Does God Exist?

On May 3, 2024February 17, 2024 By Jovan PayesIn Articles, Carolina Messenger, Christian Apologetics, Cosmological, Moral Argument, natural theology, Ontological, Publications, Teleological, Theology

There is no greater worldview question that divides humans so sharply than the following: does God exist? As a Christian, I believe there are many good reasons to assert that God does exist. This short piece offers a brief overview of these arguments for the existence of the Christian God.

The Case for the Christian God

The average Christian may think arguing for the existence of God is straightforward, but this is where we must get more specific. There are many worldview definitions of God/god that are distinct from how Christians have historically defined their Creator. Additionally, sometimes arguments for the existence of God only point to reasons to believe that a god exits, but not necessarily the God of the Christian faith. This is important because as a Christian casemaker, we do not merely argue that there are good reasons to believe a god exists, but that the God of the resurrected Christ exists.

For example, the apostle Paul employs well accepted natural theology to the Greek polytheistic mind and affirms this God resurrected Jesus Christ. In Athens, Paul affirms that the God of Israel (monotheism) is the god who is unknown to them in any specific detail (Acts 17:16, 22–23). They have knowledge of God in general terms: creator of the universe and mankind, manager of the world, and moral law giver (Acts 17:24–31a). This God will call all to moral account through Jesus, and he assures this expectation on the grounds of the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 17:31b). With this move, Paul excludes all other gods.

Step One: Arguments for the Existence of God

Arguments from nature provide good reasons to believe in the existence of God. They do not stand or fall together, but they do provide a cumulative case for the reasonableness of the Christian worldview. The following groups (or families) of arguments are used to make this case. I will offer a simplistic definition for each and then provide an example or two of how they make their case.

Cosmological Arguments: the existence of the universe demands a cause, whether natural (random) or supernatural (intelligent). As Baxter reminds us, “the argument is based upon the general, universal observation that ‘Nothing comes from nothing’” (I Believe Because…, 53). There must be a cause. Being careful with our words, it is more accurate to say “nothing [physical, material] comes from nothing.” Here’s why. Some things do exist necessarily. The field of mathematics reveals that numbers, mathematical sets or entities are not caused by something else. But things like people, planets, galaxies depend on other forces to exist (Craig, On Guard, 56–57). Physical things are contingent on past forces and cannot exist by themselves. As Ralph Gilmore says, these are “iffy” things that only exist “if” certain events or states occurred. Otherwise, you are left with a series of never-ending origin stories–an equally challenging miracle!

The cosmological argument makes its case from effect (the cosmos) to a necessary cause (God). There are both narrow and broad forms of this argument. Thomas B. Warren in debate with atheistic philosopher Antony Flew (1976) argued the narrow form, affirming that the first human came about either by evolutionary forces or by supernatural means. The apostle Paul employs the broad form when he argues that the material things of the world that make plain that there is an invisible, powerful, and divine God who created the world (Romans 1:19–20). Another broad form is known as the KALAM cosmological argument. In short, the argument goes as follow: whatever begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist; therefore, the universe has a cause. This ultimate cause is not contingent, nor impossible, but necessary. We call this necessary cause God.

Teleological Arguments: the presence of design in, or of, the universe demands that the design have a designer who employed intelligent agency. As an argument from empirical evidence, the argument moves from a design to an intelligent agent. The process has an intuitive aspect to it, making it a very accessible family of arguments. Nevertheless, the secular worldview explains apparent design as the result of “enough time and some luck”–certainly not the result of intelligent agency. It is important then to be clear on how to identify intelligent agency in the form of design.

To illustrate, the fine-tuning of the universe argument affirms that the cosmos is life-permitting in the most basic scientific sense: “organisms […] take in food, extract energy from it, grow, adapt to their environment, and reproduce” (Craig, 110). This reality implies a Fine-Tuner. But could this be the result of chance and time? Is this feature necessary to the universe? How do we distinguish between these options? On pure naturalism there is nothing necessary to the universe that requires it to be life-permitting. To the contrary, any potential life-permitting universe is “fantastically improbable.” Instead, a life-prohibiting universe is far more likely. The odds are so bad against a fine-tuned universe we should believe the system was rigged (Craig, 112–20).

Thus, the evidence of a fine-tunned universe points to its Fine-Tuner. It is not the result (contingent) of unintelligent processes, neither can chance explain its complexity, and it exhibits specific patterns characteristic of intelligence (Dembski, Intelligent Design, 127–49). As a watch, a camera, or a painting point to their intelligent agent, so the eye, the human body, the life-permitting features of the universe point to its Intelligent Agent, whom we call God.

Moral Arguments: based on the moral order of the human experience, the Cause of this moral order must be moral and its lawgiver (God). The argument observes a fundamental reality of the human social experience, the expectation of moral obligation. Regardless of worldview we all seem to play by the same rule, there are things you “ought to do,” and there are things you “ought not to do.” This holds even when there is disagreement over specific “oughts.” It has been well said,

Wherever man is found, he is convinced there is a difference between good and evil. Men may differ as to where to make the distinction between good and evil, but all men agree that such a distinction is to be made.”
Bales, The Law in the Heart, 56

The human experience is conscious of an objective moral law; objective moral laws imply a moral lawgiver; therefore, there must be a supreme moral lawgiver (Geisler and Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, 16).

Morality is a transcendent reality, not centered within a person. The conscience may have subjective elements but ultimately, moral obligations are not personal preferences. For example, why are hate crimes against women (kidnapping, sex-trafficking, etc.) objectively wrong and not personal preferences? Or, consider how the center of moral justice has shifted towards one’s subjective “psychological self” (truth) from which the moral imperative is to liberate oneself from all oppressive (evil) power structures (Trueman, Strange New World, 157). Even here the rules are the same, something is wrong in the objective world. External, transcendent moral obligations exist grounded in an objective reality point to the Giver of this moral code.

Ontological Argument: God is a necessary being, not a contingent being, and the cause of all contingent things. The argument is based on the very concept of the being of God, it is not directly based on empirical evidence as the previous arguments (cause, design, moral). Some regard this as the weakest argument for God because it depends heavily on abstract thinking. However, it has the same logic behind believing that mathematical items, like numbers, necessarily exist. Nevertheless, it relies on the likelihood that God exists (from evidence in the world). Thus, if God exists, he necessarily exists as the First Uncaused Cause (“God is”).

Step Two: From God to Christianity

Presently, we have surveyed arguments for the existence of God. From this general case for God can a specific case for the God of the Christian Faith be made? The above arguments help us to make certain measured expectations about God. God is: infinite, singular and powerful (cosmological); intelligent, powerful with deep knowledge (teleological); personal and relational, loving and holy (moral); transcendent, great and eternal (ontological). It is reasonable to suggest that such a God would likely seek to have a relationship with his creation and this activity may be identifiable in history in supernatural ways.

Of all the various world religions which exist, the Christian faith provides the most evidential and testable historical claim that “Jesus of Nazareth [was] crucified and killed [and] God raised him up” from the dead (Acts 2:22–24; 17:32; 25:19). The historical figure of Jesus is well attested by early non-Christian sources, including the circumstances of his death by crucifixion (Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Josephus, Antiquities 18.63–64, 116–17; 20.200). The earliest Christian claim asserted that Jesus was resurrected bodily and appeared to his disciples, and to skeptics and hostile unbelievers who converted to the faith (1 Corinthians 15:1–8).

Although many naturalistic explanations have been offered to account for the rise of the Christian faith, none have the explanatory force of the historical claim that Jesus rose from the dead by the power of God.

Conclusion

Does God exist? There are very good reasons to believe so. We must, however, take this a step further and affirm that there are very good reasons to believe that the God who rose Jesus from the dead exists.

Works Cited

Bales, James D. The Law Within Their Heart. Dallas, TX: Gospel Teachers Publications, 1981.

Baxter, Batsell Barrett. I Believe Because… A Study of the Evidence Supporting Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1971.

Craig, William Lane. On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. Colorado Springs, CO: Cook, 2010.

Dembski, William A. Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999.

Geisler, Norman L., and Ronald M. Brooks. When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences. Revised ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2013.

Trueman, Carl R. Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022.

**This article originally appeared in The Carolina Messenger. To subscribe for FREE click here. There are slight edits in this version.**

The Gospels: Seven Reasons to Trust Their Reliability

On September 4, 2023February 15, 2024 By Jovan PayesIn 2022, Ancient Biography, Ancient History, Biola University, Christian Apologetics, College Papers, Early Christianity, Gospel Studies, Graduate Work, Greco-Roman World, Jesus Studies, New Testament, Research Papers, Talbot School of Theology, Theology

In the summer of 1996, I picked up a little green Gideon New Testament and began reading the gospels. At the time I was searching to see if perhaps Jesus would be the help I needed in my personal quest to leave the street gang life, overcome my dependency on illicit drug use, and establish a relationship with God. The experience had a radical impact on my hope of what was possible in my life, that I could be other than what I was, and how I could be reborn into the kingdom of God. A few days after Christmas day, I committed my life to following Jesus. In that nascent period of my emerging faith, I relied on the gospels to “tell me the story of Jesus.”

Since that time, I have immersed myself in the study of the gospels for faith and for hope, for truth, and for the renewing power of the historic Jesus who is the Christ of my faith. However, in that same period, it became clear to me that a number of sources (academic and popular) questioned the historical reliability of the Gospels (and the Bible). In this present paper, I affirm their reliability in a cumulative case, based on seven good arguments that make it more probable than not that the Gospels are historically reliable.[1]

The case will be divided into three categorical units.[2] I begin with four “ground-clearing” arguments to resolve important front-end misgivings regarding the reliability of the gospels. Second, I argue how four compositional conventions demonstrate a remarkably stable environment for writing ancient biographies of a recent figure within living memory. Then, I show how three historical features of the Gospels affirm their reliability. Finally, I offer a summation of what this abbreviated cumulative case affirms regarding the historical reliability of the Gospels.

Cumulative Argument for Reliability

There are two aspects of the present cumulative case for the reliability of the Gospels to consider before moving forward: the method and the goal. The method of a cumulative case is to use a series of individual arguments that are “less than sufficient” to bear the whole burden of a case by themselves, but together argue a compelling case that is reasonable. Former cold case detective, J. Warner Wallace, says it helps others to “see the forest for the trees.”[3] If the overlapping nature of the arguments makes for a reasonable argument, then the goal is to demonstrate that the cumulative case is more probable than the alternatives.

As an illustration, consider the colloquial commonsense argument: “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has a bill like a duck, then it is a duck.” These three arguments form a cumulative case that the “bird” is a duck. With this admittedly limited illustration, I point to the commonsense nature of overlapping lines of reasons and evidence, of varying weight, together to offer a big-picture argument.

