Habeas Corpus, Pt. 1

First, this entry is in response to a series of entries by A Thinking Bum on the nature of the physical resurrection.  ATB suggests that there are no good reasons to believe in the body resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  To capsulize his argument, let me quote him here briefly:

“We have no trustworthy evidence of a physical resurrection, no reliable witnesses. It is among the most poorly attested of historical events. The earliest evidence, from the letters of Paul, does not appear to be of a physical resurrection, but a spiritual one. And we have at least one plausible reason available to us as to why and how the legend grew into something else.  Finally, the original accounts of a physical resurrection show obvious signs of legendary embellishment over time, and were written in an age of little education and even less science, a time overflowing with superstition. And, ultimately, the Gospels match perfectly the same genre of hagiography as that life of Genevieve with which I began. There the legends quickly arose, undoubted and unchallenged, of tree born monsters and righted ships and blinded thieves. In the Gospels, we get angels and earthquakes and a resurrection in the flesh. So we have to admit that neither is any more believable than the other.” –ATB

First, before I do anything else, I’d like to thank ATB for honoring my request.  In his original presentation of his argument, he provided no reference to his sources, which he notes he uses extensively.  In the augmented, revised version, he does note some sources, and should be commended for it.

Alright.

 I would like to start by asking a question about the worth of the story of St. Genevieve.  What comparison is there logically and empirically between the reliability of the Gospels, who even liberal scholars note were written by at least 4 different pens, and that of the account of St. Genevieve, which was written by only one and attested no where else?  I don’t believe there are enough similarities between the two narratives to make the sweeping comparisons suggested by ATB.  Nor do I believe that the textual reliability of the texts are similar enough to make those claims.  I am not a textual critic, but I have enough cursory knowledge to suggest that such scholars as existed at the time of the early church (Clement and others) are decent enough to suggest that the texts are as old as the events, and many of them are commonly attributed to the writers that actually claim to be doing the writing.  Notes on the entire New Testament in this basic textual critical way can be found in An Introduction to the New Testament, by D.A. Carson, Douglas Moo, and Leon Morris.[1]  Additional information on the Gospel accounts as they relate to the resurrection can be found in a book by one of my professors, Craig Blomberg, entitled, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey.[2]  More detailed information on the subject can be found in the substantial bibliographies of those books.

Next, I am not familiar with Geivett’s book, but I can tell you flat that a religious experience argument (if that is indeed what Geivett is making in his book) is not the best argument for the physical resurrection you can make.  There are good, scholarly, historical reasons for believing in the bodily resurrection.  I will suggest those shortly.

Until then, however, I would like to take up just a brief logical matter with some of the various points ATB suggests. 

 (1) It is true that Jesus ne

ver actually wrote down his own accounts of his exploits.  However, I would ask on what basis ATB makes the assumption that the Gospels were originally anonymous.  In all four of the Gospel accounts, it is clear that there is a name attached to them, even in the earliest traditions.  In the case of the Gospel of John, John notes the existence of the other Gospels, and in his epistles, actually notes that he himself saw what he has written of.  John, in addition, never claims to give a comprehensive account.  Such an account was unnecessary, because John notes the existence of the other accounts.  I see no reason or source quoted by ATB to support his view.  I am sure there are some, but everything that I’ve read at least makes feasible the idea that the people who wrote the Gospels are actually the people who claimed to have written them.  Simply saying they were anonymous does not deal adequately with the contrary claims put forth by modern evangelical scholarship, it merely ignores them, and that doesn’t prove the point ATB attempts to make here.  (Please note that doesn’t prove my opinion right, it merely makes ATB’s claim inconclusive on the basis of contrary evidence.)

 (2)  The Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court of the time, does make reference to the trial and sentencing of Jesus.  Blomberg notes this in his book.  If the Gospel accounts are true on this point, and there was a cover-up by the Jewish authorities, it makes sense that there would be no written record of the resurrection.  Josephus, who wrote late in the first century, if I remember correctly, does make note of the trial and sentencing of Jesus, and of the claim of his followers that he was physically resurrected.  He does not analyze the truth or falsity of this claim, he merely notes it as a point of historical fact.  Again, this argument is inconclusive in proving the truth of the resurrection, but does make it at least feasible.

 (3)  There is a sense in which I could say that the lack of physical evidence (read:  Jesus’ body never being found) is actually an argument FOR the physical resurrection, but I will not attempt to make that case here.  I will say only this.  The Jewish authorities eager to end the insurrection they associated with Jesus and his followers needed only to produce the body to end the rumor that he had been resurrected.  This they did not do, or they certainly would have recorded it in their annals.  ATB also doesn’t include the disciples and the hundreds of followers in the physical evidence category, though he does address that point later.  I will acquiesce to his decision in this case and deal with that issue in the same order he has, though I feel the responses of individual persons after Jesus death gives strong argument for a physical resurrection.

