Sources for Further StudyPosted on 11/11/2009 11:41:08 AM PST by GonzoII
EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
A Challenge for Skeptics
[ NOTE: For a response to the book The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (Prometheus, 2005) by Lowder / Price
see the free 500+ page E-book This Joyful Eastertide: A Critical Review of The Empty Tomb (PDF) by Steve Hays, et al (c) 2006 ]
A reasonable challenge to the skeptic is this: If it can be proved that Jesus really rose from the dead, will you believe in him? For if he really rose, that validates his claim to be divine and not merely human, for resurrection from death is beyond human power; and his divinity validates the truth of everything else he said, for God cannot lie.
The Strategy of the Argument for the Resurrection: Five Possible Theories
We believe Christ's resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history. To prove this, we do not need to presuppose anything controversial (e.g. that miracles happen). But the skeptic must also not presuppose anything (e.g. that they do not). We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true. We do not need to presuppose that there really was an empty tomb or post-resurrection appearances, as recorded. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard data, empirical data, which no one denies:
I. The existence of the New Testament texts as we have them.
II. The existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today.
The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data? There are five possible theories: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.
Jesus died --- Jesus rose ---------------------------------- (1) Christianity
Jesus didn't rise --- the apostles were deceived ----- (2) Hallucination
the apostles were myth-makers ------------------------- (3) Myth
the apostles were deceivers ------------------------------ (4) Conspiracy
Jesus didn't die ---------------------------------------------- (5) Swoon
Theories 2 and 4 constitute a dilemma: if Jesus didn't rise, then the apostles, who taught that he did, were either deceived (if they thought he did) or deceivers (if they knew he didn't). The Modernists could not escape this dilemma until they came up with a middle category, myth. It is the most popular alternative today.
Thus either (1) the resurrection really happened, (2) the apostles were deceived by a hallucination, (3) the apostles created a myth, not meaning it literally, (4) the apostles were deceivers who conspired to foist on the world the most famous and successful lie in history, or (5) Jesus only swooned and was resuscitated, not resurrected. All five theories are logically possible, and therefore must be fairly investigated -- even (1) ! They are also the only possibilities, unless we include really far-out ideas that responsible historians have never taken seriously, such as that Jesus was really a Martian who came in a flying saucer. Or that he never even existed; that the whole story was the world's greatest fantasy novel, written by some simple fisherman; that he was a literary character whom everyone in history mistook for a real person, including all Christians and their enemies, until some scholar many centuries later got the real scoop from sources unnamed.
If we can refute all other theories (2-5), we will have proved the truth of the resurrection (1). The form of the argument here is similar to that of most of the arguments for the existence of God. Neither God nor the resurrection are directly observable, but from data that are directly observable we can argue that the only possible adequate explanation of this data is the Christian one.
We shall take the four non-believing theories in the following order: from the simplest, least popular and most easily refuted to the most confusing, most popular and most complexly refuted: first swoon, then conspiracy, then hallucination and finally myth.
Refutation of the Swoon Theory: Nine Arguments
Nine pieces of evidence refute the swoon theory:
(1) Jesus could not have survived crucifixion. Roman procedures were very careful to eliminate that possibility. Roman law even laid the death penalty on any soldier who let a capital prisoner escape in any way, including bungling a crucifixion. It was never done.
(2) The fact that the Roman soldier did not break Jesus' legs, as he did to the other two crucified criminals (Jn 19:31-33), means that the soldier was sure Jesus was dead. Breaking the legs hastened the death so that the corpse could be taken down before the sabbath (v. 31).
(3) John, an eyewitness, certified that he saw blood and water come from Jesus' pierced heart (Jn 19:34-35). This shows that Jesus' lungs had collapsed and he had died of asphyxiation. Any medical expert can vouch for this.
(4) The body was totally encased in winding sheets and entombed (Jn 19:38-42).
(5) The post-resurrection appearances convinced the disciples, even "doubting Thomas," that Jesus was gloriously alive (Jn 20:19-29). It is psychologically impossible for the disciples to have been so transformed and confident if Jesus had merely struggled out of a swoon, badly in need of a doctor. A half-dead, staggering sick man who has just had a narrow escape is not worshiped fearlessly as divine lord and conquerer of death.
(6) How were the Roman guards at the tomb overpowered by a swooning corpse? Or by unarmed disciples? And if the disciples did it, they knowingly lied when they wrote the Gospels, and we are into the conspiracy theory, which we will refute shortly.
(7) How could a swooning half-dead man have moved the great stone at the door of the tomb? Who moved the stone if not an angel? No one has ever answered that question. Neither the Jews nor the Romans would move it, for it was in both their interests to keep the tomb sealed, the Jews had the stone put there in the first place, and the Roman guards would be killed if they let the body "escape."
The story the Jewish authorities spread, that the guards fell asleep and the disciples stole the body (Mt 28:11-15), is unbelievable. Roman guards would not fall asleep on a job like that; if they did, they would lose their lives. And even if they did fall asleep, the crowd and the effort and the noise it would have taken to move an enormous boulder would have wakened them. Furthermore, we are again into the conspiracy theory, with all its unanswerable difficulties (see next section).
