Some are deconverts; some life-long atheists. Some more familiar with Catholicism; others with Pentecostal movement. A mixed bag generating wide input. Jon asked me to lead the group on the topic regarding Jesus’ Resurrection.
As I was preparing, I first encountered the concern regarding the different levels of knowledge. While I didn’t want to bore those who know the gospels forward and backward, on the other hand there would be no gain to jump in on whether Joseph of Arimethea existed or not, if people didn’t even know who he was. [In fact, after the talk, one fellow did come up to me and say he never knew Jesus was buried in another person’s tomb. My fears were well founded.]
My second consideration was how to present the material in such a way, so a person can understand the controversies involved. There are so many possible rabbit trails; it can be confusing to the listener whether I am presenting the predominant Christian view, a less traditional Christian view, or a skeptical position.
I decided the easiest way to present was to role-play a Christian apologist—present the basic information and Christianity’s position as a Christian apologist would, utilizing a signal. When I held a white-board marker, I was being the Christian apologist; set the marker down, I explained why what I just said may not be necessarily true. I think (I hope) it generally worked.
If you are with me so far, I prepared to plan a case for the resurrection as if arguing on behalf of Christian apologists everywhere. I looked at it like a lawyer—if I represented the Resurrection Account and I was attempting to persuade an impartial (or in this case, generally hostile) audience, what would I use to persuade? What would I not? What evidence would I emphasize; what would I de-emphasize.
Now the best approach (in my opinion) is the minimal facts argument perfected by Dr. Habermas, Dr. Craig and Dr. Licona. It can be presented quickly, has an intuitive flow with it, there is easily accessible data to back up the individual supporting points, and the counter-arguments can often take longer to explain. No sense reinventing the wheel—I would present the case the popular apologists do. There is only one problem--a significant problem--it doesn’t work.
Dr. Licona, in his latest work, The Resurrection of Christ concludes:
The only legitimate reasons for rejecting the resurrection hypothesis are philosophical and theological in nature: if supernaturalism is false or a non-Christian religion is exclusively true. Pg. 608
If that is not clear, I will explain. The world can be broken down into three (3) types of people:
1) Non-theists;
2) Theists who don’t believe in Christianity exclusively; or
3) Theists who believe in Christianity exclusively.
Dr. Licona implies the historical evidence is convincing to the third category—people who are already convinced of resurrection anyway! In other words, one has to be 99% there, before the evidence can take them the remaining 1%. If the only reason to reject the Resurrection is that one doesn’t believe in God, or doesn’t believe Christianity, it follows a necessary requirement TO believe in the resurrection are 1)Belief in God, and 2) Exclusive belief in Christianity.
Simply put—the evidence alone is insufficient.
I prepared this handout to give the basic information and some additional pointers. And then I utilized the minimal facts, more to inform than convince.
As I prepared, I was surprised what points I would abandon (if I was a lawyer arguing the case). Here are a few:
1) Earlier dating of the Gospels compared to late dating is irrelevant.
We often see this battle where the more traditional conservative biblical scholars seem to attempt to get the gospels as early as possible to get them closer to the eyewitnesses, to make them more believable.
But in a historical analysis…so what? Many of our historians of the time are even later than late dating of the Gospels. The example I used was Tacitus and the Roman Fire. The Fire occurred in 64 CE. Tacitus wrote over 50 years later, in 117 CE. No one questions his work because it is “too late.” (Although he is slightly better than the gospels, as he was reviewing some written records.) If Jesus died in 30, and Matthew as written in 80 CE—this puts it roughly in the same time period.
The argument over dating of the Gospels, frankly, loses the forest for the trees. Early or Late date, the timing is equivalent to many historical documents we accept.
2) Any attempt at reconciling the appearances.
Anyone seeing a debate watch the apologists shuck and jive away from doing so. There is a reason—once stated the reconciliations lack the ring of truth in an argument. One has the women splitting up, popping up here, going there, and the disciples running around like wild hooligans to make them align.
Don’t.
Again, I turned to Tacitus. He records where Nero was, and the destruction of the Rome Fire. Which is different than Suetonius. Who are both different than Cassius Dio. Yet does anyone argue whether the Fire occurred because of these varying details? Of course not.
In the same way, treat the Gospels equally. Yes they disagree. Don’t tell anyone this, but they are not all historical in every detail. Sorry. And you may even need to pick one to the exclusion of another. (Gasp!) But attempting to align all accounts is just not believable. No neutral party would accept it.
