Arguments For The Resurrection

Front 1

The three primary contemporary obstacles to the resurrection

Back 1

1. Personally, subjectivism. Existential faith vs. rational belief.
2. Generally, methodological naturalism. Miracles are a priori ruled out.
3. Specifically, the Gospels are unhistorical legends or myths.

Front 2

The two steps that structure a historical argument for the resurrection

Back 2

1. Establish the facts.
2. Argue the hypothesis of resurrection is the best explanation.

Front 3

Four factors that are weighed in assessing an inference to the best explanation

Back 3

Explanatory power
Explanatory scope
Plausibility
Degree of being ad hoc

Front 4

Responding to the objection that “we lack direct access to the supernatural”

Back 4

1. Theoretical and historical sciences (physics, paleontology) lack direct access to their explanatory entities (strings, dinosaurs).
2. The historian lacks direct access to all the explanatory entities of history.

Front 5

Craig’s three facts

Back 5

1. Jesus’ tomb was empty
2. A variety of individuals and groups experienced appearances of Jesus.
3. The first disciples came to sincerely believe in the resurrection.

Front 6

Fact #1-the six lines of evidence for the empty tomb

Back 6

1. Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea. This means the location was known to both Jew and Christian. This means the tomb must have been empty once the disciples started preaching the resurrection.
2. The discovery of the empty tomb is multiply attested.
3. Mark’s “The first day of the week” is from ancient tradition. Semitic origin.
4. Markan story is simple and lacks legendary development.
5. It was discovered empty by women. Not credible witnesses, low social status. Any role women could play would be better served by men.
6. Earliest Jewish polemic presupposes an empty tomb (guard story).

Front 7

Five Reasons to believe that Jesus was buried

Back 7

1. Mark’s source material (extremely early)
2. Sources in Matthew, Luke, and John.
3. Preaching in Acts (Acts 13).
4. Paul’s tradition in 1 Corinthians 15 (extremely early)
5. Principle of embarrassment (a Sanhedrist treats Jesus well?)

Front 8

Multiple attestation for the discovery of the empty tomb

Back 8

1. Mark
2. Matthew (adds guard story, responding to Jewish polemic)
3. Luke (adds story of 2 disciples verifying the women’s report)
4. Apostolic sermons (Acts 2)
5. 1 Corinthians 15 (he was buried/he was raised)

Front 9

Development of guard story in Matthew

Back 9

Xian: He is risen!
Jew: No, disciples stole body.
Xian: Guard would have prevented that.
Jew: No, guard fell asleep.
Xian: Jews bribed the guards to say this.

Front 10

Four naturalistic theories to explain the Empty Tomb

Back 10

1. Conspiracy hypothesis.
2. Apparent death hypothesis.
3. Wrong tomb hypothesis.
4. Displaced body hypothesis.

Front 11

Reasons to reject conspiracy hypothesis

Back 11

1. Requires that the gospels are total fabrications.
2. Why do women find the tomb empty?
3. Narratives are too simple.
4. Doesn’t explain how the disciples first believed in a resurrection.
5. Conspiracies fall apart.
6. It is a conspiracy theory!
7. No scholar defends it today. Only suggested in the popular press.

Front 12

Reasons to reject the apparent death hypothesis

Back 12

1. Often a variation on the Conspiracy hypothesis
2. How does Jesus escape the tomb?
3. How do the post-mortem appearances lead to belief in a resurrection?
4. Roman executions were deadly. Spear in his side.
5. Disconfirmed by medical facts, e.g., scourged, crucified, no medical care, food or water for three days.
6. No scholar defends it today.

Front 13

Reasons to reject the wrong tomb hypothesis

Back 13

1. Doesn’t explain Jesus’ appearances.
2. Doesn’t explain the origin of a belief in resurrection.
3. The site of the tomb was known (Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb)
4. Reading the angel as a gardener requires selective cut-and-paste (Accepting “he is not here” but not “He is risen!”)
5. No scholar defends it today.

Front 14

Reasons to reject the displaced body hypothesis (body moved to a criminal grave)

Back 14

1. Nothing about postmortem appearances or origin of belief in resurrection.
2. Earliest Jewish/Christian dispute was over why the tomb was empty.
3. Criminal graveyard was close to the site of crucifixion (makes sense, given who was typically crucified). No need for Joseph to move the body to the criminal graveyard later.
4. Jewish law did not permit the moving of dead bodies, except to the family tomb.
5. We have no evidence for the theory.
6. No scholar defends it today.

Front 15

Fact #2--three lines of evidence for the postmortem appearances of Jesus

Back 15

1. Paul’s list of eyewitnesses in 1 Corinthians 15
2. The Gospel accounts provide multiple, independent attestation of appearances.
3. These appearances were physical, bodily appearances.

Front 16

Who is included in Paul’s list of eyewitnesses in 1 Corinthians 15?

