Items tagged resurrection

Jonathan Edwards on the Resurrection

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:41:39 GMT

Today, I thought I would share with you the following quote on the resurrection from Jonathan Edwards. So Christ, our second surety (in whose justification all whose surety he is, are virtually justified), was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father's commandments through all trials, and then in his resurrection he was justified. When he had been

The Triumph of the Gospel in the New Heavens and the New Earth

Sat, 26 May 2007 18:09:25 GMT

N. T. Wright on Paul and the Resurrection Empowered Life

Sun, 06 May 2007 02:35:00 GMT

At the beginning of this series of “Resurrection Sunday” posts I bemoaned the relative lack of books on the subject. One of my readers was kind enough to remind me that, of course, N. T. Wright has written on the resurrection. I found the following quote over at amazon.com and thought it was worth sharing with you: “For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the heart of the gospel (not

If Christ Has Not Been Raised

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 06:30:07 GMT

(By Nathan Williams)

Easter is tomorrow. What will make this Easter different than every other Easter Sunday for you? Try imagining Christianity without the resurrection. What would be the result?

When Christians are asked to give a brief synopsis of the gospel, they often leave out two important elements, repentance and the resurrection. Repentance is the heart of the gospel presentation. How can a man be saved unless he turns from his sin and to Christ? Yet, this important element gets lost in the shuffle of words and some even deny its place when discussing salvation.

The other component that vanishes in most gospel presentations is equally important and cannot be left out. This element is the resurrection. We are so eager to discuss the death of Christ and his atonement for our sins that we often skip over the fact that God raised Him from the dead and that ultimately, it is this resurrection that secures our salvation. I would like to walk you through a key passage in 1 Corinthians 15 and remind you of the importance of the resurrection by showing you the consequences if Christ has not been raised from the dead.

In 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 Paul responds to doctrine being taught at Corinth that there was no resurrection of the dead. At the beginning of verse 12 Paul explains that the resurrection was being clearly preached at Corinth as it had been preached to all in the early church. This first conditional statement begins a series of conditional statements throughout this passage which Paul uses to make his argument. If this was the consistent message being taught by the early church, Paul expresses astonishment that some among the people were preaching that there is no resurrection of the dead. Paul moves on in verse 13 to show the disastrous consequences of teaching that there is no resurrection of the dead.

“But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised.”

This is a crucial premise in Paul’s argument and it is used as an exercise in logical reasoning. If you deny resurrections in general, you must also deny Christ’s resurrection specifically. Having carefully developed his logic, Paul now explains the first area which is affected if there is no resurrection.

1. If Christ is not raised, the veracity of the Apostles witness is shattered (v. 14-15).

If Christ was not raised from the dead, Paul acknowledges that the preaching of the Apostles had been in vain. The preaching Paul is referring to looks back to verse 11 and means the message they have preached. It includes the content of the gospel. This word “vain” means empty, without substance, or void. The gospel has no basis in objective truth if Christ is not raised. Not only is the gospel message tarnished, but the faith which rests on that message is vain. This is the same word Paul used to describe His preaching. Their faith is devoid of any spiritual value. Not only would their preaching and faith be in vain, but the Apostles themselves would be false witnesses.

In verse 15 Paul explains further that the Apostles were clearly giving false testimony if they had said that Christ was raised from the dead and he was not. The words Paul uses give the picture of a courtroom and present the image of Paul providing perjured testimony. There is no worse type of testimony than one who testifies falsely concerning God. All of this would be true if Christ had not been raised from the dead. Paul repeats his original statement from verse 13 in verse 16 and then moves on to his second affected area.

2. If Christ is not raised, Christian salvation is nothing (v. 17-19).

Not only are the consequences of denying Christ’s resurrection directed at the Apostles, they are directed at every Christian. Paul starts this section by stating that if Christ has not been raised, the faith of Christians is worthless. The Greek word for “worthless” is a different word than is used in verse 14. “Vain” in verse 14 focuses on lacking in reality while this word focuses on the result of their faith being fruitless. Not only is faith worthless in its result, but Christians are still dead in their sins. This phrase relates specifically to a legal, objective sense. Without the resurrection, the death of Christ has no atoning, redemptive, or liberating effect in relation to human sin.

