| CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES
By David Bishop Many people who are confronted with the claims of Christianity wonder how one can know if Christianity is true. Isn’t religious faith based on superstition and culture? After all, there are many claims to truth today, and each person believes he has the truth. There are millions upon millions of people who believe in Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Shintoism, or occultism. They believe just as sincerely in their religion as a Christian does in Christianity. Just because a Christian believes he has truth doesn’t mean that he does, no matter how sincere he is. Many people believe things and are wrong. A Moslem blows himself up in a building for his cause because he believes quite sincerely that he is right. Perhaps a Christian may use arguments from personal experience, stating that Christ has changed his life, straightened out his marriage, or given him inner peace. But what does any of that prove? An adherent to Hare Krishna may claim a similar experience. The subjective experience of personal satisfaction is an unreliable source to verify truth to someone else, because someone from an opposing view can claim the same thing. Personal experiences can also be misleading and can be explained by a variety of phenomena: emotionalism, hallucinations, dishonest charlatans, easily deceived and uneducated people, drugs, depression, and etc. Some attempt to solve the dilemma by saying, “All the religions are right; we just call God by a different name.” But this claim stems from ignorance of other religions. They are mutually exclusive; if one is right the other has to be wrong. For example, forms of Buddhism believe that God is not a personal being. He is not distinguishable from his creation but is the creation - the trees, the ocean, all of nature, including ourselves. That is not the God of the Bible, who is a personal being separate from His creation. The God of Islam is very distant from his creatures and capricious. It is blasphemous in Islam to call him “Father” - a much too intimate and familiar term. That is not the God of Christianity, who is so involved with His creation that He visited our planet and died on the cross for our sins. Hinduism is polytheistic, believing in many gods; Christianity believes in one God. They cannot both be right at the same time; they are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, Christ said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.” This eliminates all the other religions, a very exclusive claim. That may sound very narrow, but the question isn’t which is narrow, but which is true? Truth is narrow by its very nature, because all opposing claims would then be false. Atheism is a truth claim which says, “I know there is no God.” However, that is a rather unintellectual position to hold. The total knowledge any of us have, in comparison to all the knowledge there is to know, is only an infinitesimal amount. One would have to be virtually omniscient to make a statement like that. A more reasonable position would be that of the agnostic who says one cannot be sure, or the skeptic, who chooses to suspend judgment. An agnostic may think it is more of an intellectual virtue to suspend judgment on all religion, but in reality he has not suspended judgment at all. Religion is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “a cause, principle, or belief held to with ardor and faith.” Therefore belief in a personal God is not necessary to qualify as a religion. Accordingly, atheism as well as agnosticism’s suspended judgment are both religious positions. In 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that atheistic belief systems, such as secular humanism, which believes in the evolutionary process to explain all existence, is a religion. My point is that the agnostic has suspended judgment on all religions except his own. Furthermore, suspending judgment in this area is not an intellectual virtue. It is actually quite irrational when you consider that we are all going to die. Each day we get closer to the inevitable end. The ugliness of death awaits, as well as whatever lies hereafter. No decision is a decision. It is like sitting on the railroad tracks surrounded by paper mache doors, calming playing a game of cards, unconcerned. You know there is a train coming, screaming down the tracks. The only thing you don’t know is the precise time of its arrival - but arrive it will. One or two of the doors may lead off the tracks, but sitting there doing nothing is a decision in itself. The train is coming regardless, and will catch you in your decision of “suspended judgment.” Is it rational to continue to sit there? If there is any intellectual virtue at all, it at least lies in the search itself rather than the irrational position of passively sitting on the tracks in the path of an oncoming locomotive and not even investigating where the doors lead. What if someone who was in a dungeon awaiting a death sentence found a few concealed tunnels, one of which he heard may lead to freedom. Would any rational person not investigate? And if he could only choose one, would he not gain all the information possible and then commit himself to the one with the most evidence that it was a true escape? So the fact that an agnostic says he cannot be sure is certainly no reason to reject Christianity; it is all the more reason to examine it. If he does not even make the effort, then, contrary to what he may claim, he really is not that concerned about the search for truth at all. It is far the more rational position to conduct a serious investigation. This brings us right back to where we started. Given the rationality of at least the search for truth, how can we know which belief is true in the face of conflicting truth claims? Besides, if a Christian is trying to convince me of his position, does he not have a bias? He is not objective, so does that not discredit his position? Just because someone has a