Can One Justifiably Infer Jesus’ Resurrection on the Basis of Empirical Evidence?
1
ON JESUS
On Assessing Jesus and Pagan Mythological Allusions
Dr. Craig,
Thank you for your help in all that you do to show the truth that is in Christ. I really only have one question, and, to be honest, it frustrates me to no end. It occurs almost every single time I discuss Christianity with someone.
The question of “Is Jesus a copied myth or real person?” is the source of objection I get most of the time. They put in all of the similarities from Christ to other mythological gods and star constellations and then they say, “See how close they are?”
It seems no matter how I refute a certain similarity between Christ and another mythological belief, they don’t take what I say very seriously because they object that I have “Worked way too hard to save my religion.”
How sound is their case? Is it even debated at the highest levels of scholarship anymore?
I really would like to hear your insight on this matter because I keep on running into it and I’m frankly tired of trying to refute every single similarity.
Thank you for all that you have done. I was once an atheist, but the argument for objective moral values and duties was the one that led me to Christ.
Kevin
(country not specified)
Dr. Craig’s Response
The late Robert Funk, founder of the radical Jesus Seminar, used to complain bitterly of the chasm that exists between high scholarship and popular beliefs about Jesus. Funk was thinking primarily of the insulation of popular piety from historical Jesus scholarship; but nowhere does the chasm yawn wider than between popular impiety and historical Jesus studies.
The Free Thought movement, which fuels the popular objection that Christian beliefs about Jesus are derived from pagan mythology, is stuck in the scholarship of the late nineteenth century. In one sense this is flabbergasting, since there are plenty of contemporary skeptical scholars, like those in the Jesus Seminar, whose work Free Thinkers could avail themselves of in order to justify their skepticism about the traditional understanding of Jesus. But it just goes to show how out of touch with scholarly work on Jesus these popularizers are. They are a hundred years out of date.
Back in the heyday of the so-called History of Religions school, scholars in comparative religion collected parallels to Christian beliefs in other religious movements, and some thought to explain those beliefs (including belief in Jesus’ resurrection) as the result of the influence of such myths. Today, however, scarcely any scholar thinks of myth as an important interpretive category for the gospels. Scholars came to realize that pagan mythology is simply the wrong interpretive context for understanding Jesus of Nazareth.
Craig Evans has called this shift the “Eclipse of Mythology” in Life of Jesus research.1 So James D. G. Dunn begins his article on “Myth” in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels with the flat disclaimer, “Myth is a term of at best doubtful relevance to the study of Jesus and the gospels.”2 Sometimes this shift is referred to as “the Jewish reclamation of Jesus.” For Jesus and His disciples were first-century Palestinian Jews, and it is against that background that they must be understood. The Jewish reclamation of Jesus has helped to make unjustified any understanding of the gospels’ portrait of Jesus as significantly shaped by mythology.
This shift is pronounced with respect to the historicity of Jesus’ miracles and exorcisms. Contemporary scholars may be no more prepared to believe in the supernatural character of Jesus’ miracles and exorcisms than were scholars of previous generations. But they are no longer willing to ascribe such stories to the influence of hellenistic divine man (theios aner) myths. Rather Jesus’ miracles and exorcisms are to be interpreted in the context of first-century Jewish beliefs and practices. Jewish scholar Geza Vermes, for example, has drawn attention to the ministries of the charismatic miracle workers and/or exorcists Honi the Circle-Drawer (first-century BC) and Hanina ben Dosa (first-century AD), and interprets Jesus of Nazareth as a Jewish hasid or holy man. Today the consensus of scholarship holds that miracle-working and exorcisms (bracketing the question of their supernatural character) most assuredly do belong to any historically acceptable reconstruction of Jesus’ ministry.
The collapse of the old History of Religions school took place primarily for two reasons. First, scholars came to realize that the alleged parallels are spurious. The ancient world was a virtual cornucopia of myths of gods and heroes. Comparative studies in religion and literature require sensitivity to their similarities and differences, or distortion and confusion inevitably result. Unfortunately, those who adduced parallels to Christian beliefs failed to exercise such sensitivity. Take, for example, the story of the Virgin Birth, or, more accurately, Jesus’ virginal conception. The alleged pagan parallels to this story concern tales of gods assuming bodily form and having sexual intercourse with human females to sire divine-human progeny (like Hercules). As such, these stories are exactly the opposite of the gospel story of Mary’s conceiving Jesus apart from any sexual relations. The gospel stories of Jesus’ virginal conception are, in fact, without parallel in the ancient Near East.
