Evidence for the Resurrection as a Historical Event

There has been a resurgence of interest lately in the issue of Biblical scholarship and the search for truth - especially in the media. Maybe you have noticed some of these recent print articles and documentaries:

The Ancient Secrets of the Bible (Television Series - often presented from a materialist perspective, but usually gives its subject fair treatment)

Eyewitness to Jesus (TLC Documentary)

Perhaps most believers never notice this, but the reason articles like these continue to generate interest in the media is because the secular world still seems suprised that modern scholarship has not refuted the Biblical account, as skeptics presume. In fact, I believe that modern scholarship supports the story of Jesus more than ever.

There are many, many criticisms of the Bible, and many many answers by Bible scholars – too much to cover here.

We can, however, get an idea of the larger debate by reviewing some popular criticisms of the Gospel accounts, particularly of the Resurrection, and answer them.

The Jesus Myth

Criticism: The historicity of Jesus is not supported by modern scholarship.

This claim was made by Gordon Stein, July/August 1982 issue of The American Rationalist, about most of Josh McDowell’s book Evidence that Demands a Verdict.

While thankfully acknowledging his citations of sources, Stein criticizes McDowell’s lack of scholarship, even complaining about spelling and personally attacking his honesty.

Answer: The issue of biblical scholarship is far from being decided.

It would seem that making a claim about "modern scholarly thought" would be supported by polling modern scholars about the issues, not making ad homenim attacks. If one actually asks modern Biblical scholars what they believe, the result is quite different, as William Craig notes:

"So complete has been the turn-about during the second half of this century concerning the resurrection of Jesus that it is no exaggeration to speak of a reversal of scholarship on this issue, such that those who deny the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection now seem to be the ones on the defensive…. All NT scholars agree that the gospels were written down and circulated within the first generation, during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. Indeed, a significant new movement of biblical scholarship argues persuasively that some of the gospels were written by the AD 50’s."

The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus, Dr. William Craig, Leadership University archives (this week's reading)

Stein himself wrote, "We should always keep an open mind about any new phenomenon in nature. To merely say ‘that’s impossible, therefore it doesn’t exist,’ is to commit a serious error. A much better approach would be to say ‘That’s quite unlikely, but show me the evidence you have that says that it may be so.’ It would be the height of arrogance to think that man knows everything possible about the universe or the earth." Gordon Stein in What is Rationalism?, 1985.

The Resurrection Myth

Criticism: The resurrection of Jesus was just a "myth"...

Critics of the Bible accouns often claim that there has been a slow evolution, or legendary development, of the content that did not orginally support later Christian ideas about events such as the resurrection.

An example of this kind of criticism is a demonstration by Joachim Jeremias that in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 Paul is quoting an old Christian formula which he received and in turn passed on to his converts.

[A detailed debate on this subject can be found here]

Answer: The Biblical texts and internal evidence indicate that there was not enough time between oral and written accounts to allow legendary development. Consider this resurrection account referred to by Paul:

1 Corinthians 15:3-5 suggests a very early tradition for the account. According to Galatians 1:18, Paul was in Jerusalem three years after his conversion. Paul was converted in AD 33, so the eyewitness account must have been within 5 years of Jesus death. Craig states:

"Thus, it is idle to dismiss these appearances as legendary. We can try to explain them away as hallucinations if we wish, but we cannot deny they occurred. Paul’s information makes it certain that on separate occasions various individuals and groups saw Jesus alive from the dead."

There are two reasons that Dr. Craig believes that the resurrection story cannot be dismissed:

1. The resurrection story is part of a passion story that existed before Mark wrote his Gospel, and Mark used it as a source.
2. The story is simple and lacks the characteristics of legendary development.

Craig cites as evidence the apocryphal gospels of the second century, which contain fanciful theological motifs and dreamlike details.

Criticism: New Testament accounts of the Resurrection cannot be accurate, and are not supported by evidence. Miracles don’t happen.

Answer: The Jews failed to easily discredit the accounts by producing Jesus’ body.

If the burial account is accurate, then the site of Jesus’ grave was known to both Jews and Christians.

In that case, it is a very short inference to establish the existence of the empty tomb. If Jesus had not risen and the burial site were known, the Jewish authorities would have quickly exposed any deception. The fastest and best answer to the claim of Jesus resurrection would have been to simply produce the body.

