TFY’d: 2,000 year old events
We saw in our last Piece that we are certainly justified in holding that the New Testament is historically reliable, and it’s been passed down to us in a way that allows us to be confident that what we are reading was what was actually written. But is that all that can be said? Can we only trust that Jesus existed, and nothing more? Certainly not. In his work, Gary Habermas surveyed publications from 1975-2005 in English, French and German (more than 1400 papers!) and identified 11 events that enjoy almost unanimous support from historians of all stripes, and one event that enjoys the support of about 75%.
These are:
(1) Jesus died due to crucifixion and
(2) was buried afterwards.
(3) Jesus' death caused the disciples to experience despair and lose hope, believing that their master was dead.
(4) Although not as widely accepted, many scholars [75%[1]] acknowledge several weighty arguments which indicate that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was discovered to be empty just a few days later.
Almost all critical scholars further agree that:
(5) the disciples had real experiences which they thought were literal appearances of the risen Jesus. Due to these experiences,
(6) the disciples were transformed from timid and troubled doubters afraid to identify themselves with Jesus to bold preachers of his death and resurrection who were more than willing to die for their faith in him.
(7) This message was the centre of preaching in the earliest church and
(8) was especially proclaimed in Jerusalem, the same city where Jesus had recently died and had been buried.
As a direct result of this preaching:
(9) the church was born,
(10) featuring Sunday as the special day of worship.
(11) James, a brother of Jesus who had been a sceptic, was converted when he believed that he saw the resurrected Jesus.
(12) A few years later, Paul was also converted to the Christian faith by an experience which he, likewise, thought was an appearance of the risen Jesus.[2]
The Resurrection – did it happen?
Although these events enjoy the support of almost all scholars it is in the interpretation and explanation of these events that they differ. Back at The Border we talked about the idea of pictures of reality, of worldviews. Let’s revisit that idea for a minute. The reason the interpretation of these facts differs so much is because of worldviews. If you are a scholar whose worldview includes the supernatural, you might be prepared to accept that something like a resurrection actually took place. If, on the other hand, your worldview excludes the supernatural and contains only the natural then you cannot accept the resurrection hypothesis; you must find an explanation that is consistent with your naturalism. Bear this in mind as we spend the rest of this Piece looking at various interpretations of what are the most important of these twelve facts and show that all natural hypotheses fail and the best explanation is the traditional Christian view that Jesus rose physically and bodily from the dead. Out of the events above, these four are the most important, and are the only ones we will be considering here:
1. Jesus’ death on the cross
2. The empty tomb three days later,
3. The post-mortem appearances to his disciples,
4. The radical transformation in the lives of the disciples and Paul and James.
As we will see, the only interpretation of these events that adequately accounts for all four of these points is the resurrection. Let’s begin with a theory that enjoys little scholarly support these days but is still sometimes heard among lay people: the Swoon or Apparent Death Theory.
Interpretation 1 – Swoon or Apparent Death Theory:
This theory says that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross, and that he was revived by the cool dark tomb, emerging when the stone was rolled away three days later. This interpretation accounts for the empty tomb and the post-mortem appearances, and tries to account for Jesus death, but it is on this point that displays its Achilles’ heel. This theory rests entirely on Jesus’ ability to survive the Roman scourging and crucifixion, so let’s look at the likelihood of that happening. In his book The Case for Christ, investigative reporter Lee Strobel interviews Dr Alexander Metherell on what actually happened to people during a flogging and crucifixion.
If you’ve seen Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ then you already have a pretty good idea, but let’s hear from Dr Metherell on the scourging before crucifixion (be warned – it’s pretty graphic!):
Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal…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…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…it was just terrible… . A third-century historian by the name of Eusebius described a flogging by saying, ‘The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.’
We know that many people would die from this kind of beating even before they could be crucified…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.
The Romans used spikes that were five to seven inches long and tapered to a sharp point. They were driven through the wrists [he indicates a point about an inch below the palm – the wrist was considered part of the hand in the language of the day].
His arms would have been immediately stretched, probably about six inches in length, and both shoulders would have become dislocated…once a person is hanging in the vertical position…crucifixion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation[3]. The reason is that the stresses on the muscles and diaphragm put the chest into the inhaled position; basically, in order to exhale, the individual must push up on his feet so the tension on the muscles would be eased for a moment. In doing so, the nail would tear through the foot, eventually locking against the tarsal bones. After managing to exhale, the person would then be able to relax down and take another breath in. Again, he’d have to push himself up to exhale, scraping his bloodied back against the coarse wood of the cross. This would go on and on until complete exhaustion would take over, and the person wouldn’t be able to push up and breathe anymore.