3) The empty tomb is important. But not for the reason you think.
Many apologists attempt to claim the empty tomb is relevant because the non-believer MUST account for what happened to create the situation of an empty tomb on Sunday morning.
Wrong—the empty tomb is part of the story. The famous analogy is apt: “There must be an Emerald City; where else would the yellow brick road lead to?” See, the yellow brick road is part of Wizard of Oz. Not an independent fact for the story to accommodate.
In the same way, the empty tomb story could easily have developed many years after the resurrection story was in circulation.
BUT…
I would argue this is an unnecessary irrelevant fact, that it is more likely to be true because it is so unnecessary.
Think about it. Imagine we have a resurrection story. Completely and utterly made up. There you are…say 50 CE…and you have Jesus coming back from the dead. What day do you have him come back?
Paul says Jesus Resurrected on the “third day” (1 Cor. 15:4) according to the scriptures. Not sure exactly what scripture Paul is talking about…
Be that as it may, if you kill him on Friday (day before Sabbath) [Mark 15:42], add three days—out he pops Monday. Simple as pie. Matthew even makes it worse by insisting Jesus was in the tomb 3 days and 3 nights, (Matt. 12:40) causing inerrantists headaches, trying to reconcile.
If you are making it up—why cause all the problems? Seems to me, the simplest solution is have Jesus die on Friday, fester for three days, and come out on Monday, resolving all these issues.
Unless the tomb really was empty on Sunday, and therefore even those proclaiming resurrection “three days” after death were stuck with an inconvenient fact.
As a lawyer, arguing for the Resurrection, the key point I would continually emphasize was the Disciples proclamation. Something happened to cause them to abandon traditional Judaism for this variance. I would emphasize the early statements of Paul regarding Resurrection, the later writing in Acts of speeches utilizing the event, and the gospels themselves recording the appearances.
I would stay away from Joseph of Arimathea, the women, and the soldiers. Those elements of the story are weak. Focus on the initiation of the belief.
Alas, this is a two-way sword. One could equally say, something must have happened to Joseph Smith, or Mohammed or David Kuresh or Sun Myung Moon, or how every other religion started.
Couldn’t they equally be viable?
I was recently asked what I would utilize to argue for the Resurrection. I would use the minimal facts (it glosses over the problems, and covers the necessary points), realizing it was doomed to failure. The only recourse after that would have to be reliance on supernatural intervention—say something like, “The Holy Spirit must give inward witness.”
If Minimal facts (Disciples reporting appearances of Jesus) was insufficient to convince their friend—Thomas—who had more and better opportunity to observe, inspect and investigate than I, why should it convince others who have less?
Finally (because it comes up over and over and over) I would stay away from this rotten argument, “You are predisposed against miracles so you won’t believe it.” Telling someone they don’t believe what I am trying to convince them to believe (as I know they don’t believe it) is not saying much for the strength of my argument.
Of course they don’t believe it!—that is the very reason I am trying to convince them to do so! If they already believe it—I wouldn’t need to convince them by argument, now would I?
The only legitimate reasons for rejecting the resurrection hypothesis are philosophical and theological in nature: if supernaturalism is false or a non-Christian religion is exclusively true.
ReplyDeleteIf that is not clear, I will explain. The world can be broken down into three (3) types of people:
1) Non-theists;
2) Theists who don’t believe in Christianity exclusively; or
3) Theists who believe in Christianity exclusively.
Um, no. Actually category 2 should be "theists whose beliefs EXCLUDE the truth of Christianity". Which is a sustantially different proposition and why your statement below:
"Dr. Licona implies the historical evidence is convincing to the third category—people who are already convinced of resurrection anyway!"
is mistaken. What Licona claims is that the evidence is convincing to anyone without previous bias (whether due to naturalism or to commitment to a religion incompatible with Christianity). That's a category that includes far more than simply already convinced Christians (for example, someone who previously believed in God or even someone who simply had no real opinion one way or the other regarding the supernatural).
Let me clarify by saying that I'm not defending Licona's argument. In fact, I think it's obviously false. I'm merely correcting your mischaracterization of the argument.
"If the only reason to reject the Resurrection is that one doesn’t believe in God, or doesn’t believe Christianity, it follows a necessary requirement TO believe in the resurrection are 1)Belief in God, and 2) Exclusive belief in Christianity."
