I. Introduction

 II. Assumptions and Presuppositions

 III. The Structure of the Argument for the Resurrection

 IV. Source Material for the Resurrection

  V. Evidence for the Existence of Jesus Outside of the New Testament

 VI. The Resurrection Hypothesis Defended

VII. Concluding Thoughts

End Notes

I. INTRODUCTION

Various questions about Jesus of Nazareth have often been asked by critics and sojourners of religious thought. Indeed, this is an important question for each rationally thinking person to answer if she is to conclude that Christianity is preferable over rival world views. However, in the wake of evidence for God's existence we tend to cease our pursuit of metaphysical inquiry. This seems to be the case because of our cultural contentment for believing in some sort of deity apart from any theological context. Religious belief is perceived as a "private inner belief" that is not a matter of public scrutiny. Although religious belief is certainly private this is not to say that such a belief is necessarily groundless or beyond criticism. The fact is the avoidance of a religious conclusion evinces an assumption that Christianity is not true. Is it the case that Christianity is not a matter of evidence but a "blind faith"? Is it the case that Christianity is not substantiated by any available evidence or is there independent evidence for the foundation for Christian belief? In this essay, we will survey what it means to pursue evidence for Christianity in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. The Apostle Paul once remarked, "If Christ has not been raised then your faith is futile" (1 Corinthians 15:17; NIV). This makes Resurrection studies a paramount issue, if not the ultimate radix, of substantiating Christian belief. Prefacing this discussion will be the role of history in Christian evidence and how history ought to approach religious claims. If an analysis of historical documentation does not prove that Jesus really rose from the dead in bodily form then we must concede that the Apostle Paul's condition has been met resulting in a futility of such belief.

II. ASSUMPTIONS AND PRESUPPOSITIONS

No greater influence on Resurrection studies has permeated our thought processes more than our biases and presuppositions that we carry with us into the issue. Although we may dismiss such bias as only a "default" setting in our intellects, we no doubt would harm any objective studies we begin with a hopeful conclusion already in mind. Now, I do not suppose that assumptions and presuppositions can be eradicated at the outset. Instead, I wish to encourage a sort of suspension of religious claims as claims of extraordinary knowledge. In order to judge fairly the truth about the Resurrection of Jesus, we need to be prepared to deal with the historical explanation that best fits the facts. During the trial of Galileo, his opponents viewed the Copernican cosmology so outrageous that intense discipline was to be sought. To the embarrassment of shallow-minded critics, the Copernican cosmology turned out to be true. Let us view the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus from an objective standpoint and match the results with our preconceptions. If the evidence demands that a Resurrection took place, then non-Christians need to be prepared to "look through the telescope" of history and intimate this truth into their world view.

The first presupposition that needs to be jettisoned is the view of naturalism (or anti-supernaturalism). Naturalism supposes that the only events that can occur in history are purely physical, natural ones. Of course this precludes even the possibility of any supernatural events in the history of the universe. Once someone's mind is exclusive to explanations that posit natural elements then a Resurrection of any sort is barred a priori. Naturalism is a self-contained rejection of the supernatural. It makes no difference to the naturalist what evidence exists for the Resurrection. The conclusion is always the same, namely that there must be some natural explanation which prima facie carries greater probability than any well-demonstrated supernatural explanation. Now, I think the bite of naturalism can be withdrawn immediately. The issue of Jesus' Resurrection is not one that surmises a spontaneous regeneration of dead cells in the body of Jesus. Instead, the explanation that is being considered is that God raised Jesus from the dead. With a theistic backdrop to the question of Jesus' Resurrection, naturalism no longer enjoys its restricted world view. Who is to say that God raising Jesus from the dead is an overall impossible event? Although it is naturally impossible, it is not generally impossible for a resurrection to occur. This means that we must consider the evidence instead of the presupposition of naturalism in the face of the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Another presupposition that needs to be addressed is the notion that miracles contradict God's instituted natural laws. ⁽¹⁾

Miracles, as classically understood by religious thinkers, center around the concept of suspending the law(s) of nature. This is to say that when a miracle occurs, it is the direct result of God acting in the world. Often, miracles are caricatured as divine acts of naturalistic rape whereby God is perceived as some sort of violator of Mother Nature. But if miracles are really suspensions and not violations then we have some context for God's morally permissible operative network. This raises the question about the purpose of miracles. It seems that if God desired to produce a miraculous event then he would have formed the laws of physics to conform to that event happening at the designated time. God could just create a natural law that would be time-delayed as to cause a desired event to happen some time down the road. For example, erosion is a time-delayed law that requires that an erodible substance be exposed to the elements of nature for a period of time. In order for erosion to be actualized in a substance, a certain amount of time must have transpired. So substance X can be eroded at time t where t is the desired time of God's plan for X. But I think this objection misses the point of miraculous events. A miracle occurs in the context of God as an extraordinary event with the intention of vindicating the power of God. If God used natural law to accomplish miracles then such events would not be anything but scientifically expected and explained. This is the case with cosmology. Many scientists and astronomers suppose that our life-permitting universe exists as the result of a quantum singularity. This advances the flexibility for atheists to explain the universe as being without a cause. If God did use quantum mechanics to create the universe, then he has done so with only a subtle metaphysical trace. This provides no scenario to command the necessary attention to the act and is why extraordinary causation within the physical world is necessary for miraculous events. Standard, scientific events offer no higher degree of attention. If God caused ocean tides to rise by using the moon then there would be very little attention to such an event. ⁽²⁾

One final philosophical consideration needs to be considered. It may be the case that there is no possible world where a miracle occurs except through direct divine interaction. This would mean that God could not have caused Jesus to rise from the dead without directly causing it. If this is true, and we have no way of demonstrating it either way, then perhaps the only technique God could use to maximize the number of desired believers in the history of the world is to enact miraculous intervention. ⁽³⁾ It would seem that in order for one to opt for a natural law to provide the same effect, one would have to prove that the same desired effect would ensue under those conditions. That is surely an impossible feat. With this in mind, let us now take a look at why certain anti-miracle thinkers have rejected the possibility of the Resurrection of Jesus.

A. David Hume

Perhaps no bolder figure in history has been invoked more on the impossibility of miracles than the eighteenth-century skeptic David Hume. In Hume's works we are given a twofold argument against the possibility of miracles. First, Hume argues that our "firm and unalterable experience" militates against the reality of miracles. ⁽⁴⁾ Any claim of miraculous intervention, therefore, must be matched with our uniform experience and weighed appropriately. Therefore, any miracle claim will be disconfirmed by our "firm and unalterable experience" on the matter. Hume's second argument deals with the factual improbability of miracles. That even though the principle is sufficient to render miracles impossible, it is in fact true that miracles have never occurred in human history because any natural explanation outweighs a supernatural one. Thus anyone examining the historical evidence surrounding a miracle claim will conclude that something else must be the better explanation.

Hume's first argument has been recognized to be a classic case of petitio principii (begging the question) because Hume begins by assuming that our "firm and unalterable experience" already excludes a history of miracles. It is only when he assumes that our uniform experience does not involve the miraculous can he conclude that miracles never occurred. But surely this is putting the cart before the horse. Secondly, one can disavow Hume's approach even if we suppose that he means to suggest that an improbability yields a disconfirming conclusion. There are no good reasons to suppose that because an event is improbable that it is, therefore, impossible. If one were to argue for the improbability of an event then such evidence would have to include that event as the best explanation of the surrounding facts. So one must now ask, With respect to what is the notion of miracles improbable? If anyone is to confidently conclude a high improbability of a miraculous claim then the arguer owes it to the Christian to supply the backdrop of the improbability. For example,

(1) There is a high probability that the bean I select from the can will be black.

Let us think of two scenarios where the probability can be assessed:

(2) There are beans in the can such that 95% of them do not appear black.

(3) There are coffee beans in the can such that 99% of them appear black.

When we assess the probability of (1) with respect to (2) the bean selected will more than likely not be a black one. However, with respect to (3) the odds change and the probability of a black bean being selected from the can is high. So (1) is probable with respect to (3) but not so probable with respect to (2). In the case of Hume's anti-miraculous improbability calculus, we might see the probability of the miraculous in two respects:

(4) There appear to be no miracles discovered by most people throughout history.

(5) There appear to be miracles discovered by most people who were

Jewish disciples living in first century Palestine.

Hume's objection may be quite probable (that miracles are improbable with respect to the general consensus) with respect to (4) but lacks the proper background necessary to assess the miraculous claim. With respect to (5) the miracle in question becomes highly probable (if the miracle were to be, say, the Resurrection of Jesus). So if Hume argues for a probability based on all events weighed against the few miracle claims of antiquity then one should not wonder why miracles seem improbable with respect to those. But the miracle-believing theist can argue that the probability calculus needs to focus in on the specific background of the specific miraculous claim. The same would be true for a unique event as the American Civil War. If I said that the claim of an American Civil War is improbable because most events in human history do not include Civil War events then I would not be so far off. But if I stipulated that a Civil War is probable with respect to American history in the 1860's then no one should think inauspiciously of the claim.

Thus, one can see Hume's attack on miracles as a principle against the miraculous and also as a preface that no such miracle stories are in fact true. But as we saw there is no reason to opt for the principle because it begs the question and offers no reason to suppose that miracles are in fact improbable with respect to the relevant background information. If the miracle of the Resurrection did not occur on grounds of a Humean improbability, I find it incumbent upon the critic to supply the background information that suggests the improbability and to defend why it is sufficiently relevant to disavow it.

B. Antony Flew

Contemporary attackers of the claims to the miraculous suggest a new twist to the Humean problem. Instead of dealing with probabilities based on historical observation they surmise an analogy between the present state of affairs with that of history. This is to say that the regularities of today's events must be consistent with the regularities of history. For example, there are no observations of mermaids in today's world and none seem physically possible. Thus, one ought not to think that a mermaid may have been observed by a 19^th century seagoing captain simply because no confirmations of mermaids subsist. Captains probably mistook manatees for mermaids. The only difference between Antony Flew and Hume, in this respect, is that uniform experience consists of only one's current experiential data. Flew posits a similar construction that bases its assessment of miracle claims on the general experience of the modern man. Flew calls this the "critical history" approach. ⁽⁵⁾ He contends that no good historian can adequately do good history unless claims that contradict contemporary experience are disposed of. Presumably no contemporary experience involves the miraculous.

The issue that has to be dealt with is whether or not Flew's methodology is true given the historical analogy to contemporary events. By way of evaluation, I think there are several problems with Flew's defense. First, analogical arguments are probabilistic in that they do not claim identity but merely claim verisimilitude. For example, laboratory testing on mice may give analogous effects to human responses but the fact remains that mice are not human beings. Analogies, in this respect, serve to conclude the probability of a hypothesis based upon relevant similarities. So, even if we can agree with Flew that an analogy is warranted (as I believe it is) then the analogy serves to undergird the relevant factors of today with those of history. Now the question becomes, "What relevance do contemporary events have with miraculous events of history?" The Christian could appropriately deny the connection while pleading for the uniqueness of historical, miraculous events. Secondly, it appears that Flew is special pleading. Miraculous events are generally not repeated events and are very much unlike standard events as we see both in history and today. Why should non-unique events be disqualified by the analogy of today if an event, by definition, is infrequent? In this respect, Flew's argument appears to take on a Humean flavor by making a special methodology already suited for the non-believer in miracles. But this is precisely what is at issue. Thirdly, Flew believes (like Hume) that miracles are impossible events in principle. But as with Hume, this is question-begging. Fourthly, if Flew were correct then there would be no historiographical fecundity. Something is said to be fecund if it opens the doors to further investigation in additional areas. Flew's analysis certainly precludes this sort of methodology and does not open the door to any unique investigations. Finally, Flew's analysis is a resurgence of the late German theologian Ernst Troeltsch who advocated a similar "principle of analogy" which appears to badly falsify historical claims of the miraculous. The problem with a Flew/Troeltsch historiography is that it fails to affirm an analogy and, at best, can only disconfirm the non-analogous. So in order for analogy to be properly viewed with respect to history it must explain, for example, how the Resurrection appearances are analogous to, say, mass hallucinations. It does no good to suggest that a miraculous claim of history is non-analogous to a current event because it may very well be a unique and unprecedented occurrence. And if one sees the miracle claim of the Resurrection that God raised Jesus from the dead, I should hardly think ill of the probability of that.

Therefore, I think that Flew's methodology is faulty for its misplaced falsification. It makes no sense to disconfirm a miraculous event by question-begging or faulting the miraculous claim simply because it is unusual. If one maintains a principle of analogy then it ought to be one that sees analogy between the historical event in question with an event of today. Only in this fashion can the miraculous be properly analyzed.

As we venture into the argument for the Resurrection, the only palatable and proper assumptions that can be imported are not assumptions that disconfirm the possibility of miracles at the outset. That is assuming what needs to be proven. Instead, one must enter into the historical mindset from an open and proper standpoint. If explanations are ruled out of court before the jury has a chance to hear them, then how can we ever hope to comb the entire pool of options and opt for the best one? As John Lancaster Spalding once remarked, "Our prejudices are like physical infirmities - we cannot do what they prevent us from doing."

III. THE STRUCTURE OF THE ARGUMENT FOR THE RESURRECTION

In order to ascertain the desired conclusion for a particular claim, it is important for the claim to be given evidence in support of it. The presence of supporting evidence (or premises) and a conclusion is what is considered to be a structural argument. This means that in order to have a convincing argument one must have good supporting premises that point favorably toward the conclusion. There are two different relationships between an argument's premises and its conclusion. The first is called a deductive argument. In such a mode, an argument is said to have supporting premises such that it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. On the other hand, inductive arguments are such that if the premises are true then the conclusion only follows with some degree of probability. The following argument is an example of a deductive argument:

p1: All men are mortal.

p2: Socrates is a man.

C: Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

In this particular example there is no way Socrates can categorically be a man and not be mortal so long as it is true that all men are mortal. The following is an example ⁽⁶⁾ of an inductive argument:

p1: The hypothesis has a non-negligible prior probability.

p2: If the hypothesis is true, then the observational prediction is true.

p3: The observational prediction is true.

p4: No other hypothesis is strongly confirmed by the truth of this

     observational prediction; that is, other hypotheses for which

     the same observational prediction is a confirming instance

     have lower prior probabilities.

C: Therefore, the hypothesis is true.

This particular argument is called the hypothetico-decutive method ⁽⁷⁾ of supporting scientific hypotheses. Although not every scientist or philosopher consciously uses this form, it is nonetheless the basic underpinning structure of proving a scientific hypothesis. The conclusion is by no means necessarily true given that all four premises are true. It could be the case that there is another hypothesis (whether known or not) that could better account for the observational prediction.