(8) If Jesus awoke from a swoon, where did he go? Think this through: you have a living body to deal with now, not a dead one. Why did it disappear? There is absolutely no data, not even any false, fantastic, imagined data, about Jesus' life after his crucifixion, in any sources, friend or foe, at any time, early or late. A man like that, with a past like that, would have left traces.
(9) Most simply, the swoon theory necessarily turns into the conspiracy theory or the hallucination theory, for the disciples testified that Jesus did not swoon but really died and really rose.
It may seem that these nine arguments have violated our initial principle about not presupposing the truth of the Gospel texts, since we have argued from data in the texts. But the swoon theory does not challenge the truths in the texts which we refer to as data; it uses them and explains them (by swoon rather than resurrection). Thus we use them too. We argue from our opponents' own premises.
Refutation of the Conspiracy Theory: Seven Arguments
Why couldn't the disciples have made up the whole story?
(1) Blaise Pascal gives a simple, psychologically sound proof for why this is unthinkable:
"The apostles were either deceived or deceivers. Either supposition is difficult, for it is not possible to imagine that a man has risen from the dead. While Jesus was with them, he could sustain them; but afterwards, if he did not appear to them, who did make them act? The hypothesis that the Apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end, and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus' death and conspiring to say that he has risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would all have been lost. Follow that out." (Pascal, Pensees 322, 310)
The "cruncher" in this argument is the historical fact that no one, weak or strong, saint or sinner, Christian or heretic, ever confessed, freely or under pressure, bribe or even torture, that the whole story of the resurrection was a fake a lie, a deliberate deception. Even when people broke under torture, denied Christ and worshiped Caesar, they never let that cat out of the bag, never revealed that the resurrection was their conspiracy. For that cat was never in that bag. No Christians believed the resurrection was a conspiracy; if they had, they wouldn't have become Christians.
(2) If they made up the story, they were the most creative, clever, intelligent fantasists in history, far surpassing Shakespeare, or Dante or Tolkien. Fisherman's "fish stories" are never that elaborate, that convincing, that life-changing, and that enduring.
(3) The disciples' character argues strongly against such a conspiracy on the part of all of them, with no dissenters. They were simple, honest, common peasants, not cunning, conniving liars. They weren't even lawyers! Their sincerity is proved by their words and deeds. They preached a resurrected Christ and they lived a resurrected Christ. They willingly died for their "conspiracy." Nothing proves sincerity like martyrdom. They change in their lives from fear to faith, despair to confidence, confusion to certitude, runaway cowardice to steadfast boldness under threat and persecution, not only proves their sincerity but testifies to some powerful cause of it. Can a lie cause such a transformation? Are truth and goodness such enemies that the greatest good in history -- sanctity -- has come from the greatest lie?
Use your imagination and sense of perspective here. Imagine twelve poor, fearful, stupid (read the Gospels!) peasants changing the hard-nosed Roman world with a lie. And not an easily digested, attractive lie either. St. Thomas Aquinas says:
"In the midst of the tyranny of the persecutors, an innumerable throng of people, both simple and learned, flocked to the Christian faith. In this faith there are truths proclaimed that surpass every human intellect; the pleasures of the flesh are curbed; it is taught that the things of the world should be spurned. Now, for the minds of mortal men to assent to these things is the greatest of miracles....This wonderful conversion of the world to the Christian faith is the clearest witness....For it would be truly more wonderful than all signs if the world had been led by simply and humble men to believe such lofty truths, to accomplish such difficult actions, and to have such high hopes." (Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 6)
(4) There could be no possible motive for such a lie. Lies are always told for some selfish advantage. What advantage did the "conspirators" derive from their "lie" ? They were hated, scorned, persecuted, excommunicated, imprisoned, tortured, exiled, crucified, boiled alive, roasted, beheaded, disemboweled and fed to lions -- hardly a catalog of perks!
(5) If the resurrection was a lie, the Jews would have produced the corpse and nipped this feared superstition in the bud. All they had to do was go to the tomb and get it. The Roman soldiers and their leaders were on their side, not the Christians'. And if the Jews couldn't get the body because the disciples stole it, how did they do that? The arguments against the swoon theory hold here too: unarmed peasants could not have overpowered Roman soldiers or rolled away a great stone while they slept on duty.
(6) The disciples could not have gotten away with proclaiming the resurrection in Jerusalem -- same time, same place, full of eyewitnesses -- if it had been a lie. William Lane Craig says,
"The Gospels were written in such a temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events....The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection (and been believed) under such circumstances had it not occurred." (Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection, chapter 6)
(7) If there had been a conspiracy, it would certainly have been unearthed by the disciples' adversaries, who had both the interest and the power to expose any fraud. Common experience shows that such intrigues are inevitably exposed (Craig, ibid).
In conclusion, if the resurrection was a concocted, conspired lie, it violates all known historical and psychological laws of lying. It is, then, as unscientific, as unrepeatable, unique and untestable as the resurrection itself. But unlike the resurrection, it is also contradicted by things we do know (the above points).
