by Lee Strobel
This book was read as a result of doing an ALPHA course. Someone in my Group suggested it as an aside in terms of answering the "big" questions of life. I am glad I took up the challenge as this book was everything and more! I found the information quite intense at times and compelling. I definitely would recommend this book but am going to keep my copy for the present! It was amazing to read at the end of the book how the author had initially set out to answer his own questions and finally came to find his own personal faith in Christ. He spent many years listening to evidence inside court rooms for some of the most gruesome of crimes and each chapter opens with one of those crimes which helps to make the point for the rest of the chapter. This book has been reprinted several times with my own copy claiming to have had 5 million sold to date. Little did Lee Strobels think that this book would be the means of bringing many to a personal faith themselves. Each chapter has a deliberation section at the end which makes you think about what you have read and how you might apply it to your own life - something I appreciated as there was much to think about! There is also quite a detailed list of references, pretty handy for those who want to delve deeper. At the end of the book there is an interview with the author himself and it is amazing to see how Lee`s life of faith has progressed since first writing this book. Most of the chapters are written from the perspective of an interview by Lee with very eminent people. They have studied particular aspects and are able to give clear answers to the questions posed. I recognised some of these great writers, speakers, theologians so their credibility is without doubt. I have copied word for word from each of these chapters what has spoken to me and given me evidence for Jesus himself. I make no apologies for doing this as there was just so much that warrants a detailed analysis. I think this will be a book I will refer to again and again!
Chapter 1 - The Eyewitness Evidence
In any scene of crime it is important to gather evidence from those who were actually there - eyewitnesses. So Lee asks firstly were the people who wrote the 4 gospels, namely Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, real? Well Matthew was a disciple of Jesus and a tax collector. Whilst Mark was not an apostle, it is believed that John Mark as author accompanied Paul on his missionary journey with Barnabas. He was a companion of Peter and really this book is written as an eyewitness account from Peter`s perspective. Luke, a doctor is believed to have written his own book and Acts of the Apostles. John is the only one about whom there is a question of his authorship. He was one of the original 12 disciples and one of the inner three of Jesus` circle - James and Peter were the other 2. The question is not whether it was written by John but which John - John the apostle or another John. There is clear evidence from a man called Papias in AD 125 and Irenaeus in AD 180 confirming that the events recorded in the 4 gospels are based on either direct or indirect eyewitness testimony. Then Lee went on to ask how long after Jesus` death were the gospels written? Consider Acts of Apostles written by Luke. The book ends apparently unfinished - Paul is a central figure of the book and he`s under house arrest in Rome. With that the book abruptly halts. What happens to Paul? We don`t find out from Acts, probably because the book was written before Paul was put to death. That means Acts cannot be dated any later than AD62. We can then move backward from there. Since Acts is the second of a two-part work, we know the first part - the Gospel of Luke - must have been written earlier than that. And since Luke incorporates parts of the gospel of Mark that means Mark is even earlier. Mark was probably written no later than about AD60 maybe even the late 50`s. If Jesus was put to death in AD30 or 33 we are talking about a maximum gap of 30 years or so.
The books of the New Testament are not in chronological order. The gospels were written after almost all the letters of Paul whose writing ministry probably began in the late 40`s Most of his major letters appeared during the 50`s To find the earliest information go to Paul`s epistles and ask "Are there signs that even earlier sources were used in writing them?"
Paul incorporated some creeds, confessions of faith, or hymns from the earlier Christian church. These go way back to the dawning of the church soon after the resurrection. Earliest creeds are Philippians 2 verses 6 - 1 and Colossians 1 verses 15 - 20. The most important creed in terms of the historical Jesus is 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul uses technical language to indicate he was passing along this oral tradition in relatively fixed form. If the crucifixion was as early as AD30 Paul`s conversion was about 32. Immediately Paul was ushered into Damasus where he met with a Christian named Ananias and some other disciples. His first meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem would have been about AD35.
Chapter 2 - Testing the Eyewitness Evidence
The Intention Test - whether it was the stated or implied intention of the writers to accurately preserve history. Luke`s gospel clearly stated that he intended to write accurately about the things he investigated and found to be well-supported by witnesses. Mark and Matthew don`t have this kind of explicit statement. However they are close to Luke in terms of genre and it seems reasonable that Luke`s historical intent would closely mirror theirs. Only statement of purpose in John`s gospel is found in chapter 20 verse 31 "These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name." It seems that the goal of the gospel writers was to attempt to record what had actually occurred. Is that what really happened? The majority of Jesus `teachings presuppose a significant span of time before the end of the world. Also remember that Christianity was born out of Judaism. For 8 centuries the Jews lived with the tension between the repeated pronouncements of prophets that this Day of the Lord was at hand and the continuing history of Israel. And still the followers of these prophets recorded, valued and preserved the words of the prophets. Given that Jesus` followers looked upon him as being even greater than a prophet, it seems very reasonable that they would have done the same thing.
Lee then asked: There is a saying that early Christians frequently believed that the physically departed Jesus was speaking through them with messages or prophecies for their church. Since these prophecies were considered as authoritative as Jesus` own words when he was alive on earth, the early Christians didn`t distinguish between these newer sayings and the original words of the historical Jesus. As a result, the gospels blend these 2 types of material so we don`t really know what goes back to the historical Jesus and what doesn`t.
The reply: There are occasions when early Christian prophecy is referred to, but it`s always distinguished from what the Lord said. 1 Corinthians 7 Paul clearly distinguishes when he has a word from the Lord and when he is quoting the historical Jesus. And in 1 Corinthians 14 when Paul is discussing the criteria for true prophecy, he talks about the responsibility of the local church to test the prophets. Drawing on his Jewish background, we know that the criteria for true prophecy would have included whether the prediction comes true and whether these new statements cohere with previously revealed words of the Lord.
The Ability Test - even if writers intended to reliably record history were they able to do so? How can we be sure that the material about Jesus`life and teachings was well preserved for 30 years before it was finally written down in the gospels? Scrolls of papyrus were relatively rare. Therefore education, learning, worship, teaching in religious communities - all this was done by word of mouth. Rabbis became famous for having the entire Old Testament committed to memory. So it would have been well within the capability of Jesus` disciples to have committed much more to memory than appears in all 4 gospels put together and to have passed it along accurately. This was an oral culture in which there was great emphasis placed on memorisation - wow! A lot of the similarities and difference among the Gospels can be explained by assuming that the disciples and other early Christians had committed to memory a lot of what Jesus said and did but they felt free to recount this information in various forms, always preserving the significance of Jesus` original teachings and deeds.
The Character Test - whether it was in the character of these writers to be truthful. Was there any evidence of dishonesty or immorality that might taint their ability or willingness to transmit history accurately? The gospel writers were people of great integrity. They were willing to live out their beliefs despite persecution, deprivation and suffering which shows great character.
The Consistency Test - aren`t the gospels hopelessly contradictory with each other? If you allow for paraphrase, of abridgment, of explanatory additions, of selection, of omission, the gospels are extremely consistent with each other by ancient standards, which are the only standards by which it`s fair to judge them.
The Bias Test - whether the gospel writers had any biases that would have coloured their work. Did they have any vested interest in skewing the material they were reporting on? The disciples so honoured and respected Jesus that it prompted them to record his life with great integrity. That showed their love for him. They had nothing to gain except criticism, ostracism and martyrdom - they had nothing to win financially.
The Cover-Up Test - when people testify about events they saw, they will often try to protect themselves or others by conveniently forgetting to mention details that are embarrassing or hard to explain. As a result, this raises uncertainty about the veracity of their entire testimony. There is a large body of Jesus` teaching called the hard sayings of Jesus. Some of it is very ethically demanding - for example Jesus could do few miracles in Nazareth because the people had little faith or Jesus asking to be baptised when he was without sin.
The Corroboration Test - when the gospels mention people, places and events, do they check out to be correct in cases in which they can be independently verified? Within the last 100 years archaeology has repeatedly unearthed discoveries that have confirmed specific references in the gospels, particularly John`s gospel.