bias does not mean he cannot have truth. If someone’s beliefs are in fact true, he has a right to be biased against the other false claims! Atheism or agnosticism are belief systems with a bias, just as Christianity and all the other religions have biases as well. The question is not to be unbiased, for that is impossible. The question is which bias is the best bias to be biased with. Some believe that saying one belief system is wrong in contrast to another is an example of intolerance. But this is not an appeal to be intolerant in an immoral sense. Tolerance when it comes to personal relationships is a virtue. Tolerance when it comes to truth is the act of a fool. Is there an objective standard to determine truth? There most certainly is. Civilized societies use them all the time. What needs to be done is to take a recognized objective standard of truth and consistently apply it to someone’s “biased” truth claim, and see how well it stands up. • The Scientific Method The scientific method is based on empiricism. The empirical five senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching are well represented by the oft-repeated statement “seeing is believing.” But this method includes more than just the five senses. The true scientific method lends itself to repeatable experiments so others can also use their five senses, and does not just depend on what you said you saw. For example, one man says a particular bar of soap floats; another says it will not. An experiment will show that the soap does float. Many people unthinkingly say, “If you can’t prove it to me scientifically, I won’t believe it.” However, no one lives consistently with that concept because he acts on knowledge he knows to be true every day but which doesn’t lend itself to the scientific method of verification. One cannot prove scientifically that he went to school or work yesterday, or that Napoleon once lived, or that the holocaust of 6 million Jews happened during World War II. None of these truths lend themselves to the repeatable experimentation of the scientific method. However, we can interview the witnesses who saw you at work or school and see the documented eyewitness testimony concerning the holocaust, even if the witnesses are now dead. This is called historical knowledge. • The Legal Historical Method The methodology for determining the accuracy of historical knowledge is called the “legal historical method.” This is the standard on which our judicial system is based. One cannot have a murderer kill the victim a second time before a jury as a repeatable experiment to prove his guilt scientifically! Nevertheless, legal historical proof based on the preponderance of the historical evidence enables successful verdicts of truth to be reached every day. The instructions that a judge gives to a jury is for them to come to a guilty verdict when they are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. He does not say beyond a shadow of doubt because 100% proof is rarely attainable. If that were the required standard no verdicts would ever be rendered. One couldn’t even make a personal decision in daily life. There have been several renowned scholars who were utterly convinced that Christianity was nothing but a grand hoax, and were going to set out to disprove it. Being scholars, they knew the legitimacy of legal historical proof as the method of determining the validity of past historical events. They applied these rules of evidence to Jesus Christ and Christianity in the same way as they are applied in criminal cases, or in determining the historicity of Julius Caesar, Plato, Socrates, Cleopatra, or Nero. We have a literary genius, C.S. Lewis, a scholar in Medieval and Renaissance literature and a former professor at Cambridge University in England. He had a very strong bias against Christianity and believed Christians to be totally wrong. After evaluating the evidence for Christianity, his knowledge of literary criticism forced him to treat the Gospel record as a trustworthy account. He called himself “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” Dr. Frank Morrison was a lawyer and journalist who was brought up in an environment that denied the supernatural and he believed the resurrection of Christ was nothing but a myth. As a lawyer he was trained in the rules of evidence and in determining the truth of an event. He started out to write a book disproving this myth of Christianity, but the sheer weight of the evidence that his investigation revealed compelled him to become a Christian. His book, Who Moved the Stone, details how he came to the opposite conclusion than he expected. Dr. Simon Greenleaf, professor of law at Harvard University, and one of the greatest legal minds of our country, was largely responsible for the rise of Harvard Law School to its preeminent position among legal schools. Dr. Greenleaf doubted the truth of Christianity. He embarked on an investigation of the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ to ascertain the truth. Considering his position at the height of the legal profession, where centuries of careful thought and experience have developed a universally recognized system of determining truth, he was eminently qualified for such an investigation. Dr. Greenleaf came to the conclusion that according to the laws of legal evidence used in the courts of law, there was more evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history. He not only became a Christian, but published his findings in a book entitled An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice. Well known author, university lecture, and scholar Josh McDowell thought that “most Christians were walking idiots.... I used to wait for a Christian to speak up in the classroom so I could tear him or her up one side and down the other.” People challenged him over and over again to prove Christianity wrong. Finally, with a specific intention to refute them and with a complete bias against Christianity, he took up the challenge. Again, being