Scripture – Joshualetter

Just a Bystander

In his outstanding book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2d ed. 2017), Richard Bauckham observes that referring to the Jesus disciple who cut off an ear of the servant of the High Priest as “’one of those standing near’ (Mark 14:47) is an odd way to speak of one of the Twelve.”¹ In the Gospel of John, we learn that it was Peter who wielded the sword; and Matthew and Luke, without naming Peter, do at least identify him as “one of Jesus’ companions” (Matt. 26:51), or as “one of . . . Jesus’ followers” (Luke 22:49-50). Why is Mark being so cryptic here?

If you’re like me, you barely paused when you read that text for the umpteenth time. But if you stop and think about it, it really does seem puzzling. Who was this fellow who was “standing around?” As John’s readers later find out, it wasn’t just some random stranger who assaulted the High Priest’s servant – it was Peter, for heaven’s sake! Why not say so?

Citing Thiessen², Bauckham offers a cogent explanation. By assaulting the High Priest’s servant, Peter had placed himself in grave danger of arrest. By withholding the name of the assailant, Mark sought to protect Peter from that danger. This is a case of “protective anonymity.” John could name Peter because John wrote at a time when Peter was beyond the reach of the High Priest (i.e., he had already been killed).

It happens that there are several other important figures in the drama of Christ’s Passion who are also anonymous in Mark. There were the young man who left his robe and fled naked from Gethsemane (Mark 14:51); the woman who anointed Jesus with a jar of expensive perfume (Mark 14:3-9); the owners of the donkey Christ rode into the City (Mark 11:1-3); and the man who led the disciples to the upper room for the Passover meal (Mark 14:12-16). Have you ever stopped to wonder why are all of these are unnamed in Mark? By offering plausible resolutions to these mysteries, Bauckham strengthens our confidence in the accuracy of Mark’s narrative.

Bauckham proposes that in each of these instances Mark was acting to protect Jesus’ followers from reprisal by Christ’s enemies by keeping their identities secret. In the case of the young man who abandoned his garment, presumably he could have retained it had he not been resisting arrest. The owners of the donkey and the upper room also may have justly feared reprisal – it was not much later that a disciple of Jesus was murdered at the instance of the Jewish leaders (Acts 7); James, a leader of the early church, was later martyred (Acts 12:1-2); and an attempt was made on Peter’s life too (Acts 12:3).

But all of this shines a bright light on another mystery in Mark’s Gospel, namely, Peter’s denial of JC (also recorded in all three of the other Gospels). Was this a deliberate betrayal? Peter was now in the courtyard of the High Priest, whose servant Peter had assaulted a very short time earlier. When he was challenged as a disciple of the accused, Peter, thinking only of himself and how he might avoid immediate arrest and possible execution, panicked, and he resorted to the only expedient immediately available to him, namely, concealing his relationship to Jesus. It was only when the cock crew that he remembered his pledge.

It gives every believer immense comfort to know that Peter – even Peter – was later restored in his relationship to Jesus. If that is possible, then there is also hope for me.

But that is not all! As a bonus Bauckham’s insights afford us a means of establishing the early authorship of Mark and the entire New Testament. In John’s Gospel the identities of the assailant and the woman who anointed Jesus are revealed. As mentioned above, there is a cogent explanation for the difference between Mark and John. John did not write until Peter and Mary had died and were thus beyond the reach of Christ’s enemies. When would that have been? Bauckham’s estimate: Mark would have written very early, probably between 30 A.D. and 60 A.D. I would venture to say it would have been very much toward the earlier of those dates, since Paul’s letters were written prior to Mark, and Matthew, Luke, and Acts were all written after Mark but before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

ENDNOTES

¹Bauckham, 184.

²Thiessen, The Gospels (186-187; apparently out of print).

THE OLIVET DISCOURSE A Comment

Thomas Alderman, November 29, 2025

All three Synoptic Gospels – Mark, Luke, and Matthew – contain Jesus’ discourse concerning future events, known as “the Olivet Discourse” because He delivered it while gazing from the Mount of Olives at the magnificent Herodian Temple across the Kidron Valley.