So ends the graphic description. Is there anyone who, after hearing that, could still believe that Jesus came down from the cross alive? We don’t see how. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say it was possible. It’s not, but let’s say it was. What kind of Messiah would he be? A truly pitiful sight, inches from death, needing to be nursed back to life over a period of weeks, probably months. This is the second hole in the Swoon Theory. If Jesus had survived the cross, and it’s a very big if, would he have really been able to inspire the disciples in the way that he did (Fact 4)? Would they really have been so emboldened as to go to their death proclaiming him as the Risen Lord? No. Would he have been able to walk down the Emmaus road on shattered feet, talking to his disciples mere days after his crucifixion? Not a chance! And without the medical technologies of today, he surely would have died of his wounds. So the Swoon Theory tries to account for two of our four points, but it is really a very weak explanation.
Interpretation 2 – Disciples stole the body:
This theory concedes Jesus’ death, but tries to account for the empty tomb by saying the disciples stole the body. Indeed, this isn’t a new theory; it’s recorded in Matthew 28. The problem with this is that this theory cannot account for the radical transformations of the disciples, James and Paul. If the disciples stole the body, then they knew that the claim that Jesus had risen from the dead was a lie, yet good evidence exists for the fact that they went to their deaths proclaiming it. Why would they die for something they knew to be false? The only motivations could be money or power, neither of which they got. What they got was persecution and poverty, beatings and executions. People don’t put up with that just to maintain a lie that they are not benefitting from.
Interpretation 3 – Wrong Tomb Theory:
Realising the problems with the idea that the disciples stole Jesus’ body, a new version of this theory was proposed by Biblical scholar Kirsopp Lake in 1907[5]. This theory claimed that the women simply went to the wrong tomb and, finding it empty, declared Jesus to have risen. However, if this was the case, don’t you think the Jewish authorities, who certainly knew where he was buried, would have simply pointed that out when the disciples began announcing his resurrection? The dialogue would have gone something like this: “Jesus is risen!”, “No he’s not. There’s his tomb!” Doesn’t seem to hold much explanatory power, does it?
Interpretation 4 – Displaced Body Theory:
This is the theory that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus in his own tomb only temporarily, due to the lateness of the hour, and later moved the body to a common criminal’s grave. The disciples, unaware of this, drew the conclusion that he had risen. Note that this theory attempts to explain the empty tomb, but can say nothing about the post-mortem appearances or the radical transformation. It must be joined with another theory like the hallucination theory to explain these, and we’ll get onto the hallucination theory shortly, but as it stands it explains very little. It is also subject to the same problems as the wrong tomb theory. Why wouldn’t Joseph, a member of the Sanhedrin, make it clear that this is what happened? We have no record of that. We do have a record of the Jewish leaders saying the disciples stole the body, but nothing from Joseph.
Another problem with this is that the criminal’s graveyard was between only 50 and 600 yards from the site of the crucifixion. Burying the body in Joseph’s tomb because of the lateness of the hour makes no sense when it would have been faster to take it directly to the criminal’s grave. Further, Jewish law prohibited the moving of a body, except to a family tomb. So Joseph, a member of the Sanhedrin, would have had to break Jewish law to accomplish what this theory proposes. It sounds less likely the more you look into it!
As mentioned, a further problem with all these theories about the empty tomb is that they don’t account for the post-mortem appearances. There seems to be little doubt in anyone’s mind that the disciples and Paul had experiences that they perceived as being with the risen Christ, which is where we’ll move next. So, let’s have a look at the most common explanation for post-mortem appearances: the Hallucination Theory.
Interpretation 5 – Hallucination Theory:
The most prominent defender of this theory today is German New Testament critic Gerd Lüdemann, and he claims that the disciples’ experiences with the risen Christ are merely hallucinations brought on by them being so overwhelmed with grief and sorrow over Jesus’ death and their abandonment of him. What can be said about this theory? Firstly, hallucinations are an individual event, not something shared by others.
Psychologist Gary Collins has this to say:
Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t something which can be seen by a group of people [like the 500 witnesses Paul mentions in 1 Cor 15:6]. Neither is it possible that one person could somehow induce an hallucination in somebody else. Since an hallucination exists only in the subjective, personal sense, it is obvious that others cannot witness it.[6]
Moreover, 1st Century Jews had no conception of a resurrection outside of the general resurrection of everyone at the end of the world. The idea that an individual would be raised by God and given his resurrection body before that time is a thoroughly un-Jewish notion. Let’s look for a moment at the Jewish beliefs surrounding resurrection.