overcome with the overwhelming facts (which he did not know were there) and the evidence (which he had not known was available to evaluate), he too became a Christian. He has since written more than eight books detailing the evidence that proves the validity of the Christian faith. General Lew Wallace, an unbeliever, intended to write a historical novel about a Jewish contemporary of Jesus Christ. In the process of his study of the historical background for the novel, the historical evidence for the resurrection so overwhelmed him that he wrote Ben Hur as a new believer in Christ. Many, many other brilliant men besides these can be cited. They all had several things in common. They were unbelievers in Christianity, and, rather than being neutral, all started with a bias against it. Many went further than this in that they were actively hostile against Christianity and had a goal to disprove it and write a book about it. But because they were trained to think logically, they couldn’t escape the logic of the resulting facts that their own investigations produced. They still wrote their books, but now to prove the faith they once tried to disprove, hoping that the historical evidence that convinced them would also convince others who have the intellectual honesty to familiarize themselves with the evidence. This is the testimony of the men who have vigorously applied the legal historical method, the recognized standard of ascertaining truth today, to historical Christianity. This is therefore a challenge to the honest agnostic who is seeking what to believe. This is not a call to base belief on subjective, bias, and emotional claims, but to apply to Christianity the same standard and the same method that is used to determine the historicity of any past event or person - and the same standard used in courts of law: the legal historical method. To refuse to recognize this method as legitimate is equivalent to throwing out all history books and dismantling the judicial system with the claim “Nothing can be known.” Clearly that is not an option. Let us now embark on our investigation of Christianity using the valid, credible, and universally recognized “legal historical method” and applying it to Christian origins. The first step in investigating the validity of any past historical event or person when the eye witnesses are no longer living is to examine the documentary evidence. How do we know that Julius Caesar once lived and ruled the Roman Empire, or that Plato, Socrates, Aristotle or Napoleon, lived and acted in events as described and accepted in history? We know about them in the same way we know about Jesus Christ; by the writings that have been handed down through the centuries. Do we deny the existence and the historical events associated with the above mentioned persons simply because all of the eyewitnesses are dead? No more than we would deny the existence of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln because of the lack of living eye witnesses. But with all of the numerous writings that have been handed down, some for thousands of years, how can we ascertain which are legendary and which are true? What about embellishments, exaggerations, additions, or deletions possibly engaged in by deceivers or over zealous and imaginative copyists accruing down through the centuries? These are valid questions. History is taught with a high degree of certainty, so there must be a satisfactory method to evaluate these handed down documents for accuracy. This method is called the “bibliographical test.” We will evaluate the written records of Christian origins not with some special bias and subjective “religious” test, but use the exact same criteria used to evaluate the documents of all historical events, the “bibliographical test.” • Bibliographical Test of Verification There are two parts to this test. One concerns the number of manuscripts still in existence. Before the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, books had to be copied by hand (manuscript). If an event was significant, many manuscript copies would be produced. Numerous copies surviving today speaks of a far greater number no longer in existence. The greater the number of manuscripts shows greater circulation, geographical spread, and wide spread public acceptance and knowledge. It also attests to the fact something significant happened, important enough to generate numerous painstaking manuscripts and geographical spread. The other part of the test is the time distance between the original events and first recording of them and the earliest manuscript copy found to date. As manuscripts are read, they begin to wear out necessitating more copies to be made. Then copies of those copies, on and on down through the centuries. In this chain of manuscripts, what is the date of the earliest ones still in existence? This is important because the greater the time distance the greater the chance for embellishments or untruths to slip in. If a copyist added something untrue in a manuscript 1000 years after the event, who is going to challenge it? All the generations close to the event are long since gone. However, if someone were to write a book that the south won the Civil War, or the Revolutionary War was fought against the French, such a book would be quickly challenged, and would not receive widespread recognition or circulation. Even though those wars were over 100 and 200 years ago, we are still close enough to the events to know they did not happen that way. The following chart lists historical persons and books of antiquity that are accepted without question by not only all scholars, but by virtually everyone. Listed by each work is the time span and the number of manuscripts and portions of manuscripts in existence. _______________________________________________________________________[1] Author Time Written Earliest Copy Time Span No. of ______________________________________ in Existence_____from Event___ Copies Pliny the Younger (History) 61-113 A.D. 