The Discourse poses a number of hermeneutical challenges, but one in particular causes some to stumble. Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple. He also predicts His own return “in clouds with great power and glory.” But then He emphasizes that “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Manifestly, the generation living when Jesus spoke has been gone a long time – yet Christ has not returned. Did Jesus make a mistake? Or did the Gospel authors err in recording what He said? And if He or they erred in this instance, where else might they have erred? Is the New Testament reliable at all?

According to William L. Lane, author of the New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT) Book of Mark,¹ “In the Gospel of Mark there is no passage more problematic than the prophetic discourse of Jesus on the destruction of the Temple.”² Other scholars concur: Hans Bayer, Professor Emeritus, Covenant Theological Seminary, declares it to be “one of the more difficult things to understand in the Gospels.” At the same time, since the Olivet prophesy is among the most difficult New Testament texts, its vindication, if that were possible, would be of interest to the honest seeker. Many have therefore attempted to rescue the Discourse with various explanations as to how Jesus’ predictions could all have been true. I set myself to understand those attempts in the hope of reaching an opinion on the question.

Timothy and William Paley

Readers of this blog have been favored with the observations of Lydia McGrew, detailing many “unintended coincidences” in the New Testament where otherwise unrelated narratives corroborate each other in surprising ways. (Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (DeWard, 2017); June 3, 2025 joshualetter post.) McGrew is following in a venerable tradition, of which one of the earliest and greatest exponents was William Paley (1743-1805). Today Paley is more famous for the revival of the argument for the existence of God from design in nature, but he deserves as much credit for his exposition of scripture. Here is one of Paley’s unintended coincidences:

[W]hen I read, in the Acts of the Apostles, that when Paul came to Derbe and Lystra, “behold a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess;” and when, in an epistle addressed to Timothy, I find him reminded of his “having known the holy scriptures from “a child,” which implies that he must, on one side or both, have been brought up by Jewish parents; I conceive that I remark a coincidence which shows, by its very obliquity, that scheme [collusion] was not employed in its formation.

William Paley, Horae Paulinae (Hardpress 2017, Kindle Location 106.)

If collusion is excluded, and if several accounts are all compatible, the only plausible explanation is that the reason they are consistent is that they all reflect what actually took place. And the greater the number of such accounts, and the more detailed they are, the greater our confidence in that conclusion. At least equally important is the confidence which we thereby also gain in the reporters’ commitment to the truth generally.

Now, memory of the past can be lost, and the past can be misrepresented, but the past itself is fixed. Some of it can be remembered, and some of it can even be documented. For example, Lee Harvey Oswald either acted alone or he did not, and nothing we do or say today can alter the fact. If an account exists which cannot be falsified, we consider that it may be true; but if there are several accounts of the same events and none of them separately, nor all of them together, can be falsified – that is, if combined they all describe a single, coherent set of facts – then absent collusion, our confidence in their veracity climbs, until we begin to say we know what took place.

That is what we find in the New Testament.

I hope to elaborate on that theme in these pages in the near future. In the meantime, Gary Habermas helps us to appreciate the consistently singular quality of the NT writings:

Arguably the best example here is the work of Sir William Ramsay, the famous archaeologist and professor at the universities of Oxford and Aberdeen at the turn of the twentieth century. Trained in nineteenth-century German liberalism at the University of Tubingen and holding to those views, he was a noted archaeologist and authority on the history of Asia Minor. Through his excavation of this region, and contrary to his own opinions on the New Testament, he began to change his view concerning Luke, Paul, and Acts. After decades of research in this area, expressed in several major books on these subjects, he had distinguished himself as perhaps the greatest authority of his day on these subjects. To sum up his research, Ramsay concluded, “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy . . . this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.” [Gary Habermas, On the Resurrection: Evidences, Kindle Location 891, citing William M. Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 4^th ed. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1920), 222.]