Or consider the gospel event of most interest to me: Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Many of the alleged parallels to this event are actually apotheosis stories, the divinization and assumption of the hero into heaven (Hercules, Romulus). Others are disappearance stories, asserting that the hero has vanished into a higher sphere (Apollonius of Tyana, Empedocles). Still others are seasonal symbols for the crop cycle, as the vegetation dies in the dry season and comes back to life in the rainy season (Tammuz, Osiris, Adonis). Some are political expressions of emperor worship (Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus). None of these is parallel to the Jewish idea of the resurrection of the dead. David Aune, who is a specialist in comparative ancient Near Eastern literature, concludes, “no parallel to them [resurrection traditions] is found in Graeco-Roman biography.”3
In fact, most scholars have come to doubt whether, properly speaking, there really were any myths of dying and rising gods at all! In the Osiris myth, one of the best known symbolic seasonal myths, Osiris does not really come back to life but simply continues to exist in the nether realm of the departed. In a recent review of the evidence, T. N. D. Mettinger reports: “From the 1930s … a consensus has developed to the effect that the ‘dying and rising gods’ died but did not return or rise to live again…. Those who still think differently are looked upon as residual members of an almost extinct species.”4 Mettinger himself believes that myths of dying and rising did exist in the cases of Dumuzi, Baal, and Melqart; but he recognizes that such symbols are quite unlike the early Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection:
The dying and rising gods were closely related to the seasonal cycle. Their death and return were seen as reflected in the changes of plant life. The death and resurrection of Jesus is a one-time event, not repeated, and unrelated to seasonal changes…. There is, as far as I am aware, no prima facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construct, drawing on the myths and rites of the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world. While studied with profit against the background of Jewish resurrection belief, the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus retains its unique character in the history of religions. The riddle remains.5
Notice Mettinger’s insight that the belief in Jesus’ resurrection may be profitably studied against the background of Jewish resurrection beliefs (not pagan mythology). Here we see that shift in New Testament studies I flagged above as the Jewish reclamation of Jesus. The spuriousness of the alleged parallels is just one indication that pagan mythology is the wrong interpretive framework for understanding the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection.
Second, the History of Religions school collapsed as an explanation of the origin of Christian beliefs about Jesus because there was no causal connection between pagan myths and the origin of Christian beliefs about Jesus. Take, for example, the resurrection. Jews were familiar with the seasonal deities mentioned above and found them abhorrent. Therefore, there is no trace of cults of dying and rising gods in first-century Palestine. For Jews, the resurrection to glory and immortality would not take place until the general resurrection of all the dead at the end of the world. It boggles the imagination to think that the original disciples would have suddenly and sincerely come to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was risen from the dead just because they had heard of pagan myths about dying and rising seasonal gods.
But, in a sense, all this is irrelevant to your main question, Kevin. For, as you indicate, the people you’re talking to are impervious to scholarship. When you point out to them the spuriousness of the alleged parallels, then you’re accused of “working too hard to save your religion.” This is a no-win situation for you. So I’m inclined to say that you should not go about “trying to refute every single similarity.” Rather I think a more general and dismissive attitude on your part may be more effective.
When they say that Christian beliefs about Jesus are derived from pagan mythology, I think you should laugh. Then look at them wide-eyed and with a big grin, and exclaim, “Do you really believe that?” Act as though you’ve just met a flat earther or Roswell conspirator. You could say something like, “Man, those old theories have been dead for over a hundred years! Where are you getting this stuff?” Tell them this is just sensationalist junk, not serious scholarship. If they persist, then ask them to show you the actual passages narrating the supposed parallel. They’re the ones who are swimming against the scholarly consensus, so make them work hard to save their religion. I think you’ll find that they’ve never even read the primary sources.
INSIGHT
Notice the cleverness and wisdom of this approach. Sometimes this really is the best means of letting the pretentious air out of the room.
If they ever do cite a primary source passage, I think you’d be surprised what you find. For example, in my debate on the resurrection with Robert Price, he claimed that Jesus’ healing miracles were derived from mythological healing stories like those concerning Asclepius. I insisted that he read to us a passage from the primary sources showing the purported parallel. When he did so, the tale he produced bore no resemblance whatsoever to the gospel stories of Jesus’ healing miracles! It was the best proof that the stories were not genealogically related.
Remember: anyone pressing this objection has a burden of proof to bear. He needs to show that the narratives are parallel and, moreover, that they are causally connected. Insist that they bear that burden if you are to take their objection seriously.
On What It Means for Jesus to Be the Son of God
Hello, Dr. Craig!
First of all, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m from Pakistan, and it’s been a spell that I’m listening to you and watching your debates with intellectuals whose beliefs are on the contrary to yours. I am literally thrilled by your standard of epistemology, reasoning, and knowledge. The good news is that I have embraced Christ Jesus and trying my best, day by day, to walk in Him.
I saw your debate with the Muslim scholar, namely Dr. Badawi, and saw him objecting that the central Christian word, i.e., “Trinity” is not recorded in the Bible. But that was an arbitrary argument from Dr. Badawi’s side because he knows that the word “Tawheed”—which is the central word for the concept of God in Islam and is one of the five pillars upon which Islam is erected—does not exist in the Qur’an! So, does that make that word unacceptable for Muslims? No. Likewise, if a Muslim objects to the concept of the Trinity merely because it’s not written by name in the Bible, literally, then that Muslim has to abandon and revoke the concept of Tawheed, since it doesn’t exist in the Qur’an.