Presently, then, the seven arguments below overlap to argue positively that it is reasonable and more probable (not just plausible) than not the Gospels are in general historically reliable as an ancient historical biography of a recent religious teacher (Jesus) within the living memory of his disciples. This is a threshold argument. Do the gospels crossover to the category of historically reliable? This is significant since the Gospels are our best available source for any historical picture of Jesus of Nazareth.[4]

Ground Clearing Arguments

The following arguments are treated as “ground-clearing” lines of evidence as they address “front-end” matters of reliability.[5] What extant sources are available for knowledge of Jesus? Has the text of the Gospels been preserved and reliably transmitted? Even if the textual tradition is adequate, are the translations reliable? How early are these Gospels and who wrote them? These are important questions that must be given consideration due to so many misgivings about them in popular circles.[6]

Ancient Sources for Jesus

In the first place, what sources exist to know that Jesus existed and what he said and did? Apart from the Gospels, there is a cache of early ancient non-Christian, often hostile, testimony about Jesus available from Graeco-Roman, Jewish, later Christian, and heretical and apocryphal literature within the first one hundred years.[7] The composite picture of what is known of Jesus from these sources remarkably corroborates with what is found in the four Gospel accounts: Jesus was a Jewish itinerant, miracle-working rabbi in the Roman province of Judea, who many believed was the Messiah; but he was executed under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar; his disciples believed he resurrected spreading this belief throughout the Rome. The Gospels remain the best sources for Jesus, but corroboration of their portrayal of Jesus with ancient non-Christian sources is a necessary starting place.

Reliable Transmission

Additionally, skeptic Richard Carrier, a historian of ancient Rome, lists “textual analysis” as the first stage of historical inquiry.[8] This second ground-clearing argument asserts the Gospels pass the “bibliographical test” as part of the reliable transmission of the Greek New Testament from the ancient text to the modern reader.[9] New Testament textual criticism can evaluate, detect, and correct textual corruptions due to the access of textual critics to over 5,800 Greek manuscripts, early ancient translations, and early church quotations.[10] There are two significant variants in the gospels which involve an entire passage (Mark 16:9–20; John 7:53–8:11), but these are the exception. According to Blomberg, we have “upwards of 97% of what the original writers wrote reconstructed beyond any reasonable doubt,” and the remaining 3% affects no Christian doctrine.[11] As an ancient, hand-copied group of books, the Gospels have been reliably transmitted.

Reliable English Translations

As a third argument, standard English Bible translations are sufficiently reliable for the purpose of knowing the deeds, sayings, and passion of Jesus in the Gospels. Translation is the work of transferring the meaning and ideas of words from one language into the language of a receptor language. Biblical scholar Philip W. Comfort notes that a translation “must reliably replicate the meaning of the text without sacrificing its readability.”[12] In translation theory, there are formal equivalence (“word for word”) translations (ESV, NASB), and there are dynamic equivalence (“thought for thought”) translations (NLT, CEB).[13] Additionally, there are optimal equivalence translations that seek an ideal blend of formal and dynamic methods (CSB, NIV).[14] No translation is perfect, but they typically succeed in producing a “reliable and readable” English text.

First-Century Documents

Finally, the Gospels are first-century biographical documents. Although the traditional authorship attributed to the Gospels attributed to them by the earliest Christian claim has been disputed and denied by critical scholarship, the dating given for most of the canonical gospels is within the window of “living memory” for the writing of ancient biographies about a historical figure.[15] Keener defines “living memory” as a time when “some people who knew the subject were still alive when the biographer wrote” their biography.[16] This is an ideal time to write a Gospel given the access to “better sources” and communal accountability to “document” events and sayings than a later biographer would have at their disposal. Scholarly consensus places the publication of each Gospel within the range of “living memory” of the first century. This fits within a literary period of the early Roman Empire in which concern for historical biographical accuracy peaked, roughly between the first century B.C. to the third century A.D.[17]

The Argument from Memory

In Christobiography, Craig Keener marshalls a compelling case that the Gospel biographies have many of the features of the ancient biographies. The following section seeks to condense Kenner’s overall argument. I argue for a remarkably stable environment for historical writing, with a focus on living memory and oral sources, which were adapted to write an ancient biography of a recent figure within living memory with a concern for accurate history telling.[18]

To focus the present argument, the historical preface to Luke-Acts will be used to inform and illustrate these conventions:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1–4 English Standard Version)[19]

Luke’s preface elicits the reader to anticipate that a historical narrative is forthcoming and constrained by pre-existing Jesus knowledge. Luke readily demonstrates that a historian’s use of convention to compose history is not incompatible with the doctrine of inspiration.[20] Nevertheless, here the focus is only given to how the Gospels are examples of reliably composed ancient biographical documents using the sources and conventions available to the authors.

Luke illustrates that the early church had a depository of oral tradition available to them extending back to “those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” (Luke 1:2). The presence of oral tradition alone does not suggest stability, as it could be argued that the further away from Jerusalem over the years, the oral tradition lacked authentic “controls on the content” to prevent corruption.[21] Admittedly, this is a very complex question. It requires an appreciation that one’s memory precedes chronologically “memoir” and “oral tradition,” which brings into focus the question: how reliable was the first-generation memory of Jesus on which the Gospels are written? Part of the answer is found in the strength of the communal memory of the first generation of eyewitnesses to preserve and provide accountability to the transmission of oral tradition even if certain details were distorted, or allowable stylistic changes crept in.[22] That is to say, distortions may occur when forgetting certain details (location, timeframe), but in an organically controlled environment, memory will likely not invent new stories.

Craig Keener argues at length that memory studies “offer no reason to discount” that the Gospels, as ancient biography, “preserve substantial information about Jesus.”[23] Debates occur over how much “core” Jesus is preserved in the Gospels from the source of memory and oral tradition. The skepticism of how much ancients could remember, it should be tempered with contemporary “Westerners” use of memory to reconstruct from their own living memory, despite the natural limitations of organic memory.[24] When it comes to what the earliest disciples should have remembered, memory studies point to an expectation that the collective memory and oral tradition of the disciples should have provided a basic historical portrait of Jesus.

The retelling of the same or parallel events with stylized segments of Jesus’ teaching, the person mentioned, or details omitted, are the kinds of elements that would be found within well a preserved oral tradition and communal memory. This is particularly important for the oral teaching of Jesus in which the oral community cared more for substance (the gist) over the verbatim recollection.[25] Thus, Keener argues, there are good historical grounds for accepting the shared events, themes, teachings, and deeds of Jesus and his inner circle.[26]

Historical Arguments

The present historical arguments affirm the reliability of the Gospels. First, archaeological confirmation situates the realism of the biographical narratives. Second, early Christian letters predating the Gospels include early Christian creedal statements, possible quotations, and allusions to the teaching of Jesus.

Archaeological Corroboration

Archaeology is a precarious discipline as it does not always yield all the desired corroborating evidence for a specific event or person. Nevertheless, “evidence-based apologetics” is linked to the proper use and interpretation of archaeological findings.[27] Excavations from various cities connected to Jesus have illuminated the realism found in the Gospel narratives, but by the nature of the case, they do not confirm the supernatural deeds of Jesus.[28] It is immaterial if one’s horizon believes the Gospels exaggerate these aspects of the historical Jesus or allow for them.[29] There was a time when it was believed that archaeology could only date the birth of Christ but provide little that would illustrate Jesus’ life.[30]

Archaeology has since demonstrated places mentioned exist (e.g., Nazareth), illustrating agrarian life (mill stones, viticulture), living conditions (homes), topography, economics (Roman and Judean coins), and other socio-cultural realities.[31] In 1961, an inscription was found at Caesarea Maritimis confirming externally that Pontius Pilate was the Judean prefect during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. The realism of stories of the twelve disciples traveling by boat in the Sea of Galilee was confirmed in 1986 when a first-century fishing boat was found in the Sea of Galilee. In an impressive find, in 1968 the remains of an early first-century crucified man, named Yehohanan, were discovered in a family bone box (ossuary) found in the northern city limits of Jerusalem. This find illuminates Jewish death customs of the period, that Judean crucified victims as criminals received proper burial rites (like Jesus), instead of the claim of some that the crucified were buried in unmarked mass graves.[32]

Pre-Gospel Allusions in Paul and James

A second historical argument is made from pre-Gospel publication creedal statements, quotations, and allusion to Paul and James the Just. Paul is believed to have suffered martyrdom under Nero in Rome (A.D. 64–67).[33] In Galatians 1:11–2:10, the content of Paul’s gospel is authenticated by the earliest disciples of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 15:1–8, Paul appeals to a pre-existing creedal statement affirming the death, burial, resurrection, and multiple resurrected appearances of Jesus (Matt 28:1–10; Luke 24:1–49). Additionally, Paul distinguishes his teaching on marital issues from known circulating instruction from Jesus (1 Cor 7:10, 12).[34] In Romans 1:1–6, is found the belief that Jesus is of Davidic lineage (Matt 1:17). In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul cites what is likely an oral saying of Jesus that is found nearly verbatim in Luke 10:7.[35]

Additionally, James wrote an early epistle to Hebrew Christians. He was executed by high priest Ananus II during the transition from procurator Festus to Albinus (A.D. 62), alluding to the teaching of his brother Jesus.[36] Blomberg demonstrates that no epistle “contains as many passages that verbally resemble the teaching of Jesus” as James, so much so, that some believe James had access at minimum to Matthew’s sermon on the mount (Matt 5–8).[37] The resemblances seem consistent with the fluid nature of oral tradition.

These references from Paul and James, and many other letters, do not alone prove beyond the shadow of a doubt the historical reliability of the Gospels, but they do show how the Gospels fall within the continuity of pre-publication beliefs.

A Summation

The “ground clearing” arguments demonstrate that there is good ancient first-century source material that has been adequately preserved and reliably translated into English for those who would like to know about Jesus. Additionally, the oral tradition techniques and composition with available sources to write ancient history are remarkably stable to deliver the four Gospel biographies of Jesus within living memory. Finally, the external historical reliability of the Gospels is seen in the authentic writings of Paul and James, and archaeological corroboration of the realism and setting of the Gospels. I pray this cumulative case leads someone to believe that the Gospels are reliable so that one day they may come to believe in the Jesus of the Gospels.[38]