Now that we have seen the basic difference between a deductive and an inductive argument, let us take a look at the nature of historical inquiry. The nature of proper historical inquiry, though bearing much controversy, ⁽⁸⁾ begins with a description of an event that occurred in the past. Such an event is then funneled through a pool of competing hypotheses which offer some degree of explanation for the historical event. Now there is a temptation here to analogize historical inquiries with that of scientific ones. After all, they seem to be asking the same question: What hypothesis best explains the facts in question? And in most cases they are similar. However, the distinction, though subtle, needs to be noted. In scientific inquiries, one becomes concerned with how events in question are consistent with natural laws. In historical inquiries the focus is on whether or not the events in question took place at all despite any coloring by natural or supernatural tendencies. History seeks to understand if an event ever occurred while science, already assuming such an event occurred and does occur, seeks to comprehend how such an event occurs at all. It is strictly on this feature that some scientific inquiries differ with historical ones while simultaneously seeking the same end result: the veracity of a hypothesis. In the case of our previously discussed inductive argument on the basic structure of scientific inquiry, an attempt is made to repeat the elements of the hypothesis with the anticipation that the observable prediction will indeed occur. Philosopher of science Carl Hempel encapsulates this procedure when he observes:

. . . the test is based on an argument to the effect that if the contemplated hypothesis,

say H, is true, then certain observable events . . . should occur under specified

circumstances . . . or briefly, if H is true, then so is I, where I is a statement describing

the observable occurrences to be expected. ⁽⁹⁾

So, if repeated instances of the said hypothesis successfully yield the desired outcome under controlled circumstances then the hypothesis is said to be probably true. The geological or archaeological scientist does not have this luxury. He is basically in the same camp as the historian. It is on this level that a historian and scientist operate with equal methodology. ⁽¹⁰⁾ Historical inquiries, as opposed to some science's repeatable experiments, seek a somewhat different task. Historical explanations are not employed by repeating experiments for the desired observable outcome (since in most cases the historical context is unrepeatable) ⁽¹¹⁾. Instead, historians seek to explain a historical event by the surrounding context in which it had taken place. This evinces a slightly different approach. Instead of seeking circumstances by which a historical hypothesis can be put to the test, the historian, like the geologist and archaeologist, investigates the surrounding context of the event. We may then borrow from our original inductive model of scientific inquiry to apply to our quest for the historical validation of the Resurrection of Jesus:

p1: The hypothesis has a non-negligible prior probability.

p2: If the hypothesis is true, then the historical facts are true.

p3: The historical facts are true.

p4: No other hypothesis is strongly confirmed by the truth of the

     historical facts; that is, other hypotheses for which

     the same historical facts are confirming instances

     have lower prior probabilities.

C: Therefore, the hypothesis is true.

It is on this model that we shall probe the truth value of the question of the Resurrection.

Therefore, as The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy correctly summarizes, we see that the historian is primarily concerned with two governing factors:

(1) the temporal progression of large-scale human events and actions, primarily but

not exclusively in the past; (2) the discipline or inquiry in which knowledge of the

human past is acquired or sought. ⁽¹²⁾

This is to ask how history unfolds and how historical knowledge is obtained. By way of evaluation, it is this author's endeavor to use a general model for historical inquiry based upon a modified view of scientific inquiry in order to ascertain what really occurred on the first Easter morning.

IV. SOURCE MATERIAL FOR THE RESURRECTION

When it comes to the source material for evaluating a historical hypothesis, we must examine all textual documentation available to us. A failure to do so would result in either a biased endeavor or a misplaced conclusion. Generally, skeptics have attempted to disconfirm the Resurrection account by use of the former. Such a biased viewpoint has lead many individuals hostile to Christianity to presume a lack of authenticity of the biblical record. In vindication of the Bible many have performed the exhaustive feat of defending an inerrant structure of it. This lineage of apologetics has spawned many pedagogical works dealing with maintaining biblical integrity by answering critics of biblical authenticity. ⁽¹³⁾ Others have taken a more positive approach by seeking out the true historical information contained in the Bible and sorting out the irrelevant material. This means that if a detractor of the Resurrection were to posit contradictions in the story of Judas Iscariot's suicide to the conclusion that the gospels are not trustworthy seems to be assuming that textual conflict implies the invalidation of the manuscript containing it. But I submit that this is a leap of logic and an improper view of historical inquiry. This would mean that any document of antiquity, if it contained any internal errors whatsoever, would have to be ruled out completely. I find this to be a difficult approach to maintain if we are to take historical inquiry seriously. It seems that documents may contain errors of specific instances but still can be useful in the panoply of information that is provided as well as the core information that can be properly extracted. Instead, any discrepancies present would simply be confirmation that plagiarism was not a factor.

Since authenticity is the key in proper documentation, we should briefly consider some major facts that seem to substantiate the credibility of the New Testament accounts surrounding Jesus' life, ministry, death, and the events following. Credibility should also be gauged by the extra-biblical support given to the New Testament documents. It is my contention that any serious student of biblical literature will find that such evidence underscores the authenticity of the manuscript information concerning Jesus.

(1) The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are supported by geographical and historiographical considerations. The Gospel of Matthew, dating around the 70's C.E., was written in Greek for the largely Greek-speaking Jews of the time. ⁽¹⁴⁾ Matthew draws heavily on the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. The book of Matthew is the most contested book concerning its authorship since no clear indications appear to validate Matthew as the author. But the best indication for Matthew's authorship (as well as the other Gospels' authorship) is found in Eusebius' citations of Papias which is probably reliable. ⁽¹⁵⁾ There are possibly internal indications of Matthean authorship from the Gospel of Matthew itself. ⁽¹⁶⁾ Concerning the provenance of Matthew's writing of his Gospel, there is very little to acknowledge. But perhaps it is likely that Matthew wrote somewhere in Syria, for those who think that Matthew's geography discloses any significance. New Testament scholars D. A. Carson, Douglas Moo, and Leon Morris declare that "we cannot be certain of the geographic provenance of this gospel. Syria is perhaps the most likely suggestion, but nothing of importance hangs on the decision." ⁽¹⁷⁾

The Gospel of Mark, an important work for our source material for the Resurrection, was probably written by the John Mark mentioned in the Book of Acts given John Mark's close association with Peter during his ministry. ⁽¹⁸⁾ The date of Mark's Gospel is estimated to be around the late 50's or early 60's A.D. because it precedes the usages by Luke and Matthew (granted that the "Two Source" hypothesis is true). If Luke wrote his Luke-Acts around 60-64, then in order for Mark to be a source for Luke's Gospel it must predate it. Those who seem to prefer a later date (a mid-60's date) point out statements by early Church fathers which seem to suggest a post-Peter writing of Mark's Gospel. Also, there appear to be encouragements to follow the "road to the cross" for the readers which may suggest possible hardship for the disciples experienced by Nero's persecution of Christians. In addition, scholars point out that Mark 13 mentions the situation during the Jewish revolt prior to the invasion of the Romans. This would suggest a range between 67-69. This view is widely accepted today by the broad spectrum of mainstream New Testament scholarship. Still there are others who suggest a mid-70's date, which has gained very little support today. It is usually the highly critical skeptics of the Gospel material (usually denying a majority of the Gospel account of the authentic sayings of Jesus) that suggest such a later date. This date is arrived at by a preconception that the prediction of the temple's destruction in A.D. 70 must be seen as retrospection since miraculous predictions are unlikely (this makes the 70's date based on a philosophical naturalism). But if one already believes in the possibility of supernatural prophecy for Jesus than it would be no problem affirming the prophetic statements about the temple's inevitable destruction. So the teeth of the argument for the 70's date would be removed. This makes a 50's - 60's date more tenable. ⁽¹⁹⁾

Concerning the internal material, Mark's work on the passion and Resurrection of Jesus reads more like a straightforward account in a biographical format. This differentiates from later apocryphal gospels that are embellished and theologically charged. The somewhat mysterious "Messianic secret" characterizes Mark's theological style, not by concealing the truth but by divulging Jesus' Messiahship in non-political terms, and emphasizes the political ramifications of Jesus' proclamation as Messiah. The source for Mark's Gospel is a matter of contemporary debate, but New Testament scholarship has aimed somewhat at a working theory. That Mark relies on earlier source material (including oral and maybe written) is unanimously accepted in scholarly circles today. The contention that Mark acted solely as a transcriber (or an interpreter) for the Apostle Peter has also received widespread acceptance. Some external sources from the early Church Fathers suggest this line of reasoning, including Irenaeus, Tertullian, Papias, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen (the latter two are seen in the writings of Eusebius). Their writings make an association between Mark and the Apostle Peter such that their testimony ought not to be rejected unless there are some defeaters to that view. As it stands, tradition points to Markan authorship. There is also internal evidence to suggest a heavy reliance upon Peter in the fact that the author criticizes the Apostolic comrades and appears to repeat elements of Peter's preaching practically verbatim. In addition, the somewhat unartistic arrangements of Mark's Gospel characterize it as collections of sayings of Jesus. Investigations of the so-called Synoptic Problem have yielded a general consensus that the chronologically subsequent Synoptics (Matthew and Luke) relied on Mark as a source for their Gospels. Perhaps this best accounts for their similarities on certain pericopes (or groups of sayings). ⁽²⁰⁾ Investigations of the so-called Synoptic Problem have yielded a general consensus that the chronologically subsequent Synoptics, Matthew and Luke, relied on Mark as a source in their Gospels. Perhaps this best accounts for their similarities on certain narratives. According to traditional sources (though not unanimous), the provenance of Mark's Gospel is probably Rome. Mark tends to use Latinisms in his writing and he seems to explain Jewish customs in such a way as to suggest that his audience was unaware of them. What is almost certainly known is that Mark wrote in the regions of Italy. ⁽²¹⁾

Luke's Gospel is admittedly a companion volume to the Book of Acts. Luke was a noted physician (cf. Col. 4:14) whose rich scholarship made him an able historian. Evidence that Luke wrote His Gospel finds ample support. For example, the writer of Acts says "we" when recalling those occasions where the author was present. ⁽²²⁾ The fact that this author traveled closely with Paul, even to his imprisonment in Rome, suggests that Luke is the most likely candidate. Secondly, Luke imports some medical observations in his Gospel that suggests a physician's touch (cf. Luke 4:38, Matt. 8:14; Mark 1:30). But this has been criticized by some on grounds that such medical terminology is common. ⁽²³⁾ Finally, literary devices and certain phraseologies suggest that Luke was probably the author and also conscious of his literary environment. He probably authored his gospel around 59-63 A.D ⁽²⁴⁾ and probably wrote his Gospel in Greece (following the events in Rome). Luke's Gospel is directed toward a man named "Theophilus" who was probably a Roman official with great wealth and stature. If Theophilus was Luke's patron, then Luke's commitment to his Gospel would have yielded an accurate and scholarly piece of history. Furthermore, it seems that unknown people such as Matthew, Mark, and Luke are unlikely candidates to be authoring important biographical material. This counts in favor of their authorship given the principle of embarrassment. If some early Christians desired to bolster the Resurrection account they would have spruced it up with well-known authors and would have used the "bigger" names such as Peter, Thomas, Barnabas, and so forth. In fact, the first two centuries of Christianity indicate that this is precisely what occurred. The so-called Gospel of Peter, the Nag Hammadi texts, and other apocryphal gospels were produced to enhance the Christian message. This makes the unlikely names of Matthew, Mark, and Luke a credible factor in sustaining their authorship.

Approximately four main concepts of the priority of the Synoptic Gospels have been suggested in the study of their interdependence. The most popular and currently accepted theory is that Mark was the first Gospel succeeded by Matthew and Luke who borrowed from Mark and "Q" (German: quelle; a hypothetical reference to Mark's source material) in the grafting of their Gospels (This is called the "Two Source" hypothesis). Another possibility is the historical assumption of priority: that Matthew was the source for Mark, which was the source for Luke. Others reverse the order and posit Lukan priority over Mark, which serves as the source for a later source for Matthew. In these latter two, Mark is seen as the "middle term" in their interdependence. Finally, J. J. Griesbach had surmised a co-priority of both Matthew and Luke leaving Mark as a later writing which depends on them. ⁽²⁵⁾ This is called the "Two Gospel" hypothesis. 

This by no means precludes the possibility of additional source material for the composers of the Synoptics. For example, Matthew and Luke were probably in touch with additional material (perhaps oral or written, or both) that contributed to their Gospels. Mark's source material is primarily based on Peter's preaching and perhaps a "Q" source tradition. But in understanding the relationships between the three Synoptic Gospels to each other, New Testament scholars have arrived at somewhat of a widespread consensus. Contrary to historical assumptions in the past (that Matthew was in priority), there are approximately five reasons suggested by Carson, Moo, and Morris in their book An Introduction to the New Testament to prefer a Markan priority. First, the Gospel according to Mark is relatively shorter than Matthew and Luke's. Matthew contains over 97% of Mark's Gospel and Luke contains over 88%. This may suggest that Matthew and Luke (being longer) began with Mark's material (being shorter) and inserted their own material to supplement it. This is to be preferred over the idea that Mark borrowed from Matthew and condensed his material by leaving out significant events. Secondly, the verbal agreements among the Gospels portray parallelism between Mark and Luke and between Mark and Matthew; however, there are very few of these parallelisms between Matthew and Luke. The similarities and differences are best explained by not positing too many ad hoc assumptions. The position with the least amount of added assumptions is the Markan priority hypothesis. Thirdly, Matthew and Luke do not arrange their order of events contrary to Mark. But deviations between Matthew and Luke occur. This phenomenon may be best explained by Markan priority since no auxiliary assumptions need to be unnecessarily incorporated into this view. Fourthly, Mark contains awkward stylistic traits that would have been "smoothed out" if it were based on Matthew and Luke. That the natural tendency to correct such irregularities by later authors points decisively in favor of a Markan priority. Finally, Mark's theology is considered to be more primitive, that is, it contains almost inexplicable events and actions that the "later" Gospel writers (Matthew and Luke) have doctored up to be more palatable to their readers. For example, Mark notes that Jesus "could not do any miracles" while in Nazareth (6:5) while its parallel passage in Matthew says that Jesus simply "would not do any miracles there" (13:58). The idea that Jesus could not perform miracles in Nazareth might have been too troublesome for potential readers.

Therefore, it seems that although several theories to the Synoptic Problem each seem to enjoy a sense of explanation of particular facts about Synoptic agreements and disagreements, the prevalent theory today that best accounts for the evidence is Markan priority.

Now, many make the temptation of supposing that when a work has scientific consistency then such a work a priori should be deemed actual history. But it would be erroneous to base such a conclusion solely on such an isolated feature. Consider that fictitious works sometimes utilize actual historical chronologies and regions, but this prima facie does not imply a veridical document. Instead, it is the feature of the genre of literature taken in conjunction with its scientific consistency that warrants one to conclude that an actual historical document is under examination. And many features are present within the Synoptic Gospels that support their historically narrative genre. ⁽²⁶⁾ For example, the 1961 finding of an inscription of the name "Pilate" delegates specific extra-biblical confirmation for the Gospel accounts of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus to his death. Also, the discovery of an ossuary containing the remains of a man who had been crucified with nails in his ankles seems to verify such execution techniques during Jesus' time. In addition, the 1992 discovery of the bones of Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest during the time of Jesus, silenced skeptical queries about Caiaphas' existence. The close similarities of the events depicted between biographies and historical literature and the Synoptics demonstrate that a general continuity and reliability are to be seen. Given the genre of the literature, the Synoptics ought to serve as historical sources.