 (4)  “the most prominent scholars of the age”  What exactly does that mean?  There is no such thing as a scholar in the period in question.  There were people who wrote histories, certainly, but their histories are in no way scholarly.  There is no reason to believe that educated Romans were better recorders of facts than their Jewish counterparts, many of whom were trained in the same Hellenized educational tradition as the Romans who are supposedly more scholarly.  At least in the case of Paul, it is likely he was trained in the Roman university town of Tarsus, where he was born and raised.  His traveling companion, Luke, who many claim wrote the Gospel bearing his name and the book of Acts, was similarly trained as a physician and demonstrates aptitude in Koine Greek and some mean Hebrew and Aramaic.  Matthew, if the evangelical assumption is correct, was a tax collector and must have at least known enough Latin to deal with his Roman supervisors.  The only Gospel writer who would have had no real formal training is John, and as any Koine grammarian will tell you (I have translated some of the Greek of his gospel and epistles personally) his use of Greek is what one might expect from a Galilean fisherman. In addition, in making this claim, ATB never offers up a criteria for what makes one source more credible than another.  All I can take from what ATB suggests is that Romans of various stripes are more credible that Jews of various stripes, a claim which is both unsubstantiated and logically flawed, especially considering the longstanding scribe traditions in Jewish culture and the moral responsibilities of rigid Jewish monotheism in terms of recording events.  All I have to prove is that Jewish sources are as likely to be credible as Roman sources, and this claim is defeated.  Unless good reasons can be produced why Jewish writers are less credible than Roman ones, I will assume they are equally credible.

 (5)  I believe that without a physical resurrection, there is no such thing as Christianity.  The Biblical texts bear this out.  In t

he book of Acts, written by Luke, one of Paul’s associates, he quotes Peter as saying, “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.”[3]  In direct distinction to ATB’s claim, Paul does claim that Jesus was raised bodily from the dead in the following locations:  Romans 1:4, 1 Corinthians 15 (either ATB or his source is misquoting this passage in the way he uses it in his argument, taking a less obvious reading than what the context of the passage indicates) and Philippians 3:10-11.  In addition to Paul, Peter and the author of Hebrews also make this same claim of “resurrection from the dead.”  That the disciples would create a belief that would lead them to their deaths if they didn’t truly believe in the bodily resurrection is not likely, considering their original response in the Gospels when Jesus was arrested.  The disciples, if they were truly interested in creating a mystical version of the resurrection, need only to have suggested just the spiritual resurrection that ATB reads into the text in 1 Corinthians.  This is not the claim they made.  Throughout the book of Acts and in the epistles, the followers of Jesus routinely take the harder path of claiming a physical resurrection.  The fact that they chose this falsifiable claim over one that is not falsifiable lends credence to the idea that there was in fact a bodily resurrection.  Ravi Zacharias points this out on a lecture given at the U. of Iowa in which both he and William Lane Craig tackle the 5 most common objections to Christianity, one of which is this very issue of the physical resurrection.[4]  In addition to my cursory arguments here, there is additional argumentation provided there in more depth.  At any rate, I argue that the cascade of events after the claim of the bodily resurrection are not likely if there was not in fact a bodily resurrection.

So then, at the end of this point of ATB’s argument, I would like to take stock.  It seems to me that ATB’s points are inconclusive.  Whether they are true or not is back under the burden of proof, available for scrutiny.  I do not find the arguments ATB suggests so far sufficient for denying the physical resurrection.  Let me state ATB’s opinion of his case thus far so I can make one additional point:

In fact, when we compare all 5 points, we see that in 4 of the 5 proofs of an event’s historicity, the resurrection has NO evidence at all, and in the one proof that it does have, it has not the best, but the very worst kind of evidence — a handful of biased, uncritical, unscholarly, unknown, second-hand witnesses.  This is not a historically well-attested event, and it does NOT meet the highest standards of evidence.- ATB

Very well, then.  I believe there is evidence for the resurrection of the highest quality we will be able to attain for the period in question.  I will present that evidence shortly.  However, briefly, in regards to the statement that the evidence that is available is from “biased, uncritical, unscholarly, unknown, second-hand witnesses,”  I again place the burden of proof upon ATB to prove that claim.  I don’t believe the evidence was conclusive, and I don’t see any dialogue between ATB and the point of view of evangelical scholars who have good logical and empirical reasons to believe in a physical resurrection and the witnesses and writers who attest to it.  I suggest to you all that the case for a bodily resurrection is not nearly as open and shut as ATB would have us believe.  I believe it comes down to the most feasible, plausible explanation on the basis of evidence—and I believe that evidence points to a real physical resurrection.  I will offer up that evidence soon.

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[1] 1992, Zondervan, Grand Rapids.

[2] 1997, Broadman & Holman, Nashville.

[3] Acts 3:13-15

[4] Top 5 Questions, available at http://shop.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/rzim.storefront/415af1dd04195f26271bac14100105dd/Product/View/CD210</P