Refutation of the Hallucination Theory: Thirteen Arguments
If you thought you saw a dead man walking and talking, wouldn't you think it more likely that you were hallucinating than that you were seeing correctly? Why then not think the same thing about Christ's resurrection?
(1) There were too many witnesses. Hallucinations are private, individual, subjective. Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples minus Thomas, to the disciples including Thomas, to the two disciples at Emmaus, to the fisherman on the shore, to James (his "brother" or cousin), and even to five hundred people at once (1 Cor 15:3-8). Even three different witnesses are enough for a kind of psychological trigonometry; over five hundred is about as public as you can wish. And Paul says in this passage (v. 6) that most of the five hundred are still alive, inviting any reader to check the truth of the story by questioning the eyewitnesses -- he could never have done this and gotten away with it, given the power, resources and numbers of his enemies, if it were not true.
(2) The witnesses were qualified. They were simple, honest, moral people who had firsthand knowledge of the facts.
(3) The five hundred saw Christ together, at the same time and place. This is even more remarkable than five hundred private "hallucinations" at different times and places of the same Jesus. Five hundred separate Elvis sightings may be dismissed, but if five hundred simple fishermen in Maine saw, touched and talked with him at once, in the same town, that would be a different matter. (The only other dead person we know of who is reported to have appeared to hundreds of qualified and skeptical eyewitnesses at once is Mary the mother of Jesus [at Fatima, to 70,000]. And that was not a claim of physical resurrection but of a vision.)
(4) Hallucinations usually last a few seconds or minutes; rarely hours. This one hung around for forty days (Acts 1:3).
(5) Hallucinations usually happen only once, except to the insane. This one returned many times, to ordinary people (Jn 20:19-21:14; Acts 1:3).
(6) Hallucinations come from within, from what we already know, at least unconsciously. This one said and did surprising and unexpected things (Acts 1:4,9) -- like a real person and unlike a dream.
(7) Not only did the disciples not expect this, they didn't even believe it at first -- neither Peter, nor the women, nor Thomas, nor the eleven. They thought he was a ghost; he had to eat something to prove he was not (Lk 24:36-43).
(8) Hallucinations do not eat. The resurrected Christ did, on at least two occasions (Lk 24:42-43; Jn 21:1-14).
(9) The disciples touched him (Mt 28:9; Lk 24:39; Jn 20:27).
(10) They also spoke with him, and he spoke back. Figments of your imagination do not hold profound, extended conversations with you, unless you have the kind of mental disorder that isolates you. But this "hallucination" conversed with at least eleven people at once, for forty days (Acts 1:3).
(11) The apostles could not have believed in the "hallucination" if Jesus' corpse had still been in the tomb. This is very simple and telling point; for if it was a hallucination, where was the corpse? They would have checked for it; if it was there, they could not have believed.
(12) If the apostles had hallucinated and then spread their hallucinogenic story, the Jews would have stopped it by producing the body -- unless the disciples had stolen it, in which case we are back with the conspiracy theory and all its difficulties.
(13) A hallucination would explain only the post-resurrection appearances; it would not explain the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, or the inability to produce the corpse. No theory can explain all these data except a real resurrection. C.S. Lewis says,
"Any theory of hallucination breaks down on the fact (and if it is invention [rather than fact], it is the oddest invention that ever entered the mind of man) that on three separate occasions this hallucination was not immediately recognized as Jesus (Lk 24:13-31; Jn 20:15; 21:4). Even granting that God sent a holy hallucination to teach truths already widely believed without it, and far more easily taught by other methods, and certain to be completely obscured by this, might we not at least hope that he would get the face of the hallucination right? Is he who made all faces such a bungler that he cannot even work up a recognizable likeness of the Man who was himself?" (Miracles, chapter 16)
Some of these arguments are as old as the Church Fathers. Most go back to the eighteenth century, especially William Paley. How do unbelievers try to answer them? Today, few even try to meet these arguments, although occasionally someone tries to refurbish one of the three theories of swoon, conspiracy or hallucination (e.g. Schonfield's conspiratorial The Passover Plot). But the counter-attack today most often takes one of the two following forms.
I. Some dismiss the resurrection simply because it is miraculous, thus throwing the whole issue back to whether miracles are possible. They argue, as Hume did, that any other explanation is always more probable than a miracle. For a refutation of these arguments, see our chapter on miracles (chapter 5).
II. The other form of counter-attack, by far the most popular, is to try to escape the traditional dilemma of "deceivers" (conspirators) or "deceived" (hallucinators) by interpreting the Gospels as myth -- neither literally true nor literally false, but spiritually or symbolically true. This is the standard line of liberal theology departments in colleges, universities and seminaries throughout the Western world today.
Refutation of the Myth Theory: Six Arguments
(1) The style of the Gospels is radically and clearly different from the style of all the myths. Any literary scholar who knows and appreciates myths can verify this. There are no overblown, spectacular, childishly exaggerated events. Nothing is arbitrary. Everything fits in. Everything is meaningful. The hand of a master is at work here.
