However, why should
we accept His testimony? Perhaps He was in error or even deluded? However, if
He is God-incarnate, then we can trust His testimony. But was He? Can we just
take His word for it?
Jesus had
instructed us to not believe in His words
unless there was also evidence to conform them:
·
“If I
am not doing the works [miracles] of my Father, then do not believe me; but if
I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may
know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (John
10:37-38; ESV; also John 5:31-38)
His entire ministry
was bathed in the most incredible miracles. But the miracle that confirmed His
words and the Words of the Hebrew Scriptures, was the Resurrection. If Jesus
rose from the dead, as He said that He would, this unique event also confirms
His other words, namely, His teachings about the divinity of the Scriptures.
Actually, the proof
that He had risen from the dead is quite impressive. In the Resurrection of the
Son of God (2003), N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham, England wrote:
·
The
proposal that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead possesses unrivaled power
to explain the historical data at the heart of early Christianity.
It is the evidence
that gives this claim “unrivaled power." Here is how I hope to lay out the
evidence:
1. Jesus
was crucified.
2. His
tomb was empty and no one was able to produce His body.
3. Many
eyewitnesses testified that He had risen.
4. The
circumstantial evidence also confirms His Resurrection.
5. No
other theory has been able to account for these facts.
1. Jesus
was crucified.
Even Biblical
skeptics have called this an “indisputable fact”:
·
NT
scholar, John Dominic Crossan: “That He was crucified is as sure as anything
historical ever can be.” (Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, 2007; 113)
·
“Both
Gerd Ludemann, an atheistic NT critic, and Bart Ehrman, who’s an agnostic, call
the crucifixion an indisputable fact.” (113)
·
Tacitus,
Roman historian, 110 AD: “Jesus suffered the extreme penalty under the reign of
Tiberius.” (113)
·
“Josephus
[the Jewish historian, 90 AD] reports that Pilate ‘condemned him to be
crucified’…Even the Jewish Talmud reports that ‘Yeshu was hanged.’” (113)
·
Apologist
Michael Licona claims that “Lucian of Samosata, who was a Greek satirist,
mentions the crucifixion, and Mara Bar-Serapion, who was a pagan, confirms Jesus
was executed.” (113)
Even the skeptics
endorse the fact that Jesus died on the cross:
·
The
crucifixion of Jesus is recognized even by the Jesus Seminar as "one
indisputable fact.” http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/rediscover2.html#text17
Michael Licona
claims that “The scholarly consensus—again, even among those who are skeptical
about the resurrection – is absolutely overwhelming.” Nevertheless, six hundred
years after the event, the Koran claimed that a look-alike died in Jesus’
place, “and Allah raised him [Jesus] up to Himself.” However, this assertion
does not rest upon any historical evidence.
2. Jesus’
tomb was empty, and no one was able to produce His body.
Had Jesus’ body
been produced, any claim of a resurrection would have easily been dismissed.
All early reports,
even Jewish, cited an “empty tomb”! However, there are no reports of anyone
producing His body, although the Jews and Romans had every reason to produce
it. Had it been produced, Christians wouldn’t have been able to believe in a
resurrected Christ.
Instead, to guard
against the possibility that Jesus’ disciples might say that He rose from the
dead, the Jewish leadership prevailed upon Pilate to provide a Roman guard at
Jesus’ tomb. However, even with the guard, the chief priests claimed that the
disciples stole the body:
·
“Now
while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and
reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had
assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of
money to the soldiers, saying, "Tell them, 'His disciples came at night
and stole Him away while we slept.' And if this comes to the governor's ears,
we will appease him and make you secure." So they took the money and did
as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews
until this day.” (Matthew 28:11-15)
Even Justin Martyr (150 AD) wrote in his “Dialogue
with Trypho” that the Jews still sent ambassadors throughout the Mediterranean, claiming that the “Disciples stole the
body.” However, this doesn’t seem to be possible for a number of reasons:
· The disciples had
been running scared prior to the Resurrection. They wouldn’t have risked their
lives on a dangerous prank.
