A review of Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" (Level 2 discussion)

Before reading below, I recommend you read my post - What is the Faith Pyramid?

In “Misquoting Jesus,” Bart Ehrman challenges the trustworthiness of our current New Testament text to convey anything but a semblance of what the original authors wrote down. After all, we do not have the autographs (or original writings) in our possession. They were either destroyed or deteriorated many centuries ago. Ehrman states, “We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.”[1] This claim, and the conclusions he would come to (which would ultimately lead him to become a self-ascribed “happy agnostic”), evidently began upon attending Wheaton College in his undergraduate years when he was introduced to textual criticism, which is the science of ascertaining the original wording of ancient texts. A “turning point” for Ehrman came later, while attending Princeton Theological Seminary in graduate school. He tells the story of a term paper he wrote in which he attempted to make sense of a supposed mistake in the Gospel of Mark. After developing a long and complicated argument to harmonize what is viewed (by some) as a Biblical mistake, his professor merely replied on his paper: “Maybe Mark just made a mistake.” After finding himself agreeing with the professor, Ehrman admits, “the floodgates opened.”[2]

Bart Ehrman came to no longer believe the New Testament to be the “inspired word of God.” He states (on more than one occasion), “If one wants to insist that God inspired the very words of scripture, what would be the point if we don’t have the very words of scripture?”[3] Throughout “Misquoting Jesus,” Ehrman attempts to prove his thesis that the current New Testament is an inaccurate depiction of the first-century writings by making two primary claims: First, the text has changed over the centuries, due to accidental mistakes in copying the New Testament writings. Second, the text has changed over the centuries, due to purposeful changes in copying the New Testament writings. Multiplying these two issues by fifteen centuries (from the time of the original writings to the invention of the printing press), and we absolutely cannot be sure that what we call “the letters of Paul” or “the four Gospels” are the actual words Paul and the Gospel writers wrote down, so he alleges. To his credit, Bart Ehrman gives numerous examples to illustrate these two claims. However, the ultimate problems I had with “Misquoting Jesus” is that I found Ehrman to be disingenuous with many of his examples, and I also found him to be unnecessarily provocative on numerous occasions. I will illustrate these two main problems as I journey through “Misquoting Jesus.”

ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT

In his introductory chapter, after sharing his journey from the faith, Ehrman begins to give examples of what he views as contradictions in the New Testament text. After all, according to the laws of logic, if something is incoherent (or is lacking internal consistency), then it is automatically not true. In Ehrman’s examples, his disingenuousness is immediately shown. He states, “When Paul says that after he converted on the way to Damascus he did not go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before him (Gal. 1:16-17), whereas the book of Acts says that was the first thing he did after leaving Damascus (Acts 9:26)—maybe that is a difference.”[4] The problem with Ehrman’s claim here is that if you keep reading the Galatians passage, Paul does state in verse 18 (two verses later!) that “three years later I went up to Jerusalem…” A closer investigation of the Acts passage also reveals that Luke never claims that “the first thing” Paul did after Damascus was go to Jerusalem. But rather Luke states, “When he (Paul) came to Jerusalem…” It is always good to bear in mind that Luke is compressing three decades of the Christian movement, following the resurrection of Jesus, into 28 chapters! Ehrman is a smart man and understands this well. This, of course, is why I view statements like this as disingenuous.

Another example is Ehrmans’ analysis of the mustard seed illustration by Jesus: “Maybe, when Jesus says later in Mark that the mustard seed is ‘the smallest of all seeds on the earth,’ maybe I don’t need to come up with a fancy explanation for how the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds when I know full well it isn’t.”[5] To begin, Jesus in fact does not say that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds “on the earth,” although he does state that, “it is smaller than all the seeds upon the soil” (Mark 4:31 NASB). This is an important distinction, because which is more likely true – that Jesus was giving a botany lesson to the farmers and workers of the field listening to his message, or that Jesus was giving a localized illustration that they would have indeed understood? Clearly, the latter is true, because the Bible regularly uses everyday terminology to convey simple truths. If the local weatherman claims that the sun will rise at 6:36am tomorrow, should I label him “errant” in his claim because he has shared something that is not true in a different part of the world or because he is literally not telling the truth by claiming that the sun will actually “rise”? Of course we would not label such a claim as “errant.” Likewise, Jesus’ statement would have been something that any Palestinian farmer listening to him would have easily understood, because (in that part of the world – in their world), the mustard seed was indeed the smallest of all seeds. To compound this point, Jesus even uses the phrase “…a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field” (Matt. 13:31 NASB, italics mine). Clearly, this is a local teaching using language that (in its context) makes perfect sense and is perfectly true.