Endnotes

To be clear, I do not affirm that these are the only arguments that can be made. Nor have I included all historical “ground clearing” issues (e.g., historical methodology, etc.). I have limited the discussion to these seven arguments due to space and convenience.
These are my personal arrangements of the arguments.
Former cold-case detective, J. Warner Wallace, remarks, “cumulative case arguments are typically built on a number of pieces of evidence, each of which may be imperfect or insufficient when considered in isolation. When examined in totality, however, the case becomes strong and reasonable.” He goes on, “opponents of cumulative cases usually attack the imperfections or insufficiencies they observe in the single pieces of evidence within the larger case. But remember, each individual evidence is admittedly less than sufficient, and this has no impact on whether or not the final conclusion, given the overwhelming nature of the cumulative case, is reasonable.” See, “Intense Investigation,” Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith, Logos electronic ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: Cook, 2017), n.p.
Craig S. Keener, Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019), 11.
The idea of “ground clearing” arguments is taken from a passing statement in a lecture by Craig L. Blomberg on the reliability of the Gospels. The structure of this paper relies on the selective use of Blomberg’s lectures from a Fall 2022 Biola University graduate course titled, “The Reliability of the Gospels.”
Paul Barnett likewise asserts, “our first and most basic step is to identify, date, and assess the historical value of our sources for Jesus Christ” (Finding the Historical Christ [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009], 11).
Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 2^nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007), 249–280; Barnett, Finding the Historical Christ, 11–64.
Richard C. Carrier, Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, Kindle ed. (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2012), location 174: “We have to use the methods of textual criticism and paleography to ascertain whether a document we presently have is authentic and accurately reflects its original—since usually only copies of copies exist today.”
John Warwick Montgomery, History, Law and Christianity (1964; reprint, Irvine, CA: NRP Books, 2014), 11–13; Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 2017), 46–47.
Blomberg points out it is not a fair use of the textual evidence to suggest the earlier back one goes, there will be an increase in variants (Historical Reliability, 335–36). Still, the earliest extant manuscripts are second-century papyrus fragments of Matthew 23:30–39 (P77) and John 18:31–34 and 18:37–38 (P52), and John 18:36–19:7 (P90) attesting to the early circulation of these books (Philip W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts and Modern Translations of the New Testament [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1990], 31–71). There are witnesses to Syriac and Old Latin translations of the gospels as early as the second century (Bruce M. Metzger, The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001], 25–35). The gospels are cited or alluded to in first-to-second-century patristic literature such as Ignatius, Barnabas, Clement, Polycarp, etc. (cf. Oxford Society of Historical Theology, The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (reprint, Bellingham, WA: Logos Research, 2009).
Blomberg, Historical Reliability, 332–33; For his alarmist rhetoric see, Bart Ehrman, “The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings” in Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 45–69.
Philip W. Comfort, Essential Guide to Bible Versions (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2000), 104.
Comfort, Essential Guide, 103–04.
On “optimal equivalence” see “The CSB Translation Philosophy: Optimal Equivalency” (Feb. 14, 2017).
McDowell and McDowell compare the dating ranges of the four Gospels among conservative and liberal scholarship and provide these ranges in Evidence that Demands a Verdict (42–46): Matthew (early 60s–80s; 80–100), Mark (late 50s–late 60s; 70s), Luke (early 60s–80s; 70–110), John (mid-60s–100; 90–100).
Keener, Christobiography, 2.
Keener, Christobiography, 68–103.
Due to the nature of this essay, especially this section, I am arguing the case for reliability without seeking the shortcut of appealing to “Holy Spirit-guided inspiration.” I am fully committed to the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration. I believe God used the conventions of the day in the production of his written Word.
Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version of The Holy Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016).
Blomberg, Historical Reliability, 38, footnote 42: “Luke describes the composition of his Gospel according to the standard process of ancient history-writing–consulting written sources, learning from oral tradition, interviewing eyewitnesses, selecting what is deemed most important for one’s own objectives.” In Keener, Christobiography, 221–39, the two-volume work Luke-Acts is profiled as a mixture of “biohistory” with each book from a sub-category of the historical genre: Luke (ancient biography) and Acts (ancient history).
J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2006), 30.
Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace, Reinventing, 33–36.
Keener, Christobiography, 366.
Keener, Christobiography, 373. Keener points out how memories are not “videocameras… not straightforward, objective records of what happened” (374). They include constant reworking, bias, and conflation, and are vulnerable to suggestion.
Keener notes that verbatim recollection was very rare, and given the sample size of the teaching of Jesus, one should expect the kind of substance-focused material found in the Gospels (385–90). Cf. Darrell L. Bock, “The Words of Jesus in the Gospels: Live, Jive, or Memorex?” in Jesus Under Fire, eds. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 74–99.
Keener, Christobiography, 384.
McDowell and McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, 416.
Blomberg, Historical Reliability, 326–27.
I. Howard Marshall explores what is meant by “historical” as whether a person named x actually existed or whether a historical reference to someone named x is more fiction than history. Additionally, he pursues his project by seeking to go from “I believe in that there was a historical person called Jesus… what, if anything can be known about this person” (I Believe in the Historical Jesus, rev. ed. [Vancouver: Regent College, 2004], 16). C. K. Barrett assesses the uncomfortableness for the modern historian reading pre-scientific literature like the Gospels largely centers on the supernatural elements that do “not so appear in his own experience.” Still, it would be a “bad historical method to rule out a priori… such events” (Jesus and the Gospel Tradition [Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1968], 4). See a more recent discussion on “preunderstanding” horizons in Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010), 38–50.
James H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Archaeology” in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, eds. Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 441.
Blomberg, Historical Reliability, 326–31. Charlesworth lists over one-hundred-twenty items ranging from the mundane to the illustrious (“Jesus Research,” 443–45).
Craig A. Evans, “Jesus and the Ossuaries,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 13.1 (2003): 33. The multiply attested “burial tomb tradition” (Mark 15:42–47) has been doubted by various critical scholars, like John Dominic Crossan, who believes crucifixion meant “death-without-burial” and “body-as-carrion” (Who Killed Jesus? [New York: HarperCollins, 1995], 163–68).
For Paul’s death see 1 Clement 5:5–7, 6:1; for context and historical analysis see Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus (2008; reprint, New York: Routledge, 2015), 93–114.
Blomberg describes this as a “powerful confirmation of the care with which the first Christians distinguished the words of the historical Jesus from later instructions inspired by his Spirit” (Historical Reliability, 287).
Although critics do not list 1 Timothy among Paul’s authentic letters, the arguments are far from definitive and do not make Pauline authorship impossible (Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles, trans. Philip Buttolph and Adela Yarbro [Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1972], 1–5; George W. Knight, III, The Pastoral Epistles [1992; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013], 21–52).
For the death of James the Just see Josephus Antiquities 20.197–200; For context and historical analysis see Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles, 115–34.
Blomberg, Historical Reliability, 292–93.
This “two decision” model is taken from Wallace, Cold-Case Christianity, 255–58.

Works Cited

Barnett, Paul. Finding the Historical Christ. After Jesus, volume 3. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009.

Barrett, C. K. Jesus and the Gospel Tradition. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1968.

Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. 2^nd edition. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007.

Bock, Darrell L. “The Words of Jesus in the Gospels: Live, Jive, or Memorex?” in Jesus Under Fire, edited by Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, 74–99. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995.

Carrier, Richard. Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Kindle edition. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2012.

Charlesworth, James H. “Jesus Research and Archaeology” in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, edited by Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald, 439–66. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013.

Crossan, John Dominic. Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Antisemitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

Dibelius, Martin, and Hans Conzelmann. The Pastoral Epistles. Translated by Philip Buttolph and Adela Yarbro. Herm. Edited by Helmut Koester, et al. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972.

Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. New York: HarperCollins, 2005

Evans, Craig A. “Jesus and the Ossuaries.” Bulletin for Biblical Research 13.1 (2003): 21–46.

Keener, Craig S. Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019.

Knight, George W., III. The Pastoral Epistles. NIGTC. Edited by I. Howard Marshall and W. Ward Gasque. 1992. Reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013.

Komoszewski, J. Ed, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace. Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2006.

Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010.

Marshall, I. Howard. I Believe in the Historical Jesus. Revised edition. Vancouver, BC: Regent College, 2002.

McDowell, Josh, and Sean McDowell. Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World. Nashville, TN: Nelson, 2017.

McDowell, Sean. The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus. 2015. Reprint, New York: Routledge, 2018.

Montgomery, John Warwick. History, Law and Christianity. 1964. Reprint, Irvine, CA: NRP Books, 2014.

Wallace, J. Warner. Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels. Colorado Springs, CO: Cook, 2013.

_____. Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2017.

Do We Have the Old Testament?

On May 3, 2023February 15, 2024 By Jovan PayesIn 2003, Bibliology, Christian Apologetics, College Papers, Freed-Hardeman University, Old Testament, Research Papers, Textual Criticism, TheologyLeave a comment

A person of faith often assumes that there are no problems ascertaining the wording of certain passages. But reality demonstrates that there are instances where this proves to be untrue. What a believer expects God to do in His providential care of the planet may not always line up with how life unfolds itself, but such disorientation has been common among the faithful.

Despite all the miracles employed to compel Pharoah to release the Israelites from Egypt, when the environment became less than comfortable fear and panic overcame God’s people (Exod 14). Even Moses had initial problems with understanding the situation he was faced with when he was sent to Pharoah to have him release the Israelites (Exod 5). Examples could be multiplied to demonstrate that a person of faith at times needs “more” in order to calm their nerves.

The following brief study gives attention to the textual basis of the Old Testament, considering a few lines of thought that contribute to a more informed outlook on how copies of the Hebrew Bible have been transmitted into modern hands, and what the sources of the copies used today so that translators are able to produce translations of the Hebrew Bible.

It must be emphasized that this is not an exhaustive treatment of the subject. So much more is available for analysis; be that as it may, a survey of this material is sufficient to adequately support the above affirmation of the adequate veracity of the Hebrew Bible.

A Skeptic’s Concern

A skeptical approach to the Bible essentially argues that for a collection of books so old, for a collection of books that have passed through so many hands, or for a collection of anonymously published volumes, it is a hard sell to affirm that the Bible – here the Hebrew Bible – is trustworthy in any sense.

Regarding the textual certainty of the Bible in general, skeptic Donald Morgan puts the matter bluntly in the following words:

No original manuscripts exist. There is probably not one book that survives in anything like its original form. There are hundreds of differences between the oldest manuscripts of any one book. These differences indicate that numerous additions and alterations were made to the originals by various copyists and editors.[1]

The argument basically affirms that there is no way for the Bible to be an accurate record of the words of God, and therefore, it is not “trustworthy.” The sheer force of this argument is designed to rob the Bible believer’s faith in God. Implicit with this is the futility of having a religion founded upon the Bible’s guidance.

What can be said of this dire depiction, except that one must not be persuaded by mere affirmations, but instead by the available evidence. Not only is it paramount to see the evidence, but it is imperative that a proper evaluation is given to it.

The OT Accurately Transmitted

The Scribal Evidence

The overall scribal evidence suggests that the Hebrew Bible has been adequately preserved. The “scribe” trade goes back very early in recorded antiquity and therefore is a field of has a rich heritage of scholarship and workmanship behind it.[2] J. W. Martin notes that the field of transmitting literature is a known trade skill from the 2nd millennium B.C. and observes, “men were being trained not merely as scribes, but as expert copyists.”[3] Copying occurred during the Babylonian exile. F. C. Grant writes, “in far-away Babylonia the study and codification, the copying and interpretation of the Sacred Law had steadily continued.”[4]

This means that extending back beyond the time of Abraham (19th century B.C.) and Moses (15th century B.C.), down to the time of the exilic and post-exilic scribes (the predecessors to the “scribes who copied and explained the Law in the New Testament times”),[5] “advanced” and “scrupulous” methods would likely be used to copy any text, including the Hebrew canon.

The next question in need of an answer, though, is: what were those methods? Briefly, observe the mentality and professionalism which exemplify the sheer reverential ethic towards the transmission of the Biblical text characterized by the scribes.

The Hebrew Scribes revered the sanctity of the Scriptures. Moses commanded the people not to “add to the word,” nor to “take from it” (Deut 4:2). The Hebrews respected this command. Josephus weighs in as support for this point. In arguing for the superiority of the Hebrew Bible against the conflicting mythologies of the Greeks fraught with evident contradicting alterations to their content, Josephus bases his argument upon the reverential mentality towards these writings.

Josephus testifies to this sense of reverence (Against Apion 1.8.41-42):

[41] It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; [42] and how firmly we have given credit to those books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them; but it becomes natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them.[6]
William Whiston, Translator

Even though there are variants, produced by scribes, the fundamental historical truth stresses that the Hebrew scribes revered the Scriptures and dared never to add or take away from them. This important truth must not be forgotten. Moreover, this fact emphasizes the great care they had with the transmission of the text.