As usual, you formulated your arguments in a very compelling, coherent, and eloquent manner and Dr. Badawi couldn’t address those issues. That was quite evident.
My question to you is: “Jesus is called God’s Son in the Bible just like other righteous people. So, what makes Jesus different than others when it comes to the entitlement of sonship of God?”
M.
Dr. Craig’s Response
I’m thrilled that you’ve come to believe in Christ Jesus as your Savior and Lord, M.! (I’ve abbreviated your name just in case you’re still in Pakistan.) You are correct that the validity of a theological concept doesn’t in any way depend upon the vocabulary used to express it. The question you raise is an important and interesting one, which I address in the third edition of my Reasonable Faith. I’ll draw upon that discussion in answering your question here.
As I mentioned in the debate with Dr. Badawi, we have good historical grounds for thinking that Jesus understood Himself to be and claimed to be the Son of God. First, Jesus’ parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard (Mark 12:1–9) tells us that Jesus thought of Himself as God’s only son, distinct from all the prophets, God’s final messenger, and even the heir of Israel itself. Notice that one cannot delete the figure of the son from the parable as an inauthentic, later addition, for then the parable lacks any climax and point. Moreover, the uniqueness of the son is not only explicitly stated but inherently implied by the tenants’ stratagem of murdering the heir in order to claim possession of the vineyard. So this parable discloses to us that the historical Jesus believed and taught that He was the only Son of God.
Second, Jesus’ self-concept as God’s Son comes to explicit expression in Matthew 11:27 (RSV) (cf. Luke 10:22), “All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Here Jesus claims to be the exclusive Son of God and the only revelation of God the Father to mankind. This saying tells us that Jesus thought of Himself as God’s Son in an absolute and unique sense and as having been invested with the exclusive authority to reveal His Father God to men.
Finally, Jesus’ saying concerning the date of the consummation: “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32 RSV) again speaks of the Son in terms implying uniqueness.
On the basis of these three sayings, we have good evidence that Jesus thought of Himself as the unique Son of God. It’s true that Jewish kings were referred to as God’s sons (2 Sam. 7:14; 1 Chron. 17:13; 22:10; Psalm 2:6–7; 89:26–27), and in wisdom literature the righteous man could be characterized as God’s child, having God as his father (Wisdom 2:13, 16, 18; 5:5; Sirach 4:10; 51:10). Such generic usage is, however, irrelevant to Jesus’ claim to divine Sonship, given the uniqueness and exclusivity of His claim. Jesus thought of Himself as God’s Son in a singular sense that set Him apart even from the prophets who had gone before.
But what was that sense? We must not conclude too hastily that the title was an implied claim to divinity. It might be that Jesus thought of Himself as God’s unique Son in the sense that He was the promised Messiah. The Jewish pseudepigraphal work IV Ezra 7:28–29 speaks of Messiah as God’s son but nonetheless as mortal. The Dead Sea scrolls also show that the Messiah was thought to be God’s son (4Q174; 4Q246; 1QSa 2:11-12). The uniqueness of Jesus’ Sonship could be a function of the uniqueness of the Messiah.
On the other hand, it must be said in all honesty that these Jewish texts do not even approach the sort of absoluteness and exclusivity claimed by Jesus of Nazareth in the sayings mentioned above. There’s nothing in Dead Sea texts to suggest that the Messiah would be the unique Son of God. Being the Messiah might set Jesus apart from all the prophets who had come before Him and make Him the heir of Israel, as claimed in the parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard, but being Messiah would not give Him exclusive knowledge of the Father and absolute revelatory significance, as claimed in Matt. 11:27. Moreover, the saying in Mark 13:32 not only discloses Jesus’ sense of unique sonship but also presents us with an ascending scale of status from men to angels to the Son to the Father. Jesus’ sense of being God’s Son involved a sense of proximity to the Father that transcended that of any mortal man (such as a king or prophet) or any angelic being.
Such an exalted conception of God’s Son is not foreign to first-century Judaism. The New Testament itself bears witness to this fact (Col. 1:13–20; Heb. 1:1–12). In IV Ezra 13, Ezra sees a vision of a man arising out of the sea who is identified by God as “my Son” (13:32, 37) and who proceeds to subdue all the nations. Ezra asks,
O sovereign Lord, explain this to me: Why did I see the man coming up from the heart of the sea?
He said to me, “Just as no one can explore or know what is in the depths of the sea, so no one on earth can see my Son or those who are with him, except in the time of his day.” (IV Ezra 13:51–52; cf. 13:26)
That there are other persons presently with the Son prior to His earthly appearance suggests that the Son is a pre-existent, heavenly figure. This becomes quite clear in 14:9 when Ezra is told that his own life is about to end and that he is going to be with God’s Son until He is revealed at the end of time: “You shall be taken up from among men, and henceforth you shall live with my Son and those who are like you, until the times are ended.” It’s intriguing that there is a differentiation made between the pre-existent Son and the righteous, human dead like Ezra who are with him. The Son is clearly set apart as a supernatural figure.