Both Isaiah 26:9 and Daniel 12:2 speak of the resurrection of the dead, Daniel specifically mentioning the judgment that will accompany it. This resurrection was thought to take place after the end of history – the day of judgement. The late German Lutheran theologian Joachim Jeremias explains the belief:
Ancient Judaism did not know of an anticipated resurrection as an event of history. Nowhere does one find in the literature anything comparable to the resurrection of Jesus. Certainly resurrections of the dead were known, but these always concerned resuscitations, the return to the earthly life. In no place in late Judaic literature does it concern a resurrection to doxa [glory] as an event of history.[8]
Further, the Jewish beliefs were about the resurrection of all people, not an individual. The idea that an individual would be resurrected was not part of their ideas. Ulrich Wilckens says this: “For nowhere do the Jewish texts speak of the resurrection of an individual which already occurs before the resurrection of the righteous in the end time and is differentiated and separate from it... .”[9] So we see that the message of Paul, that Christ had died and rose again and received a glorified body cannot be accounted for by any prior Jewish beliefs.
Even sceptic Dale Allison admits:
If there was no reason to believe that his solid body had returned to life, no one would have thought him, against expectation, resurrected from the dead. Certainly visions of or perceived encounters with a post-mortem Jesus would not by themselves, have supplied such reason.[10]
So even if we grant the hallucination theory, and say that all the appearances of Jesus were mere visions, there is nothing in the mindset of 1st Century Jews that would have led them to believe that Jesus had risen bodily from the grave. And let’s not forget that Paul and James are hostile witnesses to the resurrection. We might claim that his disciples wanted to believe in him so much that they caused themselves to hallucinate, but what would cause James and Paul to do the same? They had no such desire. Paul was perfectly happy persecuting the church, doing what he thought was the Godly thing to do. He had no reason to want to see the risen Jesus.
Finally, the most common cause of hallucinations are some form of substance abuse or drug abuse or some type of mental illness. Are we to believe that all of these witnesses were using hallucinogenic drugs, or were all mentally deranged? I think that stretches the explanatory power of this interpretation too far. Not to mention that this does nothing to explain the empty tomb, forcing us to join it with some other idea like the stolen body theory. Hallucinations are not the answer!
This leads us to the next attempt to explain the idea that Jesus had risen: that the disciples had latched on to the pagan dying and rising Messiahs.
Interpretation 6 – Dying and Rising Messiahs:
This theory has made a comeback in the popular media recently. The movie called Zeitgeist has been doing the rounds, you can even watch the whole thing online, and it strives to show “the comparisons of ancient religions and Christianity”[11]. Among its claims is the idea that Jesus being raised as messiah is simply a notion the early community borrowed from existing pagan mythology. We say this idea has made a comeback recently, because it was originally popular in the late 19th Century, but soon lost almost all scholarly support. It’s enjoyed a resurgence in the popular media, but not in academia for a few reasons. If you’re interested in a more thorough examination of this issue see Lee Strobel’s book The Case for the Real Jesus which has a whole chapter dedicated to this idea.
Firstly, it quickly becomes apparent when you look at these pagan myths that the similarities with Judeo-Christian beliefs are very superficial. Some of these stories, like that of Hercules, are about a hero becoming a god and being assumed into heaven. Others, like Apollonius, claim that the hero vanished into a higher plane. Still others like Osiris and Adonis are seasonal symbols for the crop cycle; as vegetation dies in the dry season it comes back to life in the rainy season. The similarities to the Christian story are very slight. After investigating all of these stories, specialist in comparative ancient Near Eastern literature David Aune states categorically that, “No parallel to them [resurrection traditions] is found in Graeco-Roman biography.”[12]
Secondly, it’s not even clear that any of these stories actually tell of a dying and rising god. Indeed, in the Osiris myth he remains in the nether world of the dead! T. N. D. Mettinger claims that “From the 1930s...a consensus has developed to the effect that the ‘dying and rising gods’ dies 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.”[13] Regarding Baal which has dying and rising of a sort, it is linked to the crop cycle and is a constantly repeating process, not a true resurrection. Jesus, on the other hand, is said to have died once and risen once, not continued to repeat the process. It’s clear that the similarities are very tenuous. Indeed, some of the claimed similarities don’t even exist. For example, you sometimes hear people saying that Mithras was born of a virgin, and Christians borrowed the story. But when you look at the legend of Mithras it actually says he was born out of a rock!