ReplyDeleteWhat he's saying is almost the direct opposite: that the only requirement to being convinced is no strongly held belief incompatible with the claim that Jesus rose from the dead which might bias one against objectively evaluating the evidence.
Again, I think his claim flat out absurd. But even absurd claims can be misinterpreted (which is what you do in the quote above).
Thanks for working up this post! I also appreciate the handout, which I've spent some time reviewing. In the handout, you mentioned the apostles benefitting from proclaiming Christianity in terms of becoming wealthy and gaining power. Do you feel these were primary motives or do you believe they believed what they proclaimed and were primarily motivated by ideology? I've never heard anyone talk about wealth and power in regard to the apostles. Could you flesh that out a little more? What do you know about what they attained?
ReplyDeleteAlso, what single factor would give you the most improved chance at successfully defending the resurrection in court? Enemy attestation? More independent sources? Written evidence of martyrdom with refusal to recant that Jesus was resurrected? Something else?
David Ellis,
ReplyDeleteYou may be right I have misinterpreted Dr. Licona. In my defense…I found him imprecise in his conclusion comments.
Have you read the book? (I am asking as a genuine interrogatory; not a snarky confrontation.) What were your impressions?
For example, he defines his Resurrection Hypothesis as: Following a supernatural event of an indeterminate nature and cause, Jesus appeared to a number of people, in individual and group settings and to friends and foes, in no less than an objective vision and perhaps within ordinary vision in his bodily raised corpse. (p. 583)
But then in his conclusion, he states, “However if one brackets the question of worldview, neither presupposing or a priori excluding supernaturalism, and examines the data, the historical conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead follows.” (p. 608)
I am uncertain how a proposed hypothesis starts off “Following a supernatural event…” without presupposing supernaturalism!
Further, when weighing whether Resurrection Hypothesis is plausible, he states, “Conversely, let us presuppose for a moment that supernaturalism is true or that God or some supernatural being wanted to raise Jesus from the dead. In this case we can conclude RH is very plausible, since it is certainly implied by the accepted truth that a supernatural being wanted to raise Jesus.” (p. 601-602)
He seems to indicate more is involved in the Resurrection Hypothesis than a general theist or an agnostic—that in order for RH to be very plausible, one must presuppose God wanted to raise Jesus from the dead. That seems like more than a general theist or agnostic. Again, Dr. Licona goes on to state we should presuppose neither—but I am uncertain how one does that in weighing a claim starting off with the necessary definition of a “supernatural event.”
You may be correct; I may be misinterpreting his conclusion. Yet in reviewing his own claims, it seems the data would only be convincing to those already convinced.
(And his dismissal of other theories as more “ad hoc” was questionable to me, as well. )
Can we have a self-imposed moratorium on beginning comments with "um"?
ReplyDelete“However if one brackets the question of worldview, neither presupposing or a priori excluding supernaturalism, and examines the data, the historical conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead follows.”
ReplyDeleteEven if it were true that a fair reading of the evidence and starting from a neutral position would lead one to believe in the Resurrection (an assertion I think is absurd), does he deal with where we get our naturalist predispositions in the first place? There are any number of propositions floating around this world that I'm inclined to dismiss out of hand because I have no reason to think the assumptions upon which they're founded are themselves founded on anything substantial. One of those is that a man 2000 years ago came back to life after lying dead for two-plus days in a tomb.
And, really, is it even possible to be neutral about such things? All ground is claimed by either naturalism or supernaturalism: there's no place between to stand. (Quasi-naturalism? Semi-hemi-demi-supernaturalism?) The "fence" separating them is a blade with an infinitesimal edge. Sitting on it isn't possible, I say. I can't; Licona can't. I can't blame him for not doing it and he can't blame me. (Although his religion demands he blame me.) What he really seems to be claiming, then, is that a neutral stance is tantamount to a supernaturalist stance; since he is, in effect, telling us that any hypothetical neutral ground is really just a trapdoor that drops us into supernaturalism. How will we know when we've managed to balance on that knife's edge, having achieved perfect objectivity? Why, when we've landed with a splat on the floor of the dungeon of supernaturalism, of course.
DoOrDoNot,
ReplyDeleteI will flesh out my position on the Disciples in separate blog entries.