Moreover, as I show in Reasonable Faith, the title “Messiah” itself was also a title that could be infused with connotations of divinity. Titles like “the Son of God” and “the Messiah” were multivalent and, therefore, inherently ambiguous without a context. In order to understand the meaning that Jesus invested in such self-descriptions we need to look at the context of His whole life and proclamation, and when we do, it becomes clear that He was claiming superhuman status.
On Assessing Independent Sources for Jesus’ Burial and Empty Tomb
Dr. Craig,
I am having a difficult time understanding something that you have said with respect to the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. You say that the four gospels are “independent” attestations of events and, therefore, things like Jesus’ burial in a rock-hewn tomb and the discovery of that rock-hewn tomb empty are virtually certain to be historical. But couldn’t the gospels all be dependent on common oral traditions or on those gospels written first (i.e., didn’t at least Matthew and Luke have Mark available to them?). Basically, my question is: How do you arrive at your conclusion that the four gospels are independent instead of dependent attestations of events?
Dave
Dr. Craig’s Response
I’m glad to clarify this issue, Dave, because some people seem to have misunderstood me when I argue that Jesus’ burial and empty tomb are independently attested in multiple sources. The claim here is not the naïve assertion that because these events are mentioned in more than one gospel they thereby enjoy multiple, independent attestation.
Rather as I stated in my recent debate with Richard Carrier, the burial account is part of Mark’s source material for the story of Jesus’ Passion. This is a very early source, which is probably based on eyewitness testimony and dates to within several years of Jesus’ crucifixion. Moreover, Paul in his first letter to the church of Corinth also cites an extremely early source for Jesus’ burial which most scholars date to within a few years or even months of the crucifixion. Independent testimony to Jesus’ burial by Joseph is also found in the special sources used by Matthew and Luke and in the Gospel of John. Historians consider themselves to have hit historical pay dirt when they have two independent accounts of the same event. But we have the remarkable number of at least five independent sources for Jesus’ burial, some of which are extraordinarily early.
Mark’s Passion source didn’t end with Jesus’ burial, but with the story of the empty tomb, which is tied to the burial account verbally and grammatically. Moreover, Matthew and John rely on independent sources about the empty tomb. Jesus’ empty tomb is also mentioned in the early sermons independently preserved in the Acts of the Apostles (2:29–31; 13:36–37), and it’s implied by the very old tradition handed on by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 15:4). Thus, we have multiple, early attestation of the fact of the empty tomb in at least four independent sources.
Notice the focus is on the early, independent sources used by the New Testament authors.
First and foremost is the Passion source that Mark used in writing his gospel. Whereas most of Mark’s gospel consists of short anecdotal stories strung like pearls on a string, when we get to the final week of Jesus’ life we encounter a continuous narrative of events from the Jewish plot during the Feast of Unleavened Bread through Jesus’ burial and empty tomb. The events of the Last Supper, arrest, execution, burial, and empty tomb were central to the identity of early Christian communities. According to James D. G. Dunn, “The most obvious explanation of this feature is that the framework was early on fixed within the tradition process and remained so throughout the transition to written gospels. This suggests in turn a tradition rooted in the memory of the participants and put into that framework by them.”6 The dominant view among NT scholars is, therefore, that the Passion narratives are early and based on eyewitness testimony.7 Indeed, according to Richard Bauckham, many scholars date Mark’s Passion narrative no later than the 40s (recall that Jesus died in AD 30).8 So we’re dealing here with an extraordinarily early source.
Now, Matthew and Luke probably knew Mark’s gospel, as you note, and used it as one of their sources. But the differences between Mark and the other Synoptics point to other independent sources behind Matthew and Luke. These differences are not plausibly explained as due to editorial changes introduced by Matthew and Luke because of (i) their sporadic and uneven nature (e.g., Mark: “tomb which had been hewn out of rock”; Matthew: “tomb which he hewed in the rock”; (ii) the inexplicable omission of events like Pilate’s interrogating the centurion; and (iii) Matthew and Luke’s agreeing in their wording in contrast to Mark (e.g., Matt. 27:58 = Luke 23:52) “This man went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.” Also the phrase translated “wrapped it in linen” is identical in Matthew and Luke. How could Matthew and Luke have independently chosen exactly the same wording in contrast to Mark? They both probably had another source. Indeed, as we’ll see when we get to the empty tomb account, differences between Matthew and Luke emerge that suggest multiple sources.
Moreover, John is generally believed to be independent of the Synoptic gospels. As Paul Barnett points out, “Careful comparison of the texts of Mark and John indicate that neither of these gospels is dependent on the other. Yet they have a number of incidents in common: For example … the burial of Jesus in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.”9
Finally, the old tradition handed on by Paul to the Corinthian church, which is among the earliest traditions identifiable in the NT, refers to Jesus’ burial in the second line of the tradition. That this is the same event as the burial described in the gospels becomes evident by comparing Paul’s tradition with the Passion narratives on the one hand and the sermons in the Acts of the Apostles on the other. The four-line tradition handed on by Paul is a summary of the central events of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial by Joseph of Arimathea, the discovery of His empty tomb, and His appearances to the disciples.