Thirdly, even though the Jews were familiar with these pagan deities, by the time of Jesus they were thoroughly despised by Palestinian Jews. There is no trace of this type of belief in 1st Century Palestine. It stretches credulity too far to believe that the disciples suddenly took on a pagan belief that they had once found abhorrent.
Finally, even if we grant these similarities, that does nothing to refute the truth of our claim. An event must be assessed on its own merits, not on the basis of something it sounds similar to. Let me give you a remarkable example. In the late 1800s a novel called Futility was published that told the story of a massive cruise liner that crashed into an iceberg and sunk. The ship was called the Titan. Sound familiar? It’s eerie how similar the real life tragedy of the Titanic is to the fictional story of the Titan. Let’s look at a few similarities.
Titan | Titanic |
| Sank in April in the North Atlantic | Sank in April in the North Atlantic |
| 800 ft long | 882 foot long |
| Travelling 25 knots when struck iceberg | Travelling 23 knots when struck iceberg |
| Described in the book as being ‘unsinkable’ | Described by people as being ‘unsinkable’ |
| Carried 24 lifeboats, less than 50% of what was needed | Carried 20 lifeboats, less than 50% of what was needed |
| More than half the passengers died | More than half the passengers died |
Now let me ask you – given the remarkable similarities of the story of the Titan to the Titanic, would I be justified in claiming the Titanic never existed because it is similar to the Titan? Of course not! And the similarities here are so much closer than that of the pagan myths and the story of Jesus.
Interpretation 7 – Legendary Development:
One final theory to look at before we finish is the idea that these events are the product of legendary development, that over time they grew from something quite different to what we have today. The problem is that there just wasn’t enough time. We’re going to pass over the question of when the Gospels were written and focus on the creed Paul delivers in 1 Corinthians 15:3 and following:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures...
These verses are the key because of the form Paul uses; he says “for what I received I passed on to you” which scholars know to be the way to introduce an existing oral tradition. So Paul is saying, “the following is a tradition that I received and I am passing it on to you.” When did Paul receive it? He tells us that he visited Jerusalem about 35-36 AD, three years after his conversion in 32-33 AD. Since most scholars date the crucifixion to 30 AD we have Paul receiving an existing tradition that includes Jesus’ resurrection between five and six years after the event, and note that for him to receive it then it had to already exist! Even sceptical scholars recognise this. Gerd Lüdemann admits that “the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion...not later than three years after the death of Jesus.”[14] Even John Dominic Crossan, member of the radical group “The Jesus Seminar” who throw out 80-90% of the words the New Testament ascribes to Jesus, agrees with Lüdemann![15]
Yet some scholars go even further than this, suggesting it dates to 30 AD! James D. G. Dunn says this: “This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.”[16] So we have the church teaching that Jesus rose bodily from the dead somewhere between, at the earliest, months and, at the latest, three years following the crucifixion. This is simply not enough time for legendary embellishment to creep in, especially since there were still hundreds of eye witnesses alive who could testify to the contrary! By comparison, all accounts of miracles attributed to Muhammad, for example, come almost 500 years after the prophet died. Yet again we ask you – why would the disciples go to their deaths for something they invented?
In conclusion, out of all the different ways to interpret the four key facts upon which almost all historians agree, none are able to account for all the facts, and none seem convincing. The only one that covers everything adequately is the traditional Christian view that Jesus actually rose from the dead. There is a lot more that could be said about each of these theories, and a lot more theories that could be discussed, but this will do for now. If you’re interested in investigating these in more detail, the sources we’ve used are all in the footnotes, but I’d especially recommend starting with Lee Strobel’s book The Case for Christ.
Prepared by D. England. Translated for Youth by J. Simmons.
[1] Gary Habermas, ‘Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying?’ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3, 2, 2005.
[2] Gary Habermas, ‘Jesus’ Resurrection and Contemporary Criticism: an Apologetic, Part 1’, Criswell Theological Review, 4, 1, 1989.
[3] Suffocation
[5] W. L. Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008, p374.
[7] Cited in W. L. Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008, pp384-385.
[14] Cited in Gary Habermas, ‘The Resurrection of Jesus Time Line’, in Paul Copan and W. L. Craig (eds), Contending with Christianity’s Critics, Nashville: B&H Academic, 2009, p124.
[15] Cited by Gary Habermas in a lecture given at the Veritas Forum entitled ‘The Resurrection Argument that Changed a Generation of Critical Scholars’, 4 Feb 2008.
[16]Cited in Gary Habermas, ‘The Resurrection of Jesus Time Line’, p124, emphasis in original.