850 A.D. 750 yrs 7 Plato (Tetralogies) 427-347 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,200 yrs. 7 Caesar (Gallic wars) 100-44 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,000 yrs. 10 Thucydides (History) 460-400 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,300 yrs 8 Tacitus (Annals) 100 A.D. 1100 A.D. 1,000 yrs. 20 Sophocles 496-406 B.C. 1000 A.D. 1,400 yrs 193 Herodotus (History) 480-425 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,300 yrs 8 Aristotle (of 1 work) 384-322 B.C. 1100 A.D. 1,400 yrs 49 Euripides 480-406 B.C. 1100 A.D. 1,500 yrs 9 Catullus 54 B.C. 1550 A.D. 1,600 yrs 3 Aristophanes 450-385 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,200 yrs 10 Illiad - Homer (2nd most) 900 B.C. 400 B.C. 500 yrs 643 New Testament 40-100 A.D. 125 A.D. 25 yrs 24,000 No scholar would even listen to an argument that doubted the authenticity of Herodotus, Plato, Caesar, or Aristotle; yet all these survive on just a handful of manuscripts which are dated over 1000 years from when they wrote. By contrast there are over 24,000 copies (over 5,300 in Greek) of portions of the New Testament in existence today. No other book is even a close second. The 25-year time gap is incredible. Erroneous accounts being painstakingly copied by hand and reproduced in such tremendous numbers in view of the small time span is inconceivable. It would be equivalent of a book coming out today that said Franklin D. Roosevelt claimed to be God, walked on the water, raised people from the dead, and was himself resurrected. He lived over 50 years ago. Or a book about John F. Kennedy that states he was assassinated 30 years ago by his car blowing up with a hand grenade. Such stories would never get published or circulated much less believed. Too many people are still alive who were living during those times who know those stories are false. The 25 year time span for the Gospels shows they had to have been circulated prior to this, which means it was during the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses of Christ. Men who had known and heard the Apostles were still living in considerable numbers at the time and any alteration would be quickly discovered and corrected. The written records of Christian origins are available in far greater number and antiquity than are those of any other personages or happenings in the whole history of the world prior to the invention of the printing press! No one, for example, ever doubts for an instant that a man named Julius Caesar once ruled as an emperor of Rome. But the manuscript evidence for the New Testament events is incomparably superior to that for the existence of Caesar![2] Nothing even remotely comparable exists for any other ancient writings - including all of the other religions in the world put together. If one still doubts the transmission and authenticity of the Gospels, then to be consistent he would have to dismiss Plato, Caesar, Aristotle, and all the rest. This conclusion is inescapable since the New Testament is unsurpassed in the very evidentiary elements of the bibliographical test that authenticates all of the other literature. These manuscripts survived despite the most intense eradication effort imaginable. Christians were killed, written records were burned, and edicts were issued to destroy all of the world’s Bibles and people even found with them were killed. Nevertheless, from this relatively small population base (world population at that time was only 138-170 million) the manuscripts continued to be hand copied in such great number. What motivated such extensive work? Why have not other religions, with less persecution, which had prominent leaders who had public ministries for the duration of their lifetimes, rather than the short three-year ministry of Christ produced similar evidence?[3] • Nonbiblical Documents About Christ Some people object “if Christ existed why was he not mentioned in non-Christian literature from the first century?” He was indeed! First of all, very few written works of anything have survived from the first century. According to one scholar, bookends set one foot apart could contain every thing written between 50-70 A.D.[4] Nevertheless, the historicity of Christ is verified by many of these non-Christian historical writings. Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historican (born 52-54 A.D.), writes how Nero “punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians... Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate...” (Annals, XV.44). Flavius Josephus (born 37 A.D.) was a Jewish historian, who writes “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man... for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive truth with pleasure. He drew over both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles... and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him.... And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.” (Antiquities, xviii. 33.). Many other first-century and early second- century writers, Thallus, Pliny the Younger, Hadrian, Suetonius, Phlegon, Lucian, Mara Bar-Serapion, and others mention in their writings the darkness of the earth when Christ was crucified, the earthquake, the crucifixion of Christ by Pilate, the resurrection of Christ believed by his followers, the persecution of Christians, etc. All this from unbelievers in Christianity. So convincing and inescapable is this testimony that even the Encyclopedia Britannica, concerning the testimony of these many independent secular accounts of Jesus, records: These independent accounts prove than in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds by several authors at the end of the eighteenth, during the nineteenth, and at the beginning of the twentieth centuries.