(2) The Johannine Gospel, derived from an independent tradition and thought to be the most theologically rich Gospel, enjoys basic material consistency with the Synoptics and the extra-biblical writings. John's Gospel, seemingly written to theologically enhance the life of Jesus and to promote a philosophy of religion contrary to the Greeks at that time, was probably written much later than the Synoptics. John's Gospel probably dates around 85 C.E. or later. ⁽²⁷⁾ And his stylistic fervor seems to promote the most obvious references to Jesus' Messiahship and Deity in his work. As a consequence, John's Gospel is perhaps the most controversial. Many who read the Gospel of John have come to the conclusion that John was either writing to supplement the Synoptic accounts or to reflect on the events of Jesus' life from an independent perspective. In support of the former view, John makes more allusions and provides more details of the geography, topography, and chronology of the events depicted in the Synoptics. On this level, it seems that the authenticity of John's Gospel is due to the great detail placed in it. Also, one has to consider that the style and flavor of John's writing was indicative of a first-century Palestinian Jewish setting. ⁽²⁸⁾ Nonetheless, there are elements of John's Gospel that seem to grant credulity to this mysterious work. For example, John divulges the fact that Jesus' ministry occurred for about three years. John's work seems to be written for the purpose of "filling in" both historical and theological details not contained elsewhere. In fact, it seems that John is deliberately distancing the philosophy of Jesus' life from that of Hellenized Judaism and Greco-Roman paganism. For example, John emphasizes that Jesus is the incarnate Logos of God (John 1:1; 14) yet "logos" was a term used by ancient philosophers to describe their views of the manifestation of Reality that would not have taken material form. ⁽²⁹⁾ In any event, John's work accurately captures the Christianity of the First Century.

(3) The Book of Acts is practically an indisputably accurate transcription of first-century Christianity. The Book of Acts is Luke's second chapter to his companion Gospel. Acts more likely dates no later than 63 C.E. given the open-ended conclusion of the events depicted (e.g. there is no outcome to Paul's trial - a feature that would have definitely been included had it been known at the time of writing). In the end of Acts, Jesus' brother James is still alive, and Paul remains under house arrest after his voyage to Rome. Further warrant for an early 60's date stems from the noted figures Festus and Agrippa prior to Paul's house arrest and the significant silence of the burning of Rome and the persecution of Christians there which occurred in 64 C.E. Acts makes no mention of these events which most certainly would have been recorded if Acts were still being written or if Acts were being written subsequent to those events. Acts contains about 30 years of Church history from the post-mortem appearances of Jesus (in the 30's) to the house arrest of Paul in Rome (in the early 60's). From the birth of the Church to the persecution of Christians we see well-developed scenarios that characterized Christianity during this time-frame. Notable Roman Historian Colin J. Hemer chronicles 17 significant reasons to accept the traditional early-60's dating of Acts. ⁽³⁰⁾ Concerning the historical accuracy of Acts, scholars have generally engulfed themselves in the rich historical and archaeological information latent within it. Acts is perhaps the most popular book for historical studies since it contains a wealth of historically verifiable and significant elements. Dr. Normal L. Geisler of Southern Evangelical Seminary lists 43 of those verified instances of historical and archaeological accuracy. ⁽³¹⁾ Some of these include Luke's properly identification of two ports, Mount Casius (south of Seleucia) and the river port, Perga, from Cyprus (13:4-5, 13). The location of Lycaonia is properly identified (14:6). We are also told correctly that travel by sea during the summer time to Athens during easterly winds is the most efficient route (17:14). The correct designations of grammateus and anthupatoi properly reflect titles for magistrates and those holding court (19:35, 38) while Neokoros is the proper name for the goddess (19:37). For these and other reasons scholars consider Acts to be a widely acknowledged reliable source of information on first-century Christian history.

(4) The Pauline Letters contain the oldest information on the Resurrection of Jesus by an influential former enemy of Christianity. There is no doubt that Paul's written works in the New Testament offer theological significance to the Resurrection and his coming eschatological arrival. What is rather intriguing about Paul (or Saul) is that he had no sympathies for the Christian cause when the birth of the Church occurred. Paul himself was a former Jewish Pharisee and perceived the Christian myth to be a dangerous obstacle to his orthodox Jewish upbringing. This led Paul to persecute the Christians even to the point of executing them. ⁽³²⁾ When Paul finally did make his conversion to Christianity, his missionary writings contained the most theologically significant information on doctrinal matters. As such, each written work by Paul proved to be important source material for the Christian church. What is significant for our assessment of the Resurrection is the old tradition laced within 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians itself was authored circa 55 A.D. and was probably written toward the end of Paul's three-year stay in Ephesus. As such it barely predates the Book of Romans (57 A.D.). However, when Paul mentions that "What I received I passed on to you . . . " (1 Cor. 15:3; NIV) he is suggesting that his information was not derived from special revelation or personal invention. Instead, his information is taken from an old tradition circulated by other Christians. This can be seen in the technical language used by Paul to denote the transmission and reception of this tradition. ⁽³³⁾ This means that in order for Paul to have received such a tradition, he would had to have picked it up when he was in Jerusalem. Galatians 1:18 informs us that Paul indeed was in Jerusalem around 36 A.D. at the latest and stayed with James for approximately two weeks. So, the latest Paul could have received an already ongoing tradition would have been within six years of the Resurrection event itself.

It seems that based on a careful analysis of the New Testament writings, we find good reasons to adopt early ages for their authorship. Some believe that the dating of the writings is unimportant, ⁽³⁴⁾ but for those who perceive the possibility of corruption with age can find the aforementioned reasons a comfortable foundation upon which to repose confidence. At any rate, the New Testament literature serves as a proper basis for historical inquiry.

V. EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS OUTSIDE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

Many critics of the Resurrection of Jesus take a somewhat jaded approach. Such critics are generally atheists who prefer to dispose of the life of Jesus altogether so that any reference to Jesus' Resurrection is just as mythological as embellished stories about Mithras, Buddha, Muhammad, Lao-Tzu, and so forth. After all, if Jesus never existed then the entire Resurrection enterprise becomes vacated. However, disputations of the existence of Jesus have generally been disregarded since the evidence for Jesus' existence is overwhelmingly present in historical, non-biblical literature. This is why theologically liberal scholars alter the gospel's portrait of Jesus. If it benefitted a theological stance to deny the Resurrection of Jesus and to posit him as a mere Mediterranean Jewish peasant, then there is no doubt that a denial of Jesus altogether would ensue if Jesus were not a historical figure. A denial of Jesus' existence would serve to defer questions about the Resurrection for interested pursuers of fiction. Historical scholarship on Jesus would be settled. But the consensus of scholarship overwhelmingly supports the existence of Jesus as a historical person. Many base their views solely on the New Testament source material. Others understand that there are several historians of antiquity that provide a substantial basis for the existence of Jesus. In this section we will look at only a few of these.

(1) Flavius Josephus.

Josephus was a first century Jewish historian who authored information about the history of the Jews beginning with Adam (The Antiquities of the Jews), a first-hand account of the revolt against Rome (The Jewish War), and an autobiographical account (Life). The importance of a Jewish historian in mentioning Jesus affords unbiased verification of the historicity of a man whose teachings were in opposition to Josephus' own beliefs about the expected Messiah. Unfortunately, the much celebrated references to Jesus by Josephus have been scrutinized by critics of the historicity of Jesus. It is their contention that Josephus did not write about Jesus at all but, rather, whose writings were contaminated by Christian copyists who sought to add extra-biblical credibility to the historicity of Jesus. Scholars on Josephus have come to a somewhat different conclusion. By their examination, the references to Jesus by Josephus seem to be appropriately attributed to Josephus' original work. ⁽³⁵⁾

There are two passages by Josephus that mention Jesus. One of them is the much-controversial Testimonium Flavianum:

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a

man. For he was a doer of amazing deeds, a teacher of persons who receive truth

with pleasure. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah.

And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, the leading men among us having

accused him, those who loved him from the first did not cease to do so. For he

appeared to them the third day alive again, the divine prophets having spoken these

things and a myriad of other marvels concerning him. And to the present the tribe

of Christians, named after this person, has not disappeared. ⁽³⁶⁾

There are some phrases and sentences in this passage that are peculiar statements if they were written by a non-Christian, Jewish individual. This is why many protest the passage. Some of these peculiar wordings include "if indeed one ought to call him a man" which seems to signify deification. But a Jewish historian surely would not have believed in the deity of Jesus for this would have convoluted his integrity as a religious Jew. This also seems to be in discord with the previous statement, "a wise man," which inadvertently precludes any notion of divinity. A similar concern exists for the other statements under question with "He was the Messiah" and "For he appeared to them the third day alive again, the divine prophets having spoken these things and a myriad of other marvels concerning him." The notion of a resurrection for a Jewish historian would have been greatly untenable, especially given Jewish conceptions of resurrection (more on this issue later).

Miami University Professor of history, Edwin M. Yamauchi, lists five main reasons why scholars on Josephus believe the Testimonium Flavianum is an authentic reference to Jesus: ⁽³⁷⁾

1. Jesus is called "a wise man." Though the phrase is complimentary, it is less

     than one would expect from Christians.

2. "For he was one who wrought surprising feats" ["For he was a doer of amazing

     deeds"]. This is not necessarily a statement that could only have come from a

     Christian.

3. "He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks" is simply an observation.

4. "Those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their

     affection for him," conforms to Josephus' characteristic style.

5. "And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not

     disappeared." Most scholars would agree that the word phylon "tribe," is

     not a typically Christian expression.

It has also been noted by Yamauchi that a tenth century Melkite bishop of Hierapolis, named Agapius, inscribed an Arabic translation of Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum that seems to possess differences with the Greek version which may divulge the original passage. ⁽³⁸⁾ The Israeli scholar, S. Pines, observes approximately four of these differences:

1. Josephus expresses the mere humanity of Jesus.

2. Josephus refers only to Jesus' good conduct and virtue.

3. Josephus refers to the appearance of Jesus after three days as merely a "report."

4. Josephus has the qualifier "perhaps" immediately preceding "he was the Messiah."

Given these tenth century differences, the existence of Jesus and the validation of his unique claims and behavior conducive to Messiahship are afforded credibility.

The second reference of Jesus by Josephus is found in Antiquities 20.9.1 S200-201 where we have a more evanescent mentioning of Jesus. In this passage we read:

He (Ananus) convened the council of judges and brought before it the brother

of Jesus-the one called "Christ"-whose name was James, and certain others.

Accusing them of transgressing the law he delivered them up for stoning. But

those of the city considered to be the most fair-minded and strict concerning the

laws were offended at this and sent to the king secretly urging him to order

Ananus to take such actions no longer.

There are four interesting features with this second passage that lend credence to the authenticity of Josephus' reference to Jesus. First, the reference to Jesus seems to be in passing and only serves to undergird the core analysis by Josephus on the subject of Ananus as the high priest. The reference to Jesus is merely to explain James' significance in the events listed. Secondly, the phrase "the one called 'Christ'" seems to imply an earlier reference - perhaps the Testimonium Flavianum. Thirdly, Josephus discusses here the stoning of James which is not an element in any of the New Testament writings. In the New Testament, James is still alive at the time Acts concludes. This would imply that Josephus was not borrowing from Christian sources but, rather, secular sources independent of the New Testament. Finally, Josephus refers to James as "the brother of Jesus" whereas Christians have generally referred to James as "the brother of the Lord." ⁽³⁹⁾

Most scholars who have reviewed the writings of Josephus generally conclude that he makes genuine references to Jesus albeit the Testimonium Flavianum contains elements of Christian embellishment. The fact that Josephus refers to Jesus at least twice in his writings adds extra-biblical and unbiased support for the authenticity of Jesus' existence.

(2) Suetonius

Roman historian Suetonius lived from approximately 70 A.D. to 160 A.D. His references to Jesus is a little more enigmatic than Josephus'. However, Suetonius is worth mentioning since his passages have been the subject of scholarly observation. The background of the passage in Vita Claudius (25.4) concerns tumult in the Jewish-Roman community. It reads:

Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he

expelled them from Rome.

A number of scholars have extracted the peculiar reference to "Chrestus" and have concluded that it is a variant spelling of "Christus" (the Latin for "Christ"). Despite its seemingly reference to Chrestus being in Rome and the notion that Chrestus was possibly a reference to a generic Jewish agitator, many have concluded that this reference is to the expulsion noted in Acts 18:1-2:

Then Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he became acquainted with

a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with

his wife, Priscilla. They had been expelled from Italy as a result of Claudius

Caesar's order to deport all Jews from Rome. Paul lived and worked with them,

for they were tentmakers just as he was (The Living Bible).

But this passage in no way presumes that Jesus is the source of the Jewish disturbances. As Yamauchi observes:

An important argument against the view that the Chrestus incident in 49 involved

Christians is the fact that about 60, when Paul was under house arrest in Rome, the

Jewish leaders who came to Paul betray no knowledge of the Christian movement

(Acts 28:21-22). ⁽⁴⁰⁾

Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and

mischievous superstition.

Whether the "mischievous superstition" is the Christian phenomenon itself or a subtle and unfriendly reference to the Resurrection of Jesus is unclear, but the fact that another Roman historian, Tacitus, also makes a reference to a "mischievous superstition" as the source of Christian belief (in his Annals 15.44) may infer Jesus and his Resurrection (more on this below). But conclusions based on Suetonius' references appear to be dubious at best notwithstanding the influence of the Christian belief in the Resurrection clearly evident in Jesus' followers.

(3) Cornelius Tacitus

Tacitus, another Roman historian born around 52 - 55 A.D., was the son-in-law of the former Governor of Britain, Julius Agricola. Having expressed sheer hatred for Christians and Jews, he makes an interesting observation about Nero's persecution of the Christians in his Annals 15.44:

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of

the gods did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of

an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted

the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians

by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme

penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius

Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition thus checked for the moment, again broke

out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things

hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become

popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty: then, upon

their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of

firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. ⁽⁴¹⁾

Three elements about Jesus, echoed by the Gospel accounts of the eyewitnesses of Jesus and his contemporaries, are multiply attested by this non-biblical historian who is somewhat unsympathetic to Christianity:

1. Christians were named after Christ ("Christus, from whom the name had its origin").

2. Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius ("Christus . . .

     suffered . . . during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of . . . Pontius Pilate").

3. Christianity spread from Judea to Rome en masse (". . . broke out not only in

     Judea . . . but even in Rome . . . an immense multitude was convicted").

Given these three observations about Tacitus' evaluation of the ravishing fire of 64 A.D. and the Christians' blame for it, it appears we have unbiased testimony to the existence of Jesus, his death, and the widespread faith of Christianity beginning from Judea and extending to Rome. Tacitus' passage adds one more reason to agree with noted author and apologist for the Resurrection, Josh McDowell, ⁽⁴²⁾ when he states, "It is certainly not the historians (maybe a few economists) who propagate a Christ-myth theory of Jesus." ⁽⁴³⁾

(4) Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger, or Plinius Secundus, was the nephew of Pliny the Elder (a known encyclopedist). As Governor of Bithynia in northwestern Turkey around 112 A.D., he writes to emperor Trajan about his advisement on the treatment of Christians in his Letters 10.96:

I have never been present at an examination of Christians. Consequently, I do

not know the nature of the extent of the punishments usually meted out to them,

nor the grounds for starting an investigation and how far it should be pressed . . .

I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question

a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they

persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their

admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy

ought not to go unpunished . . . They also declared that the sum total of their guilt

or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a

fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honour of Christ as

if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but

to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery, . . . This made me decide it was all

the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom

they call deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to

extravagant lengths. ⁽⁴⁴⁾

By observing this particular passage, we can gather three insightful elements of the historical Jesus:

1. Regular meetings occurred once a week in conjunction with worship songs in

     memory of Jesus ("they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to

     chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honour of Christ").