The scribal methods changed as time progressed, and this seems to be for the better and for the worst. One thing is transparent, however, and that is this: consistent with the reverential appreciation of the scriptures, the Hebrew scribes exercised acute professionalism in their methods, however superstitious they were at times. Rabbinic literature testifies to the early scribal school. Clyde Woods reproduces 17 crucial rabbinic rules demonstrating the rigors of the early scribal methodology.[7] The specifics concerning the writing materials, the preparation of the document, the veracity of the authenticity of the template, the conduct displayed when writing divine names, and other critical rules are thus enumerated underscoring the diligent professionalism of the early scribes.

The Masoretes succeeded and exceeded these scribes as a professional group of transmitters of the Hebrew Bible, laboring from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1000.[8] Lightfoot summarizes a number of procedures the Masoretes employed to “eliminate scribal slips of addition and omission.”[9] The Masoretes counted and located the number of “verses, words, and letters of each book,” thereby passing on the text that they have received. This intricate methodology in preservation is of extreme importance in modern textual studies,[10] and answers the reason why these reliable “medieval manuscripts” are commonly the underlying text of modern English translations[11] and represented in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (cf. English Standard Version).[12]

The concern for the accurate preservation of the Biblical text cannot, however, dismiss the fallible humanity which copied the text by hand, thereby producing inevitable scribal variations.[13] René Paché recounts the “herculean” endeavors of scholars evaluating the variants which have “crept into the manuscripts of the Scriptures” (e.g. B. Kennicott, Rossi, and J. H. Michaelis). These labors have also encompassed the analysis of the oldest versions and numerous citations and allusions from Jewish and Christian works. Robert D. Wilson’s observations in his work, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, noted that the 581 Hebrew manuscripts studied by Kennicott are composed of 280 million letters comprised of only 900,000 variants. These variants are boiled down to 150,000 because 750,000 are “insignificant changes” of letter switches.[14]

This is represented as 1 variant for every 316 letters, but putting these unimportant variants aside, the count stands at 1 variant for every 1,580 letters. Moreover, “very few variants occur in more than one of the 200-400 manuscripts of each book of the Old Testament.”[15] The point that needs recognition, however, is that we must recognize that the scribes have done their best, but there are variations that must be accounted for. These variations are not sufficient enough to call into question the adequate preservation of the Hebrew Bible.

Textual Evidence

After evaluating some of the problems in the textual evidence for the Old Testament, it can be said that the overall material adequately preserves the Hebrew Bible. This investigation is comparable to a roller coaster. There are both ups and downs, making one more confident while at the same time bringing some concern. For example, Peter Craigie notes, “there is no original copy of any Old Testament book; indeed, not even a single verse has survived in its original autograph. This is not a radical statement, simply a statement of fact.”[16]

The Bible believer might feel a bit disconcerted to know this fact, but there is no genuine need to feel this way. Truth endures because of its very nature no matter if one destroys the materials upon which it is written (Jer 36:23-32). Moreover, the scribal evidence adequately demonstrates an amazingly high level of accurate transmission and preservation of the Old Testament, even though the autographs are not available. One might speculate as to why these important documents are not providentially preserved for posterity, but the observation that such a course of action “is a highly dangerous procedure” is promptly recognized.[17]

Nevertheless, there are historical issues relating to this question and to the question of why there are such a small number of manuscript copies of the Old Testament when compared to the textual evidence of the New Testament. The most important fact is that the Hebrew scribes destroyed old manuscripts (autographs and copies). Clyde M. Woods writes:

The relative paucity [i.e. smallness of number] of earlier Hebrew manuscripts is due not only to the perishable nature of ancient writing materials (skins and papyri) and to the effort of hostile enemies to destroy the Hebrew Scriptures, but, perhaps more significantly, to the fact that the Jews evidently destroyed some worn out manuscripts to prevent their falling into profane hands.[18]

This explains why there is comparatively less textual witness for the Old Testament than for the New, however, as Donald Demaray notes, “there is the compensating factor that the Jews copied their Scriptures with greater care than did the Christians.”[19] There are accounts of scribes having burial ceremonies for the manuscripts,[20] and the storage “of scrolls [in a “Genizah” depository] no longer considered fit for use.”[21]

Cairo Genizah - Cambridge Library Blog - Fig1 — Image Credit: Cambridge University Library Special Collections. “Fragments from the Cairo Genizah prior to conservation and cataloguing [sic]” (Emma Nichols, “Conservation of the Lewis-Gibson Collection: Re-Treatment of Manuscript Fragments from the Cairo Genizah“)

A second major factor is the A.D. 303 declaration by Emperor Diocletian to destroy any “sacred” literature associated with the Christian religion.[22] F. C. Grant frames the significance as follows:

As never before, the motive of the Great Persecution which began in 303 was the total extirpation of Christianity: […]. The first of Diocletian’s edicts directed to this end prohibited all assemblies of Christians for purposes of worship, and commanded that their churches and sacred books should be destroyed.[23]

This would further contribute to the lack of Hebrew Bible manuscripts.

Modern manuscript evidence for the Hebrew Bible, therefore, does not include the autographa (“original manuscripts”) and is generally never expected to, as desirable as the obtainment of these documents is.[24] What remains is the collection of manuscripts which together allow textual scholars to reproduce as close as possible the Hebrew Old Testament. This body of textual evidence goes very far to close the gap between the present day and the autographa. What are these manuscript witnesses to the Hebrew Bible? There are primary and secondary witnesses but where space is limited to the manuscripts.

Bruce Waltke observes that the textual witnesses to the text are the extant Hebrew manuscripts and Hebrew Vorlage obtained from the early versions of the Hebrew text.[25] While the term “manuscript” is typically recognized, the term Vorlage is probably unfamiliar to the general Bible student. This term refers to the text that “lies before” the translation or a theoretical “prototype or source document” from which it is based.[26] The Masoretic text (MT), the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), and the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are the principal manuscript witnesses. These manuscripts coupled with the Vorlage are the “documents” at our disposal.

Craigie’s presentation on this material[27] when compared to Waltke leaves something to be desired, and that something is more data and deeper investigation. However, Craigie presents the evidence that the manuscript evidence (including early translations) extends from the 2nd century B.C to the MT of the late 9th century B.C.[28] Leaving a considerable gap, as he notes, of “several centuries, the time varying from one Old Testament book to another, between the earliest extant manuscripts and no longer existing original manuscripts.”[29]

Waltke presents a fuller presentation of the two substantiating Craigie’s observations and would extend from the available data that the Vorlage of some of the DSS and SP points to a Proto-MT at least somewhere in the 5th century B.C.[30] Moreover, the oldest evidence is found in 2 extremely small silver rolls containing the Aaronic priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26, dating to the 7th or 6th centuries B.C.[31] The text reads:

May Yahweh bless you and keep you;
May Yahweh cause his face to
Shine upon you and grant you
Peace
(Michael D. Coogan)

Consequently, the worst case holds that the textual evidence goes only to the 2nd century, while the best case goes back some 300-500 years further back to a purer source as of yet unavailable.

H. G. G. Herklots has compiled a generous amount of information concerning the production of harmonization work which underlies the works of present-day manuscripts.[32] By doing this Herklots highlights that there are variations in the textual witnesses that the early stewards of the text attempted to dispose of but this has in some sense complicated the matter, making the study more laborious than it already is.[33] Variations are not as problematic as the skeptic supposes. To be sure, there are occasions of serious textual dissonance, but these are far from the plethoras of insignificant, obvious, and correctable variations.[34]

Waltke affirms, that “90 percent of the text contains no variants,” and of the remnant “10 percent of textual variations, only a few percent are significant and warrant scrutiny; 95 percent of the OT is therefore textually sound.”[35] Douglas Stuart notes that when considering the variations, “it is fair to say that the verses, chapters, and books of the Bible would read largely the same, and would leave the same impression with the reader, even if one adopted virtually every possible alternative reading.”[36] The variations of the extant textual evidence hardly, therefore, pose an indomitable problem to the adequate preservation of the Old Testament. The skeptic’s argument has no leg to stand upon.

Extra-Hebrew Bible Sources

Besides the extant Biblical literature of the Hebrew Bible, there are miscellaneous sources that demonstrate the veracity of the text, and implicitly note the accountability of the Hebrew Bible to a textual investigation. While these witnesses cannot reproduce the entire Old Testament, they can be compared with the manuscript evidence for accuracy and enlightened evidence when certain passages or words appear obscure. Briefly, consider two sources.

First, the Targums are a set of Jewish works in Aramaic that are paraphrastic (i.e. “interpretive translation”) of parts of the Old Testament.[37] Targums are said to be used in the synagogue to give the Aramaic-speaking Jews the “sense” of the Hebrew Bible.[38] This is comparable to the verbal translation that had to occur at the inauguration of the Law under Ezra, where there were assistants who “gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Neh 8:8 ESV).

Targums have been written upon every section of the Hebrew Bible; they ranged from “very conservative” to “interpretive” (Onkelos and Jonathon respectively), and are useful for the light they show upon traditional Jewish interpretation.[39] In the history of the transmission of the Hebrew Bible, at times the Targum was placed along the side of a Hebrew text, a Greek text, and a Latin text (as in the Complutensian Polyglot) to “enable a reader with little Hebrew to understand the meaning of the Scriptures in his own language.”[40] It seems agreeable to suggest and affirm that the Targum serves as an appropriate and practical source to obtain a general understanding of the Hebrew text, which will definitely aid the textual scholar in analyzing obscure passages.

Second, there is the New Testament, which is a virtual galaxy of Old Testament citations and allusions as it connects Jesus and his followers as a continuation -fulfillment- of its message. Consequently, it serves as a proper witness to the passages cited or alluded to. E. E. Ellis writes:

there are some 250 express citations of the Old Testament in the New. If indirect or partial quotations and allusions are added, the total exceeds a thousand.[41]

The Greek New Testament, published by the United Bible Society, has 2 notable reference indexes. The first index lists the “Quotations” while the other catalogs “Allusions and Verbal Parallels.”[42]

The New Testament writers used and quoted not only the Hebrew Bible, but also the LXX (with some variations suggesting different Greek translations), and other sources such as the Old Testament Targums.[43] In addition, the New Testament, in terms of textual evidence (manuscript, early version, and patristic quotations), is the most attested document from antiquity[44] emphasizes the reliability of the New Testament evidence for the Old Testament.[45]

Concluding Thoughts

In summation, we have examined some of the evidence in a survey and observed that the typical skeptical claim against the Bible is fallacious. We are more than confident that the textual transmission of the Bible has adequately preserved the Bible. There are so many avenues from which data pours in that for all practical purposes the gap from these extant materials to the originals is irrelevant. Gaps of greater magnitude exist for other works of antiquity, but no finger of resistance is pressed against their adequate representation of the autographic materials.

The Bible experiences this sort of attack partly because ignorant friends of the Bible fighting with a broken sword affirm that we have the Bible and that it has no textual problems. Other times, skeptics misrepresent textual studies of the Bible in order to support their case that the Bible is not the inerrant inspired word of God. Be that as it may, the scribal evidence demands that the scribes held a high reverence and professionalism in the transmission of the text, the textual evidence is, though having some problems, near 100 percent sound. Moreover, the New Testament and Talmud are examples of sources that uphold the Biblical text and allow textual scholars to examine the accuracy of the textual data.

