They intended to bury Him with criminals, but he ended up in a rich man’s tomb, because He committed no violent deeds, nor has He spoken deceitfully. Though the Lord desired to crush Him, and make Him ill, once restitution is made, He will see descendents and enjoy long life, and the Lord’s purpose will be accomplished through Him. Having suffered, He will reflect on His work, He will be satisfied when He understands what He has done. “My servant will acquit many, for He carries their sins.” (Isaiah 53: 9-11)
So far through this series we have covered some philosophical evidence for the existence of God (The Moral Argument) as well as some more scientifically theoretical evidence for the existence of God (The Kalam Cosmological Argument and Induction.) What we are about to discover is the historical evidence for not only the existence of God, but the existence of the one true Christian God. In 1 Corinthians 15 (which we will dive into shortly)Paul addresses the doubts that the Corinthians were having about the faith, especially about the resurrection. In his explanation to the Corinthians, Paul addresses the differentiating factor between our faith and all other religions. Just as we discussed in Blog 1, our faith is contingent on a historical event. We stake our claim on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I was really hoping to get this blog out sooner but the problem was that this claim presupposes a few things that needed to be addressed. One being the possibility of miracles as discussed in Blog 3. Secondly the arguments for the existence of a God, as seen in Blogs 3,5, and 6. Third, the reliability of New Testament scripture as seen in Blog 8.
Why are we to believe Jesus’s interpretation of the messiah as opposed to the interpretation held by the chief priests and what Jewish tradition came to be? After all, The Jewish Messiah was thought to be this brute war hero who would defeat Rome and restore the Israeli nation. Many Romans such as Celsus and Lucian would even go on to mock christians for believing in a guy who was supposedly ‘so great’ but couldn’t even escape the clutches of His captures. To properly interpret a miracle, you have to take into account the context attributed to the event. When taken account of the historical and religious context surrounding the resurrection, you see that this is not the resurrection of any old man. But the resurrection of the one who claimed to be the Son of God, Son of man, the ‘I am’ (Yahweh.) His resurrection from the dead was God’s public vindication of the very man who was sentenced to death for boasting such blasphemous claims.
The historical claim being laid out before us is as follows…
1- Jesus was crucified by the Romans.
2- That he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.
3- Three days later, this very tomb was discovered empty by female followers. Then by his disciples.
4- Post mortem appearances of Jesus to followers and skeptics alike. During this 40 day period he was seen by more than 500 people, walked with them, touched by them, broke bread, taught, and gave everyone “indisputable evidence” of his physical resurrection according to Acts 1:3.
Historically reliable documentation from even non believers affirm that Jesus indeed died on a cross at the hands of Pontius Pilate (Check Evangelism class 2.) Modern skeptics also confirm the historical accuracy of that claim. Jewish law required that even crucified Jews were to be given a proper burial. We see this Law exclaimed in both scripture as well as extra biblical sources. “If a person commits a sin punishable by death and is executed, and you hang the corpse on a tree, his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury him that same day, for the one who is left exposed on a tree is cursed by God. You must not defile the land in which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance” (Deuteronomy 21:22-23)” “Nay, they proceeded to that degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun.” (Flavius Josephus Wars of the Jews 4.317) Since His disciples were unable to afford a tomb for Him, they had to go with their only other option. Therefore He was buried in a public tomb owned by a member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea. Some skeptics hold firm to the claim that He wasn’t actually buried because it was not common for the Romans to bury their criminals. Rather, it was much more common for them to be thrown in a pit to be eaten by animals. The Greek word “ephaphE ” as seen in the creed in 1 Corinthians 15 was not used to describe that manner of body disposal, rather it more commonly meant to entomb. Plus multiple attestation from independent biblical sources do affirm that He was indeed buried, we see this in Mark 15:42-47, in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, John 19:38, as well as extra biblical sources such as Josephus. Recent archeological evidence of the remains of Roman criminals from this time period is quite fascinating. Check it out at Theguardian.com or Smithsonianmag.com. They both cover the discoveries of the Council for British Archeology’s recent discoveries of nails in the heel bones of Roman criminals found buried in tombs.
Now this begs the question… What happened three days later? Based on Gary Habbermas’s Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present, Even 75% of skeptic scholarship will admit that His tomb was discovered empty on that morning. There are several popular theories that try to explain the reasoning behind it. The Conspiracy Theory, The Hallucination Theory, The Mythic Theory, and the Resurrection Theory.