2. Jesus was honored "as if to a god." ⁽⁴⁵⁾

3. Christians adopted the ethics employed by Jesus ("they . . . bind themselves by

     oath . . . to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery"). ⁽⁴⁶⁾

It appears that the death of Jesus (and his Resurrection?) impacted the early Christian church. If Christians assented to their Messiah "as if to a god" and honored his memorial via worship songs, then it seems that a manifested Christology about Jesus existed. But all of this assumes that Pliny was writing about a man who actually existed at one time.

By observing these Roman and Jewish sources that were inscribed outside of the New Testament canon, it seems implausible to suppose that Jesus' existence was the product of pure fiction. Instead, such criticism and anti-Christian defamation of the followers of Jesus seems to be a non-biblical corroborating source for Jesus' historicity. In any event, critics of the historicity of Jesus must wrestle with such perplexing passages written by men who were unsympathetic to the messages of Jesus and wielders of animosity toward the Christian cause.

VI. THE RESURRECTION HYPOTHESIS DEFENDED

Now that we have an awareness of Jesus outside of the New Testament and the source material from which the evidence for the Resurrection will draw its information, we can now begin to apply the core information from the New Testament writings to the inductive argument structure covered in Section III above. This is where the Resurrection hypothesis will be critically evaluated. For some, the authenticity of the Synoptics, the Pauline letters, and the Johannine writings are dead on arrival. Their quest for the "real" Jesus becomes a theological salvage operation from source material generally regarded as inaccurate with views colored by preconceived biases about what they think happened on that first Easter morning. For others, it makes no difference whether the source material for the Resurrection hypothesis is authentic or not. They would suppose that a naturalistic explanation of the facts is a better one. Whatever the controversy, critics usually fall under one of these two categories. This means that in order for a critic of the Resurrection to be receptive to the Resurrection hypothesis, there must be a good argument for the Resurrection with supporting evidences that entails that the Resurrection hypothesis far exceeds its rivals in meeting well-established historical conditions. ⁽⁴⁷⁾ In the following defense of the Resurrection hypothesis, the case for Jesus' Resurrection will be established.

Premise 1: The Resurrection hypothesis has a non-negligible prior probability.

It may surprise some harboring antipathy toward the Resurrection of Jesus that such an event was to be expected. Despite the fact that the isolated resurrection of any single individual was contrary to Jewish thought (contrary to beliefs about the General Resurrection), there are some good reasons to suppose that Jesus' Resurrection enjoyed a non-negligible prior probability. By "non-negligible prior probability" I mean to suggest that the probability of Jesus' Resurrection was an event to be initially feasible given that God directly acts in the world to establish empirical support for special revelation, even though the Resurrection in particular is not to be evinced primarily from this observation. ⁽⁴⁸⁾ Consider three examples from the Old Testament where God uses miracles to vindicate certain proclamations:

(a) God performed miracles to Pharaoh through Moses to validate the liberation

     of the Hebrew slaves (Exodus 6:29-7:3).

(b) God performed a miracle through Elijah to establish who was the true God

     (1 Kings 18:19-39).

(c) God performed a miracle to validate the revelation given to Hezekiah by Isaiah

     that his life would be extended 15 years longer (Isaiah 38:1-9; 2 Kings 20:4-11).

These should serve to promulgate God's miraculous expectancy in vindicating special matters of revelation. However, one may observe that God also uses physically normative occurrences to establish credibility. ⁽⁴⁹⁾ Fortunately, the difference between God's prompting of natural events and supernatural events for establishing credible revelation are somewhat clear. In the cases where God uses normative, natural events to underscore an event established by God, they are cases that harbor very little import. However, when God seeks to validate matters of great import he generally uses impressive, supernatural events.

In the case of Jesus' own unparalleled life and as the self-declared special revelation of God, we would expect a grand miraculous event to substantiate such radical assertions. After all, in Jewish thought there was no expectation of a Messiah who would profess to suffer and die for the propitiation of sinful people. ⁽⁵⁰⁾ As far as Jesus understood himself, he was the special revelation of God who had come on his own authority as the voice for God (a claim no Jewish Rabbi would have dared to profess). ⁽⁵¹⁾ Secondly, Jesus thought of himself as the unique Son of God categorically distinct from earlier references to Jewish holy men who were called "sons of God." ⁽⁵²⁾ Thirdly, Jesus believed he could arbitrate people's eternal destiny. ⁽⁵³⁾ Fourthly, Jesus believed that in himself the kingdom of God had arrived. ⁽⁵⁴⁾ Finally, on the basis of the previous four, Jesus thought of himself as the incarnation of God himself. ⁽⁵⁵⁾ Given these five essential established descriptions of the self-understanding of Jesus, one could confidently expect that a grand vindication of such radical claims would be nigh, especially if Jesus were to be publicly executed in confirmation of his earlier prediction of his death just prior to his Resurrection. ⁽⁵⁶⁾ Horst Georg Pöhlmann summarizes this evidence in his Abriss der Dogmatik when he states:

In summary, one could say that today there is virtually a consensus concerning

that wherein the historical in Jesus is to be seen. It consists in the fact that Jesus

came on the scene with an unheard of authority, namely with the authority of

God, with the claim of the authority to stand in God's place and speak to us and

bring us to salvation. ⁽⁵⁷⁾

Premise 2: If the Resurrection hypothesis is true, then the historical facts are true.

Premise 3: The historical facts are true.

One would initially expect that the historical facts would lead to the hypothesis rather than the hypothesis lead to the historical facts. Some critics of the Resurrection believe that the disciples derived their miracle from another source independent of (and even prior to) the historical facts (this will be dealt with in section 6.1.3). Nonetheless, this premise serves to render the Resurrection hypothesis true such that any observed facts about the events following Jesus' public execution are best explained by the Resurrection hypothesis. Even though a deductive strategy would be effective in establishing the Resurrection as a historical event, our evaluation here is to see how the Resurrection best explains the well-established facts about Jesus. This evaluation informs us that if the Resurrection hypothesis is true, then we would expect the observed facts to be confirmatory evidence of that hypothesis. However, before the evidence can be properly discussed there must first be a survey of the particular evidence generally agreed upon by the majority of New Testament scholars. Upon surveying such evidence, the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead shall be measured by the elements of good historical justification.

6.1 Three Well-Established Historical Facts

6.1.1 The Empty Tomb

One of the most staggering lines of evidence that needs to be considered is the fact that the body of Jesus subsequent to his public execution was no longer located in the tomb he was buried in. If Jesus was killed and his body placed in a tomb known to the general community, and if Jesus' body was no longer present in the tomb, then the empty tomb story is undeniable. Thus, it must first be true that Jesus was initially executed publicly and buried in an accessible and known location. If it can be established that Jesus' burial was essentially accurate, then the empty tomb hypothesis would enjoy considerable strength since its location would have been ascertained by interested pilgrims and discriminating skeptics. Therefore, the empty tomb evidence gains its explanatory force in the wake of Jesus' burial. After all, if a critic desired to expose the entire Christian affair (particularly since the entire Christian belief system depended on it ⁽⁵⁸⁾) one need only exhume the body of Jesus and publicize its existence. Since this does not occur, and that Jesus' burial site was known in the first century (as the following evidence suggests), then the evidence of the empty tomb avails the Christian affirmation of the Resurrection.

6.1.1.1 Jesus was tortured and then publicly executed until death.

6.1.1.1.1 Mark 15:1-47

In this account, Mark details the public outcry for justice concerning the sentencing and death of Jesus of Nazareth which ultimately prompted the release of a murderous insurrectionist. Pontius Pilate, the Italian-born procurator of Judea who was responsible to the Roman governor, ⁽⁵⁹⁾ took the democratic approach. He paraded the murderer, Barabbas, in front of the anxious crowd next to Jesus. In utter dismay to Pilate, the crowd cried out for the blood of Jesus to be spilled via crucifixion. Following the public decision to crucify Jesus, he was escorted away by Roman soldiers who, subsequently, flogged and crucified him. Here, Mark notes the landmark of Jesus' public execution, the area of Golgotha (which means "place of the skull"). After public ridicule and Jesus' death, the prominent member of the Jewish High Council, Joseph of Arimathea, requested the deceased body of Jesus from Pilate. Mark concludes this chapter spelling out the burial of Jesus and noting that the women were aware of the burial site:

So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body,

wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of

rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus saw where he

was laid. ⁽⁶⁰⁾

Burials of this kind entail that the tomb was located on a hillside and was sealed with a disc-shaped stone that was rolled down into a groove. This type of burial would secure the deceased individual in his or her tomb leaving almost no chance of any single individual removing the tomb's portal seal.

It is generally acknowledged that Mark's source probably contained the elements of the Passion and burial account of Jesus. Support for this is found in Paul's own account of the Passion and burial in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 and 15:4. Scholars note that Paul was in contact with pre-Markan source material on the Passion of Jesus when he affirms that Jesus was buried in, what has been evaluated above as, a tomb. Paul would have received this tradition within six years of the burial account (cf. Galatians 1:18). This would imply that Mark's source could not have been an embellishment or a forgery since there is not a significant accrual time for legendary development. Dr. William Lane Craig, the Alexander von Humboldt researcher on the Resurrection, summarizes recognized observations about Mark's account of the burial of Jesus when he states:

It is generally acknowledged that the burial account is part

of Mark's source material for the story of Jesus' passion.

This gives good reason to accept the burial as historical, on

[these] grounds: . . . (i) insufficient time for a legendary burial

of Jesus to arise; (ii) the presence of eyewitnesses who could

affirm the story; and (iii) Paul's probable knowledge of at

least the pre-Markan Passion story. ⁽⁶¹⁾

6.1.1.1.2 Matthew 27:1-66; Luke 23:1-56

In Matthew's account, the similar events depicted in Mark's rendition of the public sentencing, torture, and burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea provide multiple attestation to the events depicted. In fact, Matthew's account comes the closest to the Markan account and probably implies verisimilitude. However, the similarity also implies that Matthew relied on Mark's account for his conveyed layer of tradition. The liberal New Testament scholar and co-chairman of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, states that there is a "massive scholarly consensus: Matthew used Mark as one of the two major sources in composing his gospel." ⁽⁶²⁾ The difference, however, between liberal affirmations of the multiple layers of tradition and the conservative approach is that liberal theologians believe that Matthew adapted Mark's story to simply appeal to his audience the same embellished account of Jesus' Passion and that this should supplant the conservative view that Matthew is an independent witness who uses Mark's account as a source. Dr. Crossan's opinion on the matter avails no evidence to the claim and contradicts his principle of multiple attestation. But the similarity of the account cannot be dismissed as mere forgery even if Matthew based his account on Mark (which is surely the case). That Matthew used Mark is not in question, but Matthew seems to chronicle events not depicted in Mark's account (e.g. "Pilate . . . took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd" - v. 24). This means that Matthew, while using Mark as a guide, was in touch with authentic information apart from Mark's account (or "M") which is consistent with the view that the author of Matthew was probably an eyewitness to some of these events. ⁽⁶³⁾

When Luke covers the arrest, trial, and burial of Jesus he adheres closer to Mark's and Matthew's tradition in the amount of detail allotted. Luke mirrors Mark's presentation of the arrest of Jesus but leaves out Judas' dialogue that "the one I shall kiss is the man; seize him" (RSV). John's Gospel also leaves out this dialogue but replaces it with a conversation between Jesus and the chief priests and Pharisees (John 18:4-9). When Jesus is before the Sanhedrin, Luke reflects most of what Mark and Matthew say here. The primary difference is that Luke does not mention the enigmatic reference of Jesus destroying the "temple" and "raising" it again "in three days." The other Synoptics and John do mention it. Luke also sticks closely with the information written in Mark and Matthew concerning the trial before Pontius Pilate. However, Luke and John give more detail by adding Pilate's words, "I find no crime in this man (John has 'him' here)." Luke goes on to do what the other Gospel writers did not do. He adds the calling together of Pilate and the chief priests where he has Pilate reprimanding the priests because of the lack of guilt in Jesus (23:13-16). When Jesus actually dies, Luke leaves out the "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" plea and the audience's reaction to it. However, Luke stays rather close to Mark and Matthew on the Passion narrative. Now, when Luke notes the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea, he mirrors Mark's account with the exception that Luke does not mention Pilate's conversation with the centurion about whether or not Jesus was dead (cf. Mark 15:44-45). Luke follows Matthew in implying Jesus' death and concludes with the Synoptics and John the removal of the body and the wrapping of it in a linen shroud.

6.1.1.1.3 John 18:28-19:1-42

Jesus' presence before Pontius Pilate and his public sentencing are basically restated by John in his telling of the account. However, John seems to add much more detail to the story. For example, Jesus' answer to Pilate's question "Are you the King of the Jews?" in Mark 15, Matthew 27, and Luke 23 is a straightforward "Yes." In John's account, Jesus questions Pilate's derivation of the phrase "King of the Jews" and explains that he is the proclaimed ruler of a kingdom that is "not of this world" (John 18:36). Because Mark also has Pilate use the phrase "King of the Jews" (15:9) then the reference is probably valid. In any event, the similarity of the account of Jesus' public sentencing is real (both mention the public sentencing of crucifixion, both note the ridicule of Jesus with the purple robe and the crown of thorns, both place his flogging just before his crucifixion, etc . . .) and John's account simply imports more detail into the cross-examination of Jesus. Concerning the public execution and burial of Jesus, John's account is simplified and consistent with Mark's account. There is Jesus' humiliation when on the cross, the attached sign "King of the Jews", the gambling of Jesus' garments, and the similarity of Jesus' death and burial by Joseph of Arimathea in a sealed tomb (vv. 38-42). The Johannine account, like the Markan account, basically chronicles public and private events that were verifiable by any interested pilgrim or critic.

The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and John all detail the arrest, sentencing, public crucifixion, and burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea. There can be little doubt that such a public spectacle would have been contrived or that the burial by Joseph would have been a fabricated story given his prominent position in the Sanhedrin. That Joseph was a sympathizer of Jesus would also have been an unlikely invention. Further, the identification of Joseph with Arimathea has little import. It is a town with little significance and no theological symbolism. ⁽⁶⁴⁾ If the disciples were inventing a burial account, they would have simply noted that the disciples or Jesus' own family buried the body and left it as such. The ties with the Sanhedrin, a council that was hostile to Jesus and associated with Jewish antagonism, make the account least likely to be fictitious. Also, the fact that the female witnesses of the burial site were mentioned in the early pre-Markan source suggests that a fabrication would have been unlikely since they could have been cross-examined. Thus, the location of the burial site was known. Finally, there is an absence of a competing burial account. It seems that no Jewish polemic or critic of the Resurrection in the first century has ever contested the burial account. With these facts and observations about Jesus' burial, we can agree with theologian Wolfgang Trilling who observes that "It appears unfounded to doubt the fact of Jesus' honorable burial - even historically considered." ⁽⁶⁵⁾ Thus, it can be confidently concluded that Jesus was indeed buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb at a known location following his public trial and execution.