· They would never
have died as martyrs for a story that they had cooked up. Besides, as mentioned
above, there is no indication from the Gospels themselves that this was all
part of a subterfuge. Their accounts that women were the first to see the risen
Christ also argues against this.
· They had no motive
to do this and to risk martyrdom themselves.
· They could not
have stolen away the body with the presence of the Roman guard.
Willian Lane Craig reasons that the empty tomb could not have been a
legend:
· "If the empty
tomb story were a legend, then it is most likely that the male disciples would
have been made the first to discover the empty tomb. The fact that despised
women, whose testimony was deemed worthless, were the chief witnesses to the
fact of the empty tomb can only be plausibly explained if, like it or not, they
actually were the discoverers of the empty tomb." http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection
The testimony of women had been disregarded
in Jewish culture at this time. For example, the Jewish historian Josephus (90
AD) wrote:
·
“But
let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and
boldness of their sex.” (Strobel, 124)
According to Lee Strobel, Gary “Habermas
determined that about 75% [of historians] on the subject [of the empty tomb]
regard it as an historical fact.” He adds, “All the strictly historical
evidence we have is in favor [of the empty tomb], and those scholars who reject
it ought to recognize that they do so on some other ground than that of
scientific history” (Strobel, 123).
D.H. Van Daalen had
confirmed this assessment:
·
"It
is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those
who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical
assumptions." (D. H. Van Daalen, The
Real Resurrection (London: Collins, 1972), p. 41)
Jacob Kremer, who
has specialized in the study of the resurrection and is a NT critic, had said:
·
"By
far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements
about the empty tomb" and he lists twenty-eight scholars to back up his
fantastic claim. http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection
The Early Church
worshipped on the Sunday – the Resurrection Day – rather than on the Jewish
Sabbath (Saturday). Evidently, they were convinced that Jesus’ tomb was empty
and that He rose on the Sunday. How else to explain the change from the Sabbath
day!
3. Many
eyewitnesses testified that He had risen.
The Disciples
believed that Jesus had appeared to them. Their assertions about this event are
quite numerous and credible:
·
This is
the uniform testimony of all 27 books of the New Testament! Licona states that,
“Even very liberal scholars will concede that we have four biographies
[Gospels] written within 70 years of Jesus’ life that unambiguously report the
disciples’ claims that Jesus rose from the dead.” (Lee Strobel, “Finding the
Real Jesus,” 83)
·
Preserved
oral tradition is also in agreement. According to Licona, the NT “preserves
several sermons of the apostles…We can say that the vast majority of historians
believe that the early apostolic teachings are enshrined in these sermons
summaries in Acts – and they declare that Jesus rose bodily from the dead.”
This is also the
uniform testimony of all the Church Fathers. For example, Clement (95 AD) wrote:
· “Therefore, having received orders and
complete certainty caused by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and
believing in the Word of God, they went with the Holy Spirit’s certainty.” (1
Clement 42:3)
The Church Father Polycarp (110 AD) wrote:
· “For they did not love the present age, but
Him who died for our benefit and for our sake was raised by God.” (Polycarp’s
Letter to the Philippians 9:2)
It’s apparent that Christians have practiced
baptism and communion from the very inception of the Church. These rituals
testify to the fact that they acknowledged the death and Resurrection of
Christ.
There are several
things that make the Apostolic testimonies of the Resurrection highly credible:
·
Some of
the Church Fathers, whose writings we still retain, knew the Apostles of Jesus.
Many were also martyred for their insistence that Jesus rose.
·
The Apostles
“were willing to endure persecution and even martyrdom….The church fathers
Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, Tertullian, and Origen – they all confirm this. In
fact, at least seven early sources testify that the disciples willingly
suffered in defense of their beliefs – and if we include the martyrdoms of Paul
and Jesus’ half-brother James, we have eleven sources” (Licona, 85). They
wouldn’t have suffered for their testimony of the Resurrection unless they were
convinced that it had actually happened.
·
The
Apostles presented themselves in a very unfavorable light in the NT writings.