The Adverse Witness Test - were others present who would have contradicted or corrected the gospels if they had been distorted or false? Jesus` opponents implicitly acknowledge that what the gospels wrote - that Jesus performed miracles - is true.
Chapter 3 - The Documentary Evidence
How can I be sure that the modern day versions of the original manuscripts of the bible bear any resemblance to what the authors originally wrote? How can I tell if these 4 biographies are telling the whole story? What if there were other biographies of Jesus that have been censored because the early church didn`t like the image of Jesus they portrayed? How could I have confidence that the church politics haven`t squelched biographies of Jesus that were every bit as accurate as the 4 that were finally included in the New Testament and that would shed important new light on the words and deeds of this controversial carpenter from Nazareth?
There are no surviving originals of the New Testament - only copies of copies of copies. We have copies commencing within a couple of generations from the writing of the originals, whereas in the case of other ancient texts, maybe 5, 8 or 10 centuries elapsed between the original and the earliest surviving copy. In addition to Greek manuscripts we also have translations of the gospels into other languages at a relatively early time - into Latin, Syriac and Coptic. And beyond that we have what may be called secondary translations made a little later, like Armenian and Gothic. And a lot of others - Georgian, Ethiopic, a great variety. There are more than 5000 New Testament Greek manuscripts in existence today. There are 99 fragmentary pieces of papyrus that contain one or more passages or books of the New Testament. In 1930 the Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri was discovered - number one contains portions of the 4 gospels and the books of Acts and it dates from the third century. Papyrus number 2 contains large portions of 8 letters of Paul, plus portions of Hebrews, dating to about the year 200. Papyrus number 3 has a sizable section of the book of Revelation, dating from the third century. Another group of important papyrus manuscripts was purchased by a Swiss bibliophile M Martin Bodmer. The earliest of these, dating from about 200, contains about two-thirds of the gospel of John. Another papyrus containing portions of the gospels of Luke and John, dates from the third century.
The earliest portion of the New Testament is a fragment of the gospel of John containing material from chapter 18 - it has 5 verses, three on one side and 2 on the other - and it measures about 2 and a half by 3 and a half inches. It goes back to between AD100 to 150.
We have uncial manuscripts which are written in all capital Greek letters. There are 306 of these several dating back as early as the third century. The most important are Codex Sinaiticus which is the only complete New Testament in uncial letters and Codex Vaticanus which is not quite complete. Both date to about AD360. A new stye of writing more cursive in nature emerged in roughly AD800. It`s called minuscule and thee are 2,856 of these manuscripts. Then there are lectionaries which contain New Testament Scripture in the sequence it was to be read in the early churches at appropriate times during the year. A total of 2,403 of these have been catalogued. That puts the grand total of Greek manuscripts at 5,664. In addition to the Greek documents there are thousands of other ancient New Testament manuscripts in other languages. There are 8,000 to 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts, plus a total of 8,000 in Ethiopic, Slavic and Armenian. In all there are about 24,000 manuscripts in existence.
The early church leaders had 3 criteria to determine which documents would be included in the New Testament. First the books must have apostolic authority - they must have been written either by apostles themselves, who were eyewitnesses to what they wrote about or by followers of apostles. So in the case of Mark and Luke while they weren`t among the 12 disciples, early tradition has it that Mark was a helper of Peter and Luke was an associate of Paul. Second there was the criterion of conformity to what was called the rule of faith. And third the criterion of whether a document had had continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large.
Chapter 4 - The Corroborating Evidence
The historical reliability of the gospels themselves. Josephus a first-century historian who`s well known among scholars but whose name is unfamiliar to most people today. Josephus was a very important Jewish historian of the first century. He was born in AD37 and he wrote most of his 4 works toward the end of the first century. He was a priest, a Pharisee and he was somewhat egotistical. His most ambitious work was called The Antiquities which was a history of the Jewish people from Creation until his time. He was extremely disliked by his fellow Jews. But he became popular among Christians, because in his writings he refers to James, the brother of Jesus and to Jesus himself. In The Antiquities he describes how a high priest named Ananias took advantage of the death of the Roman governor Festus - who is also mentioned in the New Testament - in order to have James killed. Josephus also wrote an even lengthier section about Jesus called the Testimonium Flavianum which refers to Jesus death and resurrection.
Another Roman historian of the first century Tacitus recorded what is probably the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament. In AD115 he explicitly states that Nero persecuted the Christians as scapegoats to divert suspicion away from himself for the great fire that had devastated Rome in AD64. Tacitus reported that an immense multitude held so strongly to their beliefs that they were willing to die rather than recant.
Another Roman called Pliny the Youngest had also referred to Christianity in his writings. He was the nephew of Pliny the Elder, the famous encyclopedist who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. Pliny the Younger became governor of Bithynia in northwestern Turkey. Much of his correspondence with his friend, Emperor Trajan has been preserved to the present time.
What about the earth going dark during part of the time that Jesus hung on the cross? A historian named Thallus in AD52 wrote a history of the eastern Mediterranean world since the Trojan War. This was quoted by Julius Africanus in about AD221 and it made reference to the darkness that the gospels had written about. Africanus then argues that it couldn`t have been an eclipse, given when the crucifixion occurred. Paul Maier in his 1968 book Pontius Pilate points out, nonbiblical attestation of the darkness that occurred at the time of Jesus` crucifixion.
The New Testament paints Pilate as being vacillating and willing to yield to the pressures of a Jewish mob by executing Jesus, other historical accounts picture him as being obstinate and inflexible. Pilate would have been reluctant to offend the Jews at that time and to get into further trouble with the emperor. That means the biblical description is most likely correct.
We have better historical documentation for Jesus than for the founder of any other ancient religion. The scriptures of Buddha who lived in the sixth century BC were not put into writing until after the Christian era and the first biography of Buddha was written in the first century AD. Although we have the sayings of Muhammad who lived from AD570 to 632 in the Qur`an, his biography was not written until 767, more than a full century after his death.
The apostle Paul never met Jesus prior to Jesus` death but he said he did encounter the resurrected Christ and later consulted with some of the eyewitnesses to make sure he was preaching the same message they were. Because he began writing his New Testament letters years before the gospels were written down, they contain extremely early reports concerning Jesus - so early that nobody can make a credible claim that they had been seriously distorted by legendary development.
The fact that Paul who came from a monotheistic Jewish background, worshipped Jesus as God is extremely significant And there are other early letters by the eyewitnesses James and Peter too. James for instance has recollections of Jesus` Sermon on the Mount.
We also have volumes of writings by the "apostolic fathers" who were the earliest Christian writers after the New Testament. In many places these writings attest to the basic facts about Jesus, particularly his teachings, his crucifixion, his resurrection and his divine nature.
Chapter 5 - The Scientific Evidence
Does archaeology affirm or undermine the New Testament when it checks out the details in accounts? The physician and historian Luke authored both the gospel bearing his name and the book of Acts which together constitute about one-quarter of the entire New Testament. When archaeologists check out the details of what he wrote, do they find that he was careful or sloppy? Luke is eloquent, his Greek approaches classical quality, he writes as an educated man, and archaeological discoveries are showing over and over again that Luke is accurate in what he has to say. One prominent archaeologist carefully examined Luke`s references to 32 countries, 54 cities and 9 islands, finding not a single mistake.
Several discoveries have shown John to be very accurate - Pool of Bethseda for example as well as Pool of Siloam, Jacob`s Well, the location of the Stone Pavement near the Jaffa Gate where Jesus appeared before Pilate and Pilate`s own identity.
Archaeology has not produced anything that is unequivocally a contradiction to the Bible. On the contrary there have been many opinions of skeptical scholars that have become codified into "fact" over the years but that archaeology has shown to be wrong.