What about the empty tomb account? First, it was also part of the pre-Markan Passion narrative. The empty tomb story is syntactically tied to the burial story; indeed, they are just one story. For example, the antecedent of “him” (Jesus) in Mark 16:1 is in the burial account (15:43); the women’s discussion of the stone presupposes the stone’s being rolled over the tomb’s entrance; their visiting the tomb presupposes their noting its location in 15:47; the words of the angel “see the place where they laid him” refer back to Joseph’s laying Jesus’ body in the tomb.
As for the other gospels, that Matthew has an independent tradition of the empty tomb is evident not only from the non-Matthean vocabulary (e.g., the words translated “on the next day,” “the preparation day,” “deceiver,” “guard [of soldiers],” “to make secure,” “to seal”; the expression “on the third day” is also non-Matthean, for he everywhere else uses “after three days”; the expression “chief priests and Pharisees” never appears in Mark or Luke and is also unusual for Matthew), but also from Matt. 28:15: “this story has been spread among Jews till this day,” indicative of a tradition history of disputes with Jewish non-Christians. Luke and John have the non-Markan story of Peter and another disciple inspecting the tomb, which, given John’s independence of Luke, indicates a separate tradition behind the story. Moreover, we have already seen that John’s independence of Mark shows that he has a separate source for the empty tomb.
The early sermons in Acts are likely not created by Luke out of whole cloth but represent early apostolic preaching. We find the empty tomb implied in the contrast between David’s tomb and Jesus’: “David died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day.” But “this Jesus God has raised up” (2:29–32; cf. 13:36–37). Finally, the third line of the tradition handed on by Paul summarizes, as I have said, the empty tomb story. The German NT critic Klaus Berger concludes: “Without a doubt the grave of Jesus was found to be empty, and, moreover, the texts about it are not in general dependent upon Mark.”10
Thus, the burial and empty tomb of Jesus enjoy multiple, early, independent attestation. While some of these traditions could be variations on a common tradition (such as Luke and John’s tradition of the disciples’ inspection of the empty tomb in response to the women’s report), they cannot all be so regarded because they narrate different events. Even in the case of variations on a common tradition, we are pushed back so early, as Dunn emphasizes, that we must now ask what events occurred to leave such an early impression on the tradition, and the obvious explanation is the burial of Jesus in the tomb and the discovery of the empty tomb. While multiple, independent attestation alone would not render the burial and empty tomb “virtually certain,” keep in mind that this is but one line of evidence among many, so that the cumulative case for these facts is very powerful, indeed.
On the Significance of the Witness of the Pre-Pauline Tradition to the Empty Tomb
Dr. Craig,
I have a few questions regarding some of your arguments in your article, “The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus.”11 My questions center around your claims that we can establish that Paul believed and knew about the empty tomb.
First off, you discuss the formula that Paul uses in 1 Cor. 15:3–5, and you claim that it is a very old Christian formula that Paul probably received on his visit to Jerusalem following his conversion. Therefore, you say that this formula can probably be dated back to within five years of Christ’s death. You base your belief that this formula is an old Christian tradition on its “Semitic and non-Pauline characteristics” and on Paul’s claim that this gospel formula is something that he received.
However, in Paul’s epistle to the Gal. (3:11–12, 15–18) he says,
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ … But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter …
Paul seems to claim that he didn’t receive the gospel which he preached and specifically outlined in 1 Cor. 15:3–5 from man, but from God in some special revelation. Therefore, how do you reconcile your belief that Paul received and consequently preached the old Christian formula of 1 Cor. 15:3–5 with what Paul says in Galatians 3? In addition, what are the Semitic and non-Pauline characteristics that are exhibited in 1 Cor. 15:3–5?
Lastly, you conclude that Paul’s claim that Christ rose “on the third day” is indicative of a physical resurrection and, consequently, an empty tomb. You say that colloquial usage of the phrase “on the third day” in the formula and within Christian writings is probably “a time indicator for the events of Easter, including the empty tomb, employing the language of the Old Testament concerning God’s acts of deliverance and victory on the third day, perhaps with texts like Jonah 2:11 and Hos. 6:2 especially in mind.” However, it seems to me that the dating of the resurrection on the third day could also just as easily have been the result of Christ appearing to the disciples (not even necessarily on the third day) and their remembrance numerous claims that He would rise on the third day (e.g., Matt. 12:39–40; 16:21; 17:22–23; 20:17–19; 27:63, etc.). How do you know that the development of the phrase “on the third day” was not the result of many predictions to His disciples and others that He would rise on the third day? Sorry for the long question. I’ve just been studying your arguments for the resurrection, and these are some questions that I can’t seem to resolve.