Psychological depth is at a maximum. In myth it is at a minimum. In myth, such spectacular external events happen that it would be distracting to add much internal depth of character. That is why it is ordinary people like Alice who are the protagonists of extra-ordinary adventures like Wonderland. That character depth and development of everyone in the Gospels -- especially, of course, Jesus himself -- is remarkable. It is also done with an incredible economy of words. Myths are verbose; the Gospels are laconic (concise).
There are also telltale marks of eyewitness description, like the little detail of Jesus writing in the sand when asked whether to stone the adulteress or not (Jn 8:6). No one knows why this is put in; nothing comes of it. The only explanation is that the writer saw it. If this detail and others like it throughout all four Gospels were invented, then a first-century tax collector (Matthew), a "young man" (Mark), a doctor (Luke), and a fisherman (John) all independently invented the new genre of realistic fantasy nineteen centuries before it was reinvented in the twentieth.
The stylistic point is argued so well by C.S. Lewis in "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" (in Christian Reflections and also in Fern-Seed and Elephants) that we strongly refer the reader to it as the best comprehensive anti-demythologizing essay we have seen.
Let us be even more specific. Let us compare the Gospels with two particular mythic writings from around that time to see for ourselves the stylistic differences. The first is the so-called Gospel of Peter, a forgery from around A.D. 125 which John Dominic Crossan (of the "Jesus Seminar"), a current media darling among the doubters, insists is earlier than the four Gospels. As William Lane Craig puts it:
"In this account, the tomb is not only surrounded by Roman guards but also by all the Jewish Pharisees and elders as well as a great multitude from all the surrounding countryside who have come to watch the resurrection. Suddenly in the night there rings out a loud voice in heaven, and two men descend from heaven to the tomb. The stone over the door rolls back by itself, and they go into the tomb. The three men come out of the tomb, two of them holding up the third man. The heads of the two men reach up into the clouds, but the head of the third man reaches beyond the clouds. Then a cross comes out of the tomb, and a voice from heaven asks, 'Have you preached to them that sleep?' And the cross answers, 'Yes.'" (Apologetics, p. 189)
Here is a second comparison, from Richard Purtill:
"It may be worthwhile to take a quick look, for purposes of comparison at the closest thing we have around the time of the Gospels to an attempt at a realistic fantasy. This is the story of Apollonius of Tyana, written about A.D. 250 by Flavius Philostratus....There is some evidence that a neo-Pythagorean sage named Apollonius may really have lived, and thus Philostratus' work is a real example of what some have thought the Gospels to be: a fictionalized account of the life of a real sage and teacher, introducing miraculous elements to build up the prestige of the central figure. It thus gives us a good look at what a real example of a fictionalized biography would look like, written at a time and place not too far removed from those in which the Gospels were written.
"The first thing we notice is the fairy-tale atmosphere. There is a rather nice little vampire story, which inspired a minor poem by Keats entitled Lamia. There are animal stories about, for instance, snakes in India big enough to drag off and eat an elephant. The sage wanders from country to country and wherever he goes he is likely to be entertained by the king or emperor, who holds long conversations with him and sends him on his way with camels and precious stones.
"Here is a typical passage about healing miracles: 'A woman who had had seven miscarriages was cured through the prayers of her husband, as follows. The Wise Man told the husband, when his wife was in labor, to bring a live rabbit under his cloak to the place where she was, walk around her and immediately release the rabbit; for she would lose her womb as well as her baby if the rabbit was not immediately driven away.' [Bk 3, sec 39]
"The point is that this is what you get when the imagination goes to work. Once the boundaries of fact are crossed we wander into fairyland. And very nice too, for amusement or recreation. But the Gospels are set firmly in the real Palestine of the first century, and the little details are not picturesque inventions but the real details that only an eyewitness or a skilled realistic novelist can give." (Thinking About Religion, p. 75-76)
(2) A second problem is that there was not enough time for myth to develop. The original demythologizers pinned their case onto a late second-century date for the writing of the Gospels; several generations have to pass before the added mythological elements can be mistakenly believed to be facts. Eyewitnesses would be around before that to discredit the new, mythic versions. We know of other cases where myths and legends of miracles developed around a religious founder -- for example, Buddha, Lao-tzu and Muhammad. In each case, many generations passed before the myth surfaced.
The dates for the writing of the Gospels have been pushed back by every empirical manuscript discovery; only abstract hypothesizing pushes the date forward. Almost no knowledgeable scholar today holds what Bultmann said it was necessary to hold in order to believe the myth theory, namely, that there is no first-century textual evidence that Christianity began with a divine and resurrected Christ, not a human and dead one.
