Risen Hope

In my previous post I began talking about the evidence that supports the fact that Jesus died by crucifixion. Today’s post will complete that one.

The initial post talked about the Multiple, Independent Sources (MIS). This post will cover the rest the remaining principles that historians use to help determine historical facts (EA = Enemy Affirmation; Emb = Embarrassing Testimony; Eye = Eyewitness Testimony; Early = Early Testimony)

Enemy Affirmation
Those who were against Jesus affirmed that he had been put to death. This can be seen in various writings such as the Talmud, Toledoth Jesu, and the writings of Josephus. (Although Josephus was not technically an enemy of Jesus, he was not a follower either – he is more of a disinterested neutral party to the events he records).

Embarrassing Testimony
We see the authors of the Gospels writings all sorts of embarrassing things about themselves as well as Jesus when they are recording his arrest, trial, and crucifixion. The disciples desert Jesus, Peter denies him publicly, no one steps forward to testify on his behalf, Jesus is publicly humiliated through multiple beatings and floggings, Jesus is ultimately nailed to a crucifix, stripped of his clothes, mocked, and left to die.

If this was a made up story, why portray it in this sort of way? All these particular embarrassing details (there are many more besides these) point to the events recorded being historical and true, because anyone serious about starting a new religious movement would not do it in this particular way.

Eyewitness Testimony
Many of the events described are testified to have been witnessed by eyewitnesses such as John and Peter. John and Jesus’ mother, Mary were present at the time of his death and Mary, some other women and Joseph of Arimathea helped to bury Jesus’ dead body.

Early Testimony
Eyewitness testimony is always early testimony because they were eyewitnesses; they were there when the events occurred and that’s as early as one can get. However, there is also the creedal statement found recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7:

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried,
and that He was raised on the third day  according   to the Scriptures,
and that He appeared to  Cephas, then  to the twelve.
After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time,
most of whom remain until now,
but some  have fallen asleep;
then He appeared to James, then to  all the apostles;

I’ll write more on this creedal statement in a future post, but for now critical scholars, both conservative and liberal, date this creed to anywhere between 1-5 years after the event. There are even some who would place this 6 months after his death and resurrection.

Tomorrow I will begin looking at the second fact for the resurrection, that the disciples believed they saw him alive again after his burial.

Taking a short break from all writing to bring you this very short 3 minute video. Enjoy!

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the most accepted facts by scholars is that Jesus died by crucifixion. Today I want to see why this is the case and I will do so by looking in more detail at the grid I built based on historical guidelines in this post.

Where MIS stands for Multiple, Independent Sources for Jesus’ death, we can enumerate those sources here:

1. Gospel of Matthew*
2. Gospel of Mark*
3. Gospel of Luke*
4. Gospel of John*
5. Acts*
6. 1 Corinthians (specifically the creedal statement in 15:3-7)
7. Tacitus
8. Suetonius
9. The Talmud
10. Josephus
11. Lucian of Samosata
12. Mara bar-Serapion
13. Acts of Pilate
14. Thallus

So there are fourteen independent and multiple sources that record Jesus died by crucifixion. This is quite a lot of corroboration. Typically, historians are thrilled when they can get two to three ancient, multiple, independent sources backing up a particular fact, but in this case, there is an overwhelming amount of documentation.

This amount of support led someone like the skeptical scholar John Dominic Crossan to say that Jesus’ crucifixion is as “sure as anything historical can ever be.”[1] It also caused the atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann to say “Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.”[2]

1. John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperCollings, 1991), 145.
2. Gerd Lüdemann. The Resurrection of Christ (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2004), 50.

* Critical scholar’s tend not to accept the four Gospels or Acts. However, they are each independent documents and each independently mention the death of Jesus and so I included them in this list. Even if we remove those from the list, there is still an overwhelming amount of sources that confirm Jesus’ death.

What makes the minimal facts the minimal facts? How do we know that a particular event in the past ought to be considered a fact? Historians use certain general guidelines to allow them to identify when something is a fact and when it is not.

Yesterday, I listed five facts for the resurrection of Jesus. Today, I will attempt to demonstrate why those are considered facts, even by those scholars who do not grant that Jesus rose from the dead (more about the trouble this poses in a future post).

Please keep in mind that these are guidelines and not hard and fast rules. Judgment is required along with taking as much into consideration as possible when determining if something is a fact of history or not. Historical scholars use these guides to help them work through this process when dealing with historical evidences.

Here are some of the principles used to support historical claims:

1. Are there multiple, independent sources? [MIS]
2. Are there any enemies that affirm the event or evidence? [EA]
3. Are there embarrassing admissions by those who are favorable towards the event or evidence? [Emb]
4. Are there any eyewitnesses? [Eye]
5. Are the testimonies and/or sources early in time (close to when the events occurred)? [Early]

So how does the five minimal facts stack up when these questions are applied to each of the facts? Let me remind you of what the five facts are:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion. [Jesus]
2. The disciples believed they saw Jesus alive after his death. [Disciples]
3. The conversion of the church persecutor Paul. [Paul]
4. The conversion of the skeptic and half-brother of Jesus, James. [James]
5. The empty tomb. [Tomb]

I’ll use a grid to graphically layout how these facts grade out against the historical guidelines. The historical principles will be left-to-right across the top of the grid while the minimal facts will go down the left hand-side of the grid. Due to spacing issues on this page, I’ll refer to each in short-hand.

As you can see, this list of data hits on a multiple of the historical guidelines for being considered historical fact. As a result, this has led the vast majority of scholars (even the skeptical ones) to:

1. Conclude that the data are strongly evidenced, and
2. Grant that this is historical evidence that must be accounted for in any hypothesis regarding Jesus post-crucifixion.

It has been a while since I blogged but I figured it was time to dive back in to doing so again.

My goal is to post new content 2-3 times per week as my schedule allows. The main focus of this blog and therefore the content that will be posted will deal with the resurrection. While that will not exclude me from posting other content from time to time, you can expect the majority of the posts to be on something related, either directly or indirectly, to the resurrection. To begin, I thought I would share a semi-long quote with you,

At the heart of Christianity is a cross; and one of the most significant things about it is that it is an empty cross. Christians down the ages have been sure that this his shameful death on that gallows was not the last word about Jesus. He rose from the tomb, and triumphed over death.

This was the belief that turned heartbroken followers of a crucified rabbi into the courageous witnesses and martyrs of the early church. This was the one belief that separated the followers of Jesus from the Jews and turned them into the community of the resurrection. You could imprison them, flog them, kill, them, but you could not make them deny their conviction that ‘on the third day he rose again.’ The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the cornerstone of Christianity. Every year thousands of enquirers examine the evidence for it and put their faith in Jesus. Every year books come out seeking to discredit it.[1]

This is what I will be inviting you to do along with me: examining the historical evidence for the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Let us investigate honestly and openly and allow the evidence to take us to wherever it may lead us. As professor of New Testament Studies, Dr. Daniel Wallace says, “You must pursue the truth rather than protect your presuppositions.” Let us do our best to lay our presuppositions aside and to approach this topic in as objective manner as possible.

1. Michael Green writing in the forward to George Eldon Ladd’s work I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1975.