Luke said that the census that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem was conducted when Quirinius was governing Syria and during the reign of Herod the Great. A recent report by an archaeologist that he had found very small writings or "micrographic" letters on coins that showed Quirinius was a ruler in Syria and Cilicia from 11BC until after Herod`s death. Herod was ill and came into conflict with the Roman emperor Augustus in 8/7BC. With such instability and such a bad state of health it would have been an opportune time for Augustus to have had a census taken in order to assess the situation before Herod`s death. Therefore a census within the last year or two of Herod`s reign would have been reasonable and in fact more probable.
Many Christians are unaware that skeptics have been asserting for a long time that Nazareth never existed during the time when the New Testament says Jesus spent his childhood there. No ancient historians or geographers mention Nazareth before the beginning of the fourth century. The name first appears in Jewish literature in a poem written about the seventh century AD. Is there any archaeological confirmation that Nazareth was in existence during the first century?
In 1962 archaeologists reported the discovery of a list in Aramaic described the 24 courses or families of priests who were relocated after the Jerusalem temple was destroyed in AD70. One course was moved to Nazareth which would show that this village must have been in existence. Archaeological digs uncovered first-century tombs in the vicinity of Nazareth. Two tombs contained objects such as pottery lamps, glass vessels and vases from the first, third or fourth centuries.
Matthew talks about Herod the Great, the king of Judea, feeling threatened by the birth of a baby whom he feared would eventually seize his throne, dispatches his troops to murder all the children under the age of 2 in Bethlehem. Warned by an angel, however Joseph escapes to Egypt with Mary and Jesus. Only after Herod dies do they return to settle in Nazareth, the entire episode having fulfilled 3 ancient prophecies about the Messiah. There is no independent confirmation that this mass murder ever took place.
Chapter 6 - The Rebuttal Evidence
The Jesus seminar - they want to rescue the bible from fundamentalism and to free Americans from the `naive` belief that the Jesus of the bible is the `real` Jesus. They say they want a Jesus who`s relevant for today. Whatever else is said about him, Jesus was a man like you or me. Maybe he was an extraordinary man, maybe he tapped into our inherent potential as nobody else ever has but he was not supernatural. These people say that Jesus and his early followers didn`t see him as God or the Messiah and they didn`t see his death as having any special significance. His crucifixion was unfortunate and untimely and stories about his resurrection came later as a way of trying to deal with that sad reality. The gospels are not even generally reliable. They conclude because the gospels include things that seem historicaly unlikely like miracles. These things they say, just don`t happen. That`s naturalism which says that for every effect in the natural or physical world there is a natural cause. They rule out the possibility of the supernatural from the beginning.
To come up with their conclusion that Jesus never spoke most of the words in the gospels, members of the Jesus Seminar used their own set of assumptions and criteria. But are these standards reasonable and appropriate? Or were they loaded from the outset like dice that are weighted so they yield the result that was desired all along? One approach taken by naturalistic scholars has been to look for parallels between Jesus and others from ancient history as a way of demonstrating that his claims and deeds were not completely unique. Their goal is to explain away the view that Jesus was one of a kind. The life of Jesus has no parallel whatsoever in Jewish history. The radical nature of his miracles distinguishes him. It didn`t just rain when he prayed for it; we`re talking about blindness, deafness, leprosy and scoliosis being healed, storms being stopped, bread and fish being multiplied, sons and daughters being raised from the dead - these are beyond any parallels.
Lee Strobel goes on to mention Apollonius of Tyana who is said to have healed people and to have exorcised demons. His biographer wrote about him a century and a half after he lived whereas the gospels were written within a generation of Jesus. The closer the proximity to the event, the less chance there is for legendary development, for error, or for memories to get confused.
He then went on to discuss the "mystery religions" - many of the themes seen in the life of Jesus are merely echoes of ancient mystery religions. These religions are do-your-own-thing religions that freely borrowed ideas from various places. However, the Jews carefully guarded their beliefs from outside influences. They saw themselves as a separate people and strongly resisted pagan ideas and rituals. Mystery religions depict events that happened "once upon a time". Christians talk about someone who actually lived several decades earlier and they name names - crucified under Pontius Pilate, when Caiaphas was the high priest and the father of Alexander and Rufus carried his cross. That`s concrete historical stuff. It has nothing in common with stories about what supposedly happened "once upon a time". Christianity has to do with a very Jewish belief - which is absent from the mystery religions - about the resurrection of the dead and about life eternal and reconciliation with God.
There been no new discoveries that change the way we should think about Jesus.
Chapter 7 - The Identity Evidence
In this chapter the interviewee went back to the very earliest traditions about Jesus - the most primitive material, unquestionably safe from legendary development - and discovered persuasive clues concerning how Jesus really regarded himself.
Jesus has 12 disciples yet he`s not one of the 12. If the 12 represent a renewed Israel where does Jesus fit in? He`s not just part of Israel, not merely part of the redeemed group, he`s forming the group - just as God in the Old Testament formed his people and set up the 12 tribes of Israel. That`s a clue about what Jesus thought of himself.
What does Jesus say of John the Baptist? "Of all people born of woman, John is the greatest man on earth." Having said that he then goes even further in his ministry than the Baptist did - by doing miracles eg what does that say about what he thinks of himself?"
And what of his relationship with the religious leaders? Jesus makes the truly radical statement that it`s not what enters a person that defiles him but what comes out of his heart. This sets aside huge portions of the Old Testament book of Leviticus with its meticulous rules concerning purity. The Pharisees didn`t like this message. They wanted to keep things as they were, but Jesus said "No God has further plans. He`s doing a new thing." We have to ask, what kind of person thinks he has the authority to set aside the divinely inspired Jewish Scriptures and supplant them with his own teaching?
And what about his relationship with Roman authorities? Why did they crucify him? How did he end up on a cross, especially at a Passover season, when no Jew wants any Jew to be executed? There had to be a reason why the sign above his head said, "This is the King of the Jews."
While Jesus` relationships provide one window into his self-understanding, his miracles offer additional insights. Jesus is not like other miracle workers who do amazing things and then life proceeds as it always has. To Jesus his miracles are a sign indicating the coming of the kingdom of God. They are a foretaste of what the kingdom is going to be like. And that sets Jesus apart. Jesus sees his miracles as bringing about something unprecedented - the coming of God`s dominion. He doesn`t merely see himself as a worker of miracles; he sees himself as the one in whom and through whom the promises of God come to pass.
Jesus taught in a radical new way. He begins his teachings with the phrase "Amen I say to you" which is to say, "I swear in advance to the truthfulness of what I`m about to say." In Judaism you needed the testimony of 2 witnesses, so witness A could witness the truth of witness B and vice versa. But Jesus witnesses to the truth of his own sayings. Instead of basing his teaching on the authority of others, he speaks on his own authority. Here is someone who considered himself to have authority above and beyond what the Old Testament prophets had. He believed he possessed not only divine inspration as King David did but also divine authority and the power of direct divine utterance.
Jesus also used the phrase "Abba" in his teaching. Abba connotes intimacy in a relationship between a child and his father. It`s also the term disciples used for a beloved teacher in early Judaism. But Jesus used it of God - and he and his followers were the only ones praying to God that way. It was customary for Jews to work around having to say the name of God. His name was the most holy word you could speak and they even feared mispronouncing it. If they were going to address God, they might say something like, "The Holy One, blessed be he" but they were not going to use his personal name.
The significance of Abba is that Jesus is the initiator of an intimate relationship that was previously unavailable. This phrase implies that Jesus had a degree of intimacy with God that is unlike anything in the Judaism of his day. Jesus is saying that only through having a relationship with him does this kind of prayer language become possible. That says volumes about how he regarded himself.
Jesus` repeated reference to himself as the "Son of Man" is important in revealing Jesus` messianic or transcendent self-understanding. Jesus considered himself to be more than a doer of great deeds, more than a teacher, more than another prophet in a line of many. There was ample evidence to conclude that he thought of himself in unique and supreme terms.