Some scholars still dispute the first-century date for the Gospels, especially John's. But no one disputes that Paul's letters were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses to Christ. So let us argue from Paul's letters. Either these letters contain myth or they do not. If so, there is lacking the several generations necessary to build up a commonly believed myth. There is not even one generation. If these letters are not myth, then the Gospels are not either, for Paul affirms all the main claims of the Gospels. Julius Muller put the anti-myth argument this way:
"One cannot imagine how such a series of legends could arise in an historical age, obtain universal respect, and supplant the historical recollection of the true character [Jesus]....if eyewitnesses were still at hand who could be questioned respecting the truth of the recorded marvels. Hence, legendary fiction, as it likes not the clear present time but prefers the mysterious gloom of gray antiquity, is wont to seek a remoteness of age, along with that of space, and to remove its boldest and most rare and wonderful creations into a very remote and unknown land." (The Theory of Myths in Its Application to the Gospel History Examined and Confuted [London, 1844], p. 26)
Muller challenged his nineteenth-century contemporaries to produce a single example anywhere in history of a great myth or legend arising around a historical figure and being generally believed within thirty years after that figure's death. No one has ever answered him.
(3) The myth theory has two layers. The first layer is the historical Jesus, who was not divine, did not claim divinity, performed no miracles, and did not rise from the dead. The second, later, mythologized layer is the Gospels as we have them, with a Jesus who claimed to be divine, performed miracles and rose from the dead. The problem with this theory is simply that there is not the slightest bit of any real evidence whatever for the existence of any such first layer. The two-layer cake theory has the first layer made entirely of air -- and hot air at that.
St. Augustine refutes the two-layer theory with his usual condensed power and simplicity:
"The speech of one Elpidius, who had spoken and disputed face to face against the Manichees, had already begun to affect me at Carthage, when he produced arguments from Scripture which were not easy to answer. And the answer they [the Manichees, who claimed to be the true Christians] gave seemed to me feeble -- indeed they preferred not to give it in public but only among ourselves in private -- the answer being that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by some persons unknown...yet the Manicheans made no effort to produce uncorrupted copies." (Confessions, V, 11, Sheed translation)
Note the sarcasm in the last sentence. It still applies today. William Lane Craig summarizes the evidence -- the lack of evidence:
"The Gospels are a miraculous story, and we have no other story handed down to us than that contained in the Gospels....The letters of Barnabas and Clement refer to Jesus' miracles and resurrection. Polycarp mentions the resurrection of Christ, and Irenaeus relates that he had heard Polycarp tell of Jesus' miracles. Ignatius speaks of the resurrection. Puadratus reports that persons were still living who had been healed by Jesus. Justin Martyr mentions the miracles of Christ. No relic of a non-miraculous story exists. That the original story should be lost and replaced by another goes beyond any known example of corruption of even oral tradition, not to speak of the experience of written transmissions. These facts show that the story in the Gospels was in substance the same story that Christians had at the beginning. This means...that the resurrection of Jesus was always a part of the story." (Apologetics, chapter 6)
(4) A little detail, seldom noticed, is significant in distinguishing the Gospels from myth: the first witnesses of the resurrection were women. In first-century Judaism, women had low social status and no legal right to serve as witnesses. If the empty tomb were an invented legend, its inventors surely would not have had it discovered by women, whose testimony was considered worthless. If, on the other hand, the writers were simply reporting what they saw, they would have to tell the truth, however socially and legally inconvenient.
(5) The New Testament could not be myth misinterpreted and confused with fact because it specifically distinguishes the two and repudiates the mythic interpretation (2 Peter 1:16). Since it explicitly says it is not myth, if it is myth it is a deliberate lie rather than myth. The dilemma still stands. It is either truth or lie, whether deliberate (conspiracy) or non-deliberate (hallucination). There is no escape from the horns of this dilemma. Once a child asks whether Santa Claus is real, your yes becomes a lie, not myth, if he is not literally real. Once the New Testament distinguishes myth from fact, it becomes a lie if the resurrection is not fact.
(6) William Lane Craig has summarized the traditional textual arguments with such clarity, condensation and power that we quote him here at length. The following arguments (rearranged and outlined from Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection) prove two things: first, that the Gospels were written by the disciples, not later myth-makers, and second, that the Gospels we have today are essentially the same as the originals.
(A) Proof that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses:
(1) Internal evidence, from the Gospels themselves:
(a) The style of writing in the Gospels is simple and alive, what we would expect from their traditionally accepted authors.
(b) Moreover, since Luke was written before Acts, and since Acts was written prior to the death of Paul, Luke must have an early date, which speaks for its authenticity.
(c) The Gospels also show an intimate knowledge of Jerusalem prior to its destruction in A.D. 70. The Gospels are full of proper names, dates, cultural details, historical events, and customs and opinions of that time.
(d) Jesus' prophecies of that event (the destruction of Jerusalem) must have been written prior to Jerusalem's fall, for otherwise the church would have separated out the apocalyptic element in the prophecies, which makes them appear to concern the end of the world. Since the end of the world did not come about when Jerusalem was destroyed, the so-called prophecies of its destruction that were really written after the city was destroyed would not have made that event appear so closely connected with the end of the world. Hence, the Gospels must have been written prior to A.D. 70.
(e) The stories of Jesus' human weaknesses and of the disciples' faults also bespeak the Gospels' accuracy.
(f) Furthermore, it would have been impossible for forgers to put together so consistent a narrative as that which we find in the Gospels. The Gospels do not try to suppress apparent discrepancies, which indicates their originality (written by eyewitnesses). There is no attempt at harmonization between the Gospels, such as we might expect from forgers.