6.1.1.2 There is historical corroboration for the empty tomb of Jesus in Paul's writings.

The Gospels serve as primary written accounts of the life, ministry, death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus. They underscore the first century preaching that had brought so many to the influential teachings of Christianity. But, elsewhere in the New Testament, we find similar corroboration of the burial account of Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, Paul writes about a "tradition" he "received" and "passed on" to his readers in Corinth. As noted elsewhere in this essay (see n. 33), the technical language used by Paul to denote the transmission and reception of an early tradition implies that Paul was exposed to an early circulation of the proclamation of Jesus' death, burial, and Resurrection. Judging by Paul's visit to Jerusalem, he would have received this tradition no later than 36 A.D. But 1 Corinthians 15 makes an important contribution about what was circulated within six years of the death of Jesus. Paul writes:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died

for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised

on the third day according to the Scriptures (vv. 3-4; NIV)

Scholars believe that Paul is using kai hoti ("and that") to chronologically connect a sequence of events preached elsewhere by Paul (cf. Acts 13). This means that Paul was noting a sequence of particular events that needed to be categorized as distinct ones. He first notes that Jesus was buried and then he notes that he was raised. If Paul wanted to merely emphasize Jesus' death he would have simply said, "he was buried and on the third day appeared to Cephas." ⁽⁶⁶⁾ Instead, Paul is wanting to bridge the event of Jesus' death with the specific event of Jesus' burial. This means that Paul is suggesting that Jesus did not only die but was buried in an empty tomb. Paul would have been quite familiar with the traditions surrounding the life, death, and burial of Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23-26) so that the empty tomb would have been where Jesus was buried. On the Gospel accounts of the empty tomb I shall have more to say.

6.1.1.3 Jesus' tomb was found empty by women on the Sunday following Jesus' death.

The pre-Markan Passion account recalls those events three days following Jesus' public execution, death, and burial. Mark refers to that account to detail what happened:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of

James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus'

body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they

were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will

roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they

looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been

rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed

in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't

be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was

crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.

(16:1-6; NIV).

The women had traveled to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. When they had arrived they were told that "he is not here" and to "see the place where they laid him." The empty tomb narrative is inseparably part of the burial account on syntactic grounds and complements the burial narrative. Secondly, it would have been unusual to the Christian message had the account of Jesus' burial been circulated without victory at its end. That Jesus would have just been buried and that's all would have been peculiar indeed. Thirdly, the events here correspond with the events noted in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5. Therefore, it seems that the pre-Markan empty tomb account is probably historical. Some scholars point out that the uses of geographical references (with Galilee as a horizon) and personal names suggest Jerusalem as the source of this tradition. ⁽⁶⁷⁾

In addition, the pre-Markan material is probably old on the basis of Mark's usage of "the first day of the week" (16:2) instead of the later used "on the third day." The so-called "third-day" motif was widely predominant in Christian proclamations about the Resurrection of Jesus. If the pre-Markan source was part of a later tradition, it would have embraced the "third-day" usage in reference to Jesus' discovered empty tomb. But this is not what we find. Instead, we have the primitive reference of "the first day of the week" (a Jewish reference to be sure). This makes the tradition really old. Secondly, the pre-Markan account refers to the "high priest" without mentioning his name. ⁽⁶⁸⁾ It seems to be that the tradition assumes that those hearing it already understood that the current occupant was being referred to. But since Caiaphas was the high priest during Jesus' execution and burial, this means that the pre-Markan source had to have been circulated during his lifetime or 18-37 A.D.

Finally, the fact that women and not men are the first to discover the empty tomb probably accedes with the principle of embarrassment. In classic Judaism, women's social status in society was extremely low. They usually were not permitted to be legal witnesses because their testimony lacked the necessary qualifications. Some old Jewish sayings suggest that women were ranked lower than men. One old Jewish prayer states, "I thank Thee that I am not a woman." Still another saying says, "Sooner let the books of the Law be burnt than read by women." ⁽⁶⁹⁾ The social standing of women was low enough that they were regarded a little higher than belongings. But if this is true, then why persuade someone of a radical new fiction (such as Jesus' tomb being empty) that women alone first discovered? If the disciples of Jesus were truly attempting to fabricate an empty tomb narrative they would have made some prominent figure be the one to discover the empty tomb (e.g. Peter, Paul, or the Apostle John). The only explanation for this seemingly embarrassing account is that women did indeed first discover the empty tomb. Another interesting observation is that the male disciples were in Jerusalem hiding out while the women were tending to the body of Jesus as an act of their final devotion. But why humiliate the disciples this way unless it was women who really did discover the empty tomb to begin with? ⁽⁷⁰⁾ It must also be noted that the women who discovered the empty tomb were well known and are mentioned by name in the Gospel accounts. This precludes any legendary invention since any false testimony would have been exposed had the account been fabricated.

6.1.1.4 Mark's account of the burial and empty tomb narrative lacks theological and apologetic embellishment.

German New Testament critic and nineteenth century liberal scholar Rudolf Bultmann agrees that the pre-Markan account of the burial by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb wrapped in linen is not significantly embellished but, rather, a seemingly straightforward account of the burial of Jesus. ⁽⁷¹⁾ A comparison with any of the apocryphal gospels would show that such legendary development had not been incorporated into the earlier Gospels. These later fabrications speak of events that are theologically pregnant with garnished sayings that clearly mark the account with legendary fiction. By contrast, the pre-Markan passion narrative does not contain any legendary material which bespeaks a simple account of the discovery of the empty tomb.

6.1.1.4 Peter and John's subsequent visit to the empty tomb is probably historical.

As noted before, John, the son of Zebedee, is the most probable author of the fourth Gospel. John notes the visit of both himself and Peter to the empty tomb (John 20:3) which is also greatly attested by tradition (Luke 24:12, 24). Given the backdrop of Peter's denial in Jerusalem (Mark 14:66-72), it is probable that he and the disciples would want to go and investigate the tomb. In addition, Dr. Craig notes that "the absence of any evidence for the disciples' flight to Galilee also implies that they were in Jerusalem, which makes the visit to the empty tomb plausible." ⁽⁷²⁾

6.1.1.5 The empty tomb kerygma would have been ceased had the tomb still housed the corpse of Jesus.

Kerygma simply means "proclamation" which was designed to disseminate the message that the Lord had risen from the dead. ⁽⁷³⁾ The disciples' kerygma of the empty tomb would not have been possible if Jesus' body were still in the tomb. Even if the disciples did not investigate the tomb, to be sure the Roman officials and the Jewish authorities would have examined the tomb with an effort to expose the Jesus heresy. The Jewish authorities would have gladly exhumed the body and paraded it through the streets of Jerusalem for all to see. This would have capped the empty tomb myth forever. As history declares, precisely the opposite occurred. The Jewish authorities did discover the empty tomb and prompted an alternate explanation for the disappearance of Jesus' body (Matthew 28:12-13). Soon after, Christianity enjoyed a widespread acceptance beginning in the city where Jesus was publicly executed and buried. This means that the kerygma of the empty tomb must have been true.

That the tomb was found empty by women followers and subsequently by Peter and John is historically probable. But the enemies of Jesus also indirectly confirm the Christian kerygma that Jesus' tomb was indeed empty. Matthew 28:12-13 gives the following account:

When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they

gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, "You are to say, 'His

disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.'

Verse 15 contains the incidental reference that "this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day" which shows the apologetic developed by the Jews in order to provide an alternate explanation as to why the tomb was empty. But since this early Jewish polemic invents the theft of Jesus' body by the disciples, this implies that the tomb was indeed empty. Thus we have attestation through the enemies of Jesus that the tomb was empty.

6.1.1.7 The lack of veneration at the tomb of Jesus suggests that it was vacated.

In first century Palestine, it was common for Jews to show veneration (and even worship) at the tombs of prophets and great people of God. This can be illustrated by the women who visit the tomb to initiate final burial rites. But there is no evidence of anyone ever continuing a regular visitation to the tomb for the purposes of worship or veneration. Dr. Crossan suggests that the burial site of Jesus is unhistorical and perhaps Jesus was buried in a shallow graveyard. ⁽⁷⁴⁾ But this explanation is no good since we have already seen that there is good evidence for the burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea who is an unlikely invention. The only reason Crossan disavows the historicity of Joseph is because he believes that since the disciples are about to fabricate a resurrection account, they desire to pattern Old Testament passages that supposedly point to tomb burials (Deuteronomy 21:22-23; Joshua 10:26-27). However, there is no similarity between the accounts of Jesus and these Old Testament passages. ⁽⁷⁵⁾ Therefore, since the tomb was a historical burial site for Jesus and there existed no veneration at the tomb then it is probably the case that Jesus' corpse no longer remained in the tomb. ⁽⁷⁶⁾

6.1.2 The Appearances of Jesus Alive After his Death

After having surveyed the evidence for the empty tomb it is a little difficult to walk away disbelieving in the missing body of Jesus. The evidence, both from friendly and critical spectators, seems to militate against any conceptions of Jesus' body still remaining in the tomb. In this section we shall take a look at the New Testament evidence for the appearances made to various individuals under diverse circumstances. These appearances were characterized as post-mortem because of Jesus' death earlier that Friday. Sometimes the appearances seem quite numinous. By way of prefacing, the appearances of Jesus are widely accepted by the broad spectrum of New Testament critics, not just the usually conservative Evangelical scholars but also by radical left-wing scholars.

Before we can properly consider the events of the appearances we must terminologically grasp the ontology of the appearances. This is to ask what it was that witnesses were actually seeing. Was Jesus raised as some sort of disembodied spirit or as a physical, embodied being? Some reasons suggest that the Resurrection of Jesus entailed a physical, bodily Resurrection. First, the Jewish concept of a resurrection always pertained to the body of the deceased. To discuss resurrection in the context of a disembodied spirit would have been a contradiction in terms. If a Jew had an experience of a disembodied spirit, his reaction would have been to posit a translated or assumed person and not a corporeal person. ⁽⁷⁷⁾ Secondly, in the much disputed passage in 1 Corinthians 15 we find Paul referring to the Resurrection of Jesus as a Resurrection of a "spiritual body" (v. 44). Those who prefer an incorporeal understanding of the Resurrection surmise that the "spiritual body" is a "spirit being" while others maintain a metaphorical connotation for this saying. ⁽⁷⁸⁾ In response, the context does not provide for this interpretation and it is doubtful that the etymology of the saying preserves a metaphorical interpretation. With respect to its etymology, the Greek word for "body" is swma which refers to the physical anatomy of the individual. It is this word that is used in conjunction with pneumatikon (or "spiritual") in the phrase "spiritual body." But since the swma is a reference of the physical body then the term pneumatikon must have a reference beyond an anatomical spirit as it would contradict the phrase. It would be like saying a "square circle" or a "married bachelor." So this cannot possibly be what Paul is doing here. I think the context of 1 Corinthians sheds considerable light on the phrase as he uses it. Notice the series of contrasts in verses 42-49 (e.g. "perishable . . . imperishable," "dishonor . . . glory," and "earthly . . . heavenly"). The contrast of "spiritual body" is "natural body" (v. 44). But all of these terms are not references to the anatomy of the individual, they are references of orientation or dominion of the individual. Hence, the natural body is the body under the domination of the sinful and corruptible life while the spiritual body is the body under the domination of the spiritual and incorruptible life. In fact, this is precisely Paul's meaning elsewhere in the same letter (1 Cor. 2:15; 10:4). Thirdly, Paul himself had a physical encounter with the risen Lord as described by Luke (for more on this, see Section 2.1.2.8). Fourthly, the Gospels themselves paint a vivid portrait of the risen Jesus that paints him as being physically Resurrected from the dead (Luke 24:36-39; John 20:26-28). The most compelling description of the physicality of Jesus' post-mortem appearance is found in the Lukan passage where Jesus pronounces to his disciples that "a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (Luke 24:39; emphasis mine). Finally, the fact that groups of people had appearances of Jesus simultaneously indicates that the Resurrection was extramental and something that was really in the world for anyone to potentially see.

The following constitutes a heavy case in favor of the Resurrection appearances had by various individuals under diverse circumstances.

6.1.2.1 The Apostle Paul chronicles a list of witnesses of Jesus alive after his death.

As we return to Paul's first letter to the Corinthians we see a list of individuals that Paul has compiled (perhaps for apologetic or theological reasons) who have witnessed the appearances of Jesus sometime following his public execution and burial. Paul's compilation is the product of earlier tradition circulated within Jerusalem shortly after the crucifixion. As noted above, Paul received this tradition during an earlier visit to Jerusalem. In a passage from this letter (1 Corinthians 15) we read:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ

died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he

was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared

to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five

hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though

some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,

and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born (vv. 3-8).

Given Paul's early acquaintance with Peter, James, and the Twelve, his recollection of their accounts of seeing Jesus alive after his death are embodied within this passage. But the amazing account that has sparked notable interest is the appearance to the five hundred. While an appearance to a handful of sympathizers to Jesus may harbor a target of anti-Christian criticism, an account of five hundred witnesses would be too amazing if not true. So a look at this appearance account is necessary. First, Paul was apparently in touch with those witnesses which is inferred by his parenthetical statement "most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep." Paul had firsthand contact with those people and was aware that some had passed away and some still remained alive. But this implies that Paul could furnish to his readers a way to cross-examine the remaining witnesses because he had close, personal contact with them. This also suggests that the account is probably historical and that it is being told some time later. Secondly, there may be a Gospel connection to this appearance that may explain the vast number of people involved in witnessing it. In Matthew 28 we are told about the appearance to the disciples on a mountainside in Galilee. The interesting feature of this appearance is that it is by appointment for it is said that Jesus "is going ahead of you into Galilee" (v. 7). If the disciples knew that Jesus would appear there and that the appearance would be in a wide open area on a mountainside, it may be that others would have gathered there as well. The honest note by Matthew that "some doubted" (v. 17) would be befittingly within the principle of embarrassment since no one inventing an appearance story would likely include skepticism from the apostles themselves who were the champions of their faith. Therefore, the appearances chronicled by Paul are probably authentic.

6.1.2.2 The Gospels record the appearance of Jesus to his women followers.

All of the Gospels (both the Synoptics and John) attest to the appearance of Jesus to his women followers. ⁽⁷⁹⁾ But this is an interesting feature of the Gospel records since we are privy to the discussion above at 2.1.1.3. While a record of an appearance to women is of no great consequence given the list of witnesses in Paul and records of witnesses of others elsewhere, the fact that women are involved in the Gospel testimony as primary witnesses to a post-mortem appearance of Jesus involves the same principles outlined in their observation of the empty tomb. The unqualified testimony of women is unusual (if not a waste of record space) since no good could have resulted in expecting the early Jerusalem community to acquiesce to the testimony of women about such a remarkable and non-Jewish event. The New Testament writers would have been just as effective by noting only the "important" and most notable witnesses to such appearances, unless of course the Gospel writers were accurately reporting that it truly was women among others who witnessed an appearance of Jesus alive after his death before anyone else.

6.1.2.3 The New Testament records the appearance of Jesus to Peter.

None of the Gospels contain an explicit appearance of the post-mortem Jesus to Peter but the appearance is testified by Luke 24:34b which says, "The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." Paul himself refers to Peter's witness of the risen Lord in 1 Corinthians 15:5. These two separate traditions confirm that Peter himself witnessed an appearance of the risen Jesus.

6.1.2.4 The Gospels indicate that Jesus appeared to the Twelve.

Luke and John entail two different streams of tradition where the appearance of Jesus to the Twelve can be seen. In Luke 24:36-49 we have a visitation of a very physical Jesus who communes and dines with the disciples (Thomas is absent from this appearance). In John 20:24-31 we have the appearance of Jesus to the disciples recorded again with the initial absence of Thomas. However, Jesus appears to Thomas a week later to reveal his resurrection scars. These Gospel sources serve as indications that, in concert with Paul's reference to the Twelve, that Jesus did indeed make an appearance to the Twelve. Because the appearance account appears very early in the traditions by Luke and Paul it is difficult to suppose that legendary developments yielded the appearance account.