[5] Summary: The first part of the legal historical method was to examine the documentary evidence. We have seen that if one rejects the Gospel accounts as being unreliable and the existence of Jesus a myth, he must throw out all historical literature prior to the invention of printing. The New Testament is unsurpassed in the very evidentiary elements of the Bibliographical test that authenticates all of the other literature. But Jesus is more than a historical man or prophet. As addressed in Chapter 8 He claimed to be God. The early Christians wrote that he authenticated His Divine identity by the miracles He did, and it culminated in the greatest miracle of all, His resurrection from the dead. Did these miracles actually happen? This is precisely where many scoff at Christianity. If this scoffing comes from merely an anti-supernatural bias without even considering the evidence, it is an invalid objection. We will now take the legal historical method a step further and look at the internal evidence in the gospel accounts themselves. Many a skeptic has lost his skepticism upon being exposed to the information in the rest of this chapter. Christ made some unique claims about Himself. He claimed to be the Son of God, yet equal with God and God Himself. He claimed to be the Savior of the world and that only by believing and trusting in Him could one attain eternal life. But what does that prove? People today can make wild claims about themselves as well. What were Christ’s credentials? • The Miracles One of the greatest credentials through which Christ authenticated His identity were through the miracles that He did. Someone may say “what does that prove? People do things today that are claimed to be miraculous. There are claims of haunted houses, supposed faith-healers on television and a host of other supernatural claims and unexplained phenomena.” But Christ did miracles that are in a different category that cannot be duplicated. Christ demonstrated power over the forces of creation which can only belong to God, the Creator and author of these forces. He stilled a raging storm, calmed the sea, raised people from the dead, and healed people with visible outward maladies of the flesh. He healed the blind, the deaf, and the paralyzed, cleansed lepers, created food, raised the dead even from a decomposed state - and all this before thousands upon thousands of eye witnesses! Lets look at some of these miracles in detail. The Gospels record an account of Christ feeding 5000 men and on another occasion 4000 men (Matthew 14:21; 15:38). In both cases the text specifically says “besides women and children.” Adding women and children to 9000 men we have at least 30,000 people who are eyewitnesses to a miracle only the Creator can do; that of creating enough food to feed 30,000 people. On another occasion a man named Lazarus had died 4 days prior to Jesus’ arrival (John 11). He had already been placed in a tomb and there was a crowd of people attending the funeral. Jesus told Martha to roll the stone away from the tomb and she objected, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus then raised Lazarus from the dead after his body was already decomposing. You will not see any “faith-healer” on television do that! Christ repeatedly demonstrated power over creation which can only belong to the Creator. So many of the Jews who had a bias against Christ became believers when they witnessed the raising of Lazarus that the Chief priests and Pharisees convened a council. These people ruled Israel under Rome. This is a close equivalent in our country to a meeting of our House of Representatives and the Senate. They said “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:47-48). Most of these miracles were done in public. Historians have shown there were well over one million people in and out of Jerusalem during Passover time. Christ did miracle after miracle in downtown Jerusalem before thousands of witnesses. The miracles were not healing back-aches and internal ailments that cannot be verified. Lepers, men with ulcerated skin, likely missing parts of their face or bodily extremities, he healed instantly, before the very eyes of onlookers. He healed a man born blind that was a well known local figure whom all knew had been blind all of his life (John 9). Peter struck a man in the Garden of Gethsemane cutting off his ear. And Christ, before the very crowd who had come to arrest Him, restores the ear (Luke 22:50-51)! Christ healed people from great distances without even being present, raised numerous people from the dead, restored people with withered limbs, made water into wine, and even commanded the fish,[6] creatures which, needless to say, do not obey men! Consider the great number of witnesses to these things. In the case of the multiplication of the fish and loaves we can conservatively estimate 30,000 eyewitnesses, but in the other cases there is not a specific number given. How could there be? If you were writing about such an event, likely all you could say is there was a “great crowd” of people. The witnesses to these miracles are described variously as “many people,” “large crowds,” “great number,” “great multitudes,” and other descriptors denoting it was a lot of people! It got so bad Christ could not even enter a village without pandemonium breaking out and large crowds following him everywhere. So how many total eyewitnesses to all of these miracles - the type of miracles that cannot be duplicated which demonstrate power over the forces of creation which can only belong to the Creator? Clearly, at least 100,000, which is a very conservative number. • The Witnesses 1. Uneducated and Ignorant? Let us take a look at the witnesses themselves. It is sometimes assumed that the people of that age were ignorant, uneducated masses that were easily deceived. That simply isn’t true. Just to focus on the writers of the New Testament shows the fallacy of such thinking. Luke was a physician; Peter and John were business men in the fishing business, Matthew was a tax collector. Does the IRS employ ignoramuses? Are physicians considered ignorant? In that culture education was compulsory to a certain level. Even the relatively “uneducated” fisherman were highly literate. They spoke and wrote in at least three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek - more languages than most “educated” people today. The Apostle Paul was highly educated, a true scholar who quoted freely from a wide range of literature. Nevertheless, many skeptics point out many things today would have been considered miracles long ago, such as a transistor radio, television, or a watch. But consider the miracles Christ did. Walking on the water, raising decomposing dead people to life, healing lepers, blind, deaf, and the paralyzed with a mere word; putting an amputated ear back on a persons head with a touch, stilling a raging storm - these things are just as much miracles today as they were to those in the first century! 