Finally, the skeptical attack has been viewed a considered only for it to be concluded that it is fallacious and of no need to be considered a viable position based on the evidence. In connection with this conclusion, observe some observations by Robert D. Wilson and Harry Rimmer. Rimmer writes that a scientific approach to the Bible inquiry is to adopt a hypothesis and then test it and see if there are supportive data that establishes it. He writes:

If the hypothesis cannot be established and if the facts will not fit in with its framework, we reject that hypothesis and proceed along the line of another theory. If facts sustain the hypothesis, it then ceases to be theory and becomes an established truth.[46]

Wilson makes a similar argument and ties an ethical demand to it. After ably refuting a critical argument against Daniel, Wilson remarks that when prominent critical scholars make egregious affirmations adequately shown to be so, “what dependence will you place on him when he steps beyond the bounds of knowledge into the dim regions of conjecture and fancy?.”[47]

Endnotes

Donald Morgan, “Introduction to the Bible and Biblical Problems,” Infidels Online (Accessed 2003). Mr. Morgan is just a classic example of the skepticism that many share regarding the integrity of the biblical record.
Daniel Arnaud, “Scribes and Literature,” NEA 63.4 (2000): 199.
J. W. Martin, et al., “Texts and Versions,” in The New Bible Dictionary, eds. J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962), 1254.
Fredrick C. Grant, Translating the Bible (Greenwich, CT: Seabury, 1961), 8 (emph. added).
Grant, Translating the Bible, 10-11.
Flavius Josephus, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, trans. William Whiston (repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987).
Clyde M. Woods, “Can we be Certain of the Text? – Old Testament,” in God’s Word for Today’s World: The Biblical Doctrine of Scripture (Kosciusko, MI: Magnolia Bible College, 1986), 98.
Martin, et al., “Texts and Versions,” 1255; René Paché, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, trans. Helen I. Needham (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1969), 187.
Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), 92.
Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 92.
Peter C. Craigie, The Old Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1986), 32.
English Standard Version of The Holy Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), ix.
Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 91.
Robert D. Wilson, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, revised ed., Edward J. Young (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1967), .
ctd. in Paché, Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, 189–90.
Craigie, The Old Testament, 34.
Dowell Flatt, “Can we be Certain of the Text? – New Testament,” in God’s Word for Today’s World: The Biblical Doctrine of Scripture (Kosciusko, MI: Magnolia Bible College, 1986), 104: “The books of the New Testament were originally copied by amateurs,” the variants multiplied from persecution pressures and translations issues up until the “standardization of the text” in the 4th to 8th centuries A.D.
Woods, “Can we be Certain of the Text?,” 96.
Donald E. Demaray, Bible Study Sourcebook, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964), 35; Flatt, “Can we be Certain of the Text?,” 106.
Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 90.
Martin, et al., “Texts and Versions,” 1256-57; Paché, Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, 187-88; F. C. Grant notes that the Synagogue of Old Cairo’s Geniza has been found, throwing “great light upon Biblical studies” (Translating the Bible, 40). Biblical scrolls were discovered from 1890 and, onwards including Targums and rabbinic literature (Martin, et al., “Texts and Versions,” 1256-57).
Michael Grant, The Roman Emperors: a Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 B.C.–A.D. 476 (1985; repr., New York, NY: Barnes & Noble, 1997), 208.
Grant, Translating the Bible, 208.
Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 90.
Bruce K. Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” in Foundations for Biblical Interpretation, eds. David S. Dockery, et al. (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1994), 159-68.
Matthew S. DeMoss, Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2001), 128.
Craigie, The Old Testament, 32-37.
Craigie, The Old Testament, 36, 32.
Craigie, The Old Testament, 34.
Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 162.
Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 163.
H. G. G. Herklots, How Our Bible Came to Us: Its Texts and Versions (New York, NY: Oxford University, 1957), 29-40, 109-23
Herklots, How Our Bible Came to Us, 116-23, Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 164-167.
Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 157.
Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 157-58.
qtd. in Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 157.
D. F. Payne, “Targums,” in The New Bible Dictionary, ed. J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962), 1238.
Payne, “Targums,” 1238.
Payne, “Targums,” 1239.
Herklots, How Our Bible Came to Us, 35-36.
E. E. Ellis, “Quotations (in the New Testament),” in The New Bible Dictionary, ed. J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962), 1071.
Barbara Aland, et al., eds., The Greek New Testament, 4th rev. ed. (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 2002), 887-901.
Ellis, “Quotations (in the New Testament),” 1071.
Wayne Jackson, Fortify Your Faith In an Age of Doubt (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, 1974), 70-75.
Harry Rimmer, Internal Evidence of Inspiration, 7th edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1946), 36.
Wilson, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, 98.

Bibliography

Aland, Barbara, et al. Editors. The Greek New Testament. 4th rev. ed. Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 2002.

Arnaud, Daniel. “Scribes and Literature.” NEA 63.4 (2000): 199.

Craigie, Peter C. The Old Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1986.

Demaray, Donald E. Bible Study Sourcebook. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964.

DeMoss, Matthew S. Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001.

Ellis, E. E. “Quotations (in the New Testament).” Page 1071 in The New Bible Dictionary. Edited by J. D. Douglas. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962.

Flatt, Dowell. “Can we be Certain of the Text? – New Testament.” Pages 103-10 in God’s Word for Today’s World: the Biblical Doctrine of Scripture. Don Jackson, Samuel Jones, Cecil May, Jr., and Donald R. Taylor. Kosciusko, MS: Magnolia Bible College, 1986.

Grant, Fredrick C. Translating the Bible. Greenwich, CT: Seabury, 1961.

Grant, Michael. The Roman Emperors: a Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 B.C.–A.D. 476. 1985. Repr., New York, NY: Barnes, 1997.

Herklots, H. G. G. How Our Bible Came to Us: Its Texts and Versions. New York, NY: Oxford University, 1957.

Jackson, Wayne. Fortify Your Faith In an Age of Doubt. Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, 1974.

Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Translated by William Whiston. Repr. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987.

Lightfoot, Neil R. How We Got the Bible. 2d edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001.

Martin, W. J., et. al. “Texts and Versions.” Pages 1254-69 in The New Bible Dictionary. Edited by J. D. Douglas. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962.

Morgan, Donald. “Introduction to the Bible and Biblical Problems.” Infidels Online.

Paché, René. The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture. Translated by Helen I. Needham. Chicago, IL: Moody, 1969.

Payne, D.F. “Targums.” Pages 1238-39 in The New Bible Dictionary. Edited by J. D. Douglas. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962.

Rimmer, Harry. Internal Evidence of Inspiration. 7th edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1946.

Waltke, Bruce K. “Old Testament Textual Criticism.” Pages 156-86 in Foundations for Biblical Interpretation. Edited by David S. Dockery, Kenneth A. Mathews, and Robert B. Sloan. Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1994.

Wilson, Robert D. A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament. Revised edition. Revised by Edward J Young. Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1967.

Woods, Clyde. “Can we be Certain of the Text? – Old Testament.” Pages 94-102 in God’s Word for Today’s World: the Biblical Doctrine of Scripture. Don Jackson, Samuel Jones, Cecil May, Jr., and Donald R. Taylor. Kosciusko, MS: Magnolia Bible College, 1986.

Did Paul Hallucinate the Resurrection?

On August 5, 2021October 15, 2023 By Jovan PayesIn 1 Corinthians, 2021, Biblical Criticism, Christian Apologetics, Early Christianity, Graduate Work, Jesus Studies, Paul's Letters, Research Papers, Resurrection, Theology1 Comment

[Note: This paper has been published. Go to the end of the article to download the published version.]

The historical bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the foundation of orthodox Christianity. The apostle Paul asserts, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14).[1] One argument skeptics, like former Catholic Priest and Jesus Seminar scholar John Dominic Crossan, use to counter the force of the historical claim of a bodily resurrection of Jesus is to say that the early Christians experienced hallucinations.

I intend to demonstrate the early Christian claim of Jesus appearing bodily after his resurrection, as reflected in Paul, is the best explanation for the resurrection appearances of the New Testament over Crossan’s hallucination theory.

I first critique the hallucination theory of Crossan for contradicting the bodily resurrection language of the New Testament. Second, I demonstrate how Crossan’s trance mechanism for a hallucination imposes an anachronistic understanding on Paul’s words. Finally, I dispute Crossan’s denial of the falsifiable of the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Early Christians Believed in a Bodily Resurrection

The language of the miracle claim asserts that Jesus resurrected and appeared bodily to his disciples (John 20:27; Luke 24:39). However, a secular worldview primed by naturalism demands an alternative explanation of “what really happened” to Jesus other than a bodily resurrection.[2] The horns of the dilemma were posed by David F. Strauss (1808–1874), “either Jesus was not really dead, or he did not really rise again.”[3] However, all the details of passion-week Friday, such as, scourging, dehydration, crucifixion, etc., make any interpretation Jesus did not die to be “at odds with modern medical knowledge.”[4] The category of hallucination, as an explanation theory, is a popular attempt to claim the disciples hallucinated the bodily appearances of Jesus, and mass hysteria then spread their claim. As Dale C. Allison, Jr., frames it,

it was not the empty tomb that begot the hallucinations but hallucinations that begot the empty tomb.[5]
Dale C. Allison, Jr., Resurrecting Jesus (T&T Clark, 2005)

The charge is ancient. In the third-century AD, Origen of Alexandria (d. 254) combatted Celsus’ second-century claim that the disciples suffered a “delusion.”[6]

Another pushback against the orthodox view of a bodily resurrection is that it is just a fictional myth that developed over time as a result of a personal hallucination of Paul. To establish this claim, liberal Bible critic Crossan introduces the writings of two early non-Christian historians (Josephus and Tacitus) which he believes limit “what happened both before and after Jesus’s execution.” [7] Crossan argues their religious profiles of the Christian movement lack mention of the resurrection. Additionally, the Gospel of Thomas speaks of the “living Jesus” and the Epistle of Barnabas is void of resurrection talk. Crossan believes this evidence affirms that early Christian faith did not need to believe in a post-mortem appearance of Jesus. He further claims that Paul uses his experience of Jesus appearing to him (1 Cor 15:8) to give him the gravitas to be the equal of all the apostles in a political powerplay.[8]

Crossan’s novel hallucination theory also requires that the present passive indicative verb ōphthē, translated “appeared” in most translations, actually means “revealed.” This would be a culturally conditioned “trance” where Paul experienced an “altered state of consciousness” and used this personal experience to stabilize the infighting in the Corinthian church.[9] Crossan’s theory requires the church to have completely misread Paul’s testimony by taking his personal experience for apostolic orthodoxy. Crossan’s theory offers a “growth-politics” twist to the category of the hallucination theory.

The words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3–11, however, do not support Crossan’s theory. In fact, this passage is a test-case of the united shape of the earliest Christian tradition concerning the resurrection appearances of Jesus.[10] The minimal facts theory of apologist Gary R. Habermas provides a firm critical foundation to respond to Crossan. The minimal facts theory is a critical approach that uses “the minimal, best-established facts surrounding the appearances” of Jesus that even Bible critics grant “to determine what really happened after Jesus’ death.”[11] Habermas has established four historical facts.