COPIES OF COPIES

One of Bart Ehrman’s most oft-quoted points is that the multiple and numerous generations of copies we have of the New Testament text makes it untrustworthy. “Those (letters) that were produced in multiple copies were not all alike, for the scribes who copied texts inevitably made alterations in those texts—changing the words they copied either by accident (via a slip of the pen or other carelessness) or by design (when the scribe intentionally altered the words he copied).”[6] The result is 200,000-400,000 variants (or differences between copies) among the 5,700 Greek manuscripts we have of the New Testament. What are we to make of all of these variants? Can our New Testament be trusted? Ehrman does not think so, but there are several reasons I will give why our New Testament, in fact, can be trusted. Moreover, I will review some of Ehrman’s examples and provocative claims.

What about all of those variants? “Most of these 400,000 variations stem from differences in spelling, word order, or the relationships between nouns and definite articles—variants that are easily recognizable and, in most cases, virtually unnoticeable in translations!”[7] There are numerous examples why most of these 400,000 variants (which is a high figure given in this discussion) are mostly insignificant to the New Testament reader today. First, the vast majority of these differences involve spelling and nonsense errors. To illustrate, if there are 100 spelling differences in 1,000 manuscripts, that represents 100,000 variants! For example, the name John in spelled in Greek as either Ioannes or Ioanes, and both were written in various Greek manuscripts. Even so, this would be considered a “variant.” Also, in Greek, there is what is called the “moveable nu.” This is similar to the indefinite article “a” in English. Depending on the next word, you would either write “a” or “an.” This variation makes no difference to the meaning though. “It is so insignificant that most textual critics simply ignore the variants involving a moveable nu when transcribing the words of a manuscript. It affects nothing.”[8] Furthermore, scribes would sometimes make nonsense mistakes, which were easy to recognize. For example, in Greek, the word for “Lord” (kurios) looks similar to the word for “and” (kai). Due to the monotony of transcribing a text, a mental lapse has occurred and scribes have interchanged these words. As you can imagine, this change (in either direction) causes passages to make no sense in context. “In such cases, the wording that the scribe bungled is easy to reconstruct.”[9] There is also the use of the definite article with proper names in Greek. The Greek New Testament will sometimes have “the” in front of proper names, so you will find in Greek “Paul” and sometimes “the Paul.” This fact creates a multitude of additional variants, but it is still translated in English the same way (of course, without the definite article). Finally, in Greek, the word endings give meaning to a sentence, not necessarily the word order (although the word order helps us understand the author’s emphasis). This is very different than the English language. Take a look at the following example of several English sentences:

· “God loves Paul.”

· “The God loves the Paul.”

· “The God loves Paul.”

· “God loves the Paul.”

· “Paul loves God.”

· “The Paul loves the God.”

· “The Paul loves God.”

· “Paul loves the God.”

· “Loves God Paul.”

· “Loves the God the Paul.”

· “Loves the God Paul.”

· “Loves God the Paul.”

· “Loves Paul God.”

· “Loves the Paul the God.”

· “Loves the Paul God.”

· “Loves Paul the God.”

· “God Paul loves.”

· “The God the Paul loves.”

· “The God Paul loves.”

· “God the Paul loves.”

· “Paul God loves.”

· “The Paul the God loves.”

· “The Paul God loves.”

· “Paul the God loves.”

The meaning varies among most of these examples (and in many cases, the meaning is nonsense). Interestingly though, this meaning variation is true for the English language, but it is not true for the Greek language. “As long as ‘God’ is in the nominative case and ‘Paul’ is in the accusative case [verified by the word ending], all of the above sentences mean, “God loves Paul.”[10] So even if the word order differs between Greek manuscripts (which is called "transposition"), the meaning is still the same! The rules of the Greek language protect the meaning much better than what we experience with the English language (where the word order is an essential aspect of the meaning).

