The historical Jesus and the resurrection
Apologists weigh the evidence for the resurrection as historians weigh any evidence. They begin from facts that most scholars accept, sceptics included, ask which explanation accounts for them best, and keep apart what history can show and what faith confesses.
A faith staked on history
Paul hangs the whole faith on one event: "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is worthless, and so is your faith" (1 Corinthians 15:14). This is news of something that happened at a certain time and place, so the apologist may ask what any historian asks: What sources are there, how early, and from whom?
The earliest are Paul's letters, written before the Gospels, and in one he hands on a summary he says he received:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. … Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all He appeared to me also
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
Three years after his conversion Paul stayed with Cephas in Jerusalem and met James, the Lord's brother (Galatians 1:18-19), so many scholars hold that this creed took shape within a few years of the crucifixion. The Gospels add their accounts. Outside the church, around AD 116 the Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Christ had been executed by the governor Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius Tacitus, Annals 15.44. Around AD 93 the Jewish historian Josephus mentions Jesus too, in a passage that scholars generally judge to contain later Christian additions Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64. They do not testify to the resurrection, but they confirm that Jesus lived and was put to death under Pilate (Did Jesus really exist?).
The guide under the Jesus tab walks this road in five rings: whether he was a real person, how he died, when those who saw him bore witness, what became of him after death, and who he said he was. It reads the New Testament there as historical sources, without presupposing that it is God's word.
Minimal facts and the best explanation
Gary Habermas, an evidential apologist, and Michael Licona set out the minimal facts approach. Instead of beginning from the Bible's inspiration, they argue only from facts so well evidenced that most scholars in the field, sceptics included, accept them. They name four and add a fifth. Jesus died by crucifixion. His disciples sincerely believed that he had risen and appeared to them. Paul, who had persecuted the church, was turned around (Galatians 1:13). James, the brother who had not believed in him (John 7:5), was turned around too. To these they add the empty tomb, which is widely granted, though less widely than the four Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus.
Scholars accept these by the tests historians apply to any ancient record: Is the source early? Do independent sources agree? Does it hold details an inventor would not have chosen? Do opponents concede it? The first witnesses of the empty tomb were women, whose testimony is often said to have carried little weight, and the apostles at first did not believe them (Luke 24:11). Even the chief priests' story that the disciples stole the body (Matthew 28:13) assumes that the tomb was empty. As Chrysostom put it, in telling that story "they confess that it is not in the sepulchre" Chrysostom.
The next step is to look for the best explanation: the one that accounts for all the facts together, without piling up assumptions. Some scholars, the English New Testament scholar N. T. Wright among them, have given this question long study. Other explanations start from everyone's experience that the dead stay dead, and look for a natural cause. Fairness grants first what each explains well.
| Explanation | Its strength | What it leaves |
|---|---|---|
| Theft | The oldest: if someone moved the body, the empty tomb is explained | If the disciples, they suffered for a lie; if others, the body could be shown; the appearances remain |
| Wrong tomb | In grief and the half-dark, the women may have gone to another tomb | They had seen where he was laid, and opponents had only to show the body |
| Swoon | Even Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead | Roman execution and the spear; a half-dead man would hardly seem death's conqueror |
| Hallucination | Bereaved people often do see the one they have lost | Groups who saw together, the doubting James and Paul, the empty tomb |
| Legend | Stories grow with time, and the Gospels differ in details | The creed came within a few years, while witnesses could still be asked |
Sceptical scholars today most often choose hallucination. In the second century Celsus already said that those who saw were a half-frantic woman and perhaps one other under the same delusion, and Origen answered him Origen, Against Celsus 2.55. Yet the disciples' own first thought was that they "had seen a spirit" (Luke 24:37). The reply is that a Jew who saw a vision of someone dead would say he had seen his spirit, and with the body still in the tomb a bodily resurrection would have been hard to proclaim. So the hallucination view is often joined to the wrong tomb or to legend, and the combined account must still cover all the facts without a pile of assumptions. The fourth ring of the guide under the Jesus tab sets out the same comparison, and Did Jesus really rise from the dead? takes each explanation further.
What history can show and what faith confesses
History weighs probabilities. It can show that these facts are firm and that, unless God's acting is ruled out from the start, the resurrection explains them best. Whether it may be ruled out is the question of Are miracles possible?
The five roads all confess the resurrection as the heart of the faith, but give the evidence different places. Evidential apologists begin from it, and it points to God and to Christ together. William Lane Craig, a classical apologist, argues from the same facts to the resurrection as the best explanation, and holds that the arguments for God's existence make it the easier to accept Craig, Reasonable Faith. Presuppositional apologists use the evidence too, but hold that there are no bare, uninterpreted facts: one who has ruled God out will prefer any other explanation, so the starting point must be questioned too (Presuppositional apologetics). Reformed epistemologists hold that a believer who is no historian may rightly believe it through the Spirit's witness, and a cumulative case sets it among the other clues.
Yet there is something history alone cannot show. That he died "for our sins" (1 Corinthians 15:3), and that his rising is the beginning of ours, is what the witnesses proclaimed and what faith confesses:
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. … But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
1 Corinthians 15:17-20
At Athens Paul said that God "has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead" (Acts 17:31). The word for proof is , the usual word for faith. The resurrection is God's pledge set before everyone, a ground for faith; yet no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). What the resurrection means is taught in the doctrine course (The resurrection).
In conversation
When the resurrection comes up, begin from what your friend already grants: that Jesus lived and died on a cross, and that his disciples believed they had seen him alive. Then ask together what explains those facts. Do not say it has been proved; say honestly where you think the evidence points. If your friend says that the dead do not rise, you can gently point out that this is a question of starting points more than of evidence. The answering is ours; opening the heart is the Spirit's work. The next lesson, Can the Bible be trusted?, turns to the book that carries this witness.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 7
Where does the minimal facts approach of Habermas and Licona begin?
- Practice 2 of 7
Why does the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 matter for the historical question?
- Practice 3 of 7
What did Chrysostom see in the story that the disciples stole the body?
- Practice 4 of 7
What does the hallucination explanation find hard to account for?
- Practice 5 of 7
Which is a fitting reply to the claim that the resurrection is a legend that grew over many years?
- Practice 6 of 7
Which of these can the historian's method not show by itself, but the witnesses proclaim and faith confesses?
- Practice 7 of 7
A friend says that the dead do not rise, so there is nothing to look at. Which way of talking does this lesson suggest?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Source
- Tacitus, Annals 15.44 — c. AD 116. After the great fire of Rome in 64, Nero fastened the guilt on the Christians and put them to cruel deaths, torn by dogs in the skins of beasts, crucified, or burned as torches by night, until even the crowd pitied them; their name came from Christ, executed under Pilate.
- Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64 — c. AD 93. The passage on Jesus (scholars generally judge parts to be later Christian additions).
- Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus — 2004. The 'minimal facts' approach: argues for the resurrection from facts most sceptical scholars grant (Jesus' death, the disciples' experiences, the conversions of Paul and James, the empty tomb).
- Origen, Against Celsus — c. 248. Answers point by point Celsus' True Word, the first full-length attack on Christianity, written in the later 2nd century.
- William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith — 1994 (a revision of his 1984 Apologetics: An Introduction). Sets out the kalam cosmological argument (whatever begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist) and the historical case for the resurrection; distinguishes knowing the faith is true, by the Spirit's witness, from showing it to others by argument.
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds and the writings of the Fathers, theologians and philosophers. They present the methods, arguments and objections of apologetics fairly in their holders' own words, and favour no one method. Scripture quotations: BSB.