13 The Minimal Facts Approach

At this point, one may begin to wonder about objections to the reliability of the New Testament. After all, this book has not considered objections to the reliability of the New Testament. So what about these objections? For example, what about the alleged contradictions in the New Testament?

The initial response is that most objections related to contradictions confuse a contradiction with a difference. Differences do not equal contradictions. Moreover, many of these apparent contradictions have already been addressed in other books, such as The Big Book of Bible Difficulties.

Another reason I have not dug too deeply into additional objections is that my primary focus has been on providing the positive considerations. I did so by systematically considering numerous reasons scholars have come to view these writings as largely reliable. Thus I have been able to provide a rather substantial cumulative case based upon these positive considerations.

The main reason, however, I have not focused on those details is that my final consideration has to do with the minimal facts approach. The minimal facts approach highlights the exceptionally strong reliability of key Gospel events. Gary Habermas developed this approach, and it has become the most widely used approach when presenting the historical data for Jesus’ resurrection. Although this approach focuses on Jesus’ resurrection, it could be applied to other areas of Jesus’ life, early Christianity, or any other historical event. The approach has been applied to everything from the shroud of Turin to American history.

THE CRITERIA OF HABERMAS’S MINIMAL FACTS APPROACH

Part of the reason for the minimal facts approach’s success is that it focuses on events that are not only highly evidenced but also widely agreed on by scholars from diverse theological backgrounds (conservative, liberal, agnostic, atheist, Jewish, etc.). The minimal facts approach only uses two criteria. They can be simply stated:

1. A minimal fact must be well attested, with multiple lines of evidence.

2. The data must be accepted by virtually all scholars, including the more skeptical ones.

Of these two criteria, the first one is by far the most important. The minimal facts approach is emphatically not saying that something is true simply because everyone says so. Rather, it “considers only those data that are so strongly attested historically that they are granted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones.”

Figure 13.1. The minimal facts approach

The minimal facts approach does not seek to address the reliability question directly. However, there are implicit implications for New Testament reliability since the minimal facts approach uses the historicity of the core events surrounding the message of the gospel. Rather than demonstrating the reliability of the New Testament as a whole, it seeks to highlight the reliability of key Gospel events themselves and work from the bottom up. Accordingly, it avoids most objections that apply to the traditional reliability arguments because it uses data that scholars, including the skeptical ones, already grant as historical. In other words, it uses some of the most reliable facts.

I should point out that when arguing for the reliability of the New Testament, one is also implying the historicity of the events reported within the New Testament (i.e., the gospel). The minimal facts approach is different because it seeks to establish these events first and is not addressing broader reliability issues. One way to think of the minimal facts approach might be to consider it as the opposite side of the same coin. Both eventually argue for the historicity of the events of the gospel but do so in different ways.

Introducing some of these highly evidenced and widely agreed-on facts will be helpful. While one’s audience will frequently indicate which facts to use, depending on their level of skepticism, some of the most commonly presented facts are the following:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.

2. The disciples had experiences of the risen Jesus.

3. The disciples were willing to suffer and die for their beliefs.

4. James, Jesus’ skeptical brother, converted.

5. Paul, a persecutor of the church, converted.

We also saw in

(Creedal Traditions) that there is wide agreement that this information is reported very early. One can see that there is a connection between these historical data points and those in the creed beginning in 1 Corinthians 15:3 (death, appearances, etc.). Occasionally, the empty tomb is also discussed in this context as well, though with qualification and nuance.

AN EXAMPLE: JESUS’ DEATH BY CRUCIFIXION

With these things in mind, let us unpack this argument by focusing on one of these facts to help illustrate how the minimal facts approach works. Consider one of the clearest examples: Jesus’ death by crucifixion. I will be able to only briefly present some of the multiple lines of evidence for this minimal fact, but they are:

■ Multiply attested: Jesus’ death by crucifixion is reported in an extraordinary number of sources. Not only is it mentioned throughout New Testament sources (Gospels, Paul’s writings, etc.), but it is also mentioned in multiple non-Christian sources (e.g., Tacitus, Annals 15.44).