One of Ehrman’s points in his analysis of the copyist’s job is that it is hard work. There is no doubt. In the first century, Greek was written in all lowercase letters and there were no spaces between words. “The words godisnowhere could mean quite different things to a theist (God is now here) and an atheist (God is nowhere).”[11] This helpful (and amusing) example illustrates the challenge of properly interpreting a first-century Greek text. For me, it also illustrates the single greatest problem I had with “Misquoting Jesus”: Bart Ehrman points out the variants (and therefore the potential loss of meaning) of certain New Testament passages without ever recognizing the parallel teaching and passages, which are not likewise disputed and happen to remove this “loss” of meaning. He views potential problem areas (such as the given illustration above) without ever taking in consideration the context or clarifying passages that might makes sense of a "godisnowhere" kind of passage! I will provide numerous examples.

In his analysis of the Gospel of Mark and “an angry Jesus,” Ehrman makes the claim that verse 41 of chapter 1 was most likely originally written, “and becoming angry” Jesus reached out his hand and healed a leper. This reading, of course, differs from what our modern Bibles say that Jesus was “moved with compassion” (and not that he became angry). Even if we concede the point that his analysis is correct (and that the text should state that Jesus “became angry”), his conclusion is, nevertheless, outlandish and provocative. Erhman believes that this true understanding of Jesus’ healing of the leper should change our entire interpretation of the Gospel of Mark! With or without this other understanding of the healing of the leper, Timothy Paul Jones points out:

“This Gospel depicts Jesus as a passionate prophet, rapidly crisscrossing Galilee and Judea as he moves toward his impending encounter with a Roman cross. By the third chapter, Jesus has already upset so many religious leaders that they’re making plans to murder him (Mark 3:6). He becomes annoyed when people don’t trust him (Mark 3:5; 9:23). At the same time, Mark makes it clear that Jesus constantly feels compassion for downtrodden people (Mark 6:34; 8:2; 9:22-23). Based on evidence throughout the Gospel, either reading of the text would fit Mark’s presentation of Jesus. Understanding the text to declare that Jesus became angry does not significantly change my understanding of Mark’s Gospel.”[12]

Ehrman, irresponsibly in my opinion, attempts to convey Mark’s Jesus in this new way. Now Jesus “rebukes” and “throws out” the healed man (Ehrman believes this is now the best translation of the Greek in light of our “new” understanding). Although, if we desire consistency in translating the Greek, Jesus must have also “thrown out” the young girl’s parents just before he brings her back to life (see the end of Mark chapter 5). This, of course, is foolish (when looked at closely in context) and reveals the fallacy of this new, harsher portrayal of Jesus.

Ehrman also makes the claim that Luke 22:19-20, in which Jesus shares the symbol of the bread and wine at the Last Supper, was not in the original writing of Luke. Once again, even if we concede this point, these words of Jesus are still recorded in Matthew 26:27-28, Mark 14:22-25 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-25. “So, even if these clauses were missing from Luke’s original writing, this is not a case of ‘misquoting Jesus’ – it’s a passage that was already present in several other places, though perhaps not in Luke’s Gospel.”[13]

Ehrman also implies (in my opinion) that an expanded and fallacious version of 1 John 5:7-8 (which includes a teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity) exists to explicitly support this traditional teaching of the church. The expanded version states, “There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one; and there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one.”[14] He states, “Without this verse, the doctrine of the Trinity must be inferred from a range of passages combined to show that Christ is God, as is the Spirit and the Father, and that there is, nonetheless, only one God. This passage, in contrast, states the doctrine directly and succinctly” (italics mine).[15] This is another example in which Ehrman is being unnecessarily provocative and disingenuous. First, this expanded version of 1 John 5:7-8 is not even in most modern English translations! Second, to state that the doctrine of the Trinity can only be inferred apart from this expanded passage is ignorant (at best) or dishonest (at worst). This critical review does not allow for an extensive apologetic of the doctrine of the Trinity, but I will nevertheless point out Jesus’ own words in what is commonly referred to as the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 28:19 NASB, italics mine). The doctrine of the Trinity is not dependent on this one expanded version of 1 John 5:7-8, especially since the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 explicitly affirmed this doctrine over a thousand years prior to the addition!