First, there is very little controversy that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, as even Crossan dates the letter to AD 53–54.[12] Second, Paul’s articulation of the gospel predates him, “I delivered to you… what I also received” (1 Cor 15:3). Here Paul affirms the normative nature of what he is preaching. Third, Paul received this “tradition” anywhere between AD 32–38, less than a decade after the crucifixion.[13] Fourth, this reception of the creed occurred during Paul’s Jerusalem information gathering “visit” (cf. historéō) with Peter and James (Gal 1:18–20) and anchors his tradition to the early Jerusalem church.[14]

Bible critical scholar, A. M. Hunter (1906–1991), argues that Paul claims in this passage “a very early Christian summary” of what the united apostolic voice affirms about the gospel and Jesus resurrection appearances (15:11);[15] namely, “that Christ died for our sins… that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day… and that he appeared” (15:3–5). The bodily death and resurrection appearances of Jesus legitimizes the existence of the Christian faith, for “in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (15:20; cf. 15:6, 14). There is no powerplay. Paul is in fact arguing from within the earliest Christian tradition and meaning of resurrection appearance. This is a substantial point since Crossan’s theory offers a reinterpretation of the early Christian tradition which cannot be sustained internally.

Ultimately, a naturalistic argument forces Crossan’s hand to redefine what is a resurrection and how one experiences it. Resurrection was not, according to N. T. Wright, a generic term for “life after death” but instead “the second stage in a two-stage process of what happens after death: the first stage being nonbodily and the second being a renewed bodily existence… Paul really did believe in the bodily resurrection” (cf. 1 Cor 9:1).[16] It is precisely this firm belief in the bodily resurrection that invalidates Crosson’s theory for Paul, and is in conformity with other the New Testament descriptions of the bodily resurrection appearances of Jesus.[17]

Beyond the evidence of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:3–11 of multiple eyewitnesses there are the public resurrection expectations and appearances in the Gospels; moreover, there are the resurrection creedal statements in the sermons of Acts.[18] It points to a clear unified belief among the earliest Christians that Jesus rose bodily from the dead and appeared in a renewed bodily existence. Bodily existence is the expected concept non-believers were to understand as the Christian view of the resurrection, as Judean Procurator Festus explains to Herod Agrippa II, “a certain Jesus, who was dead, but whom Paul asserted to be alive” (Acts 25:19; Acts 17:32). The New Testament evidence affirms, then, the early Christian claim that Jesus was a live again.

No Mechanism for Hallucination

As we shall argue, there are no cause for Paul to need a hallucination. Such a theory redefines the unified Christian claim of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Crossan, keenly aware that Paul provides the earliest creedal statement, posits that Paul is the key for all the New Testament internal evidence. For Crossan what really happened is Paul was desperate to have a trance experience of the resurrection. He theorizes the Easter tradition developed over the years into its current boundaries of the canonical New Testament. Crossan offers “apparition–which involves trance” as the alternative dissociated state in which he believes Paul experienced resurrection.[19]

Based on the work by Erika Bourguignon on “dissociational” states, Crossan affirms trance to be “a human universal” that may be a culturally trained and controlled experience by one’s social and religious expectations.[20] Crossan’s reading of Paul’s words is an eisegetical fallacy importing a modern socio-religious model of an “altered state of consciousness” into Paul’s experiences to establish his political equality with the other apostles.[21] Again Crossan claims, “Paul needs… to equate his own experience” with the apostles to establish “its validity and legitimacy but not necessarily its mode or manner.”[22] Crossan’s methodology is problematic on this point.

However, there are three major problems with Crossan’s hallucination theory. First, Crossan imports an anachronistic definition into the use ōphthē in Paul’s words. It should be noted with significance that in the Greek Old Testament ōphthē is used in appearances of God (i.e., theophanies) to Abraham, and clearly to Abraham in bodily form where he ate with the Lord (Gen 18:1).[23] Paul was quite familiar with Genesis as he makes substantial arguments about justification by faith with the stories of Abraham in Galatians and Romans. To posit a modern theory while ignoring this Old Testament tradition of the verb, “he appeared,” ignores the textual evidence. Furthermore, it calls into question the validity of Crossan’s exegetical methodology.

Second, he exchanges his own meaning for Paul’s intended meaning of the verb ōphthē.[24] Crossan’s claim puts the power of the trance in Paul’s hands, but Paul’s verbal word choice indicates the appearance was out of his hands. Greek scholar, Daniel B. Wallace, reminds in grammatical instances like this, “volition rests wholly with the subject [Jesus], while the dative noun is merely recipient [Paul].”[25] It is Jesus who “appeared.” Paul did not conjure a “revelation” of Jesus.

Third, Crossan’s portrayal of Paul as desperate for apostolic power does not agree with Paul’s own success in Judaism prior to his conversion and call. He writes,

I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely jealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. (Gal 1:13b–14)

Paul had the pedigree of a rising Jewish leader (Phil 3:4–8). There is no explainable mechanism which accounts for exchanging this advancement in Judaism for the trials of following Christ outside of an actual appearance of the resurrected Jesus which he did not initiate in a trance. Paul joins the pre-existing united voice of the apostolic witnesses, other earlier skeptical witnesses (non-believing siblings of Jesus), and the large groups seeing Jesus post-burial. Crossan’s theory do not adequately take these elements into account. Furthermore, Habermas’s minimal facts theory renders his mechanism historically implausible since its critical timetable places Paul as recipient, not creator, of the bodily resurrection confession.

Paul’s Claim was Falsifiable

This conclusion then leads to question of falsifiability. The early Christians claimed a dead man lived again. Writing about twenty years after the resurrection Paul asserts there were many eyewitnesses who could verify or falsify his claim that Jesus rose bodily. Paul wrote, “I delivered to you…what I also received” (1 Cor 15:2) and proceeds to outline six lines of eyewitness testimony evidence: Cephas, the twelve, over five hundred, James, all the apostles, and Paul. The most audacious claim is that Jesus appeared “to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:6). Paul’s submission invites investigation into the genuineness of the resurrection of Jesus and is essential to Paul’s argument for the validity of the gospel. Paul’s claim to have “seen the Lord” is falsifiable (1 Cor 9:1). Even Crossan understands the surface argument of this passage, and observes, “no Jesus resurrection, no general resurrection; or, no general resurrection, no Jesus resurrection.”[26] He does not however believe it.

Crossan believes that it would be impossible to falsify the traditional empty tomb and resurrection stories. When asked whether “the empty tomb” was historical, Crossan emphatically responds, “No.” Crossan expands,

“I doubt there was any tomb for Jesus in the first place. I don’t think any of Jesus’ followers even knew where he was buried–if he was buried at all.”[27]
John Dominic Crossan in Who is Jesus? Answers to Your Question About the Historical Jesus (Westminster John Knox, 1996)

From Roman sources Crossan argues the Roman expectation for the crucified was the denial of both body and burial.[28] To the point, Crossan says, the “final penalty was to lie unburied as food for carrion birds and beasts [i.e., animals that eat decaying flesh].”[29] Crucifixion meant, then, “death-without-burial” and “body-as-carrion”; consequently, there was little likelihood of Jesus’ body making it off the cross let alone into the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:42; Matt 27:1–61).[30] It would likely take “bribery, mercy, or indifference” to get the Romans to release the body over to a Jew seeking to avoid violating Jewish protocols of burying the hung (Deut 21:22–23).

Such a “hope” would be the exception, for only one contemporary crucified body remains have been found where thousands have been so executed; as such, it “is not history.”[31] This clearly undermines the Gospel tradition of the empty tomb where Jesus had been buried.

Crossan’s historical reconstruction of customary expectations and practices is a strong counterargument against falsification by the presentation of the cadaver of Jesus. If there is no body which survives the cross, there is no body to be buried, and therefore the Christian claim cannot be falsified. However, Crossan cannot historically rule out that Jesus was buried as Mark affirms. He can only suggest burial would be highly unlikely. Crossan’s alternative depends on advancing a legendary basis for the burial of Jesus. Yet, William Lane Craig responds this “would ignore the specific evidence” in Jesus’ case.[32] As established by the “minimal facts” critical theory, the creedal statement in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5 is very early. Furthermore, this four-line creedal formula affirms crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and then appearance.

The burial of Jesus was essential to the creed and Mark’s reference to it is substantial corroboration. First, the “assured results” of critical scholarship considers Mark the earliest gospel as it is the most “bare bones” narrative of Jesus.[33] Second, the Passion week narrative includes Jesus’ rejection and crucifixion. Third, Mark introduces Jesus’ burial in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb from which he resurrects. Mark retains the burial tradition.[34] Crossan’s methodology is prejudicial because it rules out, beforehand (a priori), the established testimony of the earliest claim of the Christians: Christ was buried, was raised, and he appeared.

Conclusion

This paper affirms the bodily resurrection of Jesus over the challenge raised by the hallucination theory developed by Crossan. The language of the New Testament asserts that Jesus resurrected and appeared bodily to his disciples, to unbelievers, and to many others. Crossan claimed that the resurrection from the dead was not a main element of the Christian faith. However, a critical examination of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3–11 verifies that the primary and earlier Christian creedal tradition which teaches that Jesus arose bodily and appeared. There is no other normative belief in the New Testament than Jesus resurrected from the dead.

Second, Crossan’s trance mechanism for a hallucination imposes an anachronistic understanding on Paul’s words. The alternative theory offered by Crossan that Paul had a dissociative hallucination-trance experience to gain religious political power is based on seriously flawed exegetical methodology. There is ultimately no proper mechanism for Paul’s conversion to Christianity and his claim of seeing the resurrected Jesus, when he was living a successful Jewish life as a persecutor of the church. Paul’s claim that he saw the Lord resurrected must be taken seriously.

Finally, I asserted the early Christian claim of a bodily resurrection would have been falsifiable by the cadaver of Jesus. Crossan’s claim that Jesus’ body would likely never have survived nor made it to a burial actually is self-defeating because he cannot rule out known exceptions. In Jesus’ case, there were elements to his story that made it possible for Jesus to be taken off the cross and buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. This is in keeping with the earliest Christian claim regarding his burial.

