Issue 3 - He is Risen Indeed
Apologetics
Greetings everyone, given that this is the last newsletter before Easter, I thought it would be good to spend some time discussing evidence for the truth of Jesus’ resurrection.
Resurrection is the key to the Christian faith. As Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 15, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, our faith is useless, we remain dead in our sins, and we should be the most pitied of all people (for living out a false faith). Conversely, if Christ is risen then it validates Jesus’ statement that he has overcome the world, and his promises that one day we will join him in resurrection.
Below, I summarize a few arguments in favor of the resurrection.
The Six Minimum Facts
Gary Habermas is one of the leading experts on evidence for the resurrection (as evidenced by the 1000-page first volume of his magnum opus on the topic). One of his contributions to the field has been the identification of six “minimum facts” for Jesus’ death and resurrection. These are six facts that virtually all scholars (not just Christian scholars) agree on, including notorious skeptics like Bart Ehrman. The six facts are:
1) Jesus died by crucifixion
2) Very soon afterwards, his followers had real experiences that they thought were actual appearances of the risen Jesus
3) Their lives were transformed as a result, even to the point of being willing to die specifically for their faith in the resurrection message
4) These things were taught very early, soon after the crucifixion
5) James, Jesus’ unbelieving brother, became a Christian due to his own experience that he thought was the resurrected Christ
6) The Christian persecutor Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus) also became a believer after a similar experience.
While these facts don’t definitively prove the truth of Christianity, they demand an explanation. Something happened after Jesus was crucified such that his original followers, his unbelieving brother, and his followers’ arch nemesis, all believed they saw Jesus resurrected and were so transformed by it they were willing to die for that belief. “Jesus actually rose from the dead” fits those facts very nicely. Alternatives typically depend on ruling out supernatural explanations. (This doesn’t always mean ruling out the possibility that supernatural forces exist: for example, Bart Ehrman doesn’t claim that miracles are literally impossible, just that they are so rare [by definition] that a historian can’t establish that one happened.) However, if you accept that God exists and that miracles are possible, then the truth of Jesus’ resurrection is easily the most compelling explanation for those facts.
The Resurrection of the Son of God
Christian scholar N.T. Wright wrote a book with the above title arguing for the truth of the resurrection. While he touches on many of the historical points Habermas focused on, his work mostly focuses on the two cultural contexts in which Christianity sprouted (Jewish and Greco-Roman) and why neither of those cultures is likely to invent the resurrection. While he spends nearly 1000 pages defending his arguments, some of his key points can be summarized as follows:
1st-century Jews would never invent a Messiah who:
Died a humiliating death at the hands of Israel’s oppressors, without giving them any hint of earthly victory
Was deliverer of the whole world and not just the Jews
Is literally God, and not just God’s (human) servent
1st-century Greco-Romans would never make up a God with bodily resurrection - divinity was linked to transcending the material world to a higher, spiritual plane.
The word used for resurrection in Greek and Hebrew is never non-bodily.
People in the first century weren’t superstitious morons. Their belief that dead people never rise from the dead was as strong as ours.
While (many but not all) Jews of the time believed in resurrection, they believed it was a one-time event at the end of time, affecting numerous people. Their belief in general resurrection would not predispose them to think Jesus had resurrected any more than our belief in Jesus’ second coming would make us accept that one of our friends had risen from the dead.
In a point that doesn’t directly relate to the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection but our interpretation of the evidence, Wright notes that it is a “self-involving” belief. For example, whether or not I believe Julius Caesar really is who history claims him to be, doesn’t matter in any meaningful way with regards to how I live my life or how I see the world. However, if Jesus really rose from the dead, that has radical implications for my beliefs about the world and how I should orient my life. This makes accepting the resurrection even more difficult than simply the fact that it is an extraordinary event and may be the bigger barrier to belief.
Apologist Frank Turek likes to ask skeptics “If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian” and notes that oftentimes they say “no.” In some cases, people just don’t want to submit their lives to a higher authority - or at least not a higher authority who doesn’t align with their preferences. It’s helpful to always keep in mind that apologetics can join in the work of the Holy Spirit but never replace it - prayer is our most powerful tool in trying to bring others to the faith.
Wishing everyone a blessed Easter next week! We'll be back with Issue 4 in two weeks.