In Ehrman’s discussion of a probable change in 1 Timothy 3:16, he (once again) implies an unnecessary conclusion in light of parallel New Testament teaching. He states, “In 1 Timothy 3:16, where most later manuscripts speak of Christ as ‘God made manifest in the flesh,’ this early manuscript originally spoke, instead, of Christ ‘who was made manifest in the flesh’…The change that came to dominate the medieval manuscripts, then, was made in order to emphasize Jesus’s divinity in a text that was ambiguous about it, at best.”[16] Ehrman is implicitly undermining the divinity of Christ in the same way he undermined the doctrine of the Trinity. Once again, my modern translation did not even have this mistaken rendering of 1 Timothy 3:16. Furthermore, there are other passages of Scripture that affirm Jesus as God (John 1:1; John 20:28; John 10:38; Colossians 1:15-17; Colossians 2:9; Philippians 2:6; etc.). Ehrman, of course, fails to point this out.

There are also places where scribes, for the purpose of clarification, change the text. For example, Matthew 1:16 reads: “Jacob was the father of Joseph husband of Mary, out of whom Jesus—the one who is called the Messiah—was born” (NASB). “But, at some point, a copyist wanted to make certain readers understood that Jesus was virgin-born, so the scribe changed the verse to read, ‘Jacob was father of Joseph, to whom was betrothed the virgin Mary from who Jesus—the one who is called the Messiah—was born.’”[17] Even without this change, the remainder of Matthew 1 still affirms that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived (see vss. 18-25). However, this fact does not keep Ehrman from cynically stating that the issue of Mary’s virginity was “an important point for many early scribes!”[18] There are numerous other examples similar to these, in which Bart Ehrman draws conclusions from disputed texts containing variants, even though there are clear parallel teachings in other parts of the same writing, which remove these “scandalous” results.

CONCLUSION

In my reading of “Misquoting Jesus,” I found Bart Ehrman’s analysis of the trustworthiness of the New Testament letters to be unconvincing and cynical. This cynicism most exemplified itself in his conclusion. Ehrman states:

“For the more I studied, the more I saw that reading a text necessarily involves interpreting a text. I suppose when I started my studies I had a rather unsophisticated view of reading: that the point of reading a text is simply to let the text ‘speak for itself,’ to uncover the meaning inherent in its words. The reality, I came to see, is that meaning is not inherent and texts do not speak for themselves.”[19]

Ehrman seems to be stating that meaning cannot ultimately be found. In fact, when reading his entire conclusion, Ehrman seems to imply that written communication (in general) is an insufficient form of passing on knowledge! Even if I am overstating his point, at the very least, he is undermining our ability to be confident in any interpretation of an ancient work. Ehrman states, “[the scribes] changed scripture the way we all change scripture, every time we read it.”[20] That is a pretty extraordinary statement, and one I imagine that most textual critics would not agree with. As previously stated, Bart Ehrman is a self-ascribed “happy agnostic”; therefore, he more than likely has naturalistic presuppositions. With this being the case, it is easy to understand why Ehrman currently does not believe the New Testament writings to be the “inspired word of God.” As a matter of reason and analysis, I do believe the New Testament is reliable to share the true message of God. As a matter of faith, I also believe God fully inspired not only the composition of the original New Testament writings, but also their compilation and canonization, which has ultimately led to the New Testament text we have today. This entire process can only be explained with a supernatural explanation – one that a naturalist presupposition could never comprehend.

I have only scratched the surface responding to Bart Ehrman's claims in this book review. For a more exhaustive discussion on the reliability of the New Testament, I highly recommend Daniel Wallace's Reinventing Jesus. Also, Timothy Paul Jones does solid work in Misquoting Truth.

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[1]Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 7.

[2]Ehrman, 9.

[3]Ehrman, 11.

[4]Ehrman, 10.

[5]Ehrman, 9-10.

[6]Ehrman, 46.