This is the reason it is so important to preach the resurrection and stress the resurrection. Without it, Paul says that believers are still dead in their sins and Christ’s death essentially is meaningless. Even beyond this consequence, in verse 18 Paul says that those Christians who have already died have perished. By “perished” he means that they have died under the condemnation of God and are still in their sins. In Scripture perishing has the sense of being separated forever from God and eternal loss of holiness and happiness. Finally, in verse 19 Paul states that Christians should be considered the most pitiable of all men if they have hoped in Christ alone and Christ has not been raised.

This has been a very quick look at a passage that gives us some of the consequences of denying the resurrection of Christ. I hope on this Easter Sunday we will see the disastrous results of taking the resurrection out of the gospel. Salvation is tarnished, our preaching is vain, our faith is worthless, and our lives are destined for a Christ-less eternity without the resurrection.

The Significance Of 1 Corinthians 15

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:20:21 GMT

One of the most significant New Testament passages illustrating the nature of the historical evidence for Jesus� resurrection is 1 Corinthians 15. Regarding a creed Paul cites in that passage, Gary Habermas and Michael Licona write:

"In fact, many critical scholars hold that Paul received it [the creed of 1 Corinthians 15] from the disciples Peter and James while visiting them in Jerusalem three years after his conversion [Galatians 1:18-19]. If so, Paul learned it within five years of Jesus' crucifixion and from the disciples themselves. At minimum, we have source material that dates within two decades of the alleged event of Jesus' resurrection and comes from a source that Paul thought was reliable. Dean John Rodgers of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry comments, 'This is the sort of data that historians of antiquity drool over.'" (The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2004], pp. 52-53)

Though we can attain a lot of data on the resurrection from the gospels and other sources, notice some facts we can establish just from this creed in 1 Corinthians 15 and its immediate context:

1. The testimony to the resurrection is early. The whole spectrum of scholarship, from liberals to conservatives, is in agreement that 1 Corinthians can be dated to within 30 years of Jesus� death and that the creed in 1 Corinthians 15 can be dated even earlier (1 Corinthians 15:3).

2. The testimony to the resurrection is Jewish. Paul refers to the resurrection occurring "according to the [Jewish] scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:4). The mainstream Jewish view of resurrection at the time Paul was writing involved a resurrection of the same body that went into the grave. As Paul goes on to explain, that which goes into the ground is what comes out in a transformed state (1 Corinthians 15:36-38).

3. The testimony to the resurrection is accepted by people other than the professing eyewitnesses, and is still considered credible decades later (1 Corinthians 15:1), even among people who doubted the resurrection of individual believers (1 Corinthians 15:12-13).

4. The testimony to the resurrection is from multiple sources. Paul mentions hundreds of people (1 Corinthians 15:5-8).

5. The testimony to the resurrection is detailed. Paul names people and mentions identifiable groups, he mentions witnesses in their chronological order ("then", "after that", and "last of all" in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8), and he knows what proportion of the witnesses are still living (1 Corinthians 15:6).

6. The testimony to the resurrection comes from eyewitnesses. Paul was an eyewitness (1 Corinthians 15:8), and other eyewitnesses were giving their testimony (1 Corinthians 15:11).

7. The testimony to the resurrection comes not only from individual experiences, but also from group experiences. Hallucinations are individual experiences, but the apostles saw the risen Jesus together, as did more than 500 people at once (1 Corinthians 15:5-7).

8. The largest group mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 is referred to as seeing Jesus "at one time" (1 Corinthians 15:6), not just around the same time. The fact that such a detail is included indicates that the early Christians were aware of the significance of group appearances and were interested in preserving such details.

9. Some of the witnesses saw Jesus more than once. Peter apparently was present for at least three of the appearances (1 Corinthians 15:5, 15:7)

10. The appearances must have occurred over a lengthy enough period of time to allow Peter to be alone or with different groups of people for multiple appearances.

11. The testimony to the resurrection doesn�t just come from people who were already believers when they saw the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:9).

12. The testimony to the resurrection is given realistically. Paul understood the significance of what he was asserting ("of first importance" in 1 Corinthians 15:3 and 1 Corinthians 15:14-19).

