Miscellaneous Things Related to the Resurrection Argument: The "Eclipse" at Jesus's Death, the Cowardly Disciples, Surviving Death, Expecting Jesus

Early non-Christian corroboration of the miraculous darkness at the crucifixion
The pagan historian Thallus lived roughly around AD 5-60. Unfortunately, his ancient works have perished, and so we learn from a different historian, Sextus Julius Africanus. Africanus wrote around A.D. 221:

"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun." (1)

Now, what troubled me, if I remember correctly about the very first time I came across this, is that it is cited by a Christian historian. How do we know he didn't make this up? It isn't beneath people to forge writings, even in a time where probably people could point it out because they have already read it. I know this because Josephus's Jesus passage has some obvious interpolations. 

I don't have expert opinion on specifically this subject, but can tell this doesn't look invented. It is brief, and doesn't suggest a focus on apologetic content. Thallus is said to write about the darkness, why not the rocks? This is unembellished. 

What's more, had someone invented this, they probably would say he couldn't explain away what happened, like in Josephus's Jesus passage where it says "He was the Christ" and explains the resurrection in embellished splendor. A very significant reason historians know Christians might have forged that is to get greater apologetic force. They put proof of Jesus in made-up interpolations, not let skeptical sources think they can explain it away. 

In the Resurrected? debate, Antony Flew argued when you get cases like this, the question is why more people aren't impressed by it. Gary Habermas said multiple times in the debate that "we know that conversion is seldom a matter of evidence." (2) A big example he used was atheist A.J. Ayer, whom I cited when giving some answers to the question "Why doesn't God make some loud, universal proclamation?" I don't have any developed, focused defense of Habermas's response, though.

But the thing is, this is history. The very fact that a non-Christian reported the darkness shows people were impressed by it. It became knowledge passable to a historian writing well in the time of the eyewitnesses (around A.D. 52). Thus, this could be used as evidence that "conversion is seldom a matter of evidence." 

With history, we only have a fraction of everything that was written and everything that was made. 10 authors, 9 secular ones and Luke, mention Tiberius Caesar within 150 years of his death(3). It is the same of secular sources for Jesus... but at least 33 Christian authors mention Jesus within that time span of Jesus's death. 

By the way, it is very probable that the "eclipse" did help to persuade some people. The truth is, we really don't have records that get specific to that.

Does the disbelieving Disciples make sense?
I can't find where, but in one of the two debates between Habermas and Flew, Flew asked why, if Jesus really had prophesied His resurrection, we have justification to say they were beaten men and weren't believing. Why abandon Jesus if He was in control of everything?

Ironically, this response could benefit an argument that belief is often not simply a matter of evidence. The easiest response is we do know the Disciples did abandon Jesus, because of all the good evidence from the post on the subject. Moreover, as I mentioned in its first paragraph, the Disciples couldn't understand when He prophesied His trial, death, and resurrection. Their first-century Jewish context of a conquering Messiah (the polar opposite of a crucified one) obviously overtook whatever faith they had on the subject. 

Is it possible to survive death by natural means?

Interestingly enough, I learned in both Bart Ehrman's How Jesus Became God and from Habermas, when I was binge reading for my big resurrection argument, that people can "survive death." Ehrman mentions how a historian could technically argue Jesus was seen alive after His death without believing in the supernatural(4). This is because we have witnessed near-death experiences, where someone at least seemingly dies and then comes back and can "tell the tale."

In the second debate between Flew and Habermas, the Christian brought up cases of near-death experiences (NDEs) where people had been somewhat dead, but came back to life and could report things they shouldn't have known. Flew said the cases didn't need God for them to come back to life, and Habermas agreed(5). If I remember correctly, there is something like clinical death, which is "reversible." Another state of death (biological death?) is more absolute and, if reversed, is supernatural. 

At any rate, because Jesus went through a completed crucifixion, His beaten body wouldn't allow for being revived by natural means, and He definitely couldn't inspire the Disciples in His morbid state. I refer you to the information from David Strauss here.

If anyone is interested in learning about miraculous near-death experiences, I strongly suggest J.P. Moreland's and Gary Habermas's Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality. The cases they use are not obscure, as they were documented. Sometimes the victim could see who was operating on them or knew when someone else had died. Doctors and others were amazed. The authors also, of course, discuss the resurrection, "The afterlife's ultimate model." 

Did anyone expect a suffering Messiah?

Again, I regret to say I can't find the exact quote, but Habermas said in one debate that there was a Jew or two that thought someone like Jesus was coming. I don't agree with Ehrman's claim that no Jew before Jesus interpreted Isaiah 53 and similar passages as referring to the Christ. (Someone here might rightfully complain I don't have any evidence besides a threatening expert source.) But whether not this is true, it doesn't matter.

Another argument Ehrman has made is the passages don't refer to the Christ because they never have the word "Christ." Christians have pointed, in his class, to passages like Isaiah 53 and said He was prophesied, and the context of when I read Ehrman's book suggests that they wanted to disprove no Jew expecting Jesus. If Christianity really is true, why was a conquering Messiah to be expected in Jesus's place?

It isn't difficult, at all, to give a response. For one thing, I know that the vast majority of historical record on the Messiah, especially around Jesus's time, doesn't point to Him. This is expert critical consensus, explained in this post, and I will write a little more on the subject later. This evidence for Jesus is historical bedrock, no matter what.

Obviously, the overwhelming, vocal majority disagreed with the minority Habermas cited. We've seen this all throughout the Old Testament. Isaiah 53 itself says in verses 3-4 that He would be significantly rejected by His people. Jews have turned away from God, wanting what their limited, human mind and eyes can come up with, and so have gotten captured (Israel was overtaken a lot), complained against their Creator, etc. They often didn't listen to God. Just read the Old Testament.

I also think that anti-Roman fervor could have become stronger over time (even though it already was), like in A.D. 30 instead of the turn of the century (I think it is around that time Habermas's sources wrote). 

Citations:

1. J. Warner Wallace, Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith (David Cook: Colorado Springs, CO. 2017), 130.

2. Gary R. Habermas and Antony Flew, Resurrected? An Atheist and Theist in Dialogue, John F. Ankerberg edition (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, inc: 2005), 58.

3. Gary R. Habermas and Micheal R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel Publications: Grand Rapids, MI. 2004), 127-28.

4. Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne: 2014), 149.

5. Habermas and Flew, Resurrected?, 48-52.