Maybe it’s not so surprising that both Paul and Luke wrote about Timothy. But this is merely one of a great proliferation of such examples demonstrating the truthfulness and the accuracy of the authors. The impression of veracity will never be felt if all you do is look for anomalies. No, one must look at the endlessly repeated instances of meticulous investigation, research, and reportage, and eventually realize, “All of this really happened!” And then you realize, “I am free, glory to God!”

ps. Listen to “Who Is Theophylus?” with Shane Rosenthal of The Humble Skeptic at https://www.humbleskeptic.com/p/who-is-theophilus

Archaeological Find Powerfully Supports the Gospel of Luke

Luke addressed both his Gospel and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles to one Theophilus – or in the case of the Gospel, to “most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3), indicating he was a person of rank. Scholars have debated for centuries who this personage may have been. Now, the discovery of an artifact from First-Century Jerusalem may have solved the mystery. What’s even more exciting is the light which the solution sheds on the meticulous accuracy of Luke’s accounts.

In 1983 archaeologists discovered an ossuary, a bone box, which bears the inscription, “Theophilus the High Priest and his granddaughter Joanna.”

The Jewish historian Josephus records that a Theophilus was the Jewish High Priest from A.D. 37-41. Could Luke have been corresponding with the leader of the Jewish Sanhedrin?

The name of Joanna appears twice in the Bible. First, at Luke 8:1-3, it is said that she was among those accompanying Jesus as He went from town to town preaching the Kingdom of God:

The Twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

And at Luke 24:1-10, we see that Joanna was among the women who went to Jesus’ tomb early Sunday morning, thereby becoming one of the very first witnesses to the Resurrection:

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. [vv. 9-10.]

But here is the really amazing part. Luke 24, verses 8-11 constitutes a chiasm. According to Google AI, a chiasm is

a literary device with a symmetrical structure, often described as an A-B-C-X-C’-B’-A’ pattern. It presents a concept and then repeats it in reverse order, creating a balanced and memorable structure. This structure highlights the central idea, which is typically found at the peak of the chiasm.

So here is the chiastic structure of Luke 24:8-11:

A: They remembered his words (v. 8)

B: The Eleven (v. 9)

C: The others (v. 9)

D: Mary Magdalene (v. 10)

X: Joanna (v. 10)

D’: Mary, mother of James (v. 10)

C’ The others (v. 10)

B’ The apostles (v. 10)

A’ They did not believe these words (v. 11)

The chiasm sends a message to the reader: This is important. Pay attention!

Renowned Bible scholar Richard Bauckham concludes that the appearance of Joanna’s name at the focus of the chiasm reflects Luke’s intention to emphasize her significance as a witness to the empty tomb.

It is also conceivable that Luke intended to send a personal message to Theophilus in particular – on the supposition, arguably, that the chiasm would have some special significance to him. Thus, “Theophilus! Your own granddaughter is a witness to the Resurrection! If you have any questions, you may direct them to her.” Perhaps Theophilus had a close, confidential relationship with Joanna, such that he might be highly likely to credit her testimony. Perhaps Joanna, during an interview by Luke, encouraged him to address his Gospel to Theophilus. Perhaps Theophilus then became one of that “great company of the priests,” referred to at Acts 6:7, who “were obedient to the faith.”

At a minimum, the chiasm and the possible connection between Joanna and Theophilus seem to reflect Luke’s meticulous research and attention to detail – a circumstance adding to the reader’s conviction of the historicity of the astonishing events which Luke recounts.[i], [ii]

[i]Incidentally, Luke employs chiasm again at Luke 24:13-35. See https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/2015/04/02/luke-2413-28/.

[ii] Other sources: Frank Turek, Cross-Examined.org, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-6NeP7ENRk; Shane Rosenthal, “Luke’s Key Witness,” humbleskeptic.com, May 31, 2025, https://www.humbleskeptic.com/p/joanna-an-obscure-disciple-or-lukes.

Hidden in Plain View

Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (DeWard, 2017).

INTRODUCTION

God has providentially, miraculously bestowed upon us many excellent proofs of the veracity of the authors of the Fourfold Gospel of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Indeed, the Gospels by every measure show themselves true.

Certainly one of the most important ways God has ordered things so as to assure us of His Word, has been to provide not just one detailed account of Jesus’ ministry, but four accounts. Trial lawyers know quite well that whenever two or more witnesses testify about the same event, it will be nearly impossible for either of them, if false, to escape detection if he is subjected to skilled cross-examination. That is because a manufactured account by definition will clash with what actually happened.

