.

 

[Randy_Carson]

We have no idea who actually wrote the gospels

Sure we do. :yup:

Who wrote the gospels? Were they written by the men whose names we traditionally associate with these works within a lifetime of Jesus? Or were they written by “schools” which formed the gospels on the basis of their own traditions many decades later?

Evangelical author Dr. Craig Blomberg answers these questions in unambiguous terms:

“It’s important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous. But the uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector and one of the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel in the New Testament; that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark; and that Luke, known as Paul’s ‘beloved physician,’ wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.”

Blomberg goes on to say: “There are no known competitors for these three gospels. Apparently, it was just not in dispute.”

Dr. Mary Healy, associate professor of Sacred Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, agrees.

“[Authorship of the gospels] is a very important question. It’s something that the Church has held consistently since the beginning is that the gospels are of apostolic origin which means that they were written either by apostles or by apostolic men – meaning men who were closely associated with them – and that’s the basis on which we have a firm confidence that the gospels really do reliably tell us who Jesus Christ was, and what he did and what he taught.”

Both Blomberg and Healy offer questions which must be answered by those who deny the traditional authorship of the gospels including:

1. 
   *]Why would copies of gospels circulate anonymously all over the Roman empire for decades and then suddenly be ascribed to the authors we know today unanimously without dispute in the second century?
   *]When the gospels were being read in the liturgy, how would they have been distinguished one from another if they did not have names such as “The Gospel of Mark” or “The Gospel According to Luke”?
   *]Why attribute a gospel to someone who had a somewhat dubious track record (like Mark who abandoned Paul on a missionary journey) unless it was true that Mark wrote it? Or why attribute a gospel written for a Jewish audience to Matthew, a man who would have been hated as a Roman collaborator by that audience, unless it was true?
   
   The latter question is particularly interesting today because of the popularity of “gospels” that were not included in the canon of inspired scripture. These fanciful accounts of Jesus, which were written centuries later, were commonly ascribed to more prominent members of the Early Church; thus, we have gospels according to Peter, James, Mary and Thomas among others.
   
   Apart from these logical considerations, is there any evidence that the gospels were, in fact, written by their namesakes? The answer is yes, and here we turn to the historical writings of three ancient authors, Papias, Irenaeus and Origen.
   
   (cont.)

 

[Randy_Carson]

Papias (d. ca. AD 100)

Little is known of the life of Papias. He may have been a hearer of the Apostle John and was a disciple of Polycarp who was himself a disciple of John. Eusebius tells us that Papias was the Bishop of Hierapolis and a contemporary of Ignatius of Antioch. His writings are typically dated from about AD 95-125. In his preface, Papias states:

I shall not hesitate also to put into ordered form for you, along with the interpretations, everything I learned carefully in the past from the elders and noted down carefully, for the truth of which I vouch. For unlike most people I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments, but only in those who reported their memory of the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the Truth itself. And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.

Having conducted his research, Papias writes the following concerning Mark:

And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord’s sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements.

Of Matthew, Papias writes:

Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.

**Irenaeus (AD 130-200) **

Irenaeus was Bishop of Lyons and a former disciple of Polycarp. In a brief passage, Irenaeus corroborates Papias concerning the authorship of Matthew:

“Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the Church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus in Asia.” (Adversus Haereses 3.3.4)

Origen (AD 185-254)

“Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a tax collector, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew [or Aramaic] language.” (as quoted by Eusebius, H.E. 6. 25.3-4)

From the foregoing arguments and ancient testimonies, we can conclude that the synoptic gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and that these accounts were based on either direct or indirect eye-witness testimony.

 

[Kaninchen]

I’m not sure what you mean exactly by the “Silver Blaze effect” (is that the business about the dog not barking?), but I fail to see the difference between what you’re saying and what I’m saying.

It’s that the Jewish people just carried on carrying on rather than acting as witnesses - first hand or second hand - to all sorts of wonders and a particular set of dramas would have acted.

The difference between what I said and what you said is that one explanation for people not reporting something could be that they couldn’t be bothered because it didn’t seem important enough to them or it could be that - quite simply - nothing happened.

Are you questioning the proposition that Jesus’ earliest followers did, in fact, claim he had risen from the dead, and arguing that this was a later idea?

Whether they - all/some/a few/none - did or not is really just Christian ‘lit crit’ to me. Rejecting ‘myth Jesus’ doesn’t mean that one has to accept Sanders’ version of ‘historical Jesus’.