They must have been convinced of a greater and surpassing truth – the
Resurrection – to have made themselves look so ridiculous. If their testimony
of the Resurrection had merely been fabrication, they would have had every
reason to present a winsome self-image to the world.
·
Their
writings emerge with flying colors when examined culturally, critically and
historically.
·
Jesus
appeared to His disciples over a 40 day period following His Resurrection. Paul
reports that on one occasion, He appeared to over 500 at one time: “He appeared
to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred
brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen
asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all,
as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” (1 Cor. 15:5-8). Paul is suggesting, only about 20 years after the Resurrection
that his readers could verify, through these eyewitnesses, whether these events
really took place. Had they not taken place as Paul had reported, he would have
been dismissed.
·
Jesus’
Apostles weren’t reporting about an event that had taken place in China, but in Jerusalem, where their testimonies could
easily have been discredited. There certainly were enough people trying to do
so.
·
The
Gospel accounts record that two members of the Sanhedrin had taken the body of
Jesus and buried it. This could have easily been contradicted if it hadn’t taken
place. Likewise, many supernatural events accompanied the accounts of the Crucifixion
– appearances by dead saints, darkness upon the land for three hours, the
rending of the Temple
veil, and an earthquake. Had these events not taken place, the Gospel accounts could
easily have been falsified by the Jerusalem
establishment, situated as they were in the very location of these events.
·
The
Gospels report that women were the first to testify of the Resurrection.
However, no one would have fabricated such an account, because the testimony of
women was disdained. Furthermore, Mary Magdalene seems to have been the first
to report the Resurrection. However she had an additional onus upon her. She had
been regarded as a sinner. The Apostles would never have fabricated such
accounts.
·
There
is no record of the disciples ever recanting, even under torture. If this had
ever happened, such a record would surely have been preserved.
Licona reports that
Gary Habermas had consulted over 2,000 scholarly sources on the Resurrection
and concluded with Habermas that “probably no fact was more widely recognized
than that the early Christian believers had real experiences that they thought
were appearances of the risen Jesus.” (86). For instance:
·
Even
the atheist [Gerd] Ludemann conceded: ‘It may be taken as historically certain
that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus
appeared to them as the risen Christ.’” (Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened
to Jesus?, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1995), p. 80.)
The liberal Jewish
historian, Paula Fredriksen, claims
·
“The
Disciples’ conviction that they had seen the risen Christ…is historical
bedrock, facts known past doubting.” (Strobel, 119)
·
“I know
in their own terms what they saw was the raised Jesus. That’s what they say and
then all the historic evidence was have afterwards attests to their conviction
that that’s what they saw. I’m not saying that they really did see the raised
Jesus. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what they saw. But I do know that as a
historian that they must have seen something.” (119)
However, as
non-believers, they are more inclined to ascribe the disciples’ sincere
accounts of the Resurrection to hallucinations or visions. If so, they all
experienced the very same
hallucination during the 40 days of Jesus’ appearances – 500 at one time – even
hallucinations that included eating and talking with Jesus, and even touching
Him! Paul reported:
·
For I
delivered [this early report) to you as of first importance what I also
received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that
he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the
Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he
appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still
alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all
the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1
Corinthians 15:3-8)
Paul wrote (55-57
AD) that on one occasion, Jesus had appeared to “more than five hundred…most of
whom are still alive.” This leads to three conclusions:
1.
It
would have been hard to get away with such a statement had it not been true.
2.
These
people were still available to confirm Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearances –
something that would require confirmation.
3.
Jesus
must have risen. How else could the faith of unbelievers, like James and Paul,
be explained, especially after the crucifixion!
NT scholar James
Dunn is emphatic that Jesus’ disciple had been convinced that Jesus had risen:
·
“It is
an undoubted fact that the conviction that God had raised Jesus from the dead
and had exalted Jesus to his right hand, transformed Jesus’ first disciples and
their beliefs about Jesus.” (Christian
Research Journal, Vol.39, No.2, 14)
Christian Apologist
Michael Licona adds:
·
“After
Jesus’ death, the disciples endured persecution, and a number of them
experienced martyrdom. The strength of their conviction indicates that they
were not just claiming Jesus had appeared to them after rising from the dead.