(g) The Gospels do not contain anachronisms; the authors appear to have been first-century Jews who were witnesses of the events.
We may conclude that there is no more reason to doubt that the Gospels come from the traditional authors than there is to doubt that the works of Philo or Josephus are authentic, except that the Gospels contain supernatural events.
(2) External evidence:
(a) The disciples must have left some writings, engaged as they were in giving lessons to and counseling believers who were geographically distant; and what could these writings be if not the Gospels and epistles themselves? Eventually the apostles would have needed to publish accurate narratives of Jesus' history, so that any spurious attempts would be discredited and the genuine Gospels preserved.
(b) There were many eyewitnesses who were still alive when the books were written who could testify whether they came from their purported authors or not.
(c) The extra-biblical testimony unanimously attributes the Gospels to their traditional authors: the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistle of Clement, the Shepherd of Hermes, Theophilus, Hippolytus, Origen, Puadratus, Irenaeus, Melito, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Tertullian, Cyprian, Tatian, Caius, Athanasius, Cyril, up to Eusebius in A.D. 315, even Christianity's opponents conceded this: Celsus, Porphyry, Emperor Julian.
(d) With a single exception, no apocryphal gospel is ever quoted by any known author during the first three hundred years after Christ. In fact there is no evidence that any inauthentic gospel whatever existed in the first century, in which all four Gospels and Acts were written.
(B) Proof that the Gospels we have today are the same Gospels originally written:
(1) Because of the need for instruction and personal devotion, these writings must have been copied many times, which increases the chances of preserving the original text.
(2) In fact, no other ancient work is available in so many copies and languages, and yet all these various versions agree in content.
(3) The text has also remained unmarred by heretical additions. The abundance of manuscripts over a wide geographical distribution demonstrates that the text has been transmitted with only trifling discrepancies. The differences that do exist are quite minor and are the result of unintentional mistakes.
(4) The quotations of the New Testament books in the early Church Fathers all coincide.
(5) The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of all orthodox Christians.
(6) No one could have corrupted all the manuscripts.
(7) There is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the Church Fathers in regular and close succession. The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate such tampering.
(8) The text of the New Testament is every bit as good as the text of the classical works of antiquity. To repudiate the textual parity of the Gospels would be to reverse all the rules of criticism and to reject all the works of antiquity, since the text of those works is less certain than that of the Gospels.
Richard Purtill summarizes the textual case:
"Many events which are regarded as firmly established historically have (1) far less documentary evidence than many biblical events; (2) and the documents on which historians rely for much secular history are written much longer after the event than many records of biblical events; (3) furthermore, we have many more copies of biblical narratives than of secular histories; and (4) the surviving copies are much earlier than those on which our evidence for secular history is based. If the biblical narratives did not contain accounts of miraculous events, biblical history would probably be regarded as much more firmly established than most of the history of, say, classical Greece and Rome." (Thinking About Religion, p. 84-85)
Conclusions: More Objections Answered
No alternative to a real resurrection has yet explained: the existence of the Gospels, the origin of the Christian faith, the failure of Christ's enemies to produce his corpse, the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, or the accounts of the post-resurrection appearances. Swoon, conspiracy, hallucination and myth have been shown to be the only alternatives to a real resurrection, and each has been refuted.
What reasons could be given at this point for anyone who still would refuse to believe? At this point, general rather than specific objections are usually given. For instance:
Objection 1 : History is not an exact science. It does not yield absolute certainty like mathematics.
Reply : This is true, but why would you note that fact now and not when you speak of Caesar or Luther or George Washington? History is not exact, but it is sufficient. No one doubts that Caesar crossed the Rubicon; why do many doubt that Jesus rose from the dead? The evidence for the latter is much better than for the former.
Objection 2 : You can't trust documents. Paper proves nothing. Anything can be forged.
Reply : This is simply ignorance. Not trusting documents is like not trusting telescopes. Paper evidence suffices for most of what we believe; why should it suddenly become suspect here?
Objection 3 : Because the resurrection is miraculous. It's the content of the idea rather than the documentary evidence for it that makes it incredible.
Reply : Now we finally have a straightforward objection -- not to the documentary evidence but to miracles. This is a philosophical question, not a scientific, historical or textual question. (See chapter five in this book for an answer).
Objection 4 : It's not only miracles in general but this miracle in particular that is objectionable. The resurrection of a corpse is crass, crude, vulgar, literalistic and materialistic. Religion should be more spiritual, inward, ethical.
Reply : If religion is what we invent, we can make it whatever we like. If it is what God invented, then we have to take it as we find it, just as we have to take the universe as we find it, rather than as we'd like it to be. Death is crass, crude, vulgar, literal and material. The resurrection meets death where it is and conquers it, rather than merely spouting some harmless, vaporous abstractions about spirituality. The resurrection is as vulgar as the God who did it. He also made mud and bugs and toenails.
Objection 5 : But a literalistic interpretation of the resurrection ignores the profound dimensions of meaning found in the symbolic, spiritual and mythic realms that have been deeply explored by other religions. Why are Christians so narrow and exclusive? Why can't they see the profound symbolism in the idea of resurrection?