2. Hostile Witnesses It is a well established fact in our judicial system that the most weighty testimony in a court of law would be that of a hostile witness confirming a statement of the defendant. Let’s say a man had an alibi which removes him from the scene of the crime. His friend, a neutral person, and one who is antagonistic and hostile toward him all testify. Whose testimony would have the greatest weight? Surely, if the hostile person absolves the man he hates by also confirming he was not at the scene of the crime, this would be the most powerful confirmation of the event. It is pertinent to note that even the enemies of Christ not only never denied he did the miracles, but confirmed their occurrence by either trying to attribute his power to another source[7] or trying to suppress the evidence. After the raising of Lazarus from the dead great multitudes of Jews who saw Lazarus now alive began believing in Christ. John 12:10-11 says “The chief priests took counsel that they might put Lazarus to death also; because on account of him many of the Jews were going away, and were believing in Jesus.” The disciples also appealed to hostile unbelievers about knowledge they themselves had. On one occasion, when advocating their case for the truth of Christ, they told a hostile audience that Jesus was attested to them by God “with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know... (Acts 2:22).” When you are speaking to a hostile audience and are appealing to the knowledge that you accuse them of already having, you had better be right in all your facts! 3. Government Officials Even King Herod, a close equivalent in our country to the President, knew of Jesus’ miracles and wanted him to perform them for him. A reading of those passages show that Herod regarded his sources of information as being totally dependable, because he regarded the miracles as facts (Matthew 14:1-2). Paul, while on trial before the highest officials of the land, both Roman and Jewish, testifies to King Agrippa in reference to the supernatural events of Christ, that he knew these things did not escape the Kings notice, that the King himself knew about them because they “were not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). These people were not Christians; but government officials. Paul appeals to knowledge that he knew they had, and they did not deny it. Also, as mentioned earlier, in the few non-religious writings that have survived from the first and second centuries, a large number of those historians mention the supernatural events at the time of Christ as matter of fact occurrences. Unlike the truth claims of other religions which are based solely on the teaching and philosophy of its founder, Christianity is based on the historical event of the resurrection of Christ. There is little debate to the fact that above all, as the Apostle Paul put so eloquently in 1 Corinthians 15, Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection of Christ. If there was no resurrection, there is no Christianity. Buddha, Mohammed, and all the other founders of religions are in their graves. Christianity is unique in its claim the tomb is empty. What could be a greater authenticating verification on whose teachings are correct? If one was supernaturally raised from the dead that would end all arguments of who really has the truth. Further, that would also solve all of the other skeptic’s questions such as “is there a God,” or “is Christ the only way to heaven.” If Christ was raised from the dead, then by inference, there is a God, Christ is exactly who He said He was, and everything else He taught is true. So if one could prove Christ was raised from the dead beyond a reasonable doubt, that answers all of life’s great questions in totality. • Only Three Options There are only three options concerning the truthfulness of the New Testament writers and the apostles as to their testimony about the resurrection. They were either liars, perhaps to set themselves up as the head of a new religious movement; or they were insane madmen, hallucinating the resurrection appearances; or it is true. There is no fourth possibility. No credible non-Christian scholar even attempts to consider Christ a legend. The previous related facts of history prevent that theory. So one must choose between those three options. This is a trilemma, there is no logical way out, it must be one of those three. So let us take each one in detail and apply the “beyond a reasonable doubt” test as to which is more reasonable to believe. 