Notes
Notes
1. For just two examples of this approach as applied to the resurrection of Jesus, see Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, Mo: College Press, 1996); Habermas with Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2004). These and other texts may be consulted for much of the discussion in this chapter.
2. Matt. 28:11–15; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 108; Tertullian, On Spectacles, 30. Also, a Jewish writing from much later, the Toledoth Jesu, presents a similar account (Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 205–206; cf. Maier below, 200–202).
3. For many details on the Jewish view, see especially N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), chapters 3–5.
4. Paul L. Maier, In the Fulness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 197.
5. When scholars count source attestation, they do not simply count the Gospels as four independent texts. They count what they perceive to be the number of different reports from which the various Gospel accounts were derived. On the empty tomb, depending on the scholar, we have anywhere from three to six very early sources. Besides the three to four sources that scholars think they can find in the Gospel texts at this point, we also have the potential early creedal statement in Acts 13:29–30, 35–37, the implications of Paul's early creedal report in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5. This does not even count the later but still useful reports by Justin Martyr and Tertullian.
6.James D. Tabor, “Two Burials of Jesus of Nazareth and the Talpiot Yeshua Tomb,” SBL Forum, 1–2.
7. Jodi Magness, “Has the Tomb of Jesus Been Discovered?” Biblical Archaeology Review, 3/5, 3.
9. Tabor, “Two Burials of Jesus of Nazareth and the Talpiot Yeshua Tomb,” 1–2, 4.
11. quoted in “Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” William Lane Craig, Truth Journal, http://www.leaderu.com/ truth/1truth22.html
12. For many details, besides the sources above, see Gary R. Habermas, “Experiences of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection,” Dialog: A Journal of Theology, Vol. 45 (Fall, 2006), 288–297; Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What Are Critical Scholars Saying?” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Vol 3 (2005), 135–153.
13. For this list in a slightly different form, see Habermas, “Experiences of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection,” 289–293.
14. Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (S.F.: Harper Collins, 1998), 454; Helmut Koester, History and Literature of Early Christianity, Vol. 2 of Introduction to the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 84.
17. As noted above, this is disputed. See Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington, The Brother of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2004).
19. The Epistle refers to Jesus as “Lord” and “Christ” (James 1:1; 2:1).
22. Jesus' bones should have been buried in the family tomb about five years earlier. I address James Tabor's objection in Buried Hopes or Risen Savior? The Search for the Jesus Tomb edited by Charles L. Quarles, B&H Publishing Group, 2008.
23. For James' martydom, see Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 20:9:1. For Peter's and Paul's martyrdom, see Clement of Rome, Corinthians 5.
24. Especially in Tabor, “Two Burials of Jesus of Nazareth and the Talpiot Yeshua Tomb.”
25. We must remember here what we said at the outset of this chapter. Our point is assuredly not that their view is wrong because the New Testament says so. The point is that with all the evidence that we have in support of the historical facts that we are using here, they are mistaken precisely because their hypothesis is refuted by that data at every turn. This is why virtually all scholars have reacted so strongly against their ideas.
26. I have addressed the possibility of a spiritual resurrection in the Appendix.