John chapter 1 verses 1 - 3 and 14. Jesus had points of identity confirmation - at his baptism, at his temptation, at the transfiguration, in the Garden of Gethsemane - these are crisis moments in which God confirmed to him who he was and what his mission was. Jesus saw his mission as coming to free the people of God and this was directed at Israel.
What happened to his disciples to change their minds after the crucifixion - similar to what Jesus experienced at his baptism - it was confirmed to them that what they had hoped Jesus was, he was.
Jesus thought he was the person appointed by God to bring in the climactic saving act of God in human history. He believed he was the agent of God to carry that out - that he had been authorized by God, empowered by God, he spoke to God and he was directed by God to do this task. So what Jesus said, God said. What Jesus did was the work of God. Jesus believed he was on a divine mission - and the mission was to redeem the people of God. The implication is that the people of God were lost and that God had to do something to intervene and set them back on the right track. This however was the last time, this was the last chance.
Jesus saw himself as the Son of God and the Son of Man. He saw himself as the final Messiah. He did not believe that anybody less than God could save the world. The way God was going to save the world was by his Son dying. The most human of all human acts - to die. Mark 10 verse 45 "I did not come to be serve but to serve and give my life as a ransom in place of the many." Why is Jesus the living Lord - because he`s still around while the others are long gone.
Chapter 8 - The Psychological Evidence
Jesus never demonstrated inappropriate emotions - think of his reaction at the death of his friend Lazarus - he cried which is natural for an emotional healthy individual. He also had a healthy kind of anger at people taking advantage of the downtrodden by lining their pockets at the temple. This was a righteous reaction against injustice and the blatant mistreatment of people. He spoke clearly, powerfully and eloquently. He was brilliant and had absolutely amazing insights into human nature. He had deep and abiding relationships with a wide variety of people from different walks of life.
He was loving but didn`t let his compassion immobilize him; he didn`t have a bloated ego, even though he was often surrounded by adoring crowds; he maintained balance despite an often demanding lifestyle; he always knew what he was doing and where he was going; he cared deeply about people, including women and children, who weren`t seen as being important back then; he was able to accept people while not merely winking at their sin; he responded to individuals based on where they were at and what they uniquely needed.
Jesus didn`t just claim to be God - he backed it up with amazing feats of healing, with astounding demonstrations of power over nature, with transcendent and unprecedented teaching, with divine insights into people and ultimately with his own resurrection from the dead, which absolutely nobody else has been able to duplicate. So when Jesus claimed to be God, it wasn`t crazy. It was the truth.
When Jesus multiplied the bread and fish there were 5000 witnesses. How could he had hypnotized them all? Hypnosis doesn`t generally work on people who are skeptics and doubters. So how did Jesus hypnotize his brother James, who doubted him but later saw the resurrected Christ? How did he hypnotize Saul of Tarsus, the opponent of Christianity who never even met Jesus until he saw him after his resurrection? How did he hypnotize Thomas who was so skeptical he wouldn`t believe in the resurrection until he put his fingers in the nail holes in Jesus` hands. Concerning the resurrection, hypnosis wouldn`t explain the empty tomb. Jesus certainly couldn`t have hypnotized the Pharisees and Roman authorities, and they would have gladly produced his body if it had remained in the tomb. The fact that they didn`t tells us the tomb was really empty.
Look at the miracle of turning water into wine. Jesus never addressed the wedding guests. He didn`t even suggest to the servants that the water had been turned into wine - he merely told them to take some water to the master of the banquet. He`s the one who tasted it and said it was wine with no prior prompting.
Jesus healing 10 lepers in Luke 17 - they were instantaneously healed and 100 percent. That`s not explainable merely by hypnosis. And neither is his healing of a man with a shriveled hand in Mark 3. Even if people were in a trance and merely thought his hand had been healed, eventually they would have found out the truth. Hypnosis doesn`t last a real long time.
The gospels record all sorts of details about what Jesus said and did, but never once do they portray him as saying or doing anything that would suggest he was hypnotizing people.
Was Jesus an exorcist? What about the man who was possessed and Jesus sent the demons into the pigs and the pigs ran off the cliff? What`s going on if that was a psychosomatic situation? 25 years ago the suggestion of demonic activity would have been immediately dismissed, many psychologists are beginning to recognise that maybe there are more things in heaven and earth than our philosophies can account for.
Chapter 9 - The Profile Evidence
Lee interviewed Don Carson for this chapter. The OT provides numerous details about God that sketch out in great specificity what he`s like. For instance, God is described as omnipresent, or existing everywhere in the universe, as omniscient or knowing everything that can be known throughout eternity; as omnipotent, or all powerful; as eternal, or being both beyond time and the source of all time; and as immutable or unchanging in his attributes. He`s loving, he`s holy, he`s righteous, he`s wise, he`s just. Now Jesus, claims to be God. But does he fulfill these characteristics of deity? In other words, if we examine Jesus carefully, does his likeness closely match the sketch of God that we find elsewhere in the Bible? If it doesn`t we can conclude that his claim to being God is false.
The first question Lee asked Don centred on why he thinks Jesus is God in the first place. "What did he say or do that convinces you that he is divine?" The resurrection was the ultimate vindication of his identity. But one of the many things he did, one of the most striking to me is his forgiveness of sin. Sin is first and foremost a defiance of God and laws.
Don Carson was then asked "how in the world could Jesus be omnipresent if he couldn`t be in 2 places at once." "How could he omniscient when he says, Not even the Son of Man knows the hour of his return? How could he be omnipotent when the gospels plainly tell us that he was unable to do many miracles in his hometown?" When Jesus does something that`s a reflection of him being God, that`s ascribed to Christ`s deity. When there`s something reflecting his limitations or finiteness or his humanness - for example his tears - does God cry? - that`s ascribed to his humanity."
Philippians 2 does not tell us precisely what the eternal Son emptied himself of. He emptied himself; he became a nobody. Some kind of emptying is at issue, but let`s be frank - you`re talking about the incarnation, one of the central mysteries of the Christian faith.
So part of Christian theology has been concerned not with "explaining it all away" but with trying to take the biblical evidence and retaining all of it fairly, find ways of synthesis that are rationally coherent, even if they`re not exhaustively explanatory.
Isaiah 57 verse 15 describes God as "he who lives forever." There are some verses that seem to strongly suggest that Jesus was a created being. John 3 verse 16 refers to Jesus as the "begotten" Son of God. Colossians 1 verse 15 "firstborn over all creation." Do these verses clearly imply that Jesus was created as opposed to being the Creator? John 3 verse 16 in KJV translates the Greek with the words "his only begotten Son". It really means "unique one". The way it was usually used in the first century is "unique and beloved" So the verse is simply saying that Jesus is unique and beloved Son.
Colossians - the OT recognise the firstborn, because of the laws of succession, normally received the lion`s share of the estate or the firstborn would become king in the case of a royal family. The firstborn therefore was the one ultimately with all the rights of the father. By the second century before Christ there are places where the word no longer has any notion of actual begetting or of being born first but carries the idea of the authority that comes with the position of being the rightful heir. That`s the way it applies to Jesus. This is actually misleading - supreme heir would be more appropriate. The term "firstborn" cannot exclude Jesus` eternality, since that is part of what it means to possess the fullness of the divine.
John 14 verse 28 "The Father is greater than I". Jesus is trying to explain to his disciples that he is going away. Jesus is returning to the glory that is properly his, so if they really know who he is and really love him properly, they`ll be glad that he`s going back to the realm where he really is greater. What he means is - the Father is greater than I because he`s God and I`m not! He`s going to the cross; he`s going to die - but he`s about to return to the Father and to the glory he had with the Father before the world began.