The Conspiracy Theory claims that either his disciples stole His body, or that they made the entire story up. We actually see mention of the stolen body conspiracy in the Gospel According to Matthew 28:11-15. In this passage we notice that Jewish authorities never actually deny that the tomb was empty. Instead, we read about them paying off the guards to spread a rumor that the disciples stole the body while the guards were asleep, in order to keep everyone at bay. If this were the case though, why would Matthew ever consider bringing it up in his Gospel? You’d imagine that this would be a rumor he was trying to suppress if it were true. Plus this tomb location was on public grounds. This is substantial because of the time of year it was. This was passover season, meaning travelers from all over swarmed the streets of Jerusalem and were camped out all over the place. The odds that the panic stricken disciples would have been able to best the guards, steal the corpse, then navigate through the flooded streets of Jerusalem is staggering to say the least. Another rumor that is related to this is that maybe Rome had a motive to steal the body. Taking a look back at history, the Romans would soon go on to expel the Jews from the area due to all the uproar (as discussed in Evangelism class 2.) So if anything, you’d imagine Rome would have just produced the body in order to put the rumors of the supposed risen Christ to rest thus putting an end to all the commotion.
So did the early Nazzarennes/Christians have anything to gain from the story of a risen Jesus. Not only was His resurrection an event that they weren’t expecting, but why would they continue to spread a rumor that they knew to be false if the only thing they stood to gain was mockery, persecution, and death. Would you willingly die for something you KNEW to be false? Now this is different from saying someone can be brought to martyrdom for a cause that they believe to be true. Those are two completely separate things. In this case we are talking about not one, but a multitude of different people, some on different life paths, with differing backgrounds, all dying for a cause that they themselves were witness to. We see Paul openly talking about his encounters with harsh persecution in Colossians 1:24 “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and fill up in my flesh that which is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” Now typically in Jewish tradition, if you were going through such hardships that must mean God is working against you. This is what drove the skepticism of the church in Corinth. They would ask Paul to show how exactly God was working with him through all of this. Paul responds by flipping the script and challenging that line of thinking in 2 Corinthians 3&4. Michael Jones from the popular online Christian channel Inspiring Philosophy raises a very interesting argument regarding the persecution of the early Christians and how it compares to how other early churches dealt with persecution. Most often when a new religion is started, or even a cult for that matter, they typically flee from their origins to go be amongst themselves so that they can remain safe and secluded in their own echo chambers. Whereas in Christianity the first church was based in Jerusalem, where all of this took place. Not only that, but the early Christians often marched up to the members of the Sanhedrin to scold them for crucifying their own messiah. Instead of fleeing, they remained in the hub with the highest probability/means of debunking their claims.
So why do we read of these known skeptics such as James and Jude convert to believing that Jesus was truly who He claimed to be? James and Jude (Jesus’s own brothers) were not followers of Him until they witnessed Him resurrected. Not only were they not disciples while He was alive, they openly mocked Him, as brothers would (as seen in John 7:1-9). Jesus even throws some shade their way in Mark 3:31-34 when the crowd informs Jesus that His brothers had been trying to summon Him, Jesus replies by saying that His true family is whoever does the will of God. So how is it that James would go on to be the leader of the church in Jerusalem? This man wasn’t even present at his own brother’s crucifixion. John 19:25-27. In this passage, Jesus hands His mother over to one of the disciples. It would be safe to assume that if one of His brothers were present that He would have sent Mary with one of them. Especially if they were in a position to be future church leaders. Something drastic must have taken place to change James’s perspective. Let alone Paul’s conversion! whose life work was to hunt down these Nazarenes. “They were only hearing, “The one who once persecuted us is now proclaiming the good news of the faith he once was trying to destroy.”” (Galatians 1:23) Saul of Tarsus, a prominent leader within His community, with a bright future ahead of him as a member of the Sanhedrin. Then all of a sudden,bam, instant conversion. Just like the disciples before them, why would these two nonbelievers being James and Saul willingly sign up for a life of persecution unless they absolutely knew it to be true.
If the apostles were to have made up the entire story, why would they start it with His empty tomb being discovered by a group of female followers? In Jewish tradition at this time, the testimony of women was not to even be considered. “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex;” (Josephus, Antiquities, 4.8.15.) if you are making up a story at this time, this is not how you’d start it if you were seriously trying to get others to believe you. It was embarrassing enough to the point where whenever an apostle was preaching about Jesus, in order to not lose the interest of their audience they would conveniently leave out this part! As seen in Acts 26, Acts 17:22-35, 1 Corinthians 15, and Luke 24:34. They were clearly aware of how much of an obstacle that truly was to overcome in the efforts of preaching about Jesus’s resurrection. Although it was a struggle for them at the time, this information is “gold dust” when defending the resurrection as put by Theologian N.T Wright, who would go on to note that “the early Christians would never, never had made this part up.” So to sum up the Conspiracy Theory… a frightened and dispersed group of followers sneaked past the guards, stole the body from this very public tomb, then in secrecy they were able to navigate through the crowded streets with all of the passover visitors, to make up an event that they weren’t expecting to happen in the first place, then some who were originally skeptic of Jesus would then join a cause that they knew to be a lie so they can be martyred with absolutely nothing to gain.
If the early church was truly trying to convert the gentiles, specifically the Romans, Jesus would’ve been the literal worst character to make up. Jesus met all the criteria of someone the Romans would look down upon. 1, he was a Jew. 2, he was from Nazzareth in Galilee. 3, He was shamefully crucified by the Romans. 4, He was a carpenter. A position looked down upon and who fell into the slave class (Altereagle.com/history-of-carpentry-roman.)