Jacob
(country not specified)
Dr. Craig’s Response
The evidence that Paul is not writing in his own hand in 1 Cor. 15:3–5 is so powerful that all New Testament scholars recognize that Paul is here passing on a prior tradition. In addition to the fact that Paul explicitly says as much, the passage is replete with non-Pauline characteristics, including, in order of appearance: (i) the phrase “for our sins” using the genitive case and plural noun is unusual for Paul; (ii) the phrase “according to the Scriptures” is unparalleled in Paul, who introduces scriptural citations by “as it is written”; (iii) the perfect passive verb “has been raised” appears only in this chapter and in a pre-Pauline confessional formula in 2 Tim. 2:8; (iv) the phrase “on the third day” with its ordinal number following the noun in Greek is non-Pauline; (v) the word “appeared” is found only here and in the confessional formula in 1 Tim. 3:16; and (vi) “the Twelve” is not Paul’s nomenclature, for he always speaks of the twelve disciples as “the apostles.”
Now, the visit during which Paul may have received this tradition is the visit you mention three years after his conversion on the road to Damascus (Gal. 1:18). This puts the tradition back to within the first five years after Jesus’ death in AD 30. So there’s not even an apparent inconsistency with Paul’s appropriating the language of the formula to encapsulate the gospel he was already preaching during those first three years in Damascus.
The only way there would be even an apparent tension would be if Paul received the tradition while in Damascus at the very beginning. In that case, in light of the evidence, we’d have to say that Paul is putting his own “spin” on things to the Galatians to his own advantage.
But does Paul’s statement in Gal. 1:11–12 imply that he received no oral tradition like 1 Cor. 15:3–5 while in Damascus? I think not. “His” gospel, of which Paul was so proud, was the gospel of God’s grace freely bestowed on Jew and Gentile alike without discrimination. It was this gospel that he later laid before the Jerusalem apostles to make sure that he was not running in vain (Gal. 2:2). But they were happy for Paul to take the gospel to the Gentiles as they had to Jews. Paul’s receiving this insight into the gospel by direct revelation is not at all inconsistent with his learning the basic events of Christ’s passion rehearsed in the early formula. Indeed, since he had been a persecutor of the early church, he was probably familiar with the basic events already as a non-Christian.
As for the “third day” motif, it is more probable that this is tied to the empty tomb tradition than to the appearance traditions. The phrase appears in the third line of the formula, which is a summary of the empty tomb narrative.12 It seems to be a theologically loaded rendering of the phrase “the first day of the week,” which is used in the empty tomb narrative. Notice, too, that the third day is always associated with the event of Jesus’ rising from the dead, never with the appearances.
The problem with reading the third day motif off Jesus’ resurrection predictions alone, rather than as a time indicator of when the tomb was discovered empty, is that the prophecies are not as strongly attested historically as the empty tomb itself. Indeed, they’re often regarded as having been written after the fact. So if you accept their authenticity, there’s no basis remaining for the even more strongly attested fact of the empty tomb. If the early proclaimers of Jesus’ resurrection chose to adopt the language of His prophecies, that was because the tomb had, in fact, been discovered empty on the first day of the week, the third day after Christ’s crucifixion.
Can One Justifiably Infer Jesus’ Resurrection on the Basis of Empirical Evidence?
I’ve been seeing an argument against Jesus’ resurrection making the rounds on the Internet. It says basically:
1. If it cannot be established that Jesus transformed into a supernatural body after He rose from the dead, then the Resurrection cannot be established.
2. It cannot be established that Jesus transformed into a supernatural body after He rose from the dead.
3. Therefore, the Resurrection cannot be established.
It seems to say that even if Jesus somehow survived death, there is no evidence whatever that He rose in an immortal/indestructible body. Therefore, the argument grants a resurrection of sorts, but not the supernatural kind the New Testament describes. Thus, the divine claims of Christ cannot be established by resurrection evidence.
An illustration that often accompanies the argument is that of a man who claims to be impervious to gunfire and can melt objects with lasers from his eyes. Even if he demonstrates this, should one believe his further claim that he could withstand a nuclear-bomb blast? The skeptic says no, because a nuke explosion is so much greater than mere gunfire and lasers.
In the same sense, even if Jesus came back to life, that is infinitely inferior to His more amazing claim to be God! Can you help?
Sincerely,
Don
Dr. Craig’s Response
The argument seems to assume that one must establish proof of Jesus’ resurrection by proving He had a supernatural body after He was raised. This really isn’t an argument against Jesus’ resurrection, Don. Rather it’s an attempt to prove that you can’t justifiably infer Jesus’ resurrection on the basis of empirical evidence. It’s an attempt, not to refute the resurrection of Jesus, but to undercut a historical argument for Jesus’ resurrection. As such, it’s of interest to Christian apologists but needn’t be of concern to most Christians, who don’t base their belief in Jesus’ resurrection on historical evidence.
INSIGHT
Notice this important clarification and contextualization of the objection.
