Thomas Alderman

Minimal Facts

I. Introduction.

Recent posts to this space have had to do with the New Testament (NT) scriptures: the preservation of the Gospel tradition during its oral phase between the Ascension and the writing (“Jesus and the Eyewitnesses,” May 13, 2024 post); the honesty of the authors of the NT (“As to Their Honesty,” April 23, 2024 post); the historical accuracy of the Gospels (“He is Risen,” March 30, 2024 post); and the integrity of the recovered text of the New Testament (“The Recovery of the New Testament,” February 18, 2024 post). But there is also a recent movement among biblical scholars to advocate for the Resurrection of Jesus on the basis of what is known as “minimal facts” methodology. Liberty University New Testament scholar Gary R. Habermas explains in his just-out book, On the Resurrection: Evidences (B&H Academic, 2024).

II. The New Testament as History.

In recent years, there has developed a near unanimity among bible scholars as to the historicity of most of the facts surrounding the death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus, as related by the authors of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. While only a “strong minority” acknowledge the Resurrection itself, both liberal and conservative scholars have acceded to the rest of the narrative. This is progress, and it will come, if I am not mistaken, as news to most people!

James Charlesworth, for instance, lists twenty areas of consensus among Jesus researchers and states that “In contrast to [Rudolf] Bultmann’s time [1884-1976], it is now being recognized that there is considerable and reliable bedrock historical material in the Gospels.”¹ Here Charlesworth is referring to the former insistence on discounting the historical value of any Bible pericope which cannot be verified by extrinsic evidence. And Habermas does not state this explicitly, but he implies that this elevation of the historical status of the New Testament is the result of the application to the Bible of the same criteria which historians employ in evaluating other sources. The fact is that by those standards, the Gospels are by far the very best sources of information about Jesus’ times. Notably, this new-found respect for the NT is an artifact of the last 30 years of Bible scholarship!

That’s what I mean when I say this is probably news to most people: it takes time for expert knowledge to filter down from the universities to the man in the street. Scholars may know the evidence supports the Resurrection while the average person is still stuck in early twentieth-century skepticism. Someone needs to tell them!

Bible scholars now recognize that much of what we know about those times comes from the Bible. Robert Funk, a founder and prominent member of the skeptical Jesus Seminar, states that “a disinterested, neutral observer” could acknowledge that Jesus was a teacher, healer, and exorcist; that the Romans executed him by crucifixion under Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate. He further states that after the crucifixion Jesus’ disciples were convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead and had appeared to them, as a result of which their lives were transformed.² Jewish historian Geza Vermes recites many of the same facts, along with others. And E. P. Sanders, who, according to Habermas, “ranks as one of the most influential scholars in the Third Quest for the historical Jesus,” states that it is “not in dispute” that “the resurrection experiences of the disciples provided the motivating force behind the proclamation of Jesus as the Christ and as Lord. . . .”³

III. “Minimal Facts” Methodology.

Habermas identifies twelve facts which “are acknowledged as historical by virtually all researchers who investigate this area.” From that list he distills six that he considers “most essential to the overall research that addresses the historicity of the occurrences in question.”⁴ In addition, he includes one other fact – the empty tomb – because it is as strong evidentially as the other six facts but “is still not considered as one of the six minimal facts since it does not strictly meet the second standard of being almost unanimously recognized by critical scholars.”⁵ The empty tomb is accepted, instead, by “only” a “significant majority” of Jesus researchers.⁶

THE KNOWN OR ACCEPTED HISTORICAL FACTS

Here are the list of twelve facts, followed by the list of six essential facts.

1. Jesus died due to the effects of Roman crucifixion.

2. Jesus was buried, most likely in a private tomb.

3. Afterwards, the disciples were discouraged, bereaved, and despondent, having their previous hope challenged.

4. The tomb in which Jesus was probably buried was discovered to be empty very soon after his interment.

5. The disciples reported experiences that they thought were actual appearances of the risen Jesus.

6. The teaching and proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection and the subsequent appearances took place very early after the disciples’ experiences.

7. These experiences accounted for the disciples’ lives becoming thoroughly transformed, even to the point of being willing to die for their belief.