By the same token, if two witnesses to the same event are both truthful, each of their accounts will match reality; and matching reality, they will not be contradictory, though in many cases they might differ in a number of respects. They will fit together like pieces of a puzzle and will constitute a single coherent account. What’s more, the very differences in their accounts will often be such as to rule out collusion.

One consequence of this is that if the testimonies of two witnesses are compatible, then barring collusion, one may be relatively confident that one has uncovered the truth. If one has four witnesses whose testimony is compatible, truth is virtually guaranteed.

In regard to the earlier comment about skilled cross-examination, it must not be overlooked that the Gospel accounts have been subjected to two thousand years of withering cross-examination by biblical scholars, lawyers, historians, and archeologists, and have never been falsified. To the contrary, the more we have learned about Jesus from extra-biblical sources, the more thoroughly the Gospels themselves have been vindicated.

Of course a profusion of witnesses also entails a greater chance of inconsistencies among them, or seeming inconsistencies. This is to be expected, even if the witnesses are truthful. Two witnesses will almost never give identical accounts. If they did, one would immediately suspect collusion. But depending on the complexity of the subject of their testimony, two truthful witnesses will almost always describe events somewhat differently. They may have observed different aspects of the same event, or they may have observed from different locations. But despite such differences, their testimonies will match reality, and, matching reality, upon careful consideration they will also be seen to match each other, providing the investigator with heightened confidence that the truth has become known.

One early proponent of the integrity of the Gospel accounts was William Paley (1743-1805), who observed that “. . . [P]erfection is no accident. It is the effect of truth. Nothing but truth can preserve consistency.”

Now quite recently another biblical scholar has examined the Gospels with this principle in view. Philosopher Lydia McGrew, in Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (DeWard, 2017), shows that the four Gospel narratives, by providing differing accounts of many of the same events, corroborate each other in surprising detail, negate collusion, and amplify the conviction of the authors’ honesty and accuracy. McGrew provides 41 examples from the Gospels, Acts, and the Pauline Epistles, one of which I propose to discuss here: Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000.

WOE TO YOU, BETHSAIDA!

At Matthew 11:20-24, the Evangelist says that “Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!” Jesus said. “If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” Why did Jesus denounced woe upon Bethsaida? What “mighty acts” did he perform there?

Matthew doesn’t tell us – there is no other reference to Bethsaida anywhere else in Matthew. We must turn to the Gospel of Luke. Luke 9:10 says that when the apostles returned from their missionary journey, Jesus took them to Bethsaida, and the crowds followed Him there. Jesus preached to them and healed them, and later that day He miraculously fed the 5,000. Is that what Matthew was talking about? Yes it is. But neither Matthew nor Luke tell us anything about the people failing to repent.

We keep looking. Go to the Gospel of John, Chapter 6. After feeding the 5,000, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee, and the people followed Him. When they found Him, He told them, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” John 6:26.

So what do we have? Luke tells us about the feeding of the 5,000; Matthew tells us where that was done; John tells us of the people’s deplorable spiritual condition: rather than lament their sin, the people are only concerned about their appetites. And Matthew records the denunciation of woe. Each Evangelist provides a part of the story, but they all mesh together perfectly to provide one complete and coherent account.

Now, Mark also records the feeding of the 5,000, but he doesn’t record the location, or the people’s motives, or the denunciation of woe. This shows that Matthew, Luke and John are independent of Mark. The differences among them, in turn, also tend to negate collusion.

But there is more! Why did Jesus, at John 6:5, ask Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”

He did it to test him, of course; but it was natural for Jesus to ask Philip. Why? John 1:43-44, which records Jesus’ initial call to Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel, just happens to mention that Philip, Andrew, and Peter were all from Bethsaida!