This objection to a historical case for Jesus’ resurrection owes its origin to Greg Cavin, who published an article about it in the journal Faith and Philosophy a number of years back.13 The nerve of the argument is that even if everything the gospels report concerning Jesus is established to be true, the inference to Jesus’ resurrection is unwarranted because “resurrection” in the full Jewish sense of that term meant entry into an immortal, indestructible bodily condition. But how could you prove that the post-Easter Jesus could have survived a nuclear bomb blast? If you can’t prove that, then you haven’t proved His resurrection in the full, theological sense of that term.
I have to say in all candor that this objection has always struck me as a mere cavil. It could be pressed, perversely, even by one of the very eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, such as doubting Thomas, which surely suggests that something has gone awry here.
In fact, the argument goes awry at a number of levels. First, the Christian apologist doesn’t claim to have proof of Jesus’ resurrection. In fact, the apologist needn’t be understood to be arguing for Jesus’ resurrection in the full, theological sense of the word. You’ll notice that in my own case, what I identify as the Resurrection Hypothesis is the statement “God raised Jesus from the dead.” That’s all I mean by “resurrection.” Such a claim is an assertion of a miracle, an event caused by God, which is naturally impossible. As Cavin himself argued in another context,14 that all the cells in Jesus’ body should naturally come back to life is incomprehensibly improbable, so that even his own outrageously improbable Twin Theory (a.k.a. the “Dave” Theory, after the Kevin Kline movie) is preferable to such a naturalistic hypothesis. So if the Resurrection Hypothesis is, as I claim, the best explanation of the evidence, then one is justified in inferring a supernatural act of God on behalf of Jesus. Whether this event also involved Jesus’ risen body being invested with properties of invulnerability, indestructibility, etc., can be left as open questions for theological reflection.
ARGUING AN INFERENCE TO THE BEST EXPLANATION
Second, the objection seems to misconstrue the case for Jesus’ resurrection, even in the full sense of that word, as a deductive argument rather than as an inference to the best explanation. The objector seems to think that the Christian apologist needs to be able to deduce logically from the evidence that, for example, Jesus could have survived cholera or an automobile crash. But that’s not the way an inductive argument works. For any data set there will be an infinite number of hypotheses that are consistent with the data. To use a well-known example, think of a set of points plotted relative to two axes. There is an infinite number of lines that could be drawn through those same points, some curving wildly before connecting the dots. But does that mean that a scientist drawing a smooth curve through those points is making an unjustifiable inference about the implications of the data? Of course not! He infers that the relatively straight line correctly interprets the data on the grounds of its comparative simplicity.
Similarly, in inferring that Jesus was risen from the dead in the full, Jewish sense of that term, one is inferring to the best explanation of the data. Here, the religio-historical context of the event is the key to its proper interpretation. Given its Jewish context, if the God of Israel has raised Jesus, thereby vindicating His allegedly blasphemous claims by which He put Himself in God’s place, then the most natural inference is that Jesus’ resurrection has occurred in advance, ahead of the general resurrection which was the Jewish hope. This conclusion is especially manifest if Jesus predicted His death and resurrection by Israel’s God, for He was speaking of resurrection in the full Jewish sense. It would be grossly ad hoc and un-Jewish to assert that a better explanation was that Jesus was raised but was still susceptible to, say, malaria or being electrocuted. Such a hypothesis is consistent with the data but fails hopelessly as an inference to the best explanation.
THE RESURRECTION DEMONSTRATES GOD’S VALIDATION OF JESUS’ CLAIMS
Third, this same point applies with respect to justifying Jesus’ claims to divinity. The argument is not that only a divine being can be raised from the dead or that Jesus’ divinity can be deduced logically from His resurrection. Rather, the claim is that given the religio-historical context of Jesus’ own radical self-understanding and blasphemous personal claims, not to mention His activity as a miracle-worker, exorcist, and herald of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom, God’s raising Jesus from the dead is most plausibly understood as God’s ratification of those claims.
I recall a wonderful illustration of this sort of inference related by the Christian philosopher Tom Morris in his book Making Sense of It All. Tom writes:
For many years I did not myself understand how exactly miracles were supposed to function as marks of divine truth until I met a most extraordinary man. I was living in a vacation house out in the woods on seven acres of land with two other graduate students during my first semester at Yale. A man from the adjoining property introduced himself one day and told me that the night before we had moved in, he had found a motorcycle gang camped in the woods between our houses. It was three a.m., he said, when he appeared among them and persuaded them to leave. He explained that he often roamed the woods at night and hunted when he couldn’t sleep because of old war injuries. Unzipping his windbreaker, he showed me the .44 magnum long-barreled handgun in a shoulder holster he always carried with him. “Sometimes makes the folks at the bank a little nervous,” he added with a smile and a wink.
Subsequent visits and inquiries on my part led to some war stories that were definitely movie material. He was in a special unit trained in all the relevant martial arts. He could kill at a distance with any projectile—a ballpoint pen, a number two pencil. He and a Shoshone Indian were the only members of his unit to make it back from the Second World War. And that was after he had been shot by a tank. I was invited to feel the hole in this bear-of-a-man’s shoulder, while the stories grew in drama. Jumping from planes behind enemy lines, slitting open German attack dogs mid-leap, capturing and eliminating Nazi offers with piano wire. The strategies, the close calls, the exciting escapes. Better than in the movies. One day I saw a medallion on the front bumper of his pickup truck inscribed with the name of a town in Connecticut and “Honorary Police Chief.” I asked about this.