1. Liars? The reasons why people lie are universal. Some lie to gain power and importance, or to get themselves out of trouble. Why would the disciples have lied? Perhaps to gain power, fame, or wealth? But what happened to the Apostles and other first-century Christians? Did they gain wealth and power? They lost everything they had! They lost their money, their homes and their possessions. Gain fame? The only fame they gained was of the wrong kind. They were hounded from one end of the empire to the other; thrown to lions, slaughtered in coliseums for entertainment, made human torches, had their wives and children slaughtered before their eyes. To suggest they were lying is grasping at straws. They had absolutely NOTHING to gain and EVERYTHING to lose! Why would they suffer all these things for what they knew to be a lie? Furthermore, who would die for what he knows to be a lie? We are not talking about Christians of the second and third centuries. The apostles knew whether Christ was resurrected or not because they were there. What happened to the apostles? Andrew - crucified Simon - crucified Peter - crucified Matthew - the sword Thaddaeus - killed by arrows James, brother of Jesus - stoned Philip - crucified James the son of Alphaeus - crucified Thomas - spear thrust Bartholomew - crucified James, son of Zebedee - the sword Paul - beheaded For what purpose would they lie, with everything to lose and absolutely nothing to gain? To suffer exquisite tortures and suffer an agonizing violent death for NO purpose? Is that reasonable to believe? So powerful is this evidence that even skeptics admit the apostles saw something that made them believe. 2. Insane? As already stated, the writers of the New Testament were not uneducated and ignorant. Peter and John, the pragmatic fishermen; Paul, one of the best educated men of his day, equivalent to a Harvard, Yale, or Oxford man in our culture; Matthew, a politician and tax assessor; Luke a competent Doctor; clearly not the type of men subject to credulity or hallucinations. We must also keep in mind that belief in the resurrected Christ was not only shared by the apostles, but it was accepted by hundreds of thousands of other people. People who, because of the intense persecution they suffered for their faith, had every reason to critically test whether these things were true - at a time when it could still be checked out! People were still living in considerable numbers who had seen the resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 15:6) when these people were being persecuted. Before I would let myself be tortured, or watch my wife and children be killed in front of me, I would have visited the villages and spoken to the people who had seen these supernatural events surrounding Christ’s public ministry. It is inconceivable they would have persisted in their faith, in view of the consequences, if they had the slightest reason for believing the apostles were nothing but a bunch of deluded fanatics. On close scrutiny the hallucination theory has insurmountable problems. With the advent of modern psychology and psychiatry we know certain scientifically verified facts about hallucinations. A certain psychological condition of mind is necessary, one of belief and expectation. But the disciples were not expecting the resurrection, they were in a state of despair, hiding and cowering behind closed doors. They had to be convinced against their wills Christ was resurrected. Some women saw the resurrected Christ and told the apostles, and “these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them” (Luke 24:11). When Christ did appear to them they were frightened and thought they were seeing a ghost. Christ had to take the time to convince them by showing the wounds in his body and eating in front of them (Luke 24:36-43). Thomas would not believe at all even after being told by his most trusted associates. Consider the apostle Paul. If anyone was convinced against his will, he certainly was! He hated Christians, beat and persecuted them, dragged off women and children to prison, and stood by approvingly while they were executed. Besides hallucinations requiring a state of mind of belief and expectation, they are subjective experiences in an individual’s mind and therefore are not collective or contagious. The experiences cannot be shared. 1 Corinthians 15:6 says “after that he appeared to more than five hundred people at one time, most of whom remain until now...” Paul does not add the obvious - five hundred people can’t all have the same hallucination! Just as 30,000 people cannot all hallucinate fish and bread being created to feed them or scores of people see a decomposing dead man rise from the tomb, or a fig tree wither before their eyes, or see known lepers and blind men healed. Furthermore, the appearances of the resurrected Lord were not just restricted to one place and time; they were all over. Indoors and outdoors, in private and in public, with different geographical locations from the city of Jerusalem to the countryside of Galilee 70 miles away. The idea that the apostles and the others were hallucinating is just as untenable as the belief they lied about the resurrection to gain their own deaths! 3. It’s True - the only other logical option. • The Case Before a Court of Law Consider the magnitude of 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrection. Lets say we were on a jury in a court of law. We let each of the 500 persons testify, for just five minutes. It would take more than a solid week of testimony, all day long, to get through all the witnesses. What reasonable person would not be convinced after watching 500 separate individuals each take the stand, one after the other, all testifying to the same thing? One may object that Christ only appeared to those who already believed in Him, so this testimony is tainted as it only comes from Christians. That is more or less a moot point. Can you conceive of anyone, who after having the resurrected Christ appear to them, not being a believer? • The Unaccountable Change in the Apostles Consider the incredible, astonishing, and quite unaccountable change to the apostles shortly after the resurrection. Thomas, who was not present when Christ appeared to the others said, “Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” But something happened to Thomas. He died a violent martyrs death for Christ. That is pretty hard to explain apart from John 20:27, where Christ appears to Thomas and shows him His hands and bids Thomas to put his fingers in the holes and Thomas’ hand into the wound in His side. Peter, cowardly denied Christ three times, and ran away weeping, when Christ was being beaten and humiliated. But something happened to Peter. A short time later Peter is in