One of the resurrection accounts that features an awkward stage set for Jesus' appearance is his appearance to the disciples while fishing (John 21:1-14). The disciples do not recognize Jesus at first but due to his miraculous intervention the disciples soon learn the identity of their mysterious comrade (v. 7). Jesus then eats with the disciples (vv. 12-13). Because the Beloved Disciple is a member of the disciples to witness the risen Lord by the Lake of Tiberias (v. 7) we have a strong Apostolic backing for the appearance tradition.

As noted in section 6.1.2.1 above, Paul chronicles a list of witnesses to the post-mortem Jesus. In particular, Paul notes the visitation of Jesus to the 500 witnesses which may an identical event to the scheduled appearance of Jesus in Galilee shortly after his crucifixion. If any validity to this association can be attributed, then we have an early source apart from the Gospels that verify the Galilean appearance. The direct reference handed down to us from the Bible exists in the predictions of Jesus' post-mortem appearance in Galilee by Jesus himself (Mark 14:28) as well as angelic predictions made to Mary (the Mother of Jesus) and Mary Magdelene (Mark 16:7). These narratives, as established in section 6.1.1.3, are part of the pre-Markan Passion account which make up the bulk of Mark's Passion story. In the words of Dr. Craig, "Since Mark's source arose so early in the Christian fellowship, it probably preserves the memory of an actual incident." ⁽⁸⁰⁾

One of the most remarkable appearance stories unexpressed in the New Testament has to be the appearance of Jesus to his own brother, James. The Gospels repeatedly insinuate the antagonism of James to Jesus prior to his later leadership of the disciples (Mark 3:21-32) in addition an outright rejection of Jesus as Messiah (John 7:1-5). However, after the crucifixion James is later counted as an apostle (Acts 15:13, 19; Gal. 1:19) and even one of the primary "pillars" of the Christian movement (2:9). Because of this sudden turnaround, it seems appropriate to suppose that James witnessed the risen Jesus after his crucifixion, primarily since Paul lists James as one of the witnesses of a Jesus appearance (1 Cor. 15:7). Because of this sudden change in James and the fact that Paul lists him as a witness, it seems abundantly clear that James did have an encounter with the risen Lord. Consider also that if one were actually forging a Resurrection story then it would be peculiar to have Jesus' own brother unconvinced from the beginning if he ultimately was one of the "pillars" of the church. How could one really expect the Jewish and Gentile populations to receive Jesus as Messiah in the wake of Jesus' own brother rejecting that very message? Thus it seems considerably strong to sustain the Resurrection witness of James.

At the tail end of Paul's list of witnesses, he concludes his list with himself as a final witness of the risen Jesus. In addition to Paul's confession here in the earliest written New Testament document, the actual description of Paul's witness of the post-mortem Jesus is actually described by Luke in the Book of Acts. Because Acts enjoys marks of great historicity and is probably accurately dated sometime prior to 61-62 A.D., then we should confidently affirm Luke's description of Paul's witness of Jesus as historically viable. Luke mentions Paul's experience twice in Acts (9:1-9; 22:6-11). The account begins with Paul's journey to Damascus to imprison "any there who belonged to the Way" in Jerusalem. As he approached Damascus, a bright light inundated Paul causing him to fall to the ground. The voice of Jesus reprimands Paul about his persecution of Jesus and instructs him on what he is to do next. The interesting feature of this account is the combination of visionary imagery (a bright light) with the extra-mental accompaniment of Jesus' voice that bystanders heard even though the source remained hidden from their eyes. The fact remains, however, that the experience shared by Paul and those who stood by was not a mere vision. The experience was external and real. If Luke were inventing a Resurrection appearance to Paul to bolster his account, he surely would not have been so enigmatic with this appearance to one of the most important apostles of the church. Surely a hoaxer would graft a clear and vivid account of a Resurrected Jesus instead of enshrouding the experience with visionary elements. ⁽⁸¹⁾ I think this description is precisely the way it is because, simply enough, it must have occurred that way.

6.1.3 The Source of the Disciples' Belief in the Resurrection of Jesus

It may be the case that skeptics question the empty tomb of Jesus and the post-mortem appearances of Jesus, but one fact remains that even the most ardent skeptic admits: The disciples of Jesus believed that he had risen from the dead. The impact that the death of Jesus had on the disciples was tremendous since in the minds of the disciples it demonstrated that Jesus was really not the Messiah but a man cursed under the law of God (cf. Deuteronomy 21:23). Because of Jesus' death there was utter despair in the community of the disciples who followed their beloved teacher and master. But when the women's report about Jesus' Resurrection surfaced and the disciples themselves verified it, their despair turned into victory. For the next forty days the disciples had experiences that they believed was Jesus making appearances to various people alive after his death. It was ultimately upon this foundation that the disciples began to proclaim the Resurrection of Jesus to both Jew and Gentile. So the question remains, What is truly the source of the disciples' belief in the Resurrection of Jesus? In this section I shall survey two alternate possible options and argue for the Resurrection as the best explanation.

6.1.3.1 Judaism as a possible source for the belief in the Resurrection.

One of the most obvious options for the source for the Resurrection of Jesus (assuming that Jesus' Resurrection really never took place) is Judaism. Many critics attempt to posit antecedent Jewish beliefs as the source for a belief in a bodily Resurrection of a Jewish holy man. They point out that on several occasions there were accounts of bodily resurrections of individuals by ancient Jewish prophets (cf. 1 Kings 17:20-24; 2 Kings 4:32-37; 13:21) as well as by Jesus himself (cf. Mark 5:41-43; John 11:41-45). So a resurrection from the dead in a Jewish context would be of no surprise. Unfortunately for such critics this is not a complete assessment of the Jewish belief in a resurrection.

(a) There is an ontological distinction between other resurrections and Jesus' Resurrection

The first thing that has to be clarified is the distinction between the resurrections of the Old and New Testaments and the Resurrection of Jesus. The resurrections that occurred on various occasions by prophets of God were resuscitations of corpses back to their earthly life. These individuals were revived from their state of death to once again continue living their lives until something else claimed their lives later on. This is an important observation because in the case of Jesus he was not risen again to continue living out his earthly life. Rather, Jesus was raised again into a state of "glory" and was transformed from an earthly state of existence to a supernatural state of existence, one that would sustain the person of Jesus indefinitely as a newly glorified and immortal being. The other resurrections, or more properly resuscitations, would not be long term or even half as promising with respect to the nature of the revived individual. Such persons would, once again, rejoin the human race as though nothing had happened. But Jesus' Resurrection is unique and permanent and is the first to occur in human history according to the New Testament (1 Cor. 15:20; Colossians 1:18). Therefore, the idea that a first century Jew would have taken resuscitation accounts and used them as the prototype for Jesus' Resurrection is preposterous.

(b) Jewish beliefs in immortality did not include a resurrection of any single individual apart from the General Resurrection

What critics of the Resurrection desire to portray is that the disciples of Jesus were disheartened by the crucifixion and death of Jesus so much that they began to entertain imaginary or actual apparitions of Jesus as a resurrection into glory. But the second Jewish theological reason seems to preclude that the disciples would have believed in a resurrection of a single, isolated individual apart from a corporate resurrection at the end of time (the general resurrection).

Certain key passages in the Old Testament teach a general resurrection. For example, there are passages that speak of the assimilation of the bodies with the departed righteous. Other passages describe in more detail the physicality of the general resurrection. Here is a look at some of the most notable passages:

But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust,

wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning;

the earth will give birth to her dead (Isaiah 26:19).

Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, `Dry bones,

hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these

bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach

tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will

put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the

LORD.'" So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there

was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I

looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but

there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath;

prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says:

Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may

live.'" So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they

came to life and stood up on their feet-a vast army (Ezekiel 37:4-10).

"At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise.

There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning

of nations until then. But at that time your people-everyone whose name is

found written in the book-will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust

of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:1-2).

In the mind of a first century Jew, the concept of the afterlife entails a departure into an ethereal underworld that houses the spirit until such a time as when God reassembles the departed spirits with the bodies that have been left behind. As one can see from the above citations, Daniel 12 seems to link the coming of the Messiah with such eschatological expectations. Ezekiel 37 seems to impress upon its readers almost a poetic rendition of God's refashioning of the deceased corpses with the departed spirits. Apart from such aspirations for the afterlife, Jewish beliefs also consisted of bodily assumption or translation into heaven that is said to have occurred with a select few men of God. But these instances entail the direct translation of the individual into heaven as in the cases of Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament (cf. Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11-18). They would not have returned to this life as a glorified corporeal being. Any visitations from translated people would have looked more like an apparition or a vision. In any case the belief in the general resurrection was the prominent understanding and hope of the Jew for future immortality.

When we consider what occurred in the life, death, and appearances of Jesus alive after his death, it becomes pretty obvious that a Jewish context for the Resurrection can be forever laid to rest. Because of the idea of resuscitation cannot be equated with the idea of the Resurrection coupled with the Jewish conception of the afterlife entailing a corporate resurrection at the end of the ages, it cannot be the case that the disciples of Jesus concocted a single, isolated resurrection of a man who, in their eyes, had been crucified under the curse of God. The idea of a singular resurrection coming out of any Jewish context would not have yielded the kind of resurrection portrayed in Jesus.

6.1.3.2 Paganism as a possible source for the belief in the Resurrection.

Due to the failure to extract any similarities of Jesus' Resurrection from Jewish sources, critics have entertained alternate suggestions for the source of belief in the Resurrection of Jesus. In this section we shall consider the general atmosphere perpetuated by skeptics of Jesus' Resurrection that embraces pagan religious beliefs as sources for the disciples' early preaching of the risen Lord.

Pagan religions certainly existed in Eastern and Greco-Roman populations. Such familiar mystery figures as Isis, Osiris, Demeter, Dionysus, and Asclepius along with the great Persian deity Mithra and the Palestinian and Asian gods Adonis and Cybele all contribute to the controversy of pagan influence on the accounts of Jesus' Resurrection. When one reads of these ancient deities there are tales of death and victory, sin and salvation, pain and healing, and even rites of passage. ⁽⁸²⁾ What makes the parallels even more tantalizing for students of comparative religions are the stories of resurrections. Joseph Klausner illustrates the similarity between Osiris and Jesus by noting that the "dead body of Osiris floated in the Nile and he returned to life, this being accomplished by a baptism in the waters of the Nile." ⁽⁸³⁾ Upon closer examination of the events surrounding Osiris' "resurrection" it appears that a different evaluation is to be preferred. Osiris, whose name was later replaced by "Sarapis" in the Greek populations, was the husband of Isis and the ruler over the Egyptian people. Professor C. Everett Ferguson recounts the events leading to the death and resuscitation of Osiris following the plot of his brother Set (or Typhon) against him:

[Set] made a chest and at a banquet promised to give it to anyone who

exactly fit into it. As had been planned, when Osiris entered the chest, Set's

men closed the chest and threw it into the Nile. Isis set out in search for

the chest and her brother-husband. She found it at Byblos on the coast of

Phoenicia and brought it back to Egypt. Typhon succeeded in getting

possession of the body and cut it up into fourteen parts, which were scattered

about Egypt. Isis then went through the country collecting the parts. She

recovered all but the genitals, which she replaced by a gold image that was

carried in procession . . . Osiris became king of the underworld and helped

his son Horus gain a victory over Typhon. ⁽⁸⁴⁾

(1) Osiris was murdered by his brother (or drowned to death when entrapped by his brother).

(2) Osiris did not die as a martyr or for any cause.

(3) Osiris was dismembered and spread about Egypt.

(4) Osiris was not resurrected but was resuscitated back to life.

(5) Osiris became a ruler over the underworld.

Any hope of similarity between Osiris and Jesus seem to dissipate into the hopeful speculations of those who seek to find alternate explanations for the early disciples' belief in the Resurrection. As Professor Ferguson remarks, "Osiris did not return to this world or experience a resurrection properly speaking; his continued existence was in the netherworld." ⁽⁸⁵⁾

As anyone studying the mystery religions can see there are no sufficient parallels that would even hint toward a belief in the Resurrection of Jesus. Not only are the dissimilarities too great, as seen in the example of Osiris above, but there are other factors that seem to preclude associating such religions with Jesus. ⁽⁸⁶⁾ For example, there is no evidence of any connections with the Jews of first century Palestine and pagan literature. What is clear from antiquity is that Jews surely distanced themselves from such influences. So any causal connection between what paganism taught and what Christianity was founded on is severed. Further, it is important to note that the deities of these mystery religions do not center around any historical figures (with the exception of those who deified their emperors; e.g. Caesar). Rather, such deities were generally regarded as symbols of the crop seasons where the god dies in the winter and rises again in the spring. ⁽⁸⁷⁾ Similarly, the rituals and sacraments surrounding the mystery religions cannot figure in deriving a belief in Jesus' Resurrection. The rituals and sacraments were never connected to the transformation of a new believer or were meant for the unregenerate to seek their god. Instead, such ritualistic tendencies in the mystery religions demanded strict moral adherence prior to acceptance into their circle of believers. Some such religions were exclusive and permitted only an elite class of believers to participate. Christianity, on the other hand, extended its message to the unworthy and considered salvation a welfare for the unregenerate and not for some select class of worthy participants. Christianity, therefore, is for the sinner and the outcast. Finally, it must be noted that the New Testament does not incorporate the technical vocabulary of the mystery religions. If the accounts of Jesus were derived from the mystery religions of dying and rising savior-gods then we might expect similar terminology between the two systems. However, the exclusivity of salvation in Christianity and its strict monotheistic attitude distance any literary association once thought to be connected. ⁽⁸⁸⁾

Professor Ferguson eloquently reminds us, "the 'resurrection' of these gods is very different from what is meant by that word in Christian belief . . . these gods are a world apart from Christ's resurrection, which was presented as a one-time historical event, neither a repeated feature of nature nor a myth of the past." ⁽⁸⁹⁾ Professor of Theology Ronald Nash muses, "It is clear that the liberal arguments exhibit astoundingly bad scholarship . . . Indeed, this conclusion may be too generous." ⁽⁹⁰⁾ Therefore, no one seriously investigating the claims of the mystery religions will find an explanation for the belief in Jesus' unparalleled Resurrection.

By way of summary, if there are no historical contexts that we can associate with the firm belief in the Resurrection of Jesus then the early disciples' belief must be rooted in something else. Given the Jewish attitudes and beliefs about the afterlife it cannot be the case that Jesus' Resurrection was a recapitulation of some Jewish understanding about immortality. Similarly, if the Jews of first century Palestine did take a heretical interest in examining pagan literature they certainly would not have come up with the Resurrection as it is recorded in the Gospels. The only source for the disciples' belief remaining is the event itself. The only way that a disheartened Jew, after seeing his beloved master executed as a common criminal under the curse of God, would think of Jesus as a disembodied spirit or someone who had been assumed into heaven. In fact, when Jesus makes an early appearance to the disciples this is precisely what they think. According to Luke 24:37 when Jesus appears they "were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost." But then Jesus dispels this when he declares, "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (v. 39). So it would appear that the only feasible source for the disciples' outlandish belief that Jesus had risen from the dead to immortality was due to the fact that Jesus did indeed rise again from the dead. The disciples proclaimed this everywhere that they went and even proclaimed this message in Jerusalem, the city of Jesus' public execution. The New Testament goes on to record the immense suffering and death the disciples underwent as they continued their proclamation of a Resurrected Jesus. It seems that the only way anyone would go to their deaths thinking that they had seen appearances of Jesus alive after his death must be due to the fact that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Apart from any Jewish or pagan influences, the disciples' belief in the Resurrection stands as a firm testament to the historical fact of Jesus' Resurrection.