8. The disciples’ reports, preaching, and teaching of these resurrection experiences took place in the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified and buried shortly before.

9. The gospel message centered on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

10. The gatherings of the Christian community began at approximately this same time, featuring the first day of the week as a frequent time for worship.

11. James, the brother of Jesus and a skeptic or at least an unbeliever before his conversion, most likely believed and became a follower after he also believed that he saw the risen Jesus.

12. Just a few years later, Saul of Tarsus (Paul) also became a Christian believer due to an experience that he also concluded was an appearance to him of the risen Jesus.⁷

And the six “minimal facts:”

1. Jesus died due to the effects of Roman crucifixion.

2. The disciples afterwards reported experiences that they thought were actual appearances of the risen Jesus.

3. These experiences accounted for the disciples’ lives becoming thoroughly transformed, even to the point of being willing to die for their belief.

4. The proclamation of Jesus’s resurrection and appearances took place very early, soon after the experiences themselves.

5. James, the brother of Jesus and a skeptic before his conversion, most likely believed after he also thought that he saw the risen Jesus.

6. Just a few years later, Saul of Tarsus (Paul) also became a Christian believer due to an experience that he also concluded was an appearance to him of the risen Jesus.

+ 1 The private tomb in which Jesus was probably buried was discovered to be empty shortly after his death.⁸

Habermas writes:

Sanders concludes in an epilogue on the resurrection: “That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact.” Moreover, numerous alternative theories are unsuccessful in explaining these events in natural terms. For example, he “was not a ghost, or a resuscitated corpse, or a badly wounded man limping around.” Nor was this a case of deliberate fraud or “mass hysteria.” But “we know that after his death his followers experienced what they described as the ‘resurrection’: the appearance of a living but transformed person who had actually died. They believed this, they lived it, and they died for it.”⁹

Habermas continues:

What makes this summation all the more impressive is that, far from very few of these scholars being conservative, the preceding list includes a Jewish historian who was agnostic regarding the nature of Jesus’s appearances (Vermes), a well-known and well-published atheist New Testament scholar (Ehrman), cofounders of the Jesus Seminar (Funk, Borg), another critical New Testament scholar influenced by the skeptical Second or New Quest movement for the historical Jesus (Perrin), plus a post-Bultmannian New Testament researcher who differed significantly on the nature of the resurrection appearances (Marxsen). And while all of these critical scholars allow historical items such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is a very influential, self-styled “liberal, modern, secularized Protestant” (Sanders) who states more than once that the general consensus among scholars is that Jesus actually did appear in some sense to his disciples after his death. This is simply remarkable.”¹⁰

IV. Criteria of Historicity.

Habermas then explains why each minimal fact commands the assent of the scholarly community by recounting the ways in which each fact, respectively, thoroughly satisfies the historiographical criteria by which historians generally evaluate any claim to historicity:

Early attestation

Eyewitness testimony

Multiple attestation

Dissimilarity (A particular saying may be attributed to someone if it cannot plausibly be attributed to anyone else. The very idea that anyone but Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount seems highly unlikely, for instance.)

Palestinian origin (Sayings in the Aramaic language, for example. The raising of Jairus’ daughter and the cry of dereliction come to mind.)

Embarrassment (Frankly acknowledging words or events which place the author or others in a negative light may reflect a commitment to truth-telling. Mark and Peter, for example, are unflinching in describing Peter’s repeated failures.)

Enemy attestation (The Jews to this day claim that the body was stolen, which means the tomb must have been empty.)

V. The Evidence.

Space does not permit a detailed discussion of the ways all the minimal facts satisfy these criteria. Perhaps the central facts of all, however, would be that the disciples had experiences which they were thoroughly convinced were encounters with the risen Christ and that they were transformed as a result of those experiences from cowering fugitives to on-fire evangelists. Why do these fact-claims command nearly universal assent, even among skeptical scholars? A summary of the evidence for those two “minimal facts” may suffice for present purposes.

EARLY ATTESTATION

At 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, Paul writes:

³For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.