Reply : They can. It's not either-or. Christianity does not invalidate the myths, it validates them, by incarnating them. It is "myth become fact," to use the title of a germane essay by C.S. Lewis (in God in the Dock). Why prefer a one-layer cake to a two-layer cake? Why refuse either the literal-historical or the mythic-symbolic aspects of the resurrection? The Fundamentalist refuses the mythic-symbolic aspects because he has seen what the Modernist has done with it: used it to exclude the literal-historical aspects. Why have the Modernists done that? What terrible fate awaits them if they follow the multifarious and weighty evidence and argument that naturally emerges from the data, as we have summarized it here in this chapter?
The answer is not obscure: traditional Christianity awaits them, complete with adoration of Christ as God, obedience to Christ as Lord, dependence on Christ as Savior, humble confession of sin and a serious effort to live Christ's life of self-sacrifice, detachment from the world, righteousness, holiness and purity of thought, word and deed. The historical evidence is massive enough to convince the open-minded inquirer. By analogy with any other historical event, the resurrection has eminently credible evidence behind it. To disbelieve it, you must deliberately make an exception to the rules you use everywhere else in history. Now why would someone want to do that?
Ask yourself that question if you dare, and take an honest look into your heart before you answer.
===============================================================================
From chapter 8 of Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft/Fr. Ronald Tacelli, SJ (Intervarsity Press, 1994)
Sources for Further Study
Recommended DVD:
"Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?" DVD produced by Ignatius Press
Recommended Books:
Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison (1930)
The Son Rises (Moody Press, 1981)
Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection (Servant Books, 1988)
Apologetics: An Introduction (Moody Press, 1984) all three by William Lane Craig
The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic (Baker Books, 1980)
Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? (Harper and Row, 1987) both by Gary Habermas (latter with atheist Antony Flew)
Christian Apologetics (Baker Books, 1976) by Norman Geisler
Easter Enigma (Academie Books, 1984) by John Wenham (on the consistency of the Gospel narratives)
The Resurrection Report (Broadman and Holman, 1998) by William Proctor (journalist)
The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress Press, 2003) by N.T. Wright (biblical scholar)
The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright in Dialogue (Fortress Press, 2006)
The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (Promethus Books, 2005) by Jeffrey Jay Lowder and Robert M. Price (a skeptical look)
This Joyful Eastertide: A Critical Review of The Empty Tomb (PDF E-book) by Steve Hays, et al (c) 2006
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Really? What proof do you have of that?
(yikes)
You have me at a loss Kosta, for you seem to be playing the atheist game yet you keep an Orthodox Ping list and seem to respond in Orthodox/Catholic threads as a follower of the good faith.
Of course it maybe that you have not presented counter arguments just refutation of others points.
Perhaps some clarity on your perspective could be helpful.
Can't we ever just get a straight answer minus the deceptive spin from you lds apologist types?
I guess I'll use this opportunity to show lurkers & others exactly how an lds apologist likes to twist things ever so slightly:
Note Alan2's use of the word "today" re: the "many DIFFERENT versions of the Bible" & hence, the supposed need for Mormonism's qualification about the trustworthiness of the Bible.
What Alan2 doesn't mention is that this qualification/caveat of Mormonism was developed in 1842 -- not "today" as he says -- 1842 when the KJV was "THE standard." Sorry, Alan2, there weren't a whole lot of English Bible versions in wide-open circulation in 1842.
And the Bible it self says that it is not complete.
If so, so what? The Book of Mormon isn't "complete."
Does then the Mormon Articles of Faith add that same qualifier to the Book of Mormon?
The Doctrines & Covenants supposedly aren't "complete".
Same qualifier added there?
And tell us, what does completeness or lack of it have to do w/what's been translated already, anyway?
Are you capable of straight answers? Or are you just going to continue rambling re: 21st & 20th century versions of the Bible or "incompleteness" of the Scriptures -- all of which had absolutely NOTHING to do w/my original comment?
The reason why the Book of Mormon does not have a qualifier is that it was written and abridged by prophets and then translated into English by the power of God by a Prophet. Where as the KJV of the Bible in 1842, although written by Prophets and Apostles, it was compiled and translated by those who were not Apostles/Prophets. Even if the translator is competent and unbiased, mistakes can be made. Thus the need for the qualifier.
Given the number of edits in the BOM over the years, either the “prophets” have a short circuit in the connection to god or god can’t make up his mind about what he is trying to say...
Your protestations aside, the boa (and smith) say otherwise. Facsimile 1 was, by their account, attached to the scroll from which smith translated the boa. The rest of the papyri (the 'sensen' pieces), by papyrologists (specialists in the reconstruction of papyrus scrolls), were shown to both mormon and non-mormon egyptologists, to be all one. Facsimiles 1 and 3 are copies of well known scenes on funeral papyri. The CORRECTLY translated text of the boa papyri (sensen parts) are right between the two figures - as they are in hundreds of other breathing prayer scrolls. I have already pointed out that it is apparent Smith used the sensen papyri portions for his translation as well as his 'reconstruction' of facsimile 2. Furthermore- you First Presidency has yet to support your claim that this is NOT the scroll smith used - only non-authorized apologists.
