Introduction to argument over: The Resurrection of Jesus

 "Before anyone knew it, the apocalyptic preacher was on a cross. According to our earliest account, he was dead within six hours." (1)

This just about sums up a skeptical view of the the historical Jesus. Jesus wasn't who Christians today understand Him as -- a person who claimed to be the Divine Son of God. And, you can't just trust the Gospels. Instead, even the earliest accounts are prone to be erroneous. 

For this blog project, I have binge read portions of books by famous agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, the debate between leading Christian Gary Habermas and leading philosophical atheist Antony Flew recorded in 1987, their other one that took place in April 2000, and some other work Habermas has done. I also have about 17 pages of notes I took over about a month of time, full of thoughts collected when I had them, which refers back to previous things I read before planning this (like that top quote). I have to sort through everything, so I'm going to try to use the KIS (intentionally without a second 's') method. That stands for "keep it simple." I'm going to try to limit my argumentation to a potent and clearly explained side which answers objections from unbelievers (and uses some of their other claims too) collected in a total of 6 parts, excluding the conclusion and this introduction. 

Bart Ehrman will be prominently mentioned in probably every post. His influence, assertiveness, and intellectual prowess has attracted me, because not only does Ehrman belong to the other side, plenty of things he presents are positive for Christianity as well. 

Ehrman compares other reports of religious appearances and phenomena to what he thinks the Disciples experiences might have been (emphasis on "might"), as we shall see in some detail later. He says this:

"Protestant apologists interested in 'proving' that Jesus was raised from the dead rarely show any interest in applying their finely honed historical talents [thank you Ehrman] to the exalted Blessed Virgin Mary. 
... 
"My view is that historians can't 'prove' it either way." (2)

 Interesting how the two non-Christian expert scholars he quoted were Gerd Ludemann and Michael Goulder(3), whom I have read in one of all six debates I will be drawing information from. 

Michael Goulder actually is an expert in explaining away (or at least trying to) reported miracles. I'm not going to do that to any great extent; they really are individual different subjects. My plan is to show that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is not only robust, it is robust because it is unique, and this uniqueness is conclusive. 

The most provocative and potent argument against the resurrection I have ever read was from two chapters in How Jesus Became God. There, Ehrman expressed concretely, one way by repetition, one critique of Christian apologetics (he had many), which says a historian can never reasonably conclude a miracle because it is always the least probable event. If you are interested with how reasonable it is to carry presuppositions like that to the evidence, I wish to point you to my The Possibility of Miracles? post, where a physical resurrection is the main test case. There it is shown why I believe a historian can reasonably consider an act of God. (That's right, consider God, not prove Him historically. I attempt that elsewhere, like in this blog project.)

But still, concerning a miracle claim, I need more than just, say, one piece of evidence that can be explained away. Take the empty tomb, for example. We only explicitly read about it in the Gospels. Therefore, if verified, the evidence of this report only points to a resurrection. But that doesn't mean Jesus really was back, because other things could have happened: "someone stole the body; someone innocently decided to move the body to another tomb[.]" (4) In a debate between Ehrman and leading Christian apologist William Lane Craig, the former even went so far as to suggest that two members of Jesus's family stole the body! He does make it clear that such is "a highly unlikely scenario," (5) but it could have happened (supposedly more likely than a miracle). So it is with the empty tomb. I don't think it's likely that something else happened so soon after His death, but it could have. And while I'm not claiming that history can ever lead us to be so sure of its indications from evidence as I am that there is a computer in front of my face, there must be more puzzle pieces.

Now, if you've read about the resurrection before in this blog, Gary Habermas's "minimal facts approach" will probably sound familiar. This leading Christian scholar on the resurrection limits his argument to information so firmly planted in historical bedrock that there is a virtual consensus among critical scholars, except for one fact, which still has a significant number of skeptical believers(6). We shall see what some of these claims are in later posts. I won't use all of them. I can't use all of them, because I also consider it important to present why they think things are true, and can't do so for all 12 facts. But I can for 6 claims on a consensus, plus two others that are highly evidenced. This is certainly enough. In The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Habermas uses a 4+1 argument -- 4 facts on a virtual consensus and a fifth which is evidently true but not so widely shared. I will have a 6+2 argument. 

I was disappointed that Ehrman never even mentioned Habermas. He did say, though: "Most New Testament scholars are themselves Christian and they naturally tend to take the Christian view of the matter--that the visions were bona fide appearances of Jesus to his followers." (7) I found this intriguing: elsewhere he talks about "consensus scholarship" in a book confirming Jesus's existence, but it still "offends people on both ends of the spectrum." (8)

As a group of Christian scholars said in their book critiquing Ehrman's work:

"Throughout Ehrman's writings, he regularly cites the 'modern scholarly consensus' in support of his claims. According to Ehrman, his views are 'standard fare,' held by 'all my closest friends,' are 'widely accepted among New Testament scholars,' and are 'widely taught in seminaries and divinity schools.' However, it is only by defining scholarship on his own terms and by excluding scholars who disagree with him that Ehrman is able to imply that he is supported by all other scholarship." (9)

(Now I must point out that Ehrman didn't claim this about the two chapters I read on the resurrection, but readers could still get the false idea. Furthermore, I can't demonstrate that scholars so modern that they were writing 2010+ would still consider Habermas's list of facts as on a consensus. But unless the tide of scholarship so widely turned after centuries [as we shall see], it still has power. And, the skeptical scholars of the nineteenth, twentieth, and eighteenth centuries were not idiots. Even then, though, I'm not sure how long everything has been accepted.) 

Ehrman does say that he is "always highly suspicious--completely and powerfully suspicious--of 'scholars,' from one side or another, whose 'historical' findings just by chance happen to confirm what they already think." (8)

Still, even if the majority of New Testament scholars are Christian, that's no reason to leave out things like huge skeptics that Habermas cites, for example Rudolf Bultmann and Reginald Fuller. Habermas's "historical findings" come from people who do not fit such a category for suspicion. 

The point is, Ehrman's word is not law. Actually, he is speaking from an overly skeptical viewpoint. But because of his lack of even mentioning "the minimal facts approach," his readers wouldn't know that. 

His next sentence goes, "This occurs, again, on both sides of the spectrum, from those who breathlessly announce, 'Jesus never existed!' to those who strenuously insist, 'Jesus was physically raised from the dead--and I can prove it." (emphasis original)

What I gather from this by reading between the lines is that the latter must be "radical scholars," at least because their position in the belief of the fantastic is not reasonable. Indeed, Ehrman makes that quite clear in How Jesus Became God. But I believe I can draw on Christian scholarship and prove it. 

...I will prove it. 

Citations:

1. Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (HarperOne: 2012), 331.

2. Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne: 2014), 199, 204.

3. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 188.

4. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 149.

5. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman

6. Gary Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, edited by Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), 19-20. 

7. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 187-88.

8. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 143.

9. Andreas J. Kostenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh D. Chatraw, Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible B&H Publishing Group: Nashville, TN. 2014), 34.