⁶After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

⁷Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,

⁸and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus occurred two or three years after the Crucifixion. Three years later – but before he wrote 1 Corinthians – he visited Jerusalem and conferred with Peter and James – eyewitnesses – for 15 days. Paul’s purpose in making this trip was to determine whether he and the Jerusalem apostles were preaching the same Gospel. It is thus likely, says Habermas, that the statement which was to become 1 Cor 15:3-7 had been formulated before Paul’s arrival, was given to him at that time, and was later incorporated into his letter. Richard Bauckham concurs: “All scholars recognize here an early tradition that was formulated even before Paul’s own call to be an apostle. . . .”¹¹ And by whom was it formulated? It was formulated by Peter, James, and the other eyewitnesses, and that puts us “on top of the historical events themselves.”¹²

MULTIPLE ATTESTATION

The appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is attested at least twice (Luke 24:13-35 and Pseudo-Mark 16:12-13).

The appearances to the Eleven are attested ten times (1 Cor 15:5b, 7b; Matt 28:16-20; Luke 24:36-39; John 20:19-21; and Ign. Smyrn. 3:2b-3); Acts 10:39; Gos. Peter 9:1-10:5; Mark 14:27-28, 16:7; Mark 16:14-20.

The appearance to Paul: 1 Cor 9:1; 15:8; Acts 9:3-19, 22:1-16; 26:9-18.

Mary Magdalene: Matt 28:9-10; John 20:11-18; pseudo-Mark 16:9-11.

Peter: 1 Cor 15:5a; Luke 24:12; John 20:2-10; Luke 24:34; Ign. Smyrn. 3:2a; John 21:15-23.

James: 1 Cor 15:7a; Gos. Thom. 12; Gospel of the Hebrews 7.

Habermas comments: “If significant contradictory information opposed the minimal historical items in crucial aspects, then they would hardly be accepted by virtually all researchers. Yet, these events are acknowledged as historical precisely because of the literally dozens of pointers to the truth.”¹³ Further, he encourages the reader, “When considering this exceptionally large number of sources, [to] recall historian Paul Maier’s assertion that ‘many facts from antiquity rest on just one ancient source, while two or three sources in agreement generally render the fact unimpeachable.'” [Habermas, 289.]

EMBARRASSMENT

Here are a few of the more significant instances in which the impetus to truth-telling was strong enough to overcome the instinct to preserve one’s reputation:

That the leader of the movement should die by crucifixion

That Jesus’ disciples abandoned Him in the garden

That Peter denied Him three times

That the empty tomb was discovered by the women

DISSIMILARITY

That Messiah should suffer and die

ENEMY ATTESTATION

The Jewish leaders claimed the body had been stolen.

As Habermas states, “a stronger case could hardly even be imagined.”¹⁴

Many scholars have crossed the threshold of the Kingdom. I am reminded of the similar experience of Simon Greenleaf, the 19^th Century’s leading expert on the law of evidence and a founder of Harvard Law, who set himself to refute the Gospel and instead became a follower of Christ. Habermas summarizes:

. . . [A] greater number of critical scholars proceed beyond the disciples’ belief here and conclude that Jesus was truly raised from the dead and actually appeared in some real sense. As noted at the outset of this chapter, eminent researcher E. P. Sanders actually ranks the actual appearances of the risen Jesus as part of the “equally secure facts” and places them among the historical data that are most widely accepted by recent scholars, thereby enjoying widespread critical attestation. Even Alison joins these scholars in acknowledging firmly, “I am sure that the disciples saw Jesus after his death.” Strauss and many other critics did not confess anything like this – hence the huge difference between “then” and “now”! Such affirmations proceed beyond the normal scholarly recognition witnessed in the past, and at the most crucial junction in Christian belief as well. Not to recognize these developments is to miss a vital cog in the contemporary ethos.¹⁵