But that still doesn't let you off the hook. The three facsimiles are not even translated anywhere near correctly. This was evident even in 1912 -
For example, Dr. Arthur Mace, Assistant Curator for the Department of Egyptian Art of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York explained: "The Book of Abraham, it is hardly necessary to say, is a pure fabrication. Cuts 1 and 3 are inaccurate copies of well known scenes on funeral papyri, and cut 2 is a copy of one of the magical discs which in the late Egyptian period were placed under the heads of mummies. There were about forty of these latter known in museums and they are all very similar in character. Joseph Smith's interpretation of these cuts is a farrago of nonsense from beginning to end. Egyptian characters can now be read almost as easily as Greek, and five minutes' study in an Egyptian gallery of any museum should be enough to convince any educated man of the clumsiness of the imposture." (F.S. Spalding, Joseph Smith Jr., As a Translator, 1912, p. 27)
As at the very least, smiths spurious translations of the facsimilies prove, only a bogus prophet produces such bogus translations.
And you are assuming that (1) Peter didn't write it (2) it is not inspired and infallable and (3) it is false.
And you are assuming that (1) Peter didn't write it (2) it is not inspired and infallable and (3) it is false.
Well, for one who told me that you don't believe Jesus even existed or even died and was resurrected, you've essentially told me you aren't interested to begin with.
Yet we can go back to the Greek/Hebrew manuscripts to evaluate WHAT was being translated. There is no mystical, magical gobbly gook as with mormonism when it comes to translation. Yet smith had the 'power of God' to make his translation and yet there are over 4000 changes that have been made to it over the years - all without being able to go back to the gold plates for clarification.
The Greek/Hebrew manuscripts are still copies of copies of copies. They are not the originals written by the Apostles.
Then why doesn't the Lds church distribute all those supposed "corrected" mistakes via commercials? Why has the Lds church advertised & given away free copies of the KJV Bible -- a Bible Mormons think is mistake-prone -- instead of Smith's supposedly corrected JST version? [Doesn't it make sense that if you have the mistake-prone version of something; and then you get a so-called "corrected" version by your founding "prophet," that you'll go w/the "latter" if you're a "latter-day saint?"]
The reason why the Book of Mormon does not have a qualifier is that it was written and abridged by prophets and then translated into English by the power of God by a Prophet.
So that's why there's been thousands of changes in the Book of Mormon since 1830? ('Cause it was "translated into English by the power of God"???) Ya wanna tell us why the "power of God" failed to be evident in so many 1830 Book of Mormon ways?
1 Nephi 11:21, 32: Words "even the Son" and "the Son of God" were missing, changing the plain meaning of those verses.
2 Nephi 30:6: The Mormon "god's power" put down "white" in the "gold plates" -- later Book of Mormon editors thought that both the gold plates and god's power was wrong -- and changed it to "pure".
Mosiah 21:28: The gold plates, Smith's translation, & the "power of the mormon god" all agreed that "Benjamin" was to be here. The problem? Book of Mormon post-published editors realized, uh, Benjamin died in the narrative according to Mosiah 6:5. So is this a resurrected Benjamin? (Doesn't God have the power to resurrect who he wants?) Why did Lds editors diss God's power, bring into question Smith's "translation" power & ability -- not to mention common proofreading, etc?
Alma 41:8: This verse says the "decrees of God are unalterable" [well then why have BoM editors made the Book of Mormon "alterable" 4,000 plus times?]
An example of a BoM mistake NOT YET changed by later BoM editors:
1 Nephi 22:20: Says he is quoting Moses but in reality is quoting Peter -- before the book of Acts was even written...before these events even took place!
Shall I go on? Bottom line, Nephi (1 Nephi 13:39) seemed to think that the Bible is translated correctly (And then, behold, other records have I, that I will give unto you power that you may assist to translate.) So why do Lds question it today?
Copying is not the same as translating my friend. Smith translated facsimiles 1, 2 & 3, and real Egyptologists have, ever since the Rosetta stone was worked out, proven that his translation was bogus. 4000 plus changes to the bom - where is the documentation to support the changes in the translation.
See, smith (you know - the prophet) claimed claimed that all three "facsimiles" were related to the BoA---but in fact, they all deal with ancient Egyptian funerary rites.
Why haven't your past and current living prophet and seer solved this mystery for us once and for all? Why haven't they not asked the Lord why the translation of the BOA by Egyptologists does not match what Joseph said they did? Has revelation ceased?
Or perhaps it is that Min is the mormon 'god'
I am not making any claims. You are. The burden of proof is on you, not me. If you are going to present something as "evidence," I have every right to expect some proof that the evidence you present is credible. So far all I see are presumptions. In that case, we can earnestly discuss pink unicorns on Jupiter, shall we?
I wouldn't be asking you if I were not interested. I always give others the benefit of the doubt. So, what proof do you have?
Of which you are not exempt from as well. So talk away.
Was Jesus a real person in history.
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