The account in Matthew 28 demonstrates how Jesus followers, the Roman guards, and the Jewish leaders all presupposed that the body of Jesus was missing from the tomb.

Criticism: Jesus did not die on the cross, but was taken down and placed alive in the tomb, where he revived and escaped to convince the disciples he had risen from the dead.

This apparent death theory was championed by the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century German rationalists, and was even embraced by the father of modern theology, F. D. E. Schleiermacher.

Answer: It would be nearly impossible for Jesus to have survived his torture and crucifixion, and even then not to have died of exposure in the tomb.

This idea cannot be reconciled with the accounts of Jesus followers who worshipped the risen Jesus as the Conqueror of Death. A half-dead Jesus, in desperate need of medical attention, would not have elicited such a reaction in the disciples. It is equally unlikely that Jesus could have had the strength to unwrap himself, remove the large stone, and escape the Roman guard without making a sound.

In any case, he would not have been able to trick the disciples into believing that he had actually risen from the dead, especially after the questioning by Thomas, if he had merely been injured and revived.

A variation of this theory has also been called the "swoon theory", where Jesus merely lost consciousness instead of dying.

The Bible gives evidence that make a loss of consciousness untenable, because of the detail about the burial wrappings covered in all four of the Gospel accounts:

It is impossible that the preparation of a body, so important in the Jewish culture, could have proceeded on a live Jesus without his friends noticing even the most basic life signs such as warmth, breathing, etc.

Criticism: The disciples projected hallucinations of Jesus after his death, from which they mistakenly inferred his resurrection.

Craig answers this criticism:

The hallucination theory became popular during the nineteenth century and carried over into the first half of the twentieth century as well. Again, however, there are good grounds for rejecting this hypothesis:

It is implausible to suggest such a chain of hallucinations, especially among so many people at once.

Hallucinations are usually associated with mental illness or drugs; but in the disciples’ case the prior psycho-biological preparation appears to be wanting. The disciples had no anticipation of seeing Jesus alive again; all they could do was wait to be reunited with him in the Kingdom of God. There were no grounds leading them to hallucinate him alive from the dead. Moreover, the frequency and variety of circumstances belie the hallucination theory: Jesus was seen not once, but many times; not by one person, but by several; not only by individuals, but also by groups; not at one locale and circumstance but at many; not by believers only, but by skeptics and unbelievers as well. The hallucination theory cannot be plausibly stretched to accommodate such diversity.

Hallucinations would not in any case have led to belief in Jesus’ resurrection, an idea that ran solidly against the Jewish mode of thought.

As projections of one’s own mind, hallucinations cannot contain anything not already in the mind. But we have seen that Jesus’ resurrection differed from the Jewish conception in two fundamental ways. Given their Jewish frame of thought, the disciples, were they to hallucinate, would have projected visions of Jesus glorified in Abraham’s bosom, where Israel’s righteous dead abode until the eschatological resurrection. Thus, hallucinations would not have elicited belief in Jesus’ resurrection.

Criticism: The resurrection story is inconsistent and full of contradictions.

Answer: The story is internally, historically, and bibliographically consistent

Paul’s testimony supports the fact of the empty tomb cf. Paul's account in 1 Cor. 15.4. Paul's expression "he was raised" following the phrase "he was buried" implies the empty tomb. A first century Jew could not think otherwise.

The phrase "on the third day" probably points to the discovery of the empty tomb. Very briefly summarized, the point is that since no one actually witnessed the resurrection of Jesus, how did Christians come to date it "on the third day?" The most probable answer is that they did so because this was the day of the discovery of the empty tomb by Jesus’ women followers.

This brings up another point: the tomb was probably discovered empty by women. Again, Craig states:

"To understand this point one has to recall two facts about the role of women in Jewish society.

Woman occupied a low rung on the Jewish social ladder. This is evident in such rabbinic expressions as ‘Sooner let the words of the law be burnt than delivered to women’ and ‘Happy is he whose children are male, but woe to him whose children are female.’

The testimony of women was regarded as so worthless that they were not even permitted to serve as legal witnesses in a court of law. In light of these facts, how remarkable must it seem that it is women who are the discoverers of Jesus’ empty tomb. Any later legend would certainly have made the male disciples to discover the empty tomb. The fact that women, whose testimony was worthless, rather than men, are the chief witnesses to the empty tomb is most plausibly accounted for by the fact that, like it or not, they were the discoverers of the empty tomb and the gospels accurately record this."