13. The testimony to the resurrection was given by people willing to suffer for what they were testifying to (1 Corinthians 15:30-32).

14. The testimony to the resurrection was reevaluated on an ongoing basis. Even about two to three decades after the resurrection occurred, Paul was following the lives of the other resurrection witnesses so closely that he knew that a majority of the more than 500 people he mentions were still living, though some had died (1 Corinthians 5:6). Apparently, Paul was being careful with the data he was citing and was continually thinking about it and rethinking it. He wasn�t being careless.

15. The testimony to the resurrection is unified. Whatever false views non-leaders in the early church may have adopted, the leaders of the church, including Jesus� closest disciples, were agreed in what they were teaching on the subject (1 Corinthians 15:11).

Such facts and others can also be derived from other early Christian sources. But even from 1 Corinthians alone, especially chapter 15, a document that both liberals and conservatives accept as early and as written by Paul, we can dismiss many popular arguments against the traditional Christian view of Jesus� resurrection. The claim that the resurrection belief came from unhistorical legends that gradually developed over time is refuted by the earliness of 1 Corinthians and the creed of 1 Corinthians 15. The theory that the witnesses of the risen Christ were hallucinating is inconsistent with the unbelief of some of the witnesses, the realism and carefulness of Paul�s testimony, and the fact that Jesus sometimes appeared to multiple people at once. Other skeptical theories likewise can�t survive the scrutiny of this one passage, much less the combined scrutiny of all of the evidence.

The Genre Of The Resurrection Narratives

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:24:18 GMT

"Lemcio's work coheres strongly with the general, though quite recent, acceptance in Gospels scholarship that, generically, the Gospels are biography - or, more precisely, they are biographies (bioi) in the sense of ancient Greco-Roman biography. Different as this genre is from modern biographies, it nevertheless entails a real sense of the past as past and an intention to distinguish the past from the present. No ancient reader who identified the Gospels as bioi could have expected their narrative form to be merely a way of speaking of the risen, exalted Christ in his present relationship to his people. They would expect the narratives to recount the real past and not to confuse this with the present." (Richard Bauckham, Jesus And The Eyewitnesses [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006], p. 276)

"Readers throughout most of history understood the Gospels as biographies (Stanton 1989a: 15-17), but after 1915 scholars tried to find some other classification for them, mainly because these scholars compared ancient and modern biography and noticed that the Gospels differed from the latter (Talbert 1977: 2-3; cf. Mack 1988: 16n.6). The current trend, however, is again to recognize the Gospels as ancient biographies. The most complete statement of the question to date comes from a Cambridge monograph by Richard A. Burridge. After carefully defining the criteria for evaluating genre (1992: 109-27) and establishing the characteristic features of Greco-Roman �lives� (128-90), he demonstrates how the canonical Gospels fit this genre (191-239). The trend to regard the Gospels as ancient biography is currently strong enough for British Matthew scholar Graham Stanton to characterize the skepticism of Bultmann and others about the biographical character of the Gospels as �surprisingly inaccurate� (1993: 63; idem 1995: 137)�.But though such [ancient] historians did not always write the way we write history today, they were clearly concerned to write history as well as their resources allowed (Jos. Ant. 20.156-57� Arist. Poetics 9.2-3, 1451b; Diod. Sic. 21.17.1; Dion. Hal. 1.1.2-4; 1.2.1; 1.4.2; cf. Mosley 1965). Although the historical accuracy of biographers varied from one biographer to another, biographers intended biographies to be essentially historical works (see Aune 1988: 125; Witherington 1994:339; cf. Polyb. 8.8)�.There apparently were bad historians and biographers who made up stories, but they became objects of criticism for violating accepted standards (cf. Lucian History 12, 24-25)�.Matthew and Luke, whose fidelity we can test against some of their sources, rank high among ancient works�.Like most Greek-speaking Jewish biographers, Matthew is more interested in interpreting tradition than in creating it�.A Gospel writer like Luke was among the most accurate of ancient historians, if we may judge from his use of Mark (see Marshall 1978; idem 1991) and his historiography in Acts (cf., e.g., Sherwin-White 1978; Gill and Gempf 1994). Luke clearly had both written (Lk 1:1) and oral (1:2) sources available, and his literary patron Theophilus already knew much of this Christian tradition (1:4), which would exclude Luke�s widespread invention of new material. Luke undoubtedly researched this material (1:3) during his (on my view) probable sojourn with Paul in Palestine (Acts 21:17; 27:1; on the �we-narratives,� cf., e.g., Maddox 1982: 7). Although Luke writes more in the Greco-Roman historiographic tradition than Matthew does, Matthew�s normally relatively conservative use of Mark likewise suggests a high degree of historical trustworthiness behind his accounts�.only historical works, not novels, had historical prologues like that of Luke [Luke 1:1-4] (Aune 1987: 124)�A central character�s �great deeds� generally comprise the bulk of an ancient biographical narrative, and the Gospels fit this prediction (Burridge 1992: 208). In other words, biographies were about someone in particular. Aside from the 42.5 percent of Matthew�s verbs that appear directly in Jesus� teaching, Jesus himself is the subject of 17.2 percent of Matthew�s verbs; the disciples, 8.8 percent; those to whom Jesus ministers, 4.4 percent; and the religious establishment, 4.4 percent. Even in his absence he often remains the subject of others� discussions (14:1-2; 26:3-5). Thus, as was common in ancient biographies (and no other genre), at least half of Matthew�s verbs involve the central figure�s �words and deeds� (Burridge 1992: 196-97, 202). The entire point of using this genre is that it focuses on Jesus himself, not simply on early Christian experience (Burridge 1992: 256-58)." (Craig Keener, A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], pp. 17-18, 21-23, 51)