Endnotes

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version of The Holy Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).
Gary R. Habermas explains that a naturalist theory for the resurrection draws “from a host of philosophical backgrounds, the basic idea is to suggest an alternative explanation in place of divine causation… ‘Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. What really happened is (fill in the blank).’” Habermas, “The Late Twentieth-Century Resurgence of Naturalistic Responses to Jesus’ Resurrection,” Trinity Journal 22 (2001): 180.
David F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 4th edition, translated by George Eliot (London: Sonnenschein, 1902), 736. The longer form: “a dead man has returned to life, is composed of two such contradictory elements, that whenever it is attempted to maintain the one, the other threatens to disappear. If he has really returned to life, it is natural to conclude that he was not wholly dead; if he was really dead, it is difficult to believe that he has really become living” (735–36).
William Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association 255.11 (1986): 1436.
Dale C. Allison, Jr., Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 204. Allison offers seven categories and sub-categories of resurrection appearance hypotheses each with different psychological catalysts (199–213).
Origen Contra Celsum 2.60: “But Celsus, unwilling to admit any such view, will have it that some dreamed a waking dream, and, under the influence of a perverted imagination, formed to themselves such an image as they desired. Now it is not irrational to believe that a dream may take place while one is asleep; but to suppose a waking vision in the case of those who are not altogether out of their senses, and under the influence of delirium or hypochondria, is incredible. And Celsus, seeing this, called the woman half-mad,— a statement which is not made by the history recording the fact, but from which he took occasion to charge the occurrences with being untrue.”
Josephus Antiquities 18.63; Tacitus Annals 15.44. cf. Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 161–62. Italics added.
Crossan, Jesus, 166.
Ibid., 167; 87–88.
The following four arguments presume the work of Gary R. Habermas, “The Resurrection Appearances of Jesus,” In Defense of Miracles, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997), 264.
Habermas, “Resurrection Appearances,” 262.
Possibly later, like 64. Stephen Neill and Tom Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament: 1861–1986, 2nd edition (New York: Oxford University, 1988), 308; Crossan, Jesus, 163.
C. H. Dodd argues that Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem was “not more than seven years after the Crucifixion,” The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (reprint, New York: Harper & Brothers, n.d.), 16.
William R. Farmer, “Peter and Paul and the Tradition Concerning ‘The Lord Supper’ in 1 Cor 11:23–26,” Criswell Theological Review 2.1 (1987): 122–28; Habermas, “Resurrection Appearances,” 265–67.
A. M. Hunter, Jesus: Lord and Saviour (reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978), 99. John Dominic Crossan argues that Paul went to great pains to validate his own apostleship, yet, it was not the voice but a competing voice among many regarding the importance of the resurrection, Jesus, 159–92.
N. T. Wright and John Dominic Crossan, “The Resurrection: Historical Event or Theological Explanation? A Dialogue,” The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue, ed. Robert B. Stewart (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2006), 17.
1 John 1:1–4; John 20:1–21:24; Acts 1:1–3, 2:29–32.
Expectations: Matt 28:8–20; Luke 24:13–52; John 20:10–23, 26–30, 21:1–14; Mark 16:6–7; statements: 1:1–3; 2:23–24, 32; 3:15; 4:10; 10:41; 13:30–34; 17:31; 23:6; 24:21; 26:8, 23.
Crossan, Jesus, 160–61. Italics are original.
Ibid., 87–89.
Ibid., 166–67; Acts 9:3–4, 22:6–7, 26:13–14.
Ibid., 169.
Genesis 12:7; 17:1; 18:1; 26:2, 24.
The following argument is based on Daniel B. Wallace’s discussion of the dative + the present passive indicative form of ōphthē in the New Testament in his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 165, footnote 72; “horáo,” Walter Bauer, Frederick W. Danker, William F. Ardnt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 719.
Wallace, Greek Grammar, 165. What Wallace says for Paul applies equally to all listed in 1 Corinthians 15:5–8: Cephas and the twelve, the “more than five-hundred,” and James and the apostles. Crossan, Jesus, 164.
John Dominic Crossan and Richard G. Watts, Who is Jesus? Answers to Your Question About the Historical Jesus (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 122.
Suetonius, Defied Augustus 13.1–2, Tacitus, Annals 6.29.
John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Antisemitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 160.
Crossan, Who Killed Jesus, 163. In Crossan’s perspective, Joseph of Arimathea is purely a construct of Mark’s imagination; see his discussion on Luke 23:50–54 and John 19:35–42.
Crossan, Who Killed Jesus, 163–68.
Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 208.
Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 4th ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990), 150.
Strobel, Case for Christ, 209.

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Are Miracles Possible?

On March 28, 2021October 15, 2023 By Jovan PayesIn Biola University, Christian Apologetics, Christology, Early Christianity, Essays, Miracles, New Testament, Paul's Letters, Popular Essays, Resurrection, Talbot School of Theology, Theology2 Comments

The question of whether miracles are impossible strikes at the heart of the Christian faith. Its viability hangs on one significant miracle: the resurrection of Jesus. Paul argued,

 if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. (1 Cor 15:14 ESV)

If the bodily resurrection never happened, because it is impossible, then the traditional Christian faith is catastrophically and irreparably compromised. In response, I will first argue there is evidence for a creator-God necessary for miracles to occur, then demonstrate that anomalies (like miracles) require intelligent causation. Finally, I will look at the resurrection as a case study.

The Creator-God

The evidence for the existence of God is cumulative in nature. This means there is a body of positive evidence combined to support the case that the universe is created by a personal Creator-God. Furthermore, God as creator is separate, or outside, of this creation. This Creator-creation relationship would allow, then, for the possibility of miracles:

if God exists then miracles are possible.[1]
Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks
When Skeptics Ask, rev. ed. (Baker, 2013)

Natural theology affirms that the created world is host to evidence positively supporting God’s existence and justifying belief in him. There are four broad categories of arguments from natural theology:[2]

Cosmological (argument from causality, from effect to cause),
Teleological (argument from fine-tuned and intelligence-laden design),
Moral (argument from the objective value of morality and ethics), and
Ontological arguments (argument of a necessary uncaused Being).

These arguments represent a preponderance of the evidence that justifies belief in a personal ethical Creator-God.

A strong case can be made for the existence of God with the Kalam cosmological argument.[3] The first premise may be stated as “the universe had a beginning.” The evidence from the second law of thermodynamics affirms that the universe is experiencing entropy, a running out of useable energy. This points to the finite nature of the cosmos and points to a beginning when the universe was “fully charged.” The second premise affirms, “the universe was caused to exist.” What caused it to exist? Or had it come into being out of nothing? The evidence from nature (natural theology) points to a powerful (creation), ethical (morality), and intelligent designer (DNA) which brought these phenomena into existence. The reasonable conclusion is that a supernatural being created the universe into existence, this is God.

Not all Causes are Naturally Recurring

In response to the above supernatural claim, proponents of a naturalistic worldview argue that the existence of miracles would render the scientific method impossible to practice. This is only an assumption because there are different kinds of scientific ways of understanding causation, for not all causes are natural. A difference must be made between “operational science” which studies “regular patterns in the present from which predictions can be made,” and “forensic science” which studies “past singularities.”[4] The study of photosynthesis which takes into account how sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water, are converted into food by plants (operational science) would be conducted differently than a study of a singularity like the creation of the Mt. Rushmore monument (forensic science).

Miracles would no more disrupt operational science than would the reshaping of a naturally formed mountainside into a monument bust relief at Mt. Rushmore, or the carved-out ruins of Petra Pella. The use of intelligence and power offers a different source for causation than the naturally regular patterns in the world. The question remains how to decipher in what way miracles interact with the regular patterns of nature (disrupt, break, suspend). This difficulty of understanding anomalies like miracles or “the Big Bang” is not proof that such anomalies are incompatible with known scientific theory. It suggests we still have much to learn.

The Resurrection

A religion that is consistent with the picture of God derived from natural theology should have evidence of supernatural activity (historical reliability, fulfilled prophecy, etc.).[5] As noted already, the central figure of the New Testament, Jesus Christ, is presented in the historical setting of first-century Palestine, in which his teaching ministry is substantially interwoven with supernatural activity (healings, exorcisms, telepathic and empathic actions). The most significant miracle is his post-mortem bodily resurrection from the dead following his execution by means of crucifixion. Is this just legendary material that has been added, or are these ancient documents reliable eyewitness testimony to the most important miraculous event of human history?

The study of the historical reliability of the New Testament demonstrates that it has the strongest transmission history of any work from antiquity. It has preserved the eyewitness testimony of its authors who acknowledge the supernatural resurrection of Jesus Christ. For example, Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ²and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. ³For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ⁹For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. ¹¹Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. (1 Cor 15:1–11 ESV)

Their ancient words have been preserved in over 5,000 Greek manuscripts.[6] These documents contain doctrinal traditions which include the Divine Lordship of Jesus, his bodily resurrection, and his miracles, so early (within less than a decade of the actual events) that there is no room for legends to displace Christianity’s core historical truths.[7]

The question “did Jesus rise from the dead?” must then be taken seriously. The death of Jesus is one of the surest known historical facts of Christianity.[8] Despite many attempts to theorize that he successfully survived the crucifixion, the medical evaluation[9] of the historical descriptions of his wounds points out that he was a “dead man” before the spear was thrust through his side (John 19:34). The belief that Jesus appeared bodily to his disciples after his execution is another known fact of Christianity, which transformed his disciples and converted unbelievers (e.g., James). The early disciples shared their witness that Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of God, many of them dying for their claim that they saw Jesus bodily raised.

Conclusion

The short version of this brief essay’s argument is, “if God exists, then the supernatural anomaly of the miraculous bodily resurrection of Jesus, as historically reported in the New Testament, is possible.” The possibility of the miraculous is, therefore, quite reasonable.

Endnotes

Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2013), 71.
Geisler and Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, 9–19.
James P. Moreland, “Transcript: Arguments for the Existence of God” (Class lecture, Defending the Faith course of Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, CA, n.d.); Geisler and Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, 10.
Geisler and Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, 74–77.
James P. Moreland, “Transcript.”
Geisler and Brooks, 101–05; Joe Hellerman, “Handout: Defending the Gospel Accounts of Jesus” (Class lecture, Defending the Faith course of Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, CA, n.d).
Lee Strobel, “Handout: The Case for Faith” (Class lecture, Defending the Faith course of Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, CA, n.d.).
Known historical facts of Christianity are taken from Craig Hazen, “Handout: Evidence for the Resurrection” (Class lecture, Defending the Faith course of Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, CA, n.d.).
William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association 255.11 (March 1986): 1462.

God as Cause: The Cosmological Argument

On October 12, 2018October 15, 2023 By Jovan PayesIn Articles, Christian Apologetics, Christian Evidences, Cosmological, Glendale Gleaner, Published, Theology, Theology

I clearly remember my elementary school science lesson of “cause and effect.” For every effect, there must be a sufficient and adequate cause. It is one of those self-evident truths of the natural world. Yet, when applied to the origin of our universe the matter becomes a disputable principle. For some time now, some physicists, like Dr. Victor Stenger, are on record affirming, “Not everything requires a cause.”[1] Meanwhile, the Hebrews writer affirms, “For every house is builded by some one; but he that built all things is God” (3:4 ASV).[2] Well, what about this “structure” —the universe— that houses “all things”? Is there an adequate cause to explain it? Is there reason to believe it was built by Someone? We, here, affirm that there is a reason to believe God exists.

There are four independent categories of arguments[3] used to provide a basis for believing a personal God exists, that we are not alone in the universe; and, more importantly, that our experiences have meaning and purpose. They all have their strengths, their appeal, and areas which the dispute naturally centers on. Yet, they are all valid reasons to make the case that God exists. Now, let us turn to the argument at hand.

Cosmological arguments are a group of arguments focused on establishing the “cause and effect” link between God (cause) and the universe (effect), by examining the effect and seeking an adequate and sufficient cause to explain it. In other words, it is based on a well established and self-evident principle of the world in which we live. Naturally, then, there are broad and narrow forms of the cosmological argument. A narrow form would be to focus on the origin of human beings as Thomas B. Warren did in his debate with then atheist Antony Flew.[4] We will be considering, however, the broad form, namely the origin of the universe (nothing too big).