How could Jesus be a compassionate God yet endorse the idea of eternal suffering for those who reject him? God does not simply cast people into hell because they don`t accept certain beliefs. All the things we call "social pathologies" - war, rape, bitterness, nurtured envies, secret jealousies, pride, inferiority complexes are bound up in the first instance with the fact that we`re not rightly related with God. The consequence is that people get hurt. Wouldn`t we be shocked if we thought God didn`t have moral judgments on such matters? If he is the sort of God who has moral judgments on those matters, he`s got to have moral judgments on this huge matter of all these divine image bearers shaking their puny fists and singing "I did it my way." That`s the real nature of sin.
Hell is not a place where people are consigned because they were pretty good blokes but just didn`t believe the right stuff. They`re consigned there because they defy their Maker and want to be at the centre of the universe. Hell is filled with people who for all eternity, still want to be at the centre of the universe and who persist in their God-defying rebellion.
The Bible says that there are different degrees of punishment, there is not the same level of intensity for everyone. Secondly, if God took his hands off this fallen world so that there were no restraints on human wickedness we would make hell. The Bible does insist that in the end not only will justice be done but justice will be seen to be done, so that every mouth will be stopped. Justice is not always done in this world. But on the Last Day it will be done for all to see. And no one will be able to complain by saying, "This isn`t fair."
John 14 verse 7 "If you really know me, you will know my Father as well." Loose translation - "when you look at the sketch of God from the OT you will see a likeness of me."
Chapter 10 - The Fingerprint Evidence
This chapter contained a very personal testimony by Louis Lapides, brought up Jewish who began to realise that Jesus was the Messiah who fulfilled the prophecies written hundreds of years before he was born. The questions Lee Strobel asked were:
The coincidence argument - did Jesus merely fulfil the prophecies by accident?
The altered gospel argument - is it possible that the gospel writers fabricated details to make it appear that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies?
The intentional fulfillment argument - some skeptics have asserted that Jesus merely maneuvered his life in a way to fulfill the prophecies.
The context argument - were the passages that Christians identify as messianic prophecies really intended to point to the coming of the Anointed One or do Christians rip them out of context and misinterpret them?
Louis stated "I go through the books that people write to try to tear down what we believe. That`s not fun to do, but I spend the time to look at each objection individually and then to research the context and the word in the original language. And every single time, the prophecies have stood up and shown themselves to be true. So here`s my challenge to skeptics: Don`t accept my word for it, but don`t accept your rabbi`s seither. Spend the time to research it ourself. Today nobody can say, there`s no information. There are plenty of books out there to help you. And one more thing: sincerely ask God to show you whether or not Jesus is the Messiah. That`s what I did - and without any coaching it became clear to me who fit the fingerprint of the Messiah."
Jesus` words in the gospels have proven true: "Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." (Luke 24 verse 44) It was fulfilled and only in Jesus - the sole individual in history who has matched the prophetic fingerprint of God`s anointed one.
Chapter 11 - The Medical Evidence
In the case of someone brutally executed on a Roman cross two millennia ago, medical evidence can still make a crucial contribution: it can destroy one of the most persistent arguments used by those who claim that the resurrection of Jesus - the supreme vindication of his claim to deity - was nothing more than an elaborate hoax.
The idea that Jesus never really died on the cross can be found in the Qur`an which was written in the seventh century. Others tried to explain away the resurrection by suggesting that Jesus only fainted from exhaustion on the cross, or he had been given a drug that made him appear to die and that he had later been revived by the cool, damp air of the tomb. Consequently Jesus` reappearance wasn`t a miraculous resurrection but merely a fortuitous resuscitation and his tomb was empty because he continued to live.
What happened to Jesus?
It began after the Last Supper. Jesus went with his disciples to the Mount of Olives - specifically to the Garden of Gethsemane. And there he prayed all night. Since he knew the amount of suffering he was going to have to endure he was quite naturally experiencing a great deal of psychological stress. The gospels tell us he began to sweat blood at this point. This is a known medical condition called hematidrosis. It is associated with a high degree of psychological stress. Severe anxiety causes the release of chemicals that break down the capillaries in the sweat glands. As a result there`s a small amount of bleeding into these glands and the sweat comes out tinged with blood.
What this did was set up the skin to be extremely fragile so that when Jesus was flogged by the Roman soldier the next day, his skin would be very very sensitive.
What was the flogging like?
Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal. They usually consisted of 39 lashes but frequently were a lot more than that, depending on the mood of the soldier applying the blows. The soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them. When the whip would strike the flesh, these balls would cause deep bruises or contusions, which would break open with further blows. And the whip had pieces of sharp bone as well, which would cut the flesh severely. The back would be so shredded that part of the spine was sometimes exposed by the deep, deep cut. The whipping would have gone all the way from the shoulders down to the back, the buttocks, and the back of the legs. As the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh. Many people died from this kind of beating even before they could be crucified.
At the least, the victim would experience tremendous pain and go into hypovolemic shock. That means the person is suffering the effects of losing a large amount of blood. This does 4 things. First the heart races to try to pump blood that isn`t there; second, the blood pressure drops, causing fainting or collapse; third the kidneys stop producing urine to maintain what volume is left and fourth the person becomes very thirsty as the body craves fluids to replace the lost blood volume.
Jesus was in hypovolemic shock as he staggered up the road to the execution site at Calvary, carrying the horizontal beam of the cross. Finally Jesus collapsed and the Roman soldier ordered Simon to carry the cross for him. Later we read that Jesus said "I thirst" at which point a sip of vinegar was offered to him. Because of the terrible effects of this beating, there`s no question that Jesus was already in serious-to-critical condition even before the nails were driven through his hands and feet.
What happened when Jesus arrived at the site of the crucifixion? He would have been laid down, and his hands would have been nailed in the outstretched position to the horizontal beam. This crossbar was called the patibulum, and at this stage it was separate from the vertical beam which was permanently set in the ground.
The Romans used spikes that were 5 to 7 inches long and tapered to a sharp point. They were driven through the wrists. The wrists were a solid position that would lock the hand; if the nails had been driven through the palms, his weight would have caused the skin to tear and he would have fallen off the cross. So the nails went through the wrists, although this was considered part of the hand in the language of the day. The nail would go through the place where the median nerve runs. This is the largest nerve going out to the hand, and it would be crushed by the nail that was being pounded in.
At this point Jesus was hoisted as the crossbar was attached to the vertical stake, and then nails were driven through Jesus` feet. Again, the nerves in his feet would have been crushed, and there would have been a similar type of pain. Crushed and severed nerves were certainly bad enough, but what stresses would this have put on his body? First of all, his arms would have immediatly been stretched, probably about 6 inches in length and both shoulders would have become dislocated. This fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy in Psalm 22, which foretold the crucifixion hundreds of years before it took place and says, "My bones are out of joint."
Once a person is hanging in the vertical position, crucifixion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation.
Even before he died the hypovolemic shock would have caused a sustained rapid heart rate that would have contributed to heart failure, resulting in the collection of fluid in the membrane around the heart, called a pericardial effusion, as well as around the lungs, which is called a pleural effusion. Because of what happened when the Roman soldier came around and being fairly certain that Jesus was dead, confirmed it by thrusting a spear into his right side. The spear apparently went through the right lung and into the heart, so when the spear was pulled out, some fluid - the pericardial effusion and the pleural effusion came out. This would have the appearance of a clear fluid, like water, followed by a large volume of blood, as the eyewitness John described in his gospel.
Is there any possible way that Jesus could have survived this? He couldn`t possibly have faked his death, because you can`t fake the inability to breath for long. Besides the spear thrust into his heart would have settled the issue once and for all. And the Romans weren`t about to risk their own death by allowing him to walk away alive.
Jesus intentionally walked into the arms of his betrayer, he didn`t resist arrest, he didn`t defend himself at his trial - it was clear that he was willingly subjecting himself to what you`ve described as a humiliating and agonizing form of torture. What could possibly have motivated a person to agree to endure this sort of punishment?
Jesus knew what was coming, and he was willing to go through it, because this was the only way he could redeem us - by serving as our substitue and paying the death penalty that we deserve because of our rebellion against God. That was his whole mission in coming to earth. What was his motivation - love.