See also the further discussion in the introduction in the first volume of Keener�s commentary on the gospel of John (The Gospel Of John: A Commentary [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003]). Keener goes into much more detail than what I outline above, too much to quote here. Here's a portion of his discussion:

"The lengths of the canonical gospels suggest not only intention to publish but also the nature of their genre. All four gospels fit the medium-range length (10,000-25,000 words) found in ancient biographies as distinct from many other kinds of works�.all four canonical gospels are a far cry from the fanciful metamorphosis stories, divine rapes, and so forth in a compilation like Ovid�s Metamorphoses. The Gospels plainly have more historical intention and fewer literary pretensions than such works�.Works with a historical prologue like Luke�s (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-2) were historical works; novels lacked such fixtures, although occasionally they could include a proem telling why the author made up the story (Longus proem 1-2). In contrast to novels, the Gospels do not present themselves as texts composed primarily for entertainment, but as true accounts of Jesus� ministry. The excesses of some forms of earlier source and redaction criticism notwithstanding, one would also be hard pressed to find a novel so clearly tied to its sources as Matthew or Luke is! Even John, whose sources are difficult to discern, overlaps enough with the Synoptics in some accounts and clearly in purpose to defy the category of novel�.The Gospels are, however, too long for dramas, which maintained a particular length in Mediterranean antiquity. They also include far too much prose narrative for ancient drama�.Richard Burridge, after carefully defining the criteria for identifying genre and establishing the characteristic features of Greco-Roman bioi, or lives, shows how both the Synoptics and John fit this genre. So forceful is his work on Gospel genre as biography that one knowledgeable reviewer [Charles Talbert] concludes, �This volume ought to end any legitimate denial of the canonical Gospels� biographical character.� Arguments concerning the biographical character of the Gospels have thus come full circle: the Gospels, long viewed as biographies until the early twentieth century, now again are widely viewed as biographies�.Biographies were essentially historical works; thus the Gospels would have an essentially historical as well as a propagandistic function�.[quoting David Aune] �while biography tended to emphasize encomium, or the one-sided praise of the subject, it was still firmly rooted in historical fact rather than literary fiction. Thus while the Evangelists clearly had an important theological agenda, the very fact that they chose to adapt Greco-Roman biographical conventions to tell the story of Jesus indicates that they were centrally concerned to communicate what they thought really happened.��had the Gospel writers wished to communicate solely later Christian doctrine and not history, they could have used simpler forms than biography�.As readers of the OT, which most Jews viewed as historically true, they must have believed that history itself communicated theology�.the Paraclete [in John�s gospel] recalls and interprets history, aiding the witnesses (14:26; 15:26-27).�the features that Acts shares with OT historical works confirms that Luke intended to write history�History [in antiquity] was supposed to be truthful, and [ancient] historians harshly criticized other historians whom they accused of promoting falsehood, especially when they exhibited self-serving agendas." (pp. 7-13, 17, n. 143 on p. 17, 18)