■ Reported early: Jesus’ death is reported in the earliest Gospel, Mark, as well as in Paul’s writings, which are earlier still. Moreover, it is reported in the early creeds and hymns, such as the highly respected formula in 1 Corinthians 15:3, which is typically dated to the early 30s AD.

■ Embarrassing in nature: Paul recognizes the embarrassing nature of crucifixion in 1 Corinthians 1:23. He points out that Jesus’ crucifixion was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. For Jews, Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says that anyone who is hung on a tree is cursed by God. For Gentiles, crucifixion was the type of death reserved for slaves and lower classes.

■ “Strauss critique”: David Strauss was a critic of Christianity who lived in the nineteenth century and is widely considered to have defeated the swoon theory (i.e., that Jesus did not actually die on the cross). In short, his argument states that if Jesus had survived the cross, it would have been impossible for him—being bloodied, swollen, bruised, and beaten—to convince the disciples that he conquered the grave and was the Prince of Life.

While several other lines of evidence could be added, the four presented are sufficient for the present purposes. These lines of evidence have convinced virtually all scholars across a wide theological spectrum that Jesus’ death is a historical fact. Consistent with the second criterion of the minimal facts approach, scholars who accept Jesus’ death include, but are not limited to, the following:

■John Dominic Crossan: “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”

■Craig Keener: “To claim that Jesus died by crucifixion is also not controversial. . . . [Jesus’ followers] would not have invented it. Following a leader crucified for treason made the followers themselves liable to the same charge.”

■James D. G. Dunn: “That Jesus was crucified on the direct authority of Pilate himself need not be doubted for a minute.”

■Bart Ehrman: “The most certain element of the tradition about Jesus is that he was crucified on the orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. The crucifixion is independently attested in a wide array of sources and is not the sort of thing that believers would want to make up.”

■Shimon Gibson: “What seems certain is that the crucifixion took place during Pontius Pilate’s governorship of Judea, between 26–36 CE, and while Caiaphas was serving as the Jewish High Priest in Jerusalem, between 18–36 CE.”

■Pinchas Lapide: “The death of Jesus . . . may be considered historically certain.”

■Brant Pitre: “If we know anything about Jesus of Nazareth, it is that he was put to death by crucifixion.”

Here we see several authors from vastly different backgrounds theologically, all of whom are persuaded by the multitude of evidence that Jesus died by crucifixion.

The above illustrates how the minimal facts approach works in practice for Jesus’ death. When combined with other facts, a strong case for the gospel is built on the reliability of these specific events. There will be minimal objections to these facts, since they receive wide scholarly support. Moreover, the minimal facts have repeatedly raised problems for alternative theories that try to account for the data, with the exception of Jesus’ resurrection. This approach has been so effective that Angus Menuge recently wrote that the minimal facts approach explains why “one skeptical alternative after another to the historical fact of the resurrection has been abandoned, leaving critics with shrinking cover to hide from Christ’s claim on their life.” In other words, these few facts have been incredibly, and surprisingly, difficult for alternative theories to account for while Jesus’ resurrection explains them comfortably.

Thus, we have yet another angle supporting the reliability of the events reported in the New Testament. This angle is one that is able to avoid certain rabbit trails and focus on the gospel itself. Concerns regarding alleged contradictions, while important, can be taken into account and reserved for later discussions, while focus given to that which is of “first importance” according to Paul. Once these central events have been addressed, we can then move to other reliability considerations. If we consider the traditional reliability approach to be top down, we might consider the minimal facts approach as building from the bottom up. Again, they are two sides of the same coin.

KEY TAKEAWAYS: MINIMAL FACTS APPROACH

■The minimal facts approach uses two criteria: (1) facts that are supported by multiple lines of historical reasoning and (2) facts that are widely agreed on by scholars from various backgrounds (from skeptics to believers).

■The minimal facts approach uses a bottom-up approach that begins with the most reliable events.

■The minimal facts approach is one of the most popular and effective ways of presenting and discussing Jesus’ resurrection.

13 The Minimal Facts Approach