[7]Timothy Paul Jones, Misquoting Truth (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 43.

[8]Daniel B. Wallace et al, Reinventing Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2006), 56.

[9]Wallace, 57.

[10]Wallace, 58.

[11]Ehrman, 48.

[12]Jones, 72-73.

[13]Jones, 74.

[14]The expanded section is bolded, which was probably added some time in the 15^th century.

[15]Ehrman, 81.

[16]Ehrman, 157.

[17]Jones, 56.

[18]Ehrman, 97.

[19]Ehrman, 216.

[20]Ehrman, 218.

Answering the most common objections to the Resurrection of Jesus (Level 2 discussion)

Before reading below, I recommend you read my earlier post - A positive case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

RESPONDING TO OBJECTIONS TO THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS:

There is extensive, strong, and sound evidence that Jesus of Nazareth bodily rose from the dead early in the fourth decade of the first century A.D.

To summarize from my previous post, the five historical facts for the resurrection include (but are not limited to):

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.

2. Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them.

3. The church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed.

4. The skeptic James, brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed.

5. The tomb was empty.

In responding to common objections to the resurrection, one only needs to compare counter-arguments to these established “facts” to see if coherence can be maintained. Is there a better explanation for the facts other than that Jesus actually rose from the dead? Let’s compare seven common objections:

Objection 1: Jesus was lying – This objection does not explain facts 2, 3, 4, & 5.

Objection 2: Jesus was crazy – This objection does not explain facts 2, 3, 4, & 5.

Objection 3: The resurrection originated as a legend or a myth – This objection does not explain facts 2, 3, 4, & 5.

Objection 4: The body was stolen – This objection does not explain facts 2, 3, & 4.

Objection 5: The witnesses went to the wrong tomb – This objection does not explain facts 2, 3, & 4. (On the surface, it explains fact #5, although not “The Jerusalem Factor” or enemy attestation.)

Objection 6: Jesus only appeared to have died – This objection does not explain facts 1, 2, 3, & 4. (Obviously, this objection ignores fact #1. Furthermore, it is hard to conceive of facts 2, 3, & 4 being coherent with this objection, since a nearly-dead Jesus would hardly inspire such a life-change and the birth of Christianity.)

Objection 7: Jesus’ followers were hallucinating – This objection does not explain facts 3, 4 & 5.

The claim that Jesus of Nazareth did, in fact, rise from the dead is clearly the best explanation to account for the widely established historical facts. If the resurrection happened, it matters. “The world is a different place from what it would be if did not happen. The person who makes the statement is committed to living in this different world, this newly envisioned universe of discourse, imagination and action.”[1]

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[1]N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 714.

A positive case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (Level 2 discussion)

Before reading below, I recommend you read my post - What is the Faith Pyramid?

A POSITIVE CASE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS OF NAZARETH:

My personal apologetic for the resurrection of Jesus involves borrowing the “minimal facts approach” as established by Dr. Gary Habermas. This approach does not seek to establish the New Testament Gospels as “inspired” and, therefore, automatically trustworthy in their claims concerning the resurrection. Rather, using the New Testament books as simply historical documents, it establishes what events likely occurred in early first-century Jerusalem, among those recorded in these ancient records. “This approach considers only those data that are so strongly attested historically that they are granted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones.”[1] I should add that I believe this is a Level 2 discussion, because if it can be historically established that Jesus, in fact, rose from the dead, then the Bible is trustworthy and Christianity is true.

The first fact: Jesus died by crucifixion

“Crucifixion was a common form of execution employed by the Romans to punish members of the lower class, slaves, soldiers, the violently rebellious, and those accused of treason.”[2] The sources for this event are numerous: Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19 all coherently record the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. It is also mentioned in the book of Acts, in at least two of Paul’s letters (1 Corinthians and Galatians), and the book of Revelation. That is a minimum of eight “Biblical” sources, involving five different authors, and writings which span four decades. Concerning extra-Biblical sources, Josephus mentioned the crucifixion in his Testimonium Flavianum, in which he states, “When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified…”[3] Tacitus also records, “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate…” (italics mine).[4] With ten ancient sources (and there are others) attesting to the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the evidence is strong for this historical “fact,” which is why even the critical scholar John Dominic Crossan of the liberal Jesus Seminar has stated, “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”[5]