First, we will reflect on the Bible’s cosmological affirmations, and then secondly, we will suggest a reasonable argument that affirms that the universe had a cause, and that cause is God.

Arguments from Revelation

The essence of the cosmological argument is found in the Bible. Consider a few examples. The very first line of scripture makes the clear “cause and effect” affirmation, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Some readers of Genesis think that since there are poetic elements to this creation narrative (i.e., “God said,” “God saw,” measured creation days, etc.) its historicity is questionable; however, as Old Testament scholar Clyde Woods points out the passage conspicuously lacks Hebrew parallelism, “the fundamental characteristic of Hebrew poetry.”[5] Nevertheless, while the passage is stylistically shaped, artistry does not by itself dimmish its historic claims. Would one question the historicity of the “Star Spangled Banner” commemorating the Battle of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812 simply because it is stylized? In a clearly “narrative” text, Moses affirms: “for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is” (Exodus 20:11).

The “Creation Hymn” psalms also offer cosmological affirmations. They extoll the power and greatness of God and display the sense of wonder, confidence, and admiration filling the psalmist.[6] In Psalm 19, David praises God:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)

In Psalm 8, David reflects on both the universe and the status of humanity as part of this universe:

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers… For thou hast made [mankind] but little lower than God [lit. heavenly beings]” (Psalm 8:3, 5).

The universe (i.e., “heavens”) exists because of the will of God. David praises God for creating the universe and for creating humanity (cf. 139:7–16). This emphasis on the universe and humanity, reflects both the broad (the universe) and the narrow (mankind) forms of the cosmological argument.

The New Testament likewise affirms the cosmological argument. A biblical faith accepts that the universe was made by God —ex nihilo— from nothing (Hebrews 11:2). The prologue of the Gospel of John affirms that Jesus is the agent of creation.

In the beginning was the Word… The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. (John 1:1–3; cf. v. 14)

The Father brought “all things” into being through the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus. In a very real sense, then, Jesus is the cosmological argument.

The apostle Paul employed the cosmological argument on several occasions. Acts records sermons where he affirms natural theology (Acts 14:15; 17:24) to Greeks and Romans building his plea from the God who made the world. In Romans 1:19–20, Paul pointedly affirms that the testimony of the visible world reveals the attributes of the invisible Creator, namely, “his everlasting power and divinity.” Those that reject such evidence, he argues, are “without excuse.” Finally, Paul lifts up Jesus as the one who created “all things” and presently holds everything together (Colossians 1:16–17).

Arguments from Reason

Providing reasons for our belief in a personal God from nature and reason is found throughout Scripture. It is an act of faith and a natural outflow of loving the Lord with all our heart and mind (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:26). We should be very clear, that God has provided sufficient witness in the world to point us back to him. Yet, when asked why we believe in God and have hope in Jesus (1 Peter 3:15), it would be wise to think outside “the book” since for many quoting the Bible is insufficient.

Even when fully convicted that truth is on our side, we must face the truth of Alvin Plantinga’s words, “there are no proofs of God that will convince all rational persons.”[7] But that has always been the story even among believers (Isaiah 53:1; Luke 16:27–30).

All we can do is present our reasons hoping that the “accumulated weight” of such arguments will be hard to ignore. After all, as biochemist Dr. Joseph DeWeese (Lipscomb University) once said,

“Creationists and evolutionists don’t have different evidence… we have different filters through which we understand and interpret that data.”[8]
Joseph DeWeese, “Why I am a Creationist.”

We share our “filter” in hopes it will persuade them to see that the universe points us to “clues” which point to God as the only adequate answer to existence.

Apologist Dr. Ralph Gilmore (Freed-Hardeman University) stresses that the heart of the cosmological arguments centers on three key concepts: causality, necessity (necessary existence), and contingency (contingent existence).

Causality stresses the cause and effect connection between A and B (A causes B, or B is caused by A). This is the causal relationship.
Necessity means that A necessarily exists due to its essence which makes A impossible to not exist.
Contingency points to the dependency B has upon another for its existences, it has an “iffy” existence (B only exists “if…”). Thus, contingency points to non-eternal things or existence and implies the need for another to bring it into existences.

So, if the universe exists (and it does), its existence must be explained. It is as simple as that.[9] It is either here by necessity or contingently. Does it necessarily exists —is it eternal? Is it dependent upon itself —did it create itself? Did something outside of itself bring it into existence —God? Many have tried to side-step the force of this issue, but not without breaking away from the rules of proper thinking and established scientific knowledge.

The cosmological argument presented here stresses in the simplest terms that the universe began and has a cause for its existence. It is called the Kalam Cosmological Argument and was developed by Arabic philosophers of the late Middle Ages (kalam means “Arabic philosophy”).[10] One of these Arabic philosophers was the twelfth-century theologian Al-Ghazali, and his argument has been employed by theists of various persuasions ever since. It is considered one of the foundations of modern Christian apologetic approaches to establishing a positive philosophical case for the existence of God.

In his volume, On Guard, Apologist William Lane Craig summarizes Al-Ghazali’s argument into three simply stated premises:[11]

Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

Premise 3: Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Craig asserts that this is a “logically airtight argument” because in order to deny premise 3 (“the universe has a cause”) one must prove that the first two premises are false. Though the issues are complex we will examine some of the objections made against premises 1 and 2.

Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause

Craig affirms that in order to deny premise 1 two things must be argued: (1) that contrary to experience something can come from nothing and (2) that the universe broke into existence for no reason whatsoever – that is, without a cause.

To invalidate premise 1, some have appealed to subatomic particles (or, virtual particles, elementary particles), which are the basic building blocks of “all matter.” This includes elements which are “various self-contained units of matter or energy”[12] such as electrons, protons, neutrons, etc., and even the smaller parts which make them up. Some have argued that such can appear and disappear from nothing. From this, it is then argued that premise 1 does not always hold true.

Craig reminds us that these particles, however, emerged in a vacuum which is not the same thing as “nothing,” for “in physics, the vacuum is a sea of fluctuating energy governed by physical laws and having a physical structure.”[13] It has contours so to speak. Nothing, on the other hand, has no properties at all. Zero. Meaning, then, that nothing remains to be nothing; whereas, something can emerge in a vacuum.

This is not a controversial assertion. In a 2013 article posted on the Scientific American website entitled, “Something from Nothing? A Vacuum can Yield Flashes of Light,” Charles Q. Choi discusses the Casimir Effect, which was predicted in 1948 by Hendrick Casimir and measured in 1996 by Steve K. Lamoreaux.[14] This “effect” is a measurable phenomenon in quantum field theory. It basically says that the vacuum is not empty space but is full of virtual particles and their electromagnetic wavelengths which leave behind measurable effects.[15]

These subatomic particles have a “quirky” nature. However, though they seem to appear and disappear from nothing, in reality, they are emerging from the complex structure of the vacuum governed by the laws of thermodynamics. Consider Choi’s words:

Quantum physics explains that there are limits to how precisely one can know the properties of the most basic units of matter—for instance, one can never absolutely know a particle’s position and momentum at the same time. One bizarre consequence of this uncertainty is that a vacuum is never completely empty, but instead buzzes with so-called “virtual particles” that constantly wink into and out of existence. These virtual particles often appear in pairs that near-instantaneously cancel themselves out. Still, before they vanish, they can have very real effects on their surroundings. (Italics added)[16]
Charles Q. Choi, “Something from Nothing? A Vacuum can Yield Flashes of Light,” ScientificAmerican.com

If someone were then seeking evidence that something can come from nothing and without cause, subatomic particles, it appears, is not that evidence. They do not emerge from nothing, they emerge from the vacuum.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist

The focus of the denial of premise 2 centers on denying that the universe began. Those that deny that the universe had a beginning appeal to concepts which are a bit complex. Case in point, some have said that the universe must be potentially a part of an infinite series of finite (contingent, “iffy”) causes.

In other words, looking backward, the universe has a whole series of causes, but no ultimate cause. There is no real line to separate a time from when the universe did not exist to when it began to exist. The same is true when looking forward. There is no real moment when the present causes will cease with the end of the universe.

Craig raises two problems to this approach. First, an infinite series of finite (contingent) causes cannot be potentially infinite at the same time. let me add another element to this claim. We must keep in mind that this infinite series of causes is made up of finite, or contingent causes. As Gilmore reminds us above contingency points to non-eternal things or existence, and this implies the need for another to bring it into existences. This denial has not solved the problem for it only further extends the dependent state of the universe indefinitely. This is not a solution.

In addition, it is significant to understand that the mathematical concept infinity (symbolically as ∞) is just that — conceptual; it does not exist in reality.[17] This is not controversial mathematics. Physicist Dr. Tom Hartsfield’s article, “Infinity is Not Real,” from the blog Real Clear Science (6 Aug 2013) outlines how problematic infinity would be if it were real.[18]

In summary, Hartsfield explains that while the concept of infinity is incredibly valuable for fields such as mathematics, physics, and philosophy, when brought into our world of measurable things it ruins all mathematical comparisons. It would require rewriting the rules for counting and division. For example, 6/2=3 and 6+2=8. Makes sense. Now observe infinity in the following mathematical sentences: 6/∞=0 and 6+∞=∞. Makes no sense in our world. “Compared to infinity,” Hartsfield points out, “every other number is nothing.” He concludes:

In our material, measurable world, though, infinity is never a real, physical quantity; it is only an abstraction. A mathematician can tell you about an infinite set of numbers, but as much as he wishes, he can’t find you a cup of coffee with infinite joe. That “bottomless” cup of coffee eventually runs dry.[19]
Tom Hartsfield, “Infinity is Not Real,” BigThink.com

The universe cannot exist due to an infinite set of causes in the past or the future, because actual infinities do not grow or shrink. Thus, you cannot drink infinite coffee out of a cup of infinite coffee, and still, have the same amount of infinite coffee left over. Infinity does not shrink or grow. This well-established application of infinity, then, supports that the universe began to exist and is not the result of an infinite set of causes.

A second problem is found in this arguments rejection of the established thermodynamics laws of nature. These laws clearly establish that the universe had a beginning. Dr. Don B. DeYoung calls them, “the two most basic laws in the entire science realm.”[20] He summarizes them as follows:

The first law states that energy is conserved or constant at all times. Energy, in whichever of its many forms, absolutely can be neither created nor destroyed. This rule ensures a dependable and predictable universe, whether for stars or for human life…

The second basic law of nature also involves energy. It describes unavoidable losses in any process whatsoever which involves the transfer of energy. The energy does not disappear, but some always becomes unavailable, often as unusable heat. Stated in another way, everything deteriorates, breaks down, and becomes less ordered with time.[21]
Don B. DeYoung, “Physics,” in In Six Days (2001)

The second law, known as entropy, says that “unless energy is being fed into a [closed] system, that system will become increasingly disorderly.”[22] Imagine an unopened carbonated bottle of soda. Over time the soda in the bottle will lose its fizz and go flat. That analogy reflects the effects of entropy on the universe.

This implies a few things. First, eventually all the energy in the universe will eventually spread itself evenly throughout the universe, and the usable energy will decrease and the universe will “flatline” like the soda analogy. This is a fixed issue.

Second, since we are not in a present state of disorder, and energy is still available, then our universe has not had an infinite past. As Craig points out, “we’re in a state of disequilibrium, where energy is