The Empty Tomb

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 23:40:41 GMT

The fact that Jesus� tomb was found empty is reported early, by multiple sources, by eyewitnesses, and with non-Christian corroboration. Thus:

"Former Oxford University church historian William Wand writes, '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.'" (Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2004], p. 73)

"Without addressing Jesus� resurrection appearances, Vermes 1973: 41, another Jewish scholar closely acquainted with the primary evidence, opines that 'the only conclusion acceptable to the historian' must be that the women actually found the tomb empty." (Craig Keener, A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], p. 705, n. 308)

The large majority of scholars accept the empty tomb as a historical fact. See, for example, here.

Testimony to the empty tomb is found in every gospel and Acts, and it�s mentioned or implied in other sources. The accounts have some common elements, including details unlikely to have been fabricated. The tomb is first found empty by women, and the testimony of women was largely considered of little value in that culture, while the male disciples are in hiding and unbelief. The burial is associated with an individual, Joseph of Arimathea, who is named, has a prominent place in Jewish society, and belongs to a group that the early Christians wouldn�t have wanted to compliment with such an account (the religious leaders of Israel who had Jesus crucified and were persecuting the early church). The early Jewish opponents of Christianity affirmed that the tomb was empty (Matthew 28:11-15; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 108; Tertullian, On Spectacles, 30). Contrary to what some people claim, Justin Martyr and Tertullian aren�t just repeating what they read in Matthew�s gospel. Both of them give details in their accounts that aren�t mentioned by Matthew, and both Justin and Tertullian were interacting with the Jewish opponents of their day, so they would have been in a position to know what arguments the Jewish opposition was using.

Sometimes people ask why we don�t know where Jesus� tomb was if His burial place was known to the early Christians. But we do have a good idea of where the tomb was:

"That Jesus' followers would forget the site of the tomb (or that officials who held the body would not think it worth the trouble to produce it after the postresurrection Jesus movement arose) is extremely improbable. James and the Jerusalem church could easily have preserved the tradition of the site in following decades (Brown 1994: 1280-81), especially given Middle Eastern traditions of pilgrimage to holy sites (though admittedly evidence for early veneration there is lacking, perhaps because the body was not there � Craig 1995: 148-49, 152)�.the Catholic Holy Sepulchre and tombs in its vicinity date to the right period. The tradition of the latter vicinity [Holy Sepulcher] is as early as the second century (when Hadrian erected a pagan temple there; he defiled many Jewish holy sites in this manner � cf. Finegan 1969: 164), and probably earlier. Good evidence exists, in fact, that this site dates to within the first two decades after the resurrection. This is because (1) Christian tradition is unanimous that Jesus was buried outside the city walls, and no one would make up a site inside (cf. Heb 13:12; Jn 19:41); (2) Jewish custom made it common knowledge that burials would be outside the city walls (4 Bar. 7:13; Wilkonson 1978: 146); (3) the traditional vicinity of the Holy Sepulcher is inside Jerusalem�s walls; (4) Agrippa I expanded the walls of Jerusalem sometime in the 40s A.D." (Craig Keener, A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], p. 695)

Some people argue that the earliest Christians may have believed in a resurrection involving an exchange of bodies, with the old body remaining in the tomb, rather than a transformation of the body in the tomb. Or they suggest that the early Christians might have believed in the resurrection without ever examining the tomb to see whether it was empty. But both scenarios are highly unlikely:

"And although Jesus might have been embodied in a new body, this was not a possibility that would readily have occurred to first-century Jews; they would have expected his embodiment to go with an empty tomb. But if the Gospel writers felt that a Resurrection required an empty tomb, presumably Christians of a decade or two earlier would have felt the same � St Paul would have felt that. So if there was a belief held by anyone in the Church or outside it that the body of Jesus still lay in its tomb, surely St Paul would have felt the need to explain how really the fact that the body was still in the tomb made no difference to Resurrection faith. Those whom he is addressing in 1 Corinthians who held that 'there is no resurrection of the dead' would have had an argument to support them - even Christ�s body was still in the tomb - which would need to be answered. But of course there is none of that in 1 Corinthians or anywhere else in the New Testament (and no evidence of later deletions of any such passages)�.it beggars belief that the disciples could have affirmed the Resurrection of Jesus without checking the tomb as soon as they could" (Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection Of God Incarnate [New York: Oxford University Press, 2003], pp. 160-162)

