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.