The second fact: Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them

For a number of reasons, there is near consensus among critical scholars that the disciples of Jesus did, in fact, believe that he rose from the dead and appeared to them. There are two primary reasons for this consensus. First, they claimed to have seen Jesus following the crucifixion. This was recorded (explicitly or implicitly) by the eyewitness testimonies of Matthew, John, Paul, James, and Peter. Three of these men were Jesus’ disciples, James was Jesus’ half-brother, and Paul was a convert upon seeing the resurrected Jesus (recorded in Acts 9, 22, and 26). Furthermore, testimony of the resurrected Jesus is also recorded by other first-century followers of Jesus, such as Mark, Luke, and the author of Hebrews. This belief is actually (explicitly or implicitly) stated in all twenty-seven New Testament sources, which were written within decades of the event. In addition, there are sermon summaries and creeds embedded within many of these first-century texts, which can be sourced back to within mere weeks of the event itself!

The second reason there is near consensus among critical scholars, that the disciples believed to have seen Jesus post-resurrection, is because of the radical transformation they experienced. “The earliest Christian writings testify that what the apostles taught and how they behaved were forever altered by Jesus’ resurrection.”[6] This is most easily seen in the fact that nearly of all Jesus’ disciples were martyred for their exclusive devotion to Jesus Christ. In fact, one of the early church fathers, Ignatius stated early in the second century, “…having seen the risen Jesus, the disciples were so encouraged that ‘they also despised death’ (or ‘disregarded death’) as had their Master.”[7] Tertullian actually wrote of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, in which he states, “Then is Peter girt by another, when he is made fast to the cross. Then does Paul obtain a birth suited to Roman citizenship, when in Rome he springs to life again ennobled by martyrdom.”[8] Within just a few years of the time of the resurrection, the book of Acts records the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7) and James, the disciple of Jesus and brother of John (Acts 12). The most interesting aspect of this second fact has to be that the disciples were in a unique position to know whether or not Jesus, in fact, had risen from the dead. This was not just a passionate “leap of faith” by the disciples. As eyewitnesses, they actually were in the position to know if it was all a lie. “While many people will die for a lie that they think is truth, no sane person will die for what they know is a lie.”[9]

The third fact: The church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed

As stated, the book of Acts records the conversion of the church persecutor, Paul, three different times. It is recorded from a third-person perspective by Luke in chapter 9 and then recounted by Paul himself in chapters 22 and 26. Furthermore, he discusses his conversion in his letters to the churches in Galatia, Philippi, and Corinth. Without question, Paul is one of the most important figures in Christian history. He was an authority in the church, a missionary responsible for taking the gospel to much of the known world, and the author of 13 letters that became part of the canon of the New Testament itself. Spreading the gospel was his life for three decades before being martyred in Rome. Prior to this life of commitment, Paul (formerly Saul), was a devoted persecutor of the church and responsible for the martyrdom of some of the earliest Christians. Taking all of the first-person and third-person accounts (among the New Testament sources) of Paul’s life of persecution followed by conversion to devoted follower, we have clear and multiple attestations to this third “fact” of history. What are we to make of this important third fact? Dr. William Lane Craig states:

This event changed Saul’s whole life. He was a rabbi, a Pharisee, a respected Jewish leader. He hated the Christian heresy and was doing everything in his power to stamp it out. He was even responsible for the execution of Christian believers. Then suddenly he gave up everything. He left his position as a respected Jewish leader and became a Christian missionary: he entered a life of poverty, labor, and suffering. He was whipped, beaten, stoned and left for dead, shipwrecked three times, in constant danger, deprivation, and anxiety. Finally, he made the ultimate sacrifice and was martyred for his faith at Rome. And it was all because on that day outside of Damascus, he saw “Jesus our Lord” (1 Cor. 9:1).[10]

For the persecutor Paul to abandon Judaism and devote his life to Christianity, when he had no predisposition to do so, is strong evidence that he had seen the risen Jesus.