‘Oh, it was nothing, Tom. I was just drivin’ down the street one day a few years ago and I see out behind a building four guys beatin’ up some cop they had on the ground. Well, I couldn’t let that happen, so I got outta the truck and stopped it. The mayor thought it was nice of me to help out, so he made me honorary chief of police.’
I asked, ‘What happened to the four guys?’ He replied, ‘Let’s just say they had a nice long stay in the hospital.’
The stories got more elaborate, and I began to wonder whether they could possibly all be true. We had gone far beyond any of the war and spy stories I had ever heard or seen on the big screen. At a certain point, anyone would become unsure that all this could possibly be true.
Then, one day, sitting on an outdoor deck playing my guitar, I was stung by the largest, most menacing-looking wasp I had ever seen. The sting was extremely painful and the spot on my left calf immediately began to redden and swell. I became dizzy. Within a minute or two I couldn’t walk. The pain was terrible, the swelling was huge, and a housemate had to practically carry me over to the neighbor’s for a ride to the hospital. Upon opening his back door, he looked at my face and said, ‘My God, Tom what’s wrong with you?’ We explained quickly as he ushered us into his house.
‘Sit down,’ he said, motioning to an armchair beside us in the den. I did, with pain. I expected him to get his keys, but instead he looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Now, don’t worry about a thing. I’m going to have to do something to help you out, but you may not want to watch.’ I did want to watch. I’m a philosopher. I’m incurably curious. ‘We’ve got to stretch out your leg,’ he said as he pulled it by the foot, lifting it and propping it up on his own knee as he squatted in front of me. He then joined his two burly hands, thumbs sticking up, and with a sudden, violent motion, crammed them into the back of my left knee, hitting it so hard I thought I was going to see my kneecap bounce off the ceiling (and only this year, sixteen years later, have I had a little trouble with the knee). He then raked his thumbs down the length of my calf hard, two or three times. Then he looked up and said, ‘Stand up. You should be fine within a couple of minutes.’ I stood up, unassisted, with almost no pain. I put weight on the leg, testing it. No pain, I looked down and was shocked to see that the swelling was almost gone, a little bump where a large egg-sized hill had been. ‘You OK?’ he asked. I was OK, and so were all his stories.
‘How did you do that?’ I asked. He said, ‘Oh, it’s just a little trick we needed when guys would get screwed up from the night jumps. We had to be able to fix anything.’ From that time on I ceased to doubt any of his stories, however dramatic.
And not too long afterward, I realized that there was a connection between how the events of that afternoon had enhanced the credibility of all his extraordinary stories and how miracles were supposed to do the same for Jesus’ teaching and for the extraordinary claims about him made by early Christians. Remarkable actions corroborate remarkable stories. If, in order to explain some astonishing deed, you have to postulate that a person is in touch with some source of knowledge and power far beyond the ordinary, and it is just some such rare status that would be needed to render the claims about that person credible, then witnessing that deed or hearing about it from some very trustworthy source can serve to raise the credibility of the stories, even to the point of banishing all practical doubt. This is what happened with me and my neighbor, and it is just what … could happen with our judgment about Jesus.15
The miraculous act of God’s raising Jesus from the dead is plausibly taken to be God’s vindication of Jesus’ radical personal claims for which He was crucified as a blasphemer. In light of God’s raising Jesus, Jesus’ personal claims to divinity take on a new credibility. The resurrection is God’s imprimatur on those extraordinary claims.
1. See Evans’ excellent article “Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology,” Theological Studies 54 (1993): 3–36.
2. James D. G. Dunn, “Myth,” Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1993), 566.
3. David Aune, “The Genre of the Gospels,” in Gospel Perspectives II, R. T. France and David Wenham, eds. (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981), 48.
4. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East (Stockholm, Sweden: Almquist & Wiksell International, 2001), 4, 7.
5. Ibid., 221.
6. J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 765–66.
7. Mark Allen Powell, “Book Review of The Birth of Christianity,” JAAR 68:1 (2000): 171.
8. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 243.
9. Paul Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1997), 104–5.
10. From Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie (1993), 436.
11. This article can be accessed for free at ReasonableFaith.org (http://bit.ly/HistoricityOfEmptyTomb).
12. See comparative chart in The Son Rises, 49–50.
13. Robert Greg Cavin, “Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence to Establish the Resurrection of Jesus?” Faith and Philosophy 12:3 (July 1995): 361–79.
14. See Robert Greg Cavin, “Miracles, Probability, and the Resurrection of Jesus: A Philosophical, Mathematical, and Historical Study,” PhD dissertation (Irvine: University of California, 1993).
15. Thomas V. Morris, Making Sense of It All (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 177–80.