We have good reason to believe that the account of a guard at the tomb is historical, so how could the body have been removed with a guard there? If the early opponents of Christianity knew of a common practice involving the transfer of a body from one tomb to another, and they thought that such a transfer might have occurred with Jesus, why didn�t they say so instead of using the argument that the disciples stole the body?

In a debate on the resurrection with Gary Habermas in April of 2000, Antony Flew, who at that time was an atheist, replied to Habermas� presentation of the historical evidence for the empty tomb:

"I don�t think you should be apologetic about this at all. These facts are facts and I could rather wish that in these topics more people were prepared to face facts rather than run away and say, 'Mustn�t say that.' No. This is a very impressive piece of argument, I think�Because, you know, it�s very difficult to get around this�.Well, we have no independent witnesses. There are all sorts of ways of removing bodies. I�m not going to offer a theory because I simply don�t think one can reconstruct the story of what happened in the city and all that long ago and we haven�t got the sort of evidence that one might have today with the invention of cameras and all the rest of it�.I don�t offer anything to cover the empty tomb evidence." ("Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?" [Chattanooga, TN: Ankerberg Theological Research Institute, 2000], pp. 17-18)

The Resurrection of Christ

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:18:44 GMT

There is increasing attention focused on the critical subject of the Resurrection�and in this article J. Gresham Machen asks:

Why is it, then, if the evidence be so strong, that so many modern men refuse to accept the New Testament testimony to the resurrection of Christ? The answer is perfectly plain. The resurrection, if it be a fact, is a stupendous miracle and against the miraculous or the supernatural there is a tremendous opposition in the modern mind. But is the opposition well grounded?

"Whether Then It Was I Or They, So We Preach" (1 Corinthians 15:11)

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 10:27:57 GMT

Martin Hengel has written:

"The significance of 1 Cor. 15.11, a passage which is all too easily forgotten in New Testament theology (see above, 145ff.), cannot be estimated highly enough. Among other things, despite all the difficulties (which are sometimes great), indeed tensions and fights, it is the basis for the final unity of the primitive Christian proclamation of Christ; one could also say on the basis of 1 Cor. 15.1-11 that it is the basis of the christological unity of the Gospel." (The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000], p. 156)

If Paul was referring to a physical resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, as I argued in a recent post, then Paul's comments in verse 11 suggest that the other most prominent leaders of the early church agreed with him on the issue. And we do see references to the physical nature of the resurrection in the early non-Pauline sources, in many contexts and in many locations. Craig Keener comments that "All our early Christian sources unanimously affirm the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus" (A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], p. 711).

If the resurrection appearances involved hundreds of people and multiple appearances to groups over more than a week of time, as 1 Corinthians 15, the gospels, and Acts suggest, and the people involved were thinking of their experiences as involving a physically resurrected Christ, then it would be highly unlikely that none of the witnesses involved would have sought the sort of physical evidence the gospels and Acts describe. If hundreds of people over more than a week of time (John 20:26, Acts 1:3) thought they were seeing a resurrected man, and some of them saw him more than once, then the common skeptical assertion that the references to concern for physical evidence in the gospels and Acts are unhistorical is dubious. First century Jews would have had the sort of interest in physical evidence that the gospels and Acts suggest. What's unrealistic isn't the suggestion that there was such interest in physical evidence. Rather, what's unrealistic is the suggestion that there wouldn't have been such an interest. Even where no physical evidence is mentioned, such as in the creed of 1 Corinthians 15, where we wouldn't expect such details to be included, the concept that all of the people involved were mistaken is highly implausible on multiple points. Why should anybody believe that Peter, for example, hallucinated at least three different times, twice in coordination with other people who were with him?