And even more. Three Gospels mention the fact that there was grass in the place where the feeding of the five thousand took place (Mark 6.39, Matt 14.19, John 6.10), but only Mark emphasizes its color: “Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass.” Does the color of the grass matter? It may not affect the nature of the miracle Jesus was about to perform, but it does enable us to fit the several accounts together. John 6:4 states, “The Jewish Passover Feast was near.” It was springtime! And Mark, describing also the feeding of the 4,000, shows that Jesus “told the crowd to sit down [not on the grass, but] on the ground.” This enables us to distinguish the feeding of the 4,000 from the feeding of the 5,000, establishing that they were probably two separate miracles.

CONCLUSION

Why are there four Gospels?

It takes very little faith, in my opinion, to recognize divine Providence in the fact that we have four independent records of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It would be difficult to think of a more powerful means for God to use to ensure that His Truth would become known, than a multiplicity of detailed accounts.

As noted earlier, McGrew has provided dozens more examples of “unintended coincidences” showing the NT text to be richer than many of us realized. My favorites include Jesus before Pilate and Joseph’s tomb. For an enjoyable and encouraging read, I heartily recommend it.

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”

– Jesus (John 5:24)

Be Ready!

Apologetics Tools are now available!

Here are concise summaries of several recent posts to joshualetter, designed to be easily remembered so as to equip believers to be ready to address many of the concerns often raised by those who are seeking the truth.

Suggestions welcome!

SEVEN PRACTICAL APOLOGETICS TOOLS

1. The pioneers of modern science were virtually all Christians and were scientists specifically because of their religious beliefs. In particular, they were scientists because they believed in a rational God who created an intelligible universe and man as a rational being capable of comprehending that universe. For more information, see Thomas Alderman, Science and Religion: Exploding the Myth of Conflict, (a five-part series)(go to www.joshualetter.com and search for “exploding”).

2. The universe had a beginning and must therefore have had a cause outside itself. That cause had to be timeless, immaterial, and inconceivably powerful. More info: joshualetter.com, subject index: The Cosmological Argument for God.

3. The laws of physics are incomprehensibly fine-tuned for life. The most plausible explanation (if not the only plausible explanation) is that they were intended to be that way by a cosmic designer. More info: joshualetter.com, subject index: The Fine-Tuning of the Universe.

4. Objective moral values exist. The most plausible explanation is that they are rooted in the character of a good Creator. More info: joshualetter.com, subject index: The Moral Argument for God.

5. Jesus’ disciples were transformed by His post-Resurrection appearances from cowering fugitives to fearless evangelists. Many of them died for their proclamation; none recanted. The best explanation is that they truly encountered the risen Christ. More info: joshualetter.com, search field, “minimal facts.”

6. The authors of the New Testament were honest and had ready access to the eyewitnesses of the events in the life of Jesus. More info: joshualetter.com, search for “honesty.”

7. While it is true that many errors were introduced into the New Testament in the course of being manually copied, scholars have succeeded in identifying and correcting virtually all of those errors – as even skeptical New Testament scholars have acknowledged. More info: joshualetter.com, search for “recovery.”

Find this helpful? Share it with your friends!

Questions? Contact us at:

editor.joshualetter@thomasowensalderman.com

Post Withdrawn

In July 2024 I published in these pages a review of Michael Licona’s recent book, Jesus, Contradicted, in which he advocates for the theory that the Gospels are instances of an ancient form of historiography which tolerated and even encouraged writers generally (that is, whether secular or sectarian) to slightly misrepresent facts when to do so would “improve” the text. I am removing that post. I am doing so with some sadness, as I have been and remain a Licona fan.

But I just finished reading Lydia McGrew’s The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices. McGrew convincingly challenges Licona’s thesis on many grounds. It may be fair to say that the controversy has to do mostly with a difference among scholars as to the lengths to which they are willing to go in order to harmonize Gospel texts which on their surface appear to contradict each other. McGrew might go to great lengths to do so; Licona, not so much.

I may or may not attempt a review of McGrew’s book. In the meantime, I do highly recommend it. If you read it, you may understand why I am withdrawing Licona: I’m not comfortable leaving the review of Licona up without some kind of disclaimer, but I’m also not comfortable writing a disclaimer that doesn’t do justice to both Licona and McGrew, and I think that could take a very long time. Indeed, I think it must be the case that this controversy will continue to be hotly contested at the highest levels of scholarship, in which case I’ll be better off on the sidelines for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, I do recommend McGrew – and Licona too, as long as you commit to reading McGrew soon after.