Premise 4: No other hypothesis is strongly confirmed by the truth of the historical facts; that is, other hypotheses for which the same historical facts are confirming instances have lower prior probabilities.

Before the conclusion can be assured, we must summarize our findings of the historical facts and assess them against the background of alternate explanations. If and only if alternate explanations to the Resurrection do not better account for the facts then the Resurrection hypothesis is preserved as the better alternative. This provides a rational framework by which we can assess the best explanation of the evidence just seen.

First, we looked at the fact of the empty tomb. The only alternative hypotheses that have surfaced include the Jewish explanation that the disciples conspired to steal away the body. There is only one other alternate explanation we shall deal with: the wrong-tomb theory. As seen above, the Jewish explanation only serves to deny the Christian proclamation. It really has no explanatory power when the evidence is seen in its entirety. The disciples could not have managed to steal the body given the guard at the tomb and could not be identified as the culprits if the guard really did fall asleep. Unfortunately, the guard was probably posted sometime on Saturday and may not serve to validate with any degree of confidence that the guard faithfully thwarted any plans of conspiracy. ⁽⁹¹⁾ In any event, there are other reasons to forego the conspiracy theory. Consider that the psychological state of the disciples was such that they would not have decided to hoax a resurrection. The death of Jesus was utterly devastating to the disciples and caused them to succumb to despair and despondency. Their faith was literally challenged at that moment. Any conspiracy to resurrect the corpse of Jesus fails to take into account the depression and fear the disciples were feeling. So any portrait of the disciples as clever hoaxers of a resurrection is surely misplaced. Furthermore, the theft story fails to take into account the sincerity and moral integrity of the disciples. In order for the disciples to be plotting a conspiracy, they have to be liars, cheaters, and criminals. But the record of the disciples precludes this as a viable characterization. The disciples firmly believed in the Resurrection to the point of immense suffering and death. They would not have undergone such tribulation for what they knew to be a lie. ⁽⁹²⁾ Finally, the conspiracy theory is untenable from a practical standpoint. If a disciple or two were to begin conspiring with others then all it would take is one person to stand down and refuse. But this would mean that the idea of a conspiracy would be out and would jeopardize the secret conspiracy of the Jesus movement. Therefore, the conspiracy theory fails to take into account the full scope of the evidence.

The wrong-tomb theory can also be disposed. When this theory was first proposed by Kirsop Lake in 1907, it received very little adoration. The "mistake" of the disciples visiting the wrong tomb that Easter morning neglects too many important details of the passion narratives. First, it neglects the idea that the women were aware of their destination when they intended to anoint the body of Jesus and fails to consider the rest of the narrative which does not only state that "He is not here" bu also "He is risen." If the women had traveled to the wrong tomb, then why does Lake disregard these other considerations within the same narrative? Secondly, how does Lake handle the subsequent visit of the male disciples? If the women had visited the wrong tomb then surely the male disciples would have either confirmed or disconfirmed that. Thirdly, even if all of the disciples had misunderstood the location of Jesus' tomb then the High Priest and Pharisees would have gladly exposed the Christian myth by divulging the true location of the tomb. Instead, history records the Jewish polemic designed to explain why the body of Jesus was missing.

Therefore, since no competing account of what occurred following Jesus' public execution and burial can be afforded in the wake of a Resurrection kerygma then it stands to reason that the Resurrection of Jesus best explains the vacated tomb of Jesus.

Secondly, we examined the evidence of the appearances of Jesus alive after his public execution and burial. But are there competing models that better account for this fact? Some observations suggest that there are no naturalistic explanations that are superior to the Resurrection. The infamous objection that the disciples were merely hallucinating their departed master finds very little verisimilitude in the New Testament accounts. First, the notion of hallucination contradicts the genus and ontology of the post-mortem Jesus. Jesus was not just an object of visionary experience but an extramental being composed of a physical form capable of eating who was even manhandled by Thomas. ⁽⁹³⁾ Secondly, hallucinations are appearances of objects that are not really there and are produced by the mind. But if the hallucination is produced by the mind then it shall be an experience already contained in the mind. In the case of Jesus' appearances, the disciples had no concept of a dying or a rising Messiah. The Jews expected a tempero-political Messiah who would vanquish the Roman empire and usher in the consummation of the ages by resurrecting the Jewish elect. So, how would a Jew hallucinate something that contradicted his belief system or something he never even thought about or witnessed? It seems that a hallucination would not have yielded the kind of appearance accounts embedded in the Gospels. Thirdly, the hallucination account fails to consider the full scope of the evidence. The appearances of Jesus were not just experienced by one or just a few sympathizers but by groups of people, as many as 500 witnesses, who were not all convinced by what they saw. ⁽⁹⁴⁾ Furthermore, the various backgrounds of the witnesses seems to indicate that a hallucination was unlikely. The post-mortem Jesus was not merely witnessed by friends but by skeptical critics and even anti-Christian murderers. ⁽⁹⁵⁾ Finally, the hallucination hypothesis fails to account for the other main lines of evidence such as the empty tomb. Whatever one wants to make of the appearances of Jesus is obligated to find the simplest theory to best account for the broad spectrum of evidence. Unfortunately for naturalists, the hallucination theory only accounts for some of the appearance stories and cannot explain the empty tomb without conjoining an alternate explanation with which to coalesce. Thus the hallucination theory bears far too many complex burdens that are insurmountable for someone seeking a singular, unified theory that best accounts for all three main lines of evidence.

Another problematic alternative with respect to the Resurrection appearances is the position of the apparent death theory. ⁽⁹⁶⁾ Some popular and scholarly works have entertained the idea that Jesus didn't really die on the cross but was merely reduced to a death-like state or was deliberately kept from dying at all. Adherents of this view generally agree that Jesus was resuscitated after his burial and (either intentionally or accidentally) confounded the disciples into believing that Jesus had risen from the dead. Because this theory enjoys almost no support it has long since been abandoned. ⁽⁹⁷⁾ Some reasons for abandonment of the apparent death theory include, first of all, the failure to take into account what Jesus' condition would have been immediately after an excruciating event such as a public flogging and the crucifixion itself. Interestingly, this critique comes from liberal scholar David F. Strauss who agrees that

It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, 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 over death and

the grave, the Prince of Life, an impression which lay at the bottom of their future

ministry. ⁽⁹⁸⁾

Strauss is correct to point out that the state of Jesus' condition as being rendered half-dead, barely able to survive, could have been construed as a victorious conquest over death and the grave. The New Testament portrait of the risen Jesus is one of glory and victory, not one indicative of a narrow escape. Secondly, the apparent death theory fails to account for the Jewish context in which the appearances took place. Because of Jewish expectations about the afterlife and the general resurrection, they would not have construed the revival of Jesus as a Resurrection proper. As noted above, the appearances of Jesus would have been construed as apparitions. Thirdly, there are good reasons to suppose that Jesus' body succumbed to such immense life-threatening throes that any hope of "swooning" the effects of the cross should surely be deserted. In a recent book chronicling various scholarly views on the Resurrection, journalist Lee Strobel interviewed physician Alexander Metherell on the extent and impact of the crucifixion on Jesus. ⁽⁹⁹⁾ Although no reputable scholar is willing to sacrifice his integrity and suppose that Jesus may have survived the crucifixion, this naturalistic alternative has been entertained in contemporary popular literature on the subject. ⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ It is gratifying to see that virtually no known scholar supports the apparent death theory. The extent of the damage to Jesus' body brought on by the crucifixion and previous flogging make it almost impossible to think that Jesus could have eventually survived his asphyxiation or piercing of the pericardium of the heart by a Roman lance. Fourthly, the underlying problem with this theory is its selective use of the narratives. Why, for example, should we believe in the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus but then deny that Jesus had bowed his head and "gave up his spirit"? ⁽¹⁰¹⁾ All of the Gospel traditions agree that Jesus died on the cross and was subsequently buried. Finally, the apparent death theory is too ad hoc to be a simple explanation. The theory enjoys absolutely no support from the source material in the New Testament but is concocted out of thin air to account for the appearances of Jesus (and perhaps the empty tomb). But the lack of any support for this theory relegate it to mere speculation without warrant. Any extrapolation of non-dying or resuscitating from the New Testament source material is solely the product of a fertile mind desperately seeking immunity from the Resurrection as the best explanation.

Thirdly, we have already seen that Jewish and pagan influences are not sufficient antecedents for the disciples' early belief in the Resurrection of Jesus. The Jewish context for the afterlife makes the Resurrection of Jesus a formidable perversion of Jewish expectations while pagan stories of dying and rising savior-gods are not substantial equivalents to warrant a connection simply because such accounts predated the Gospel traditions.

Thus, the alternate explanations for the three well-established facts fail to be strongly confirmed by the truth of those facts. This means that Premise 4 cannot be fulfilled by any naturalistic explanations. However, as seen above, the Resurrection enjoys the best explanatory power and scope and is less contrived than the rival naturalistic theories. Given the low prior probability of such naturalistic theories and the high probability of the Resurrection (given that God raised Jesus from the dead), it seems more probable than not that Jesus really did rise from the dead.

VII. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS 

As I began finalizing this essay, I had the opportunity to view a debate on the Resurrection between William Lane Craig and German New Testament critic Gerd Ludëmann. The objective of the debate was to assess to New Testament for reasons to either accept or reject the Resurrection of Jesus as a historical event. As the debate came to an end, Dr. Craig made an interesting analysis that there are two roads that lead to the same affirmation about the reality of Jesus' Resurrection: The historical road and the personal road. The former is the pursuit of the historical information on Jesus in an effort to evaluate the material for the Resurrection hypothesis (which is what the debate hammered out and what this essay has concentrated on). The latter is not only a road to finding the authentic Jesus of the New Testament but an existential path to finding the meaning to our lives.

This idea of real meaning in our lives is the primary goal of my apologetic material. I seek to influence others and to make known the rational side of the Christian message. Too many people seem to forget or lose sight of the rational investigation of Christian claims. But I think that anyone with an open heart and an open mind who diligently seeks the meaning to their own lives and reads the source material for the Resurrection of Jesus will find the portrait of a God-Man who manifested himself in our spacetime universe for the purpose of making knowledge of and communion with God possible. If we perceive the evidence as warranting a belief in the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead then what would keep us from believing it? Contemporary critics tend to concentrate on the futility of such a hypothesis, not on grounds of historical inquiry, but on assumptions and presuppositions outlined above. This is all the more problematic from a skeptical standpoint. The only feasible analysis the critic tends to advance is one charged with unwarranted assumptions about miracles in general and miracle claims in particular. So what makes the skeptic cross that bridge to believing that Jesus rose again from the dead? It seems that only the Holy Spirit can penetrate the heart that is open to the possibility. Sure, one can advance evidence to make her case for the Resurrection of Jesus, but what is left is an array of facts at the foot of the observer. It is almost as if the question impresses upon us a sense of action and not mere assent. But what sort of action is sought in the presence of this information? During Peter's preaching in Acts 2, he declares in verse 33 that Jesus,

Exalted to the right hand of God . . . has received from the Father the promised

Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

For Peter's audience, this meant a reaction to the inner witness of the Spirit of God. It was incumbent upon the listeners to understand what was being said and to respond to the witness of the Spirit. This is what all of the disciples' preaching led up to. Men and women everywhere were to experience the authenticating ministry of the Spirit as promised by God in the Old Testament. ⁽¹⁰²⁾ It is only via this confirmatory experience that one accesses the reality of the Resurrection for herself. That God raised Jesus from the dead is a historical event, but the reality of the Resurrection to us is accessed only through God's drawing of us with his Spirit. So Jesus preached to anyone who desired to listen that access to the kingdom of God would be made by responding to the good news of his arrival. As the divine manifestation of God and the creator of the universe, Jesus bestows upon us meaning to our lives which is made possible by the death of Jesus and vouchsafed by the Resurrection. Thus the Resurrection continues to stand as the pillar of the Christian message by which all Christianity stands or falls.

END NOTES

1. For example, the 17^th century Jewish-raised philosopher Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza taught that God was equivalent to Nature and, as such, any event which purported to be a miracle would prima facie be contrary to God's will. Because of Spinoza's assumption about Nature there would be no possible way for God to act contrary to the natural laws which represent his will. See Spinoza's written work Ethics demonstrated according to the Geometrical Order (published posthumously) available in modern works such as Edwin Curley, ed., A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works (Princeton University Press, 1994).

2. The derivation of God's existence through scientific discoveries is by no means being compromised here. I wish to simply convey that scientific events which occur do not divest special attention to such an act whether caused by God or not. The fact that suspending the natural laws of physics entails this immediate or special attention means, quite simply, that the same awe-inspiration of the miracle could not have occurred had God not been the direct cause of it. The difference can be further illustrated in comparing a possible world where God directly parts the Red Sea with a possible world where God naturally causes the Red Sea to part due to spontaneous and powerful wind emissions. The latter would not captivate the religious pilgrim who sought to find special status in the Judeo-Christian God.

3. Christian philosophers who sustain a libertarian free will for human creatures maintain that since God desires all to be believers and that all persons have free will, it is thus logically impossible for God to make all persons freely believe. As a consequence, the creature's free will stands as the sole obstacle of God's desire to bring it about that all persons believe in him. Because of this obstacle, it is only feasible for God maximize the number of believers to nonbelievers by actualizing a possible world where most human creatures freely accept God. It may also be the case that the only possible worlds where believers are maximized are those that contain miracles.

4. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. C. W. Hendel (New York: Liberal Arts, 1955), 10.1.18, pp. 120-23.

5. See Antony Flew, "Miracles," in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan and The Free Press, 1967).

6. This example is extracted from Wesley Salmon, Logic, 3^rd Edition (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1984), p. 137.

7. Just because the word "deductive" appears in the title of this argument does not mean that it has a deductive structure. The definition of deductive here is in the context of deducing a theory based on the relevant facts. One "deduces" a conclusion from certain observations when the observations seem to be best explained by the initial hypothesis.

8. For a good treatment of historical knowledge and the problems associated with historical relativism, see William L. Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, revised edition (Illinois: Crossway Books, 1994), pp. 157-91.

9. Carl G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1966), p. 7.

10. R. G. Collingwood, "Are History and Science Different Kinds of Knowledge?" In Essays in the Philosophy of History, edited by W. Debbins (Texas: University of Texas, 1965), p. 32.

11. The general problems with historical knowledge include the lack of direct access and the lack of objective indifference (or lack of neutrality). Since there does not exist any observer of past events beyond a century ago and one in which does not seek an agenda, no matter how subtle, historians are left with limited and colored access to historical accounts.

12. Robert Audi, general editor, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 584-5.

13. Some works dealing with biblical inerrancy include N. Geisler and T. Howe, When Critics Ask: A Handbook of Bible Difficulties (Illinois: Victor Books, 1992); J. Haley, Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible (Michigan: Baker Books, 1977); G. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Michigan: Zondervan, 1982); C. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1960).

14. Some scholars prefer to speculate Matthew's authoring date around the 50's C.E. instead of the commonly accepted 70's date. For a look at the earlier date argument for Matthew see Merrill F. Unger, Unger's Bible Dictionary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966), p. 706.