Back 16

Peter
The Twelve
The 500
James, the Lord’s brother
“all the apostles.”
Saul of Tarsus.

Front 17

What are the multiple, independent attestation of appearances in the gospels?

Back 17

1. Appearance to Peter (Luke 24)
2. Appearance to the Twelve (Luke 24, John 20)
3. Appearance to women (Matt 28, John 20, embarrassing)
4. Appearance to disciples (Mark 16, Matt 28, John 21)

Front 18

How do we know that these appearances were physical, bodily appearances?

Back 18

1. Paul implies this (1 Cor. 15.42-44).
2. NT makes a conceptual distinction between appearance and vision of Jesus (e.g., Stephen’s vision in Acts).
3. Gospel accounts are unanimous about this (eats fish, shows wounds).
4. If the gospels were inventions, visionary appearances make more sense, more palatable.

Front 19

What is the primary naturalistic theory to describe the appearances of Jesus?

Back 19

Hallucination theory by Gerd Ludemann

Front 20

Responding to the Hallucination theory

Back 20

1. Doesn’t explain the empty tomb.
2. Doesn’t explain the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection.
3. In the ancient world, visions of the dead are further confirmation that they are dead!
4. Requires hallucination on many occasions, in many places, to different individuals and groups, including unbelievers and enemies.
5. Requires confidence in historical psychoanalysis (e.g., that all the disciples, Paul, James, and the women were prone to hallucinations).
6. Ignores the evidence that Paul was a happy, content, successful Jewish leader before his conversion

Front 21

Fact #3—What are the possible sources for the origin of the Christian faith?

Back 21

1. Christian influences
2. Pagan influences
3. Jewish influences

Front 22

How did Jewish thought understand “Messiah” at the time of Jesus?

Back 22

A triumphant political and military leader,
respected by Jews and Gentiles,
who would establish the throne of David in Jerusalem.

“Jews had no conception of a Messiah who…would be shamefully executed by them as a criminal” (RF, 388)

Front 23

Did the disciples confuse the ideas of ‘ascension’ and ‘resurrection’? (Bultmann)

Back 23

1.There is no evidence that anyone first thought Jesus “went to heaven when he died.”
2. There is no evidence anyone changed this language about Jesus to “he was bodily raised to new life on this earth.”
3. There is no reason to think the change in belief from ascension to resurrection was so complete that all traces of the original view have dropped out of historical sight.
4. Given the early dating of documents discussing ‘resurrection’ this idea can amount to a kind of conspiracy theory.

Front 24

Can Christian influences explain the origin of the disciples’ belief in the resurrection?

Back 24

No, because there was no Christianity yet.
The belief in Jesus’ resurrection was itself the foundation of Christianity, not the other way around.

Front 25

Can pagan influences explain the origin of the disciples’ belief in the resurrection?

Back 25

1. Jesus’ Jewish disciples would have found pagan religions abhorrent.
2. There are no traces of any cults to dying and rising gods in first-century Palestine.
3. Parallels are spurious.

Front 26

What is the background for Jewish beliefs about resurrection?

Back 26

1. Resurrection from the dead is explicitly mentioned in Isaiah 26.19, Ezekiel 37, and Daniel 12.2.
2. The resurrection from the dead became a widespread hope in the intertestamental period.

Front 27

Can Jewish influences explain the origin of the disciples’ belief in the resurrection?

Back 27

No - three reasons:
1. The crucifixion itself ruled out Jesus as a possible Messiah.
2. In Jewish thought the resurrection always occurred after the end of the world. It took place “on the last day.” (E.g., John 11 – Martha, Lazarus story).
3. In Jewish thought the resurrection was always the resurrection of all the righteous or of all the people, never an isolated individual.

Front 28

Would the discovery of an empty tomb lead to belief in resurrection?

Back 28

1. No – hallucinations, as projections of the mind, contain nothing new.
2. No – available belief was that Jesus was translated or assumed into heaven, like Enoch or Elijah.

(Translation is the bodily assumption of someone out of this world into heaven).

Front 29

Is the resurrection hypothesis ad hoc?

Back 29

1. No – it occurs within a specific religious-historical context in which a supernatural hypothesis is in line with everything else about his life and teaching.
2. The resurrection is understood as the divine vindication of Jesus’ radical personal claims.

Front 30

What categories do the supposed pagan parallels to the resurrection actually fall into?

Back 30

a. Apotheosis stories, where the hero is divinized and taken into heaven (Hercules, Romulus).
b. Disappearance stories, where the hero goes to a higher sphere (Apollonius of Tyana)
c. Seasonal symbols for the crop cycle (Osiris, Adonis).
d. Political expressions of Emperor worship (Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus)
e. Some are not even parallel at all. For instance, Osiris never comes back to life but “simply continues to exist in the nether realm of the departed.”