Chapter 12 - The Evidence of the Missing Body
Jesus was seen, alive; he was seen, dead; and he was seen, alive once more. If we believe the gospel accounts, this isn`t a matter of a missing body. No, it`s a matter of Jesus still being alive, even to this day, even after publicly succumbing to the horrors of crucifixion so graphically depicted in the preceding chapter.
The empty tomb, as an enduring symbol of the resurrection, is the ultimate representation of Jesus` claim to being God. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 17 that the resurrection is the very linchpin of the Christian faith, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins."
The resurrection is the supreme vindication of Jesus` divine identity and his inspired teaching. It`s the proof of his triumph over sin and death. It`s the foreshadowing of the resurrection of his followers. It`s the basis of Christian hope. It`s the miracle of all miracles.
The gospels say Jesus` corpse was turned over to Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the very council - the Sanhedrin - that voted to condemn Jesus.
The burial is mentiond by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 - 7 where he passed on a very early creed of the church. The creed then goes on to list several appearances of the resurrected Jesus. The first line refers to the crucifixion, the second to the burial, the third to the resurrection, and the fourth to Jesus` appearances. When we turn to the gospels we find multiple, independent attestations of this burial story and Joseph of Arimathea is specifically named in all 4 accounts. On top of that the burial story in Mark is so extremely early that it`s simply not possible for it to have been subject to legendary corruption.
Mark says the entire Sanhedrin voted to condemn Jesus - if that`s true, this means Joseph of Arimathea cast his ballot to kill Jesus. Isn`t it highly unlikely that he would have then come to give Jesus an honourable burial?" Joseph of Arimathea wasn`t present when the offical vote was taken. He would not be the sort of person who would have been invented by Christian legend or Christian authors. Given the early Chritian anger and bitterness toward the Jewish leaders who had instigated the crucifixion of Jesus, it`s highly improbable that they would have invented one who did the right thing by giving Jesus an honourable burial - especially while all of Jesus` disciples deserted him! Besides they wouldn`t make up a specific member of a specific group, whom people could check out for themselves and ask about this. So Joseph is undoubtedly a historical figure. If this burial by Joseph were a legend that developed later, you`d expect to find other competing burial traditions about what happened to Jesus` body. However, you don`t find these at all.
The Jews had a physical concept of resurrection. For them, the primary object of the resurrection was the bones of the deceased - not even the flesh, which was thought to be perishable. After the flesh rotted away, the Jews would gather the bones of their deceased and put them in boxes to be preserved until the resurrection at the end of the world, when God would raise the righteous dead of Israel and they would come together in the final kingdom of God. So when this early Christian creed says Jesus was buried and then raised on the third day, it`s saying implicitly but quite clearly: An empty tomb was left behind.
Jesus tomb - how protected was it? It was a slanted groove that led down to a low entrance and a large disk-shaped stone was rolled down this groove and lodged into place across the door. A smaller stone was then used to secure the disk. Although it would be easy to roll this big disk down the groove, it would take several men to roll the stone back up in order to reopen the tomb. In that sense it was quite secure.
Only Matthew reports that guards were placed around the tomb. When you read the New Testament there`s no doubt that the disciples sincerely believed the truth of the resurrection. The idea that the empty tomb is the result of some hoax, conspiracy or theft is simply dismissed today. So the guard story has become sort of incidental.
Is there any good evidence that the guard story is historical? The initial Christian proclamation was, Jesus is risen. The Jews responded, The disciples stole his body. To this Christians ask, Ah but the guards at the tomb would have prevented such a theft. The Jews responded, Oh but the guards at the tomb fell asleep. To that the Christians replied, no the Jews bribed the guards to say they fell asleep. The guards really were historical and the Jews knew it, which is why they had to invent the absurd story about the guards having been asleep while the disciples took the body.
Why would the Jewish authorities have placed guards at the tomb in the first place? If they were anticipating a resurrection of the disciples faking one, this would mean they had a better understanding of Jesus` predictions about his resurrection than the disciples did. After all the disciples were surprised by the whole thing. Maybe they placed the guards there to prevent any sort of tomb robbery or other disturbances from happening during Passover. We don`t know.
Matthew says the Roman guards reported to the Jewish authorities - but doesn`t that seem unlikely since they were responsible to Pilate?" Matthew doesn`t say the guards are Romans. When the Jews go to Pilate and ask for a guard, Pilate says, You have a guard. Scholars have debated whether or not it was a Jewish guard.
John tells us it was a Roman centurion who led Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus under the direction of Jewish leadership. So there is precedent for Roman guards reporting to Jewish religious leaders. It seems plausible that they could also be involved in the guarding of the tomb.
The core of the story is the same in all 4 gospels - Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of Jesus puts it in a tomb, the tomb is visited by a small group of women followers of Jesus early on the Sunday morning following his crucifixion and they find that the tomb is empty. They see a vision of angels saying that Jesus is risen.
Most scholars recognise that according to early Jewish time-reckoning, any part of a day counted as a full day. Jesus was in the tomb Friday afternoon, all day Saturday and on Sunday morning - under the way the Jews conceptualized time back then, this would have counted as 3 days.
Does the women`s relationship with Jesus call the reliability of their testimony into question? These women were friends of Jesus. But when you understand the role of women in first century Jewish society, what`s really extraordinary is that this empty tomb story should feature women as the discoverers of the empty tomb in the first place. Women were on a very low rung of the social ladder in first-century Palestine. There are old rabbinical sayings that say, "Let the words of the Law be burned rather than delivered to women" and "Blessed is he whose children are male, but woe to him whose children are female." Women`s testimony was regarded as so worthless that they weren`t gernally allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of law. It`s absolutely remarkable that the chief witnesses to the empty tomb are these women who were friends of Jesus. Like it or not - they were the discoverers of the empty tomb. This shows that the gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened, even if it was embarrassing.
Why were the women going to anoint the body of Jesus if they already knew that his tomb was securely sealed? Think of the love and devotion that these women felt for Jesus! The notion of visiting a tomb to pour oils over a body is a historical Jewish practice; the only question is the feasibility of who would move the stone for them.
Acts 2 verse 24 - Peter proclaims that "God raised him (Jesus) from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death." Then he quotes from a psalm about how God would not allow his Holy One to undergo decay. This had been written by David and Peter says "I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried and his tomb is here to this day." But he says Christ "was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of it." Acts 13 verses 29 - 31 Paul says "When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem." Certainly the empty tomb is implicit there.
The empty tomb is definitely implicit in the early tradition that is passed along by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 which is a very old and reliable source of historical information about Jesus.
Second the site of Jesus` tomb was known to Christian and Jew alike. So if it weren`t empty, it would be impossible for a movement founded on belief in the resurrection to have come into existence in the same city where this man had been publicly executed and buried.
Third we can tell from the language, grammar and style that Mark got his empty tomb story - actually his whole passion narrative - from an earlier source. In fact, there`s evidence it was written before AD37 which is much too early for legend to have seriously corrupted it.
Fourth there`s the simplicty of the empty tomb story in Mark. Fictional apocryphal accounts from the second century contain all kinds of flowery narratives in which jesus comes out of the tomb in glory and power with everybody seeing him, including the priests, Jewish authorities and Roman guards. Those are the way legends read but these don`t come until generations after the events wich is after eyewitnesses have died off. By contrast, Mark`s account of the story of the empty tomb is stark in its simplicity and unadorned by theological reflection.
Fifth, the unanimous testimony that the empty tomb was discovered by women argues for the authenticity of the story, becuase this would have been embarrassing for the disciples to admit and most certainly would have been covered up if this were a legend.
Sixth, the earliest Jewish polemic presupposes the historicity of the empty tomb. In other words, there was nobody who was claiming that the tomb still contained Jesus` body. The question always was, "What happened to the body?" The Jews proposed the ridiculous story that the guards had fallen asleep. They started with the assumption that the tomb was vacant. Why? Because they knew it was!