There is another ever so popular conspiracy that can be debunked as we look into exactly how the early Christians preached Jesus’ story to the Romans. The conspiracy that the Jesus story (especially regarding His resurrection) is borrowed from world religions that superseded Christianity. The Pagans thought death to be the moment when your life ends on earth, then you would go and live amongst the Gods. So if the resurrection of Jesus was just a rehashing of Pagan mythology, why is it that when Paul was preaching at the Areopagus in Acts 17, the Pagans looked at Paul like he had ten heads? When he mentioned the resurrection of Christ, they didn’t understand the concept. Be careful when you hear the popular claim that Jesus’s story is a contemplation of Osirus, Mithrus, Krishna, Horos etc etc… all of these stories are written and are to be interpreted as mythology. Whereas the Gospel stories are written as and are to be interpreted as actual historical narrative.
The next theory that tries to explain the Resurrection story is the Mythic Theory. This theory claims that the early ‘eye-witnesses’ never actually claimed to see a resurrected Jesus, and that it was added to the Bible later. In order to debunk this theory, we can analyze 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (as promised in the introduction). This is an early Christian creed that clearly illustrates what the disciples were teaching and claiming shortly after the resurrection. The structure and content in which Paul provides in this creed helps us date it to within 3 years of Pentecost. It’s retention based mnemonic structure, the parallelism, and its length is all specifically engineered for learning and repeatability. Paul states within the creed that this is information that he has received and is passing on, information that would’ve been passed to him via the disciples. Within this creed He uses the name “Cephus” for Petrus (Peter). Which is something that only would have been done early on. Plus this passage includes appearances that are not mentioned later in the Gospels, such as appearances to James and an individual appearance to Peter. Given all of this information, we are able to date the creed to no later than the mid 40’s.
We are also able to date the Gospels by looking at monumental and relevant events that would’ve absolutely been mentioned if they were written at a much later date. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem occurred in 70 A.D, an event that was foretold by Jesus. Given that this was something He foretold, it would stand to reason that there would’ve been mention of it in the Gospels. But there is no mention of it because the event had not taken place yet. It’s safe to assume that the Gospel writers would have been giddy to write about such a monumental event that Christ predicted. Not only is there no mention of the event in the Gospels, but there is no mention of it in Paul’s letters, or in the book of Acts (Where it would most likely have been mentioned.)
The Hallucination Theory is a popular mechanism that a considerable number of skeptics try to use to debunk the Resurrection story. While there are many denominations of this theory, the overall concept is that a grief stricken group of apostles all had delusions or dreams of seeing their beloved friend, rabbi, and leader. Due to multiple attestation, this theory seems to be popular because most scholarly skeptics do in fact agree that those who claimed to witness post mortem appearances of Christ, actually did in some way shape or form happen. Without knowing the disciples all too well this theory would make a good amount of sense. Just as a Ghost Hunter is more likely to claim to have an encounter with a ghost. But here is where this idea fails… the disciples were not looking for, nor expecting to see a resurrected Jesus. That is not at all how they interpreted what Jesus was teaching. “Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, came in, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead.” (John 20:8-9) Not only did He appear to them, but he taught, broke bread, and engaged in conversation. He was witnessed by over 500 people on at least 11 occasions over the period of 40 days. So not only would groups that saw Him had to have had the same dream/Hallucination, they would’ve had to occur at the same exact times, with the same exact experiences, in the same places, without any contradictions.
We are left with one remaining theory, which in my opinion is the most plausible one in attempting to make sense of what happened three days after Jesus’s burial. Jesus is who He claimed to be, and in three days the triune God of scripture was resurrected. All because of the simple fact “That God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but receive everlasting life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but that through him, the world shall be saved.” (John 3:16-17) The same God who possesses the power to not only create the universe, but sustain its properties and its never changing laws that hold it together, acknowledged that we fallible humans were not capable of overcoming sin which keeps us barred from the kingdom of God. So in order to wash us clean and make us pure and able to dwell with Him again, He took on flesh and received the punishment that we all deserve. A task when measured against the creation of the universe seems like child’s play. Though we are all guilty, He paid our ransom on the Cross. Although we lie, we blaspheme His holy name, we cheat, we steal, we lust, we hate, we manipulate, we drink too much, we adulter, we fornicate, and worst of all, we normalize it, then shake our fist at the sky when we have to live with the results, He, as any loving father would do, provided us with a life-line. The wages of Sin is death, Jesus came and proved that through Him death has been defeated. As He was nailed to the cross, so is our sin, as long as you leave it there. Come as you are to the cross, but humble yourself and let the Holy Spirit make you new. A brother or sister in Christ who no longer wants to revel in our sin, but one who is given a new heart that doesn’t desire that which separates us from His holy presence.