The Disciples’ Transformations

The impact which their encounter with the risen Christ had on the disciples is also abundantly clear. Both secular sources (Tacitus, Pliny, Trajan, Josephus, and Mara bar Serapion) and Christian (Clement, Ignatius) back this up. Peter, Paul, James the brother of Jesus, James the son of Zebedee, all were martyred, along with “an immense multitude,” according to the Roman historian Tacitus, who were crucified, torn by animals, or burned alive. Pliny conceded that true Christians could not be forced to recant. “It is no wonder, then,” says Habermas, “that contemporary critical scholars, even including skeptics of several varieties, rarely challenge or doubt that Jesus’ disciples were radically transformed from fearful followers of Jesus or even unbelievers into courageous proclaimers of their faith.”¹⁶

As far as the other minimal facts are concerned, I encourage the reader to purchase the book. For present purposes, it is sufficient merely to note that Habermas shows that the nearly universal assent to all of the “minimal facts” is also based on solid evidence. To my mind, the Resurrection would be most powerfully presented on the basis of three minimal facts – the empty tomb, the disciples’ belief that they had seen the risen Christ, and their resulting transformation – together with the fact that there simply is no plausible naturalistic explanation for these events.

Jesus is alive, and if you only believe what is right in front of you, your sins are forgiven, and you have a glorious, eternal future in the Kingdom of God.

ENDNOTES

¹Charlesworth, “Jesus Research Expands with Chaotic Creativity,” in Images of Jesus Today, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Walter P. Weaver (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity press International, 1994), 6. (Cited by Gary R. Habermas, On the Resurrection: Evidences (B&H Academic, 2024), Kindle Edition, 152.)

²Robert V. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (New York: Harper Collins, 1996), 32-40, 220-222, 264-71. (Cited by Habermas, 133.)

³E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 3. (Cited by Habermas, 135.)

⁴Gary R. Habermas, On the Resurrection: Evidences (B&H Academic, 2024), Kindle Edition, 145, 147; my emphasis.

⁵Habermas, 148.

⁶Habermas, 146 n 53.

⁷Habermas, 145-146.

⁸Habermas, 148-149.

⁹Habermas 135.

¹⁰Habermas, 145. My emphasis.

¹¹Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2d ed. 2017), 578. (Cited by Habermas, 375.)

¹²Habermas, 381.

¹³Habermas, 403.

¹⁴Habermas, 419.

¹⁵Habermas 434-435.

¹⁶Habermas, 528.

We Will All See Him

In my review of Bruce M. Metzger’s book, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, published last February, I described a deliberate change in the text of Mark 14:62. The statement of Jesus to the high priest that he, the high priest, would see the son of man “coming with the clouds of heaven” was deleted in order to avoid the appearance that the Lord had made a factual error, since, in fact, the high priest would die long before Jesus’ return. (I added as an editorial comment that “the high priest may yet see Him coming on the clouds!” – by which I meant that the high priest will be raised on the last day along with everyone else, and both the living and the dead will see Him.)

Then at the end of church service last Sunday, the pastor pronounced a benediction which included Revelation 1:7, which says:

Look, he is coming with the clouds,

And every eye will see him,

Even those who pierced him. . . .

The textual critic who deleted Jesus’ statement, and Metzger and Ehrman, and I, too, we all overlooked the fact that scriptures themselves specifically address this very situation!

The Lord, He makes no mistakes. And we will all soon see Him.

Just Supposing

Suppose, just hypothetically, that you were satisfied as to all of the following:

That the text of the New Testament, as originally written, has for all practical purposes, been fully recovered, as shown by Bruce Metzger and summarized herein at blog post “The Recovery of the New Testament” (February 18, 2024); and

That the authors of the four Gospels either were eyewitnesses of the deeds and teachings of Jesus, or had immediate access to the eyewitnesses, as shown by Richard Bauckham and summarized herein at blog post “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” (May 13, 2024); and

That the authors of the Gospels were men of at least ordinary skill and capacity and did their honest best to accurately record the testimony of those eyewitnesses, as shown by Simon Greenleaf and summarized herein at blog post “As to Their Honesty” (April 23, 2024); and

That Jesus’ disciples had experiences which they honestly believed to be embodied appearances of the risen Christ, and that their lives were thoroughly transformed as a result, even to the point of being willing to die for their belief, as shown by Gary Habermas and summarized herein at blog post “He is Risen!” (March 30, 2024).