Of course there are scores of reviews of both Licona and McGrew on Amazon – almost all glowing. I believe you’ll be encouraged by McGrew’s vindication of a high view of the integrity of the Gospel accounts.

Science and religion: Exploding the Myth of Conflict

A Five-Part Series

Part Two: The Scientific Revolution Arose only in the West for a Reason

As we saw in Part One, there are reasons science arose in the West. At the same time there are also reasons why it did NOT arise anywhere else: their theology did not permit it.

Barbour argues that “science in its modern form [arose] in Western civilization alone, among all the cultures of the world,” because only the Christian West had the necessary “intellectual presuppositions underlying the rise of science.”¹ These included, as noted in Part One, the belief in a rational God who created an orderly cosmos and humans in his image as also rational beings precisely because he wished to be known.

Greece.

Ancient Greek philosophy is a case in point. Many Greek philosophers “assumed they could deduce how nature ought to behave . . . based on only superficial observations of natural phenomena or without actually observing nature at all.”². Thus, Aristotle’s conception of the cosmos was based more on his suppositions about the divinity of the celestial objects and his assumptions about what kinds of motions would be suitable to them, given their divine nature. Supposing that a circular motion was most perfect, for example, Aristotle concluded that the orbit of the sun around the Earth must be perfectly circular. (Of course the sun does not orbit the Earth, and the Earth’s orbit of the sun is elliptical, not circular.) He also reasoned that the Earth must be eternal and the center of the universe.

Egypt

Despite Egypt’s technical prowess in building the pyramids, Egyptian mathematics and geometry remained a practical art.

Any possibility for scientific breakthroughs was destroyed by

the polytheistic, animistic precepts central to Egyptian religion. In polytheism, each god governs its domain according to its own rules; uniformity and hence intelligibility are elusive. In animism, likewise, many gods inhabit natural things such as trees and animals.

Eastern pantheistic monism

The Hindu and Buddhist precept that all is One implies that all distinctions are illusory – a real curiosity-killer! The study of nature requires duality: the knower and the thing which is known. They are not the same thing. Just as importantly, classification is an indispensable scientific exercise. E.g., a dolphin is not a porpoise, and a bacterium is not a virus. Study of the Creation entails careful distinctions. But in Eastern thought, to realize one’s oneness with the cosmos is to pass beyond knowledge. This is hardly a view that encourages scientific inquiry.

NEXT WEEK: Part Three: There is Conflict, but it is Between Naturalism and Science

ENDNOTES

¹Barbour, Religion and Science, 27.

²Stephen C. Meyer, Return of the God Hypothesis (Harper Collins 2021), 32.

What’s the Big Idea?

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

– Acts of the Apostles 1:8

Beginning February 18, 2024, there were posted in these pages seven articles about the text of the New Testament. When I began those posts, there was no plan to address any grand theme common to all seven articles – I was just following my nose, as it were. By the time (July 12, 2024) I had posted the most recent one, however, such a theme had clearly emerged: Jesus is alive. There are no gaps in the proof of this. We can know it, rest in it, and rejoice in it.

So let’s take a step back and attempt a concise, integrated summary of what we have learned. What have these authors shown us?

ONE

Bauckham, “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses,” posted May 13, 2024: The Gospels were written very near in time to the events, and either the authors were eyewitnesses or they had immediate access to the eyewitnesses.

TWO

Greenleaf, “As to Their Honesty” (April 23, 2024): The Gospel writers were honest. When they said they were sure they had seen the risen Christ, they were telling the truth. As another scholar said, “They lived it, they died for it.”

THREE

Metzger, “The Recovery of the New Testament” (February 18, 2024): What the Evangelists wrote – the text of the New Testament – has been fully recovered for all practical purposes. Bible scholars, including skeptical scholars, acknowledge this.