They really believed it. They willingly endangered themselves by publicly
proclaiming the risen Christ.” (CRJ,16)
So too Christian
Apologist Sean McDowell:
·
“From
the Apostles forward, there is no evidence for an early Christian community
that did not have belief in the Resurrection at its core. The centrality of the
Resurrection can be seen by considering the earliest Christian creeds, the
preaching in Acts, and the writings of the apostolic fathers.” (CRJ,14)
4. The
circumstantial evidence also confirms His Resurrection.
EVIDENCE OF
CONVERSIONS: The Apostle Paul had been the leading persecutor of the Church,
leading lynching parties against them. However, he reports that he had had an
encounter with Christ which blinded him. He was them miraculously healed and
subsequently had other encounters with Christ. Had he not been convinced that
Jesus had risen, there would have been no conversion. Licona concludes, “He had
nothing to gain in the world – except his own suffering and martyrdom – for
making this up.”
Initially, Jesus’
family had thought that “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:21; John 7:3-5). This
assessment would have been reinforced by the Crucifixion. However, James and
Jude became believers. Had the Resurrection not taken place, it is hard to
conceive how this transformation could have taken place.
Without the
Resurrection, it is inconceivable that multitudes would have sacrificed
everything for a disgraced “Messiah” who had been shamefully crucified. The
Book of Acts reports that even after Peter had preached his initial sermon, 3000
came to believe (Acts 2:41). Had there not been substantial evidence for the
Resurrection, this could not have happened. No one would have risked persecution
for a disgraced would-be Messiah.
The Gospels show us
that, following the Crucifixion, the disciples had fled and abandoned their
faith. Only the Resurrection could have convinced them that they had a future
with Jesus and given them the boldness to stand against persecution.
Only the
Resurrection could account for the growth of the Church. Had there been no
Resurrection, only scorn and ridicule would accompany anyone who continued to
believe in someone humiliated and crucified.
Dr. Simon Greenleaf, founder of the Harvard
Law School, notes:
·
"Propagating
this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, [early
Christians received] contempt, opposition… and cruel deaths. Yet this faith
they zealously did propagate, and all these miseries they endured undismayed,
nay rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors
only [continued] their work with increased vigor and resolution… The annals of
military warfare afford scarcely an example of like heroic constancy, patience,
and unblenching courage… If it were morally possible for them to have been
deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover
and avow their error. From these [considerations] there is no escape but in the
perfect conviction and admission that they were good men, testifying to that
which they had carefully observed…and well knew to be true. http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t012.html
5. No other theory has been able to account
for these facts.
There have been
many attempts to humanly explain the empty tomb. However, these have all
failed. Philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig wrote:
·
C. F.
D. Moule of Cambridge University concludes that we have here a belief which
nothing in terms of prior historical influences can account for--apart from the
resurrection itself. www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/rediscover2.html#text17
·
Any
responsible historian, then, who seeks to give an account of the matter, must
deal with these four independently established facts: the honorable burial of
Jesus, the discovery of his empty tomb, his appearances alive after his death,
and the very origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection and, hence, of
Christianity itself. I want to emphasize that these four facts represent, not
the conclusions of conservative scholars, nor have I quoted conservative
scholars, but represent rather the majority view of New Testament scholarship
today. The question is: how do you best explain these facts?
Craig concludes that all of the naturalistic
theories have now been rejected by modern scholarship. This leaves the
Resurrection as the only contender:
·
In
fact, the evidence is so powerful that one of today’s leading Jewish
theologians Pinchas Lapide has declared himself convinced on the basis of the
evidence that the God of Israel raised Jesus from the dead!
If Jesus rose from
the dead, then this validates what He had said about Himself and about the
Scriptures – that they could not be broken (John 10:35). His Resurrection also
validated what He said about His own words:
·
“If you
keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my
Father’s commandments and abide in his love… You are my friends if you do what
I command you.” (John 15:10, 14)
·
Heaven
and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (Matthew 24:35)
No comments:
Post a Comment