As Richard Bauckham's Jesus And The Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006) has recently illustrated, the gospels consist largely of eyewitness testimony. All of the gospels end with the resurrection and the circumstances surrounding it. It was a central event in the eyes of the gospel authors, as it was to Paul and the other leaders of the early church. The concept that eyewitness testimony would have been preserved on other issues, but that all of the resurrection accounts in the gospels and Acts or all of the elements of physical evidence within those accounts were later fabrications, is dubious. Mark's Petrine inclusio, indicating that Peter was his primary source (for an explanation, see here), ends in Mark 16:7, which means that Mark probably is reproducing some of what Peter had said about the resurrection. Similarly, the gospel of John was composed by an eyewitness who includes the resurrection material in that gospel as part of his eyewitness testimony. Richard Bauckham argues that Luke uses the inclusio of eyewitness testimony in his gospel as well, and portions of the resurrection narratives in Luke are included.

The highest-ranking leaders of the early church were required to be eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1-2, John 15:27, Acts 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 9:1, Hebrews 2:3, 2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1:1-3), and multiple sources tell us that the resurrection was among the events they had to have eyewitnessed (in addition to the relevant passages just cited, see First Clement 42 and pp. 114-154 in Richard Bauckham's book cited above). The concept that there was such concern for eyewitness testimony, and that the earliest church leaders were chosen on such a basis, yet none of their testimony other than Paul's was preserved in the gospels or other sources (and that Acts is wrong in what it preserves about Paul) is absurd. These eyewitnesses were alive, traveled widely, and were in prominent places of leadership for several decades. The concept that they had as little influence on the early church as critics often suggest is implausible.

1 Corinthians 15 reflects some of the earliest beliefs of the early church. The earliest Christians thought of the physical resurrection of Christ as part of the foundation of their belief system. It would be unlikely that they wouldn't seek physical evidence of the event and preserve eyewitness testimony relevant to that evidence. The concept that such evidence was rarely or never sought, and that it wasn't preserved in the gospels or anywhere else, is more a result of what skeptics want to believe than it is a result of what the evidence suggests.

Paul's Belief in a Bodily Resurrection

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 21:09:32 GMT

by Chris Price

Reworked Hallucination Theories And The Appeal To Vague Parallels

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 09:42:02 GMT

Several years ago, Gary Habermas wrote an article discussing some historical problems with the hallucination theory. Modern skeptics who are aware of such problems sometimes try to argue for the same sort of theory under different terminology and with some minor adjustments. Sometimes they'll use the term "vision" rather than "hallucination" and will claim that their proposal of visions can't be dismissed on the basis of problems with a hallucination theory, since they distinguish between visions and hallucinations. But is the distinction sufficient to overcome the relevant problems?

I've come across skeptics who will argue against the resurrection largely by citing alleged historical parallels to the resurrection claims of the early Christians. They'll suggest that those alleged parallel accounts should be rejected, and that we therefore should reject the Christian claims. But three questions need to be asked, questions that skeptics often ignore when they draw these parallels:

1. What reason do we have to think that the alleged parallel incidents are historical in the sense that historical individuals experienced historical visions of some sort? If Christians have to make a case for the historicity of the resurrection appearances experienced by Peter, Paul, and the other early Christian sources, then skeptics have to make a case for the historicity of the supposed parallels they're citing.

2. What reason do we have to conclude that the incident in question was naturalistic? Skeptics can't just assume that an incident was naturalistic in order to have a naturalistic parallel to offer.

3. Are the reasons we have for viewing the incident as naturalistic applicable to the incidents in early Christianity? For example, nobody denies that people can have naturalistic visions, hallucinations, or whatever we want to call them under the influence of drugs. But if it's unlikely that people such as Peter and Paul had drug-induced experiences, then citing a drug-induced vision as a parallel to the resurrection experiences of the early Christians wouldn't make sense.

Skeptics can't just cite a reported occurrence of a visionary experience, assume without evidence that some sort of visionary experience did occur, assume without evidence that the experience was naturalistic, and assume without evidence that the circumstances surrounding that experience are comparable to those surrounding the resurrection appearances in early Christianity.

Cremation Nation: Does It Matter If We Bury Or Burn?

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:13:51 GMT

Is cremation an option for Christians?