Chapter 13 - The Evidence of Appearances
Isn`t it true that there are absolutely no eyewitnesses to Jesus` resurrection? That`s exactly right - there`s no descriptive account of the resurrection. Nobody was sitting inside the tomb and saw the body start to vibrate, stand up, take the linen wrappings off, fold them, rollback the stone, wow the guards and leave.
We don`t see dinosaurs - we study the fossils. We may not know how a disease originates but we study its symptoms. Maybe nobody witnesses a crime, but police piece together the evidence after the fact.
Did Jesus die on the cross? Did he appear later to people? If you can establish those 2 things, you`ve made your case, because dead people don`t normally do that. Historians agree there`s plenty of evidence that Jesus was crucified and Jesus could not have survived the rigors of that execution. Did Jesus appear later?
1 Corinthians 9 verse 1 "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" 1 Corinthians 15 verse 8 "Last of all he appeared to me also." The final part of the creed (verse 5 - 8) deals with his post-resurrection appearances "Christ appeared to Cephas and then to the 12. After that he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles." In the next verse, Paul adds, "And last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born." Here were names of specific individuals and groups of people who saw him, written at a time when people could still check them out if they wanted confirmation
This is a creed of the early church - evidence - first Paul introduces it with the words received and delivered which are technical rabbinic terms indicating he`s passing along holy tradition.
Second the text`s parallelism and stylized content indicate it`s a creed.
Third the original text uses Cephas for Peter, which is his Aramaic name. In fact the Aramaic itself could indicate a very early origin.
Fourth the creed uses several other primitive phrases that Paul would not customarily use, like "the 12", "the third day", "he was raised" and others.
Fifth, the use of certain words is similar to Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew means of narration.
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians between AD55 and 57. He indicates in 1 Corinthians 15 vese 1 - 4 that he has already passed on this creed to the church at Corinth which would mean it must predate his visit there in AD51. Therefore the creed was being used within 24 years of the resurrection, which is quite early. Various scholars trace it back even further to within 2 to 8 years of the resurrection, or from about AD32 to 38 when Paul received it in either Damascus or Jerusalem. Paul personally affirms that Jesus appeared to him as well, so this provides firsthand testimony. And Paul didn`t just pick up this list from strangers in the street. The leading view is that he got it directly from the eyewitnesses Peter and James themselves and he took great pains to confirm is accuracy. Galatians 1 verses 18 - 19 Paul describes a trip he took to Jerusalem and met with Peter and James and uses a very interesting Greek word historeo. That word indicates that he didn`t just casually meet with them, it shows this was an investigative inquiry. Paul was playing the role of an examiner, someone who was carefullly checking this out. So the fact that Paul personally confirmed matters with 2 eyewitnesses who are specifically mentioned in the creed - Peter and James - gives this extra weight. Paul is citing the eyewitness testimony of those who were recipients of resurrection appearances.
The creed in 1 Corinthians 15 is the only place in ancient literature where it is claimed that Jesus appeared to 500 people at once. It just so happens to be the earliest and best-authenticated passage of all. Secondly Paul either knew some of these people or was told by someone who knew them that they were still walking around and willing to be interviewed. Third when you have only one source, you can ask, "Why aren`t there more?". You cannot downgrade this one source that way. So this doesn`t cast any doubt on Paul at all.
The creed doesn`t say Jesus appeared first to Peter. All it does is put Peter`s name first on the list. And since women were not considered competent as witnesses in first-century Jewish culture, it`s not surprising that they`re not mentioned here. In the first-century scheme of things, their testimony wouldn`t carry any weight. So placing Peter first could indicate logical priority rather than temporal priority.
The weight of the evidence clearly and convincingly supports the creed as being powerful evidence for Jesus` post-resurrection appearances.
There are several different appearances to a lot of different people in the gospels and Acts - some individually, some in groups, sometimes indoors, sometimes outdoors, to softhearted people like John and skeptical people like Thomas. At times they touched Jesus or ate with him, with the texts teaching that he was physically present. The appearances occurred over several weeks. And there are good reasons to trust these accounts - for example they`re lacking in many typical mythical tendencies.
Jesus appeared to:
Mary Magdalene - John 20 verses 10 - 18
to the other women - Matthew 28 verses 8 - 10
to Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emaeus - Luke 24 verses 13 - 32
to 11 disciples and others - Luke 24 verses 33 - 49
to 10 apostles and others, with Thomas absent - John 20 verses 26 - 30
to Thomas and the other apostles - John 20 verses 26 - 30
to 7 apostles - John 21 verse 1 - 14
to the disciples - Matthew 28 verses 16 - 20
And he was with the apostles at the Mount of Olives before his ascension - Luke 24 verses 50 - 52 and Acts 1 verses 4 - 9
These appearances have been carefully analysed and the conclusion is that several of them are based on especially early material, including Jesus` encounter with the women, in Matthew 28 verses 8 - 10; his meeting with the 11 apostles, in which he gave them the Great Commission, in Matthew 28 verses 16 - 20; and his meeting with the disciples, in John 20 verses 19 - 23, in which he showed them his hands and side.
In Acts Jesus` appearances are mentioned regularly but details are provided, and the theme of the disciples being a witness of these things is found in almost every content. A number of the accounts in Acts 1 - 5, 10 and 13 also include some creeds that, like the one in 1 Corinthians 15 report some very early data concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Acts is littered with references to Jesus` appearances. The apostle Peter was especially adamant about it. Acts 2 vese 32 "God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of it." In Acts 3 verse 15 "You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this." He confirms to Cornelius in Acts 10 verse 41 that he and others "ate and drunk with him after he rose from the dead.
Paul said in a speech recorded in Acts 13 verse 31 "For many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people."
The resurrection was undoubtedly the central proclamation of the early church from the very beginning. The earliest Christians didn`t just endorse Jesus` teachings; they were convinced they had seen him alive after his crucifixion. That`s what changed their lives and started the church. Certainly, since this was their centermost conviction, they would have made absolutely sure that it was true.
All of the gospels and Acts evidence - incident after incident, witness after witness, detail after detail, corroboration on top of corroboration - was extremely impressive.
The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16 verses 9 - 20. Even if Mark did end there, you still have him reporting that the tomb is empty and a young man proclaiming "He is risen" and telling the women that there will be appearances. So you have, first a proclamation that the resurrection has occurred and second a prediction that appearances will follow.
Could there be any plausible alternatives that could explain away thse encounters with the risen Jesus?
Possibility 1: The appearances are legendary. First, not everybody believes Mark is the earliest gospel. There are scholars, admittedly in the minority, who believe Matthew was written first. Second, it can`t explain away the original belief that Jesus was risen from the dead. Legend can tell you how a story got bigger; it can`t tell you how it originated when the participants are both eyewitnesses and reported the events early. Third the claim involving the biggest number - that he was seen alive by 500 people at once - goes back to this earliest source. Fourthly what about the empty tomb. If the resurrection were merely a legend, the tomb would be filled. However it was empty on Easter morning.
Possibility 2: The appearances were hallucinations. The disciples were fearful, doubtful and in despair after the crucifixion whereas people who hallucinate need a fertile mind of expectancy or anticipation. If we establish the gospel accounts as being reliable, how do you account for the disciples eating with Jesus and touching him? How does he walk along with 2 of them on the road to Emmaus? And what about the empty tomb? If people only thought they saw Jesus, his body would still be in his grave.
Chapter 14 - The circumstantial evidence
5 pieces of circumstantial evidence that convince us Jesus rose from the dead.