As to what additional evidence I desire…that is difficult to answer. I would love Independent verification—a non-Christian stating s/he saw Jesus post-resurrection. But the stories themselves do not indicate such an appearance took place (with the possible exception of James—Jesus’ brother), so should I expect something that doesn’t exist?
It would be great to discover “The Rise of Christianity” written from the Jewish perspective and Roman Perspective around 100 CE. Yet again, given the nature of the stories themselves, I am not sure such a work would ever be created, so how can I expect it to exist?
Martyrdom testimonials written around 75 CE would be great as well. I suspect they wouldn’t exist either, given 1 Clement’s brevity on the subject.
The strongest evidence would be neutral testimony—a Jewish or Roman historian recording the events of 30 – 70 CE in Judea, Galilee and the Mediterranean world regarding this new belief “Christianity.”
Mikespeir,
ReplyDeleteDr. Licona does recognize everyone approaches the study with bias; he recognizes his own. His method to remove the bias is to rely solely on the “historical bedrock” (his words) that the majority of scholars agree. “Scholars” is not clearly defined.
Nor is the problem of why there is so much disagreement on the remaining issues which become (by definition) non-bedrock.
His primary bedrock is that the disciples attested to seeing post-resurrection appearances. However, Dr. Licona then gives equal weight to both super-natural and natural reasons for this proclamation, determining such an analysis results in supernatural resurrection being the best explanation and agnostic naturalism being the second best.
If one equally applied such analysis to…say…Joseph Smith’s claims for appearances—giving equal weight to supernatural and natural intervention, one could easily decide a supernatural explanation is the best solution.
The methodology, in my opinion, is flawed for the reasons you state—natural and supernatural (and demi-natural and para-natural) should NOT be given equal weight, due to:
1) the difficulty in proving a non-natural event; and
2) the rarity of non-natural events.
DagoodS:
ReplyDeleteOf course, I could just buy and read the book. But there's a veritable cloud of apologetics books out there. It would be nice to have a way to know in advance if an author is just regurgitating the standard nausea-inducing arguments we've heard forever or if he's really got something new to add to the conversation.
DagoodS
ReplyDeleteI never thought about it, but if the resurrection is the most important fact of Christianity, I would think Jesus would show himself to everyone not just disciples. Were the 500 disciples? I had assumed they were.
Mikespeir,
ReplyDeleteI can’t say the book adds anything to the conversation. I like some of Dr. Licona’s treatment…but would recommend other books before this. The Habermas/Licona “Case for the Resurrection” covers roughly the same material. (I think Licona’s is better; but if one has already read Habermas, nothing too much is added.)
DoOrDoNot: Were the 500 disciples?
ReplyDelete.
Beats me. We see certain designations within the early church, without clear definitions. Later scholars attempt to define the terms, but I still see issues. What is the difference between:
1) Disciple;
2) Follower;
3) Apostle; or
4) Brethren?
For almost any definition given for “apostle” some exception can be found in a verse, causing one to wonder how accurate we are. The 500 are called “brethren,” but I am not certain this eliminates them from being “disciple.” Note that James is called a “brother of the Lord,”—but wouldn’t he be an Apostle too? And some have argued a disciple!
And (to really fry your brain!) I heard Richard Carrier mention in a debate [and have not bothered to research it further] Paul confusedPentakosioi (the “500” in 1 Cor. 15:6) with Pentekoste (the infusing of the Holy Spirit on the 50th day in Acts 2:1.) Remember, Paul was reciting from memory, not from written material.
Odd they are not mentioned again until Acts of Pilate (date uncertain.)
I call the 500 “imaginary.” *grin*
And, of course, we only have Paul's word that there were the 500. I'm not calling him a liar, but I think he might have been a little too willing to believe what he was told, especially if it was in line with what he already believed. I'm trying to come up with a good analogy of the problem. I guess it's like mooring a huge ship by having all 500 ropes coming off of it tied into a single rope that's wrapped around the bollard at the dock. Don't be fooled by all that hemp: the whole tangle is still no stronger than the one rope.
ReplyDelete"Have you read the book? (I am asking as a genuine interrogatory; not a snarky confrontation.)"
ReplyDeleteNo. I have only the information from this blog post to work with.
"You may be correct; I may be misinterpreting his conclusion. "
I think it's pretty clear that you inaccurately described what he meant in the statements quoted in the body of the blog post. Of course, that doesn't entail that he doesn't thoroughly contradict those statements elsewhere in the book. Of that I can't judge since I haven't read it.