If you were satisfied as to all of that, would you say that it would be rational to believe that Jesus is alive?

You might. You might even say it would be irrational not to believe that Jesus is alive. Or at least, you might, unless your mind were still under the sway of naturalism – the assumption that miracles don’t happen. For I would say that if God exists, then a miracle can and will happen whenever He wants it to. One cannot, one must not, decide the question without considering the evidence since, if this miracle happened, then miracles do happen.

In posts dating from February 18, 2024, I have published four blog posts summarizing several books which forcefully show that the propositions set forth above are indeed the case. The Disciples believed they saw the risen Christ. They were, as a result of those experiences, transformed from cowering fugitives to irrepressible evangelists. A reliable record of the deeds and teachings of Jesus has come down to us. If you have not read those posts, please do so. Write to me at the address shown at the top of the Home Page with your questions and concerns, and also, if you have found these essays useful, please tell your friends about the website. God bless you.

ps. I want to mention how blessed and privileged I consider myself to be for having encountered the works reviewed in this series of blog posts. I thank my God for the impressive learning, the prodigious industry, and the faithfulness of these authors, and the providence which allowed their works to appear on my desk.

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Wm. B. Eerdman, 2d ed. 2017)

Book Review

Thomas Alderman 2024

I. Introduction.

Cambridge scholar and New Testament theologian Richard Bauckham has two major complaints about mainstream New Testament scholarship: it assumes that the Gospel tradition reached the authors of the Fourfold Gospel only after a long, uncontrolled process of anonymous oral transmission; and it often exhibits a deep scepticism about the reliability of the text unless each passage can be independently verified. In this important work, Bauckham deals a decisive blow to both of these misconceptions and makes a powerful argument that the text of the New Testament as it has come down to us is “close to the eyewitness reports of the words and deeds of Jesus.”¹

As To Their Honesty

In my most recent post I published in these pages an excerpt from Simon Greenleaf’s (1783-1853) The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence, because it so eloquently and brilliantly captures the exalted virtues of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Here I offer another excerpt from the same source because it demonstrates, again very eloquently, how it is impossible that the authors of the New Testament were anything but completely honest in what they were claiming to have seen, heard, and touched. In elegant prose Greenleaf shows conclusively that the Evangelists were honest men. One can imagine Greenleaf addressing a jury, who are transfixed by the power of his argument.

I heartily recommend the full essay, which is in the public domain at http://www.newhumanityinstitute.org/pdf-articles/Simon-Greenleaf-Testimony-of-the-Evangelists.pdf.

(Excerpt: As to their honesty:)

The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances.

Let the evangelists be tried by these tests.

And first, as to their honesty.

Here they are entitled to the benefit of the general course of human experience, that men ordinarily speak the truth, when they have no prevailing motive or inducement to the contrary. This presumption, to which we have before alluded, is applied in courts of justice, even to witnesses whose integrity is not wholly free from suspicion; much more is it applicable to the evangelists, whose testimony went against all their worldly interests. The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teaching of his disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments, and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience, and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.

Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact, that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature. Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations, and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for this fabrication.

It would also have been irreconcilable with the fact that they were good men. But it is impossible to read their writings, and not feel that we are conversing with men eminently holy, and of tender consciences, with men acting under an abiding sense of the presence and omniscience of God, and of their accountability to him, living in his fear, and walking in his ways. Now, though, in a single instance, a good man may fall, when under strong temptations, yet he is not found persisting, for years, in deliberated falsehood, asserted with the most solemn appeals to God, without the slightest temptation or motive, and against all the opposing interests which reign in the human breast. If, on the contrary, they are supposed to have been bad men, it is incredible that such men should have chosen this form of imposture; enjoining, as it does, unfeigned repentance, the utter forsaking and abhorrence of all falsehood and of every other sin, the practice of daily self-denial, self-abasement and self-sacrifice, the crucifixion of the flesh with all its earthly appetites and desires, indifference to the honors, and hearty contempt of the vanities of the world; and inculcating perfect purity of heart and life, and intercourse of the soul with heaven. It is incredible, that bad men should invent falsehoods to promote the religion of the God of truth. The supposition is suicidal. If they did believe in a future state of retribution, a heaven and a hell hereafter, they took the most certain course, if false witnesses, to secure the latter for their portion. And if, still being bad men, they did not believe in future punishment, how came they to invent that which was to destroy all their prospects of worldly honor and happiness, and to insure their misery in this life? From these absurdities there is no escape, but in the perfect conviction and admission that they were good men, testifying to that which they had carefully observed and considered, and well knew to be true.