15. D.A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), p. 67-8.

16. (i) Matthew is the only one to refer to the tax collector as "Matthew" while the other Gospel writers use "Levi" (cf. Matt. 9:9-13); (ii) All three Gospels list a "Matthew" along with the other apostles, and Matthew 10:3 identifies the apostolic Matthew as the tax collector; (iii) There are Matthean expressions used to explain financial transactions that would be the most sense if the author were a tax collector (cf. Matt. 17:24-27; 18:23-35; 21:1-16; 26:15; 27:3-10; 28:11-15).

17. Carson, Moo, Morris, Introduction, p. 76.

18. Cf. Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:36-39. Also see Colossians 4:10; Philemon 24; 2 Timothy 4:11.

19. The contention by some scholars to date Mark in the 70's is usually due one of two factors: (i) Liberal critics of the New Testament prefer the 70's simply because of the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Their presupposition that supernatural prophecies are incredible leads them to conclude as such; (ii) Others contend that the Church Fathers, such as Papias, recognized that Mark's Gospel was written after 70 C.E. However, option (ii) here seems to be only speculations by the early Church which may even depend on the truth of (i).

20. Some New Testament scholars identify the "young man" who "fled naked" from Gethsemane at the arrest of Jesus (Mark 14:51-52) as an autobiographical reference to Mark because it is estranged to the style and significance of Mark's Gospel message. Secondly, Mark seems to add details about certain narratives that probably would only be recalled had the narrator actually been there. For example, Mark notes that at the feeding of the five thousand the grass upon which they sat was green (Mark 6:39).

21. See Carson, Moo, Morris, Introduction, pp. 95-96.

22. Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-16; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16.

23. H. J. Cadbury, The Style and Literary Method of Luke, Harvard Theological Studies 6 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919).

24. Since Acts is the second volume of Luke's work preceded by his Gospel, and Acts ends with Paul's voyage to Rome (after his hearings before Festus and Agrippa) and his subsequent house arrest for two years making Acts date no later than 63 C.E., then the Gospel of Luke has to have predated 63 C.E. See the section on Acts below for a further defense of its dating.

25. See Carson, Moo, Morris, Introduction, p. 31.

26. See Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, I. Howard Marshall, eds., Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 276-82.

27. Evidence for this date can bee seen in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6.14.7.

28. For an exhaustive list of historically realistic elements in John's Gospel see E. Stauffer, "Historische Elemente im vierten Evangelium," in Bekenntnis zur Kirche, ed. Ernst-Heinz Amberg and Ulrich Kuhn (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1960), pp. 33-51.

29. I have capitalized on the notion that John willfully distances his gospel from pagan roots in my essay "The Philosophy of the New Testament and the Question of Greek Influence" available on-line at http://members.tripod.com/~sguthrie/greekchristian.htm.

30. Colin Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990).

31. Norman Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999), p. 7-8.

32. Cf. Galatians 1:13.

33. Paul uses the Greek phrase "ho kai parelabon" ("that which also I received") which is thought to imply an acquisition through learning. Some scholars believe, therefore, that Paul is making a reference to receiving special revelation which is suggested in a similar usage at 1 Cor. 11:23. But if Paul is discussing the implementation and significance of the Last Supper then it is unlikely he would be receiving revelation just for a mere sacramental issue. New Testament Professor Craig S. Keener of Hood Theological Seminary makes the following observation:

"'Handed on to you . . . what I had received" (NRSV) is the language

of what scholars call 'traditioning': Jewish teachers would pass on

their teachings to their students, who would in turn pass them on to

their own students. The students could take notes, but they delighted

especially in oral memorization and became quite skilled at it;

memorization was a central feature of ancient education. In the first

generation, the tradition would be very accurate; this tradition may

even be a verbatim citation in 15:3-5 or 15:3-7" [The IVP Bible

Background Commentary (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 484].

34. Some have pointed out that the two earliest biographers of Alexander the Great (d. 323 B.C.), Arrian and Plutarch, wrote more than 400 years after Alexander's death. But historians generally concede their validity (see Robin L. Fox, The Search for Alexander (Boston: Little, 1980)). Concerning legendary development, Dr. Craig Blomberg rightfully notes: "Fabulous legends about the life of Alexander did develop over time, but for the most part only during the several centuries after these two writers" (Jesus Under Fire, Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland, eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), p. 30).

35. See J. P. Meier, "Jesus in Josephus: A Modest Proposal," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52 (1990): 76-103; W. Bauer, "The Alleged Testimony of Josephus," in New Testament Apocrypha, ed. El Hennecke and W. Schneemelcher (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), 1:428-41; L. H. Feldmand, Josephus and Modern Scholarship: 1937-1980 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 679-803.

36. Antiquities 18.3.3 S63-64.

37. E. M. Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament: What is the Evidence?" in Jesus Under Fire, eds. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), p. 213.

38. See S. Pines, An Arabic Version of the Testimonium Flavianum and Its Implications (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1971) cited in Yamauchi, Jesus Under Fire, p. 213.

39. See Craig A. Evans, "What Did Jesus Do?", Jesus Under Fire, p. 106.

40. Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament," Jesus Under Fire, p. 216.

41. Tacitus' Annals 15.44 here is quoted in Yamauchi, ibid.

42. Josh McDowell is currently being highly criticized for his efforts to defend the Resurrection of Jesus by a collection of edited essays by an internet atheist organization called the Internet Infidels. However, McDowell has recently released a new edition of the book entitled More Evidence that Demands a Verdict (available in November, 1999).

43. Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Historical Evidences for the Christian Faith (San Bernarino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, Inc., 1988), p. 81.

44. Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament," Jesus Under Fire, p. 217.

45. In the earliest liturgical prayers and in the very first sermons appeared references to Jesus as "Lord" and "God." This notion reflects the exclusively Christian doctrine of the deity of Christ.

46. Compare Pliny's reference to Christian ethics with Jesus' explicit words on the subject in Matthew 5:27-32, 19:18, and Luke 16:18.

47. See C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 19, quoted by Dr. William Lane Craig, "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?", Jesus Under Fire, p.143, and Reasonable Faith, p. 183.

48. This is not to suggest that the Resurrection can be established on this basis but that the Resurrection hypothesis enjoys the initial plausibility of being true.

49. See 2 Kings 19:29-31; Jeremiah 44:29; Ezekiel 14:8.

50. There are a variety of passages that enunciate Jesus' expectation to suffer and die (Matthew 26:31, 36-39; Mark 14:30-36; Luke 22:15-20; John 10:17-18).

51. Matthew 7:28-29; 28:18; Luke 11:20.

52. Matthew 4:3-6; 8:29; 14:33; 26:63; 27:54; Mark 1:1; 3:11; 15:39; Luke 1:35; 4:3, 9, 41; 8:28; 22:70; John 1:34; 3:18; 11:27; 20:31.

53. Matthew 7:22-23; 9:2; Mark 2:9; 3:28; 4:12; Luke 2:5; 19:9; 13:22-30; John 8:24; Acts 4:12; Romans 10:9.

54. Matthew 6:10; 12:28; Mark 1:15; Luke 17:21 (In this passage, by Jesus' indwelling of believers, Jesus is said to be "in" his followers. Apparently some would seek the presence of Christ externally and would fail to obtain it).

55. Jesus performed great miracles and understood himself to be God's special revelation in a unique sense. Because of this, the Jewish establishment of his day recognized the placement of himself as the manifestation of God (John 8:58-59; 10:33). Jacob Neusner, a Jewish scholar, reflects in a book precisely why he would not have followed Jesus had he lived during his lifetime:

"Jews believe in the Torah of Moses . . . and that belief requires faithful Jews

to enter a dissent at the teachings of Jesus, on the grounds that those teachings

at important points contradict the Torah . . . because that specific teaching was

so broadly out of phase with the Torah and covenant of Sinai, I could not then

follow him and do not now either. . . . It is because I believe God has given a

different Torah from the one that Jesus teaches" (A Rabbi Talks with Jesus

(New York: Doubleday, 1993), pp. xii, 5).

The declarations of Jesus and the utilizing of his own authority influenced Neusner and the Jewish establishment of his day to conclude that Jesus was not following the conventional wisdom of Jewish tradition and seemingly reinterpreted the Torah. It seems rather apparent that Jesus was putting himself in the place of God which only makes sense if Jesus were, in fact, God.

56. Matthew 26:26-32; Mark 14:22-28.

57. Horst Georg Pöhlmann, Abriss der Dogmatik, 3^rd rev. ed. (Düsseldorg, Patmost Verlag, 1966), p. 230.

58. The Apostle Paul notes that "if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" 1 Corinthians 15:14; NIV).

59. Cf. Luke 2:2.

60. Mark 15:46-47.

61. William L. Craig, "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?", Jesus Under Fire, p. 147. Also see William Craig, "John Dominic Crossan and the Resurrection" and Paul Rhodes Eddy, "Response", The Resurrection, Stephen Davis, Daniel Kendall, Geral O'Collins, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 253-7, 276-80.

62. John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), p. 16.

63. Although Matthew's authorship is in question (since his Gospel was circulated as anonymous), external evidence from the writings of second century Church Father, Papias, supposes that a tax collector named Matthew was its author. This is a good lead and is consistent with references to the same Gospel said to be by Matthew during the first four centuries of Church history. If this is true, then since apostolic membership required one to be an eyewitness then Matthew probably both used Mark as a source and witnessed the events himself.

64. Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels, Anchor Bible Reference Library, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 1240.

65. Wolfgang Trilling, Fragen zur Geschichtlichkeit Jesu (Düsseldorf: Patmos Verlag, 1966), p. 157.

66. Peter Carnley, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), p. 52.

67. Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, 2 vols., Herders theologischer Kommentar zum neuen Testament 2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 2:21; cf. 2:364-77.

68. See Mark 14:53, 54, 60, 61, 63.

69. This is recapitulated in Dr. Craig's Reasonable Faith, p. 276. Also see J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, (Michigan: Baker Book House, 1987), p. 168 and E. L. Bode, The First Easter Morning (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970), pp. 160-161.

70. I owe these two observations from Dr. Craig's writings on the subject as seen in Jesus Under Fire, p. 151.

71. Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 2^nd ed., trans. John Marsh (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1900), p. 274.

72. Craig, Jesus Under Fire, p. 151.

73. See James F. Kay, Christus Praesens: A Reconsideration of Rudolf Bultmann's Christology (Michigan: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Co., 1994), pp. 45-61.

74. Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?, p. 188.

75. See Craig, Resurrection, p. 254-55.

76. For a further detailed defense of this claim, see Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, pp. 161-62.

77. In 1 Samuel 28:8-20, the summoning of Solomon's spirit by Saul is a prime example of Jewish perceptions of dead men. Because Jewish conceptions of the afterlife always entailed a disembodied being housed in an ephemeral underworld, there would have been no concept of a reuniting of the body with the spirit apart from the orthodox Jewish belief of the general resurrection that was not to take place until the end of history.

78. John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (Edinburgh: Clark, 1991), pp. 404-5; J. I. H. McDonald, The Resurrection: Narrative and Belief (London: SPCK, 1989), p. 141.

79. Matthew 28:9-10; Mark 16:9-11; Luke 24:10-11; John 20:14-18. The questionable feature of Mark 16:9-20 need not be an important issue. In the previous verses we are told that the women were already the primary visitors to the tomb and were the first to witness it empty. But even if Mark's words here carry little weight given textual criticism's disavowal of vv. 9-20 on grounds of lacking support from reliable manuscripts, one may retain multiple attestation from the other two Synoptics and John (at least two independent traditions).

80. Craig, Jesus Under Fire, p. 155.

81. In the account of the Mormon founder and prophet of the early nineteenth century, Joseph Smith, Jr., the experience of his vision of seeing God is brimming with apologetic reflection. The account leading up to his experience of God is preceded by the following:

So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired

to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful,

clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the

first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my

anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally (Joseph

Smith - History 1:14; Pearl of Great Price).

Smith goes on to provide vivid detail of the visitation of the Father and the Son with a clear and concise recollection of the conversation almost in novel form (e.g. after the visitation Smith says: "I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven . . . When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home . . . And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was" - v. 20). The fact that the account is written sometime later in his life is evident, but particular attention to the anticipated objections someone might have about the conditions of the setting for the arrival of God to visit him shows how apologetic reflection really looks. Smith wants no one to question the experience based on obscure weather patterns or false motive. Rather, Smith makes it clear that his agenda is to seek the truth with only a biblical pretense to guide him. So, if Luke were really fabricating an experience (and would, like Smith, want to evade any criticism) then it seems to me that the account of Paul's experience of Jesus would have been more direct and straight-forward.

82. C. Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity (Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993), pp. 280-1.

83. J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Macmillan, 1943), p. 104.

84. Ferguson, Backgrounds, p. 254.

85. Ibid.

86. See Ronald Nash, "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?", Christian Research Journal (Winter, 1994), pp. 8-15.

87. Ferguson, Backgrounds, p. 280.

88. Ibid., p. 281.

89. Ibid., p. 280. Also see Bruce Metzger, "Considerations of Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early Christianity," Harvard Theological Review 48 (1955), pp. 1-20.

90. Nash, "New Testament," p. 15.

91. William L. Craig, "The Guard at the Tomb," New Testament Studies 30 (1984), pp. 273-81.

92. Some have raised the question, "Why is the perseverance of a believer an indicator of authenticity? Many have painfully believed in their non-Christian faith." But the issue is not about a religious epistemology. Whether the adherent has a warranted belief or not is not what the disciples are endangering their lives for. Instead, the disciples are agonizingly sustaining their conviction that what they had directly witnessed was true. Believing in the testimony of Muhammad or the preaching of Sidharta Gautama are not under the microscope here and are red herring objections to the disciples' direct experience. The weighty evidence against the notion that the disciples were either deceivers or deceived is sustained by the tribulation of the disciples who claimed to witness the appearances of Jesus and the empty tomb firsthand.

93. John 20:26-28.

94. Matthew 28:16-17.

95. Acts 9:1-6; 1 Corinthians 15:7.

96. This is also called the Swoon Theory in popular circles. But in order to sufficiently critique all sides of those who adhere to a non-dying Jesus post the cross then I shall not limit my evaluation of the non-dying Jesus explanation to a mere swoon. Some believe in an honest crucifixion of Jesus and his recovery after he was buried but believe that after his resuscitation the disciples, having been convinced in their minds that Jesus had really died, began to circulate the Resurrection story.

97. See Eduard Riggenbach, The Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Eaton and Mains, 1907), pp. 48-9, and James Orr, The Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1908, 1965), p. 92.

98. D. F. Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1879), vol. 1, p. 412.

99. Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), pp. 191-204.

100. Some of this literature includes Hugh Schonfield, The Passover Plot (New York: Bantam, 1965) and Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail (New York: Delacorte, 1982). This latter work envisages a premature removal of Jesus' body from the cross prior to death. The authors suggest that Pontius Pilate may have been bribed to do so. The glaring problem here is that this account fails to embrace the narrative in its entirety and lacks any important follow-ups that would have surely resulted. For example, if Pilate was bribed to remove Jesus from the cross then any Christian movement occurring in Jerusalem would have been silenced by the procurator's confession. Any Christian proclamation that Jesus had risen from the dead would have been countered with confessions of Pilate's grace for the dying Jesus.

101. Cf. Matthew 27:50.

102. Joel 2:29.

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