Exhibit 1: The disciples died for their beliefs
When Jesus was crucified his followers were discouraged and depressed. They no longer had confidence that Jesus had been sent by God, because they believed anyone crucified was accursed by God. They also had been taught that God would not let his Messiah suffer death. So they dispersed. The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks. Then after a short period of time we see them abandoning their occupations, regathering and committing themselves to spreading a very specific message - that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of God who died on a cross, returned to life and was seen alive by them. And they were willing to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming this, without any payoff from a human point of view. They faced a life of hardship. They often went without food, slept exposed to the elements, were ridiculed, beaten, imprisoned. And finally most of them were executed in torturous ways. Why? Because they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had seen Jesus Christ alive from the dead. What you can`t explain is how this particular group of men cam up with this particular belief without having had an experience of the resurrected Christ. There`s no other adequate explanation.
Muslims might be willing to die for their belief that Allah revealed himself to Muhammad but this revelation was not done in a publicly observable way. So they could be wrong about it. They may sincerely think it`s true but they can`t know for a fact because they didn`t witness it themselves. However, the apostles were willing to die for something they had seen with their own eyes and touched with their own hands. They were in a unique position not to just believe Jesus rose from the dead but to know for sure. And when you`ve got 11 credible people with no ulterior motive, with nothing to gain and a lot of lose, who all agree they observed something with their own eyes - now you`ve got some difficulty explaining that away.
While most people can only have faith that their beliefs are true, the disciples were in a position to know without a doubt whether or not Jesus had risen from the dead. They claimed that they saw him, talked with him, and ate with him. If they weren`t absolutely certain, they wouldn`t have allowed themselves to be tortured to death for proclaiming that the resurrection had happened.
Exhibit 2: The conversion of skeptics
There were hardened skeptics who didn`t believe in Jesus before his crucifixion - and were to some degree dead-set against Christianity - who turned around and adopted the Christian faith after Jesus` death. There`s no good reason for this apart from them having experienced the resurrected Christ.
The gospels tell us Jesus` family including James, were embarressed by what he was claiming to be. They didn`t believe in him; they confronted him. In ancient Judaism it was highly embarrassing for a rabbi`s family not to accept him. Therefore the gospel writers would have no motive for fabricating this skepticism if it weren`t true.
Later the historian Josephus tells us that James, the brother of Jesus, who was the leader of the Jerusalem church, was stoned to death because of his belief in his brother. Why did James` life change? Paul tells us: the resurrected Jesus appeared to him, there`s no other explanation.
Saul as a Pharisee hated anything that disrupted the traditions of the Jewish people. To him, this countermovment called Christianity would have been the height of disloyalty. In fact, he worked out his frustration by executing Christians when he had a chance. Suddenly he doesn`t just ease off Christians but joins their movement. How did this happen? Everyone agrees Paul wrote Galatians and he tells us himself in that letter what caused him to take a 180-degree turn and become the chief proponent of the Christian faith. By his own pen he says he saw the risen Christ and heard Christ appoint him to be one of his followers.
Muhammad claims he went into a cave and had a religious experience in which Allah revealed the Qur`an to him. There`s no other eyewitness to verify this. Muhammad offered no publicly miraculous signs to certify anything. And someone easily could have had ulterior motives in following Muhammad because in the early years Islam was spread largely by warfare. Followers of Muhammad gained political influence and power over the villages that were conquered and converted to Islam by the sword.
Contrast that with the claims of the early followers of Jesus, including Paul. They claimed to have seen public events that other people saw as well. When Paul wrote 2 Corinthians he reminded the people in Corinth that he performed miracles when he was with them earlier. He`d certainly be foolish to make this statement if they knew he hadn`t. It`s not the simple fact that Paul changed his views. You have to explain how he had this particular change of belief that completely went against his upbringing; how he saw the risen Christ in a public event that was witnessed by others, even though they didn`t understand it and how he performed miracles to back up his claim to being an apostle.
Exhibit 3: changes to key social structures
At the time of Jesus, the Jews had been persecuted for 700 years by the Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians and now by the Greeks and the Romans. Many Jews had been scattered and lived as captives in these other nations. However we still see the Jews today, while we don`t see Hittites, Perizzites, Ammonites Assyrians, Persians, Babylonians and other people who had been living in that time. Why? Because these people got captured by other nations, intermarried and lost their national identity.
Why didn`t this happen to the Jews? Because the things that made the Jews Jews - the social structures that gave them their national identity - were unbelievably important to them. The Jews would pass these structures down to their children, celebrate them in synagogue meetings every Sabbath, and reinforce them with their rituals, because they knew if they didn`t there soon would be no Jews left. They would be assimilated into the cultures that captured them. They believed that to abandon these institutions would be to risk their souls being damned to hell after death.
Now a rabbi named Jesus appears from a lower-class region. He teaches for 3 years, gathers a following of lower and middle class people, gets in trouble with the authorities and gets crucified along with 30,000 other Jewish men who are executed during this time period. But 5 weeks after he`s crucified, over 10,000 Jews are following him and claiming that he is the initiator of a new religion. They`re willing to give up or alter all 5 of the social institutions that they have been taught since childhood have such importance both sociologically and theologically.
Those 5 social structures:
First - they had been taught since the time of Abraham and Moses that they needed to offer an animal sacrifice on a yearly basis to atone for their sins. After the death of this Nazarene carpenter these Jewish people no longer offer sacrifices.
Second - Jews emphasized obeying the laws that God had entrusted to them through Moses. In their view, this is what separated them from pagan nations. Yet within a short time after Jesus` death, Jews were beginning to say that you don`t become an upstanding member of their community merely by keeping Moses` law.
Third - Jews scrupulously kept the Sabbath by not doing anything except religious devotion every Saturday. This is how they would earn right standing with God, guarantee the salvation of their family and be in right standing with the nation. However after the death of Nazarene carpenter, this 1500 year tradition is abruptly changed. These Christians worship on Sunday - because that`s when Jesus rose from the dead.
Fourth - they believed in monotheism - only one God. This is radically different from what the Jews believed. They would have considered it the height of heresy to say someone could be God and man at the same time. Yet Jews began to worship Jesus as God within the first decade of the Christian religion.
Fifth - these Christians pictured the Messiah as someone who suffered and died for the sins of the world whereas Jews had been trained to believe that the Messiah was going to be a political leader who would destroy the Roman armies.
Exhibit 4: Communion and Baptism
The early followers of Jesus came together regularly to have a celebration meal for one reason: to remember that Jesus had been publicly slaughtered in a grotesque and humiliating way. They realized that Jesus` slaying was a necessary step to a much greater victory. His murder wasn`t the last word - the last word was that he had conquered death for all of us by rising from the dead. They celebrated his execution because they were convinced that they had seen him alive from the tomb.
The early church adopted a form of baptism from their Jewish upbringing, called proselyte baptism. When Gentiles wanted to take upon themselves the laws of Moses, the Jews would baptize those Gentiles in the authority of the God of Israel. But in the New Testament, people were baptized in the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - which meant they had elevated Jesus to the full status of God. Baptism was a celebration of the death of Jesus, just as Communion was. By going under the water, you`re celebrating his death, and by being brought out of the water, you`re celebrating the fact that Jesus was raised to newness of life.
There is no hard evidence that any mystery religion beieve in gods dying and rising, until after the New Testament period. So if there was any borrowing they borrowed from Christianity. The practice of baptism came from Jewish customs and the Jews were very much against allowing Gentile or Greek ideas to affect their worship. These 2 sacraments can be dated back to the very earliest Christian community - too early for the influence of any other religions to creep into their understanding of what Jesus` death meant.
Exhibit 5: The emergence of the church
There is no question that the start of the Christian church began shortly after the death of Jesus and spread so rapidly that within a period of maybe twenty years it had even reached Caesar`s palace in Rome. Not only that, but this movement triumphed over a number of competing ideologies and eventually overwhelmed the entire Roman empire.
Only the resurrection makes sense of all 5 uncontested facts.
There is one other category of evidence - it`s the ongoing encounter with the resurrected Christ that happens all over the world, in every culture, to people from all kinds of backgrounds and personalities - well educated and not, rich and poor, thinkers and feelers, men and women. They all will testify that more than any single thing in their lives, Jesus Christ has changed them.
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