FOUR

Habermas, “He is Risen” (March 30, 2024): The claims of the Gospels as to the historicity of the events in the life, death, and the Resurrection of Jesus meet more than abundantly all of the well-established historiographical criteria for historicity which professional historians generally apply in researching and writing about the past. Indeed, the general outline of the entire Gospel narrative has been verified by extra-biblical documents, which satisfies two criteria for historicity, namely, multiple attestation and in some cases, enemy attestation. (This extra-biblical record has not been discussed in these pages previously, so a summary description is provided in the Appendix for your edification.)

FIVE

Licona: “Jesus, Contradicted” (July 17, 2024): Most of the differences among the Gospels can be understood if we take account of the fact that the conventions governing the practice of historiography were different in the First Century, such that ancient biography was a genre unto itself, in which writers were encouraged to alter the details of a story when doing so would be an “improvement,” so long as the essence of the story is preserved.

SIX

Greenleaf: “Pearl of Great Price” (April 7, 2024): The Person of Jesus is superlative in every way. The very existence of His story testifies to His deity, because no mere human could have invented such a character.

SEVEN

Habermas: “Minimal Facts” (June 12, 2024): If for any reason someone should, after considering all of the above, still harbor doubts concerning the reliability of the New Testament, such a person should ponder what is known as the “minimal facts” argument for the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus. 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.

To my mind, the most salient element of this consensus is the effect which Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances had on his followers. According to the author of the Gospel of John, after the crucifixion the disciples “were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews.” John 20:19. Their leader had just been executed, and the disciples must have feared they could be next. But then Jesus appeared in their midst and within days they were found boldly preaching the Resurrection to thousands. When they were hauled before the Jewish authorities, they defiantly proclaimed the Resurrection yet again. Even skeptical scholars acknowledge these facts and have abandoned all of the proposed naturalistic explanations for the disciples’ transformation.

Conclusion

So if the Gospel writers had reliable sources for their biographies of Jesus (Bauckham); if they were honest (Greenleaf); if we have the text of their original writings (Metzger); if the Gospel accounts are confirmed by reliable extra-biblical sources (Habermas); if what were once thought to be discrepancies in the Gospel accounts were manifestations of the prevailing literary conventions of the time (Licona); if the Person portrayed in the Gospels is more than humanly wonderful (Greenleaf); if a Resurrection is the most plausible explanation for the transformation of Jesus’ followers and the success of His movement (Habermas); and if no plausible naturalistic explanation can be found; then as Habermas writes, “a stronger case could hardly even be imagined,” and the honest seeker has found his home.

(Want to know more? Read the posts. Better yet, read the books!)

Appendix

EXTRA-BIBLICAL EVIDENCE FOR JESUS AND THE GOSPEL

Extra-biblical evidence for Jesus and the Gospel story comprises nearly two dozen sources from the first 150 years after the Crucifixion. Notable among these sources are the Roman historians Tacitus and Seutonius, the Greek historian Thallus, the Jewish historian Josephus, and Pliny the Roman administrator. This evidence is, in Habermas’ words, “quite impressive”; and so it is. By corroborating very many of the events recorded in the Gospels and in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, these extra-biblical sources support the view that the authors of the Gospels and of the Book of Acts were reliable witnesses. Here is a partial list of the things they recorded:

Jesus’ ministry centered in Palestine.

He was said to have been born of a virgin.

He had a brother named James.

He was from a poor family.

He was known as wise and virtuous.

He had many disciples, both Jew and gentile.

He was known as the Son of Man.

His disciples regarded Him as the Son of God.

He was worshiped as deity.

Some believed He was the Messiah.

He taught the need for conversion, the importance of faith and obedience, the brotherhood of believers, the requirement of abandoning other gods, and the immortality of the soul.

He reportedly performed miracles and cast out demons.

He predicted His death, Resurrection, and return.

He was crucified on Passover by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius.

His executioners gambled for his garments.

There were darkness covering the land and earthquakes when He died.

Several non-canonical theological works affirm the Resurrection: the Treatise on the Resurrection, the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocryphon of John.

Soon after He died, His teaching broke out again and reached Rome before A.D. 49 – less than 20 years after the death of Jesus – when Claudius expelled Jews from the city due to what was thought to be the influence of Jesus’ teachings. (This event is described in Acts 18.)

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.