The fourth fact: The skeptic James, brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed

This fourth fact is similar to the significance we find with the conversion of Paul – why would a skeptic, such as James, come to believe in a resurrected Jesus when he was predisposed to not believe that Jesus was, in fact, the promised Messiah (at best) or even special for that matter? In fact, two New Testament sources (Mark and John) embarrassingly teach that Jesus’ own brothers, including James, were unbelievers during his ministry. Embarrassing material is a strong indication of the validity of an historical assertion, since it is unlikely that an unflattering claim would be invented. For example, John 7:5 states, “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” However, an early Christian creed, recorded in 1 Corinthians 5:3-7, states that the risen Jesus “appeared to James.” Following this event, James is found to be the leader of the church at Jerusalem and is one of the most authoritative apostles in the early church. He is both the head of the Jerusalem council that is recorded in Acts 15 and the author of the book of James in the New Testament. Finally, Dr. Gary Habermas states,

Not only did James convert to Christianity, his beliefs in Jesus and his resurrection were so strong that he died as a martyr because of them. James’ martyrdom is attested by Josephus, Hegesippus, and Clement of Alexandria. We no longer have any of the works of Hegesippus or the writings of Clement where the event is mentioned. However, sections have been preserved by Eusebius. Therefore his martyrdom is attested by both Christian and non-Christians sources.[11]

Once again, as with Paul, James’ conversion experience and dramatic change in life (even leading to death) gives additional evidence that this man had seen Jesus after his public crucifixion and burial.

The fifth fact: The tomb was empty

Although the assertion that the tomb was empty is not as widely considered as the previous four “facts”; nevertheless, it is still accepted by nearly 75 percent of scholars who study this subject.[12] There are various sound reasons for accepting this assertion. First, there is what is called “The Jerusalem Factor.” Dr. Gary Habermas has stated, “Frankly, it would have been impossible for Christianity to get off the ground in Jerusalem if Jesus’ body were still in the tomb. The Roman or Jewish authorities could have simply gone over to his tomb, viewed his corpse, and the misunderstanding would have been over. But there’s no indication that this occurred.”[13] It is difficult to conceive of Christianity “getting of the ground” in the same city in which all of its major claims were said to have taken place if, in fact, these “claims” simply were not true. As with the claim that the tomb was empty, such a grand assertion could be falsified, and most likely would be if possible by the opponents of Jesus’ followers.

A second reason to accept this assertion is due to enemy attestation. Matthew 28:12-15 records:

And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” And they took the money and did as they had been instructed…

Clearly, we have an example here of Jesus’ own opponents having to deal with an empty tomb. The final piece of evidence that supports this fact is the testimony of women. In all four gospel accounts, you have Mary Magdalene and other women visiting the tomb and discovering it empty first. “Because they were women, they could not plausibly have formulated a plan to spread something they knew was a falsehood, for they would have known that in a Jewish society their word would be questioned or dismissed, as in fact it was even by other followers of Jesus (Luke 24:11,22)."[14] Furthermore, if this were some “grand conspiracy” and lie, it is highly unlikely that the master plan would have involved women discovering the empty tomb, due to the fact already mentioned that their testimony would have been considered invalid outright in first-century Jewish society. Therefore, with the “Jerusalem Factor,” the enemy attestation of the empty tomb, and the testimony of women, there is strong support to accept this fifth fact that, indeed, the tomb was found empty.

There is extensive, strong, and sound evidence that Jesus of Nazareth bodily rose from the dead early in the fourth decade of the first century A.D. There is actually additional historical “facts” that are largely accepted by critical scholars, but the case for the resurrection is thoroughly convincing using only these five.

But what about the most common objections to the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? View my next post answering the most common objections here.

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[1]Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2004), 44.

[2]Ibid., 48.

[3]Quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 79.

[4]Ibid., 82.

[5]Habermas and Licona, 49.

[6]Gary R. Habermas, The Risen Jesus & Future Hope. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 27.

[7]Habermas and Licona, 57.

[8]Ibid., 58.

[9]Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 293.

[10]William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, third ed. (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008), 380.

[11]Habermas and Licona, 68.

[12]Ibid., 70.

[13]Quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 123.

[14]William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, eds, The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), 620.