downtown Jerusalem, right where he has the most to fear in the midst of Christ’s enemies. He preached sermons to thousands of people that Christ is the Savior, and that He was raised from the dead. He is seized by the authorities, warned to stop preaching about Christ and is threatened with death. But Peter responds in effect, “do whatever you want to me, but I am going to continue to proclaim Christ.” Subsequently he and his companions are seized and are flogged. Peter goes on his way rejoicing that he was considered worthy to suffer for the Lord (Acts 4-6). What on earth could possibly have changed Peter from a coward to a roaring lion of courage in a matter of days? This is completely impossible to explain, apart from the verse “And He appeared to Peter” (1 Corinthians 15:5). What else can explain the psychological absurdity of lying about Christ to preserve his life, and a short time later proclaiming that Christ was raised to anyone who would listen, and challenging the authorities to take his life? His life, all of a sudden, did not matter to him. The only reasonable explanation is he saw the resurrected Christ; that meant he would be resurrected too; death no longer mattered to him. Paul was the most rabid anti-Christian of all. He stood by and approved while Christians were murdered. He dragged Christians off to prison, beat them, and clearly hated Christ and his followers. But something happened to Paul. All of a sudden he became the greatest messenger of Christianity, more than all of the rest put together. He suffered most horribly for Christ in countless situations on missionary journeys and ultimately died a violent martyrs death. What could have possibly changed Paul - a complete turn around - from a violent persecutor of the church to its greatest proclaimer? It is impossible to explain apart from Acts chapter 9, when He appeared to Paul. All the apostles. Finally we have all the apostles. When Christ was arrested they “all ran and hid themselves.” We see them cowering fearfully behind closed doors. They were in complete disarray and total despair. What changed them? What event is sufficient to explain their instant change of behavior to fearlessly spreading the message of Christ’s resurrection everywhere, and dying violent deaths for Christ’s sake? • Core Facts Accepted by All Skeptics [8] So powerful is this historical testimony, that it has caused the acceptance of certain facts even by skeptics. Virtually all scholars agree, including the skeptic/non-Christian scholars, that there are a number of facts surrounding the resurrection which are known to be historical. There are ten facts in which the agreement is virtually unanimous as knowable history. Of these ten, for the sake of brevity, we will take four core facts. 1. Jesus’ death via Roman crucifixion. 2. The disciples and others had experiences they believed were the appearances of the resurrected Christ. 3. Because of these experiences, the disciples were transformed from timidity and fearfulness, to be willing to die for their faith. 4. Paul’s conversion, due to an appearance of the resurrected Christ. • Skeptics’ Theories Refuted by Facts They Accept Various theories have been put forth by skeptics through the years to explain away a physical resurrection of Christ, such as the “myth” theory or the “stolen body” theory. But all these theories are refuted by the 4 core facts above. Thus, a skeptic can be shown that based on his own rules, using only the facts he accepts, that those theories are false. For example, the “stolen body” theory postulates that the disciples stole the body of Christ, then claimed the empty tomb as evidence of the resurrection, thereby perpetrating a fraud. This theory is refuted by core facts numbers 2, 3, and 4. The disciples transformation shows they really believed they saw a resurrected Christ. If they stole the body, how does one explain the accepted fact they died for their faith? Liars don’t make good martyrs. The “myth” or legend theory that the resurrection myth was added by later Christians in the second century is refuted by the fact it was the disciples who had these experiences, and the teaching of the resurrection is based on the original eye-witnesses experiences, not later legends. A Newsweek article on Easter (April 8, 1996), included some new theories, one of which was John D. Crossan’s idea that Christ’s body was eaten by dogs. Again, such claims are refuted by the very core facts accepted by skeptics that are familiar with the actual historical data. Nevertheless, it serves to show that virtually any theory, no matter how outlandish and totally lacking in any substantiation is given credence. The subject of Christian evidences still is not complete until two more issues are discussed. How does the evidence for Christianity compare with that of other world religions? Also, if the evidence is so powerful, why are there still some educated people, who must be familiar with some of this evidence, who still do not believe? These will be the subjects of the next two chapters, Christianity Compared with Other Religions and By God's Design, Unbelief Must Be an Option . [1] Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Vol. I (San Bernardino: Here’s Life Publishers, 1979), pp. 42-43 [2] Henry M. Morris, Many Infallible Proofs (Sand Diego: Creation-Life, 1974), pp. 22, 23. [3] Ralph O. Muncaster, Jesus, Investigation of the Evidence (Newport Beach, CA: Strong Basis to Believe, 1996), p. 7. [4] E.M. Blaiklock, Jesus Christ: Man or Myth? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), p. 13. [5] Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition, 1974, p. 145. [6] Luke 5:1-11; Matthew 17:24-27. [7] Matthew 12:24 – they attributed his power to the prince of demons. [8] Gary R. Habermas, The Resurrection of Jesus (University Press of America, 1980), pp. 24-32. <<<Previous chapter Next chapter>>> (The Christian Under Grace) (Christianity compared to other religions) HOME: Christian Truth and its Defense Contact Us! |