Pearl of Great Price

Will Durant said it well: The portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels must be true, because no one could have invented such a character:

That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels. After two centuries of Higher Criticism, the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature in the history of Western man.

Will Durant, Historian¹

But Simon Greenleaf said it even better:

Lastly, the great character they have portrayed is perfect. It is the character of a sinless Being; of one supremely wise and supremely good. It exhibits no error, no sinister intention, no imprudence, no ignorance, no evil passion, no impatience; in a word, no fault; but all is perfect uprightness, innocence, wisdom, goodness and truth. The mind of man has never conceived the idea of such a character, even for his gods; nor has history or poetry shadowed it forth. The doctrines and precepts of Jesus are in strict accordance with the attributes of God, agreeably to the most exalted idea which we can form of them, either from reason or from revelation. They are strikingly adapted to the capacity of mankind, and yet are delivered with a simplicity and majesty wholly divine. He spake as never man spake. He spake with authority; yet addressed himself to the reason and the understanding of men; and he spake with wisdom, which men could neither gainsay nor resist. In his private life, he exhibits a character not merely of strict justice, but of flowing benignity. He is temperate, without austerity; his meekness and humility are signal; his patience is invincible; truth and sincerity illustrate his whole conduct; every one of his virtues is regulated by consummate prudence; and he both wins the love of his friends, and extorts the wonder and admiration of his enemies. He is represented in every variety of situation in life, from the height of worldly grandeur, amid the acclamations of an admiring multitude, to the deepest abyss of human degradation and woe, apparently deserted of God and man. Yet everywhere he is the same; displaying a character of unearthly perfection, symmetrical in all its proportions, and encircled with splendor more than human. Either the men of Galilee were men of superlative wisdom, and extensive knowledge and experience, and of deeper skill in the arts of deception, than any and all others, before or after them, or they have truly stated the astonishing things which they saw and heard.²

¹From The Story of Civilization, Vol. III: Caesar and Christ, by Will Durant, p. 557.

²Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853), The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence (Full text: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34989/34989-pdf.pdf (last visited 4.5.24).) (Greenleaf, of course, one of the founders of Harvard Law and the Nineteenth Century’s foremost authority on the law of evidence, set out to refute Christianity and became a follower of Christ instead.)

He is Risen!

On this Easter weekend it pleases me to share with you something of what I’ve learned from Gary Habermas’ On the Resurrection: Evidences (B&H Academic, 2024).

There is virtual unanimity among scholars, both liberal and conservative, that the details of the events which gave rise to the Gospel story probably happened – with the sole exception of the empty tomb, which is accepted by “only” a clear majority of scholars. That is to say, more particularly, that the scholarly community agrees that the disciples believed they had seen the risen Christ, it transformed them from cowering fugitives into on-fire evangelists, and many of them were martyred for it. None recanted.

As to the Resurrection itself, a strong minority of scholars believe Jesus arose. For those who do not, there are no plausible naturalistic explanations for the events described above. Their only theory is a hidebound naturalistic prejudice that there is no God and hence no miracles. But if God exists then naturalism is false and miracles can and will happen whenever God wants them to.

Applying well-accepted historiographical criteria for historicity, it would be almost impossible for the evidence for the Resurrection to be any stronger than it is. Indeed, considering that we are at a distance of 2,000 years, it is astonishing how extensively documented are the events of the New Testament, such that one can only ascribe it to a meticulous providence. What are those criteria? (Time permits only a cursory recounting; I hope to flesh out the following in future posts.)

Early attestation. (Check.)
Eyewitness testimony. (Check.)
Multiple attestation. (Check.)
Dissimilarity. (“[A] particular saying may be attributed to someone . . . if it cannot plausibly be [attributed to] . . . the words or teachings of other roughly contemporary sources.” Habermas, 47.) The very idea of imagining the sayings of Jesus as coming from anyone else is ludicrous.
Palestinian origin. (Sayings in the Aramaic language, for example.) The raising of Jairus’ daughter and the cry of dereliction come to mind.
Embarrassment. (Frankly acknowledging words or events which place the author or others in a negative light may reflect a commitment to truth-telling.) Mark and Peter, for example, are unflinching in describing Peter’s repeated failures.
Enemy attestation. The Jews to this day claim that the body was stolen, which means the tomb must have been empty.

He is risen!

The Recovery of the New Testament

Was the New Testament corrupted? Or has it been restored?

Thomas Alderman 2024

The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, by Bruce M. Metzger (Oxford University Press, 3d ed. 1992; 4th ed. with Bart D. Ehrman 2005)¹.

I. Introduction.

The Apostle Peter exhorts believers to “be ready always to give an answer to every man who asks of you a reason for the hope that is in you.” 1 Peter 3:15. We certainly ought, therefore, to be prepared in advance to answer those who insist that the text of the New Testament has been so corrupted that we cannot know what its authors were trying to tell us.

It’s a claim that cannot be lightly dismissed.

Explain This

There really are very few atheists. No, I don’t have the results of a poll right here at hand, but it’s still the case that the great majority of nonbelievers identify as agnostic.

There are two kinds of agnostic, those who are unsure whether or not God exists, and those who believe it cannot be known whether or not God exists. I remember my father telling me, “You can’t know.” I was not equipped at that time to ask him, “Now, how could you possibly know that I can’t know?” But unless I am mistaken, most agnostics are of the former kind.

Elsewhere I have argued that everyone knows God exists. The wonder with which the beauty of nature fills us compels us to confess, “There must be an explanation for all of this.” Young children have already absorbed the laws of cause and effect and know that every effect has a cause. The universe is an effect and must have been caused by something outside itself, which cause must have been sufficient to produce the effect in question. You don’t get an atomic explosion from a firecracker. It is only when we go to school that we learn that only the foolish and backward doubt that the universe created itself.

But how do they think the universe created itself? They don’t know. They don’t even have a theory. They do speculate, but speculations do not constitute testable scientific theories.

What else does naturalism fail to explain? Well, pretty much everything.

I have identified eleven features of the universe which demand explanation. (If you can think of others, please let me know.) Atheism explains none of them. Theism explains them all without breaking a sweat. What are they?

The fact that the universe had a beginning.
The fine-tuning of the laws of physics.
The existence of objective moral values.
The origin of life.
Information, the infallible sign of active intelligence.
Consciousness.
Reason.
Language.
Natural beauty.
Mathematics – that is, the correspondence between complex math and the physical universe.
The Resurrection of Jesus. There is no plausible naturalistic explanation. Unbelieving philosophers have given up finding one.

Each of these phenomena deserves a book-length treatment, and many books have been written. But what do you expect? This is just a blog post.

Even so, I judged that it would be worthwhile to remind you of the cogency of belief in God. Once one realizes that

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge (Ps. 19),

one is very near the Kingdom of God. And when one realizes also that the text of the New Testament has been fully recovered and that the Gospel authors were undoubtedly truthful, one can “endure any misery undismayed, nay rejoicing.” (Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists.)

Rejoice!

303 Creative, LLC v. Elena

Supreme Court of the United States
June 30, 2023
Slip Opinion No. 21-476

Americans of all persuasions have cause to rejoice, now that Lorie Smith, a Christian and a Colorado web designer, has prevailed in the Supreme Court of the United States in her action against the State of Colorado, which had sought to use its Anti-Discrimination Act to compel her to design web sites celebrating gay marriage, against her sincerely-held belief that marriage should be reserved for unions of one man and one woman. The Supreme Court, in a 6-to-3 opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, held in 303 Creative, LLC v. Elena that Smith’s right of free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, protects her from such action. By doing so, the Court spared the country a dramatic escalation in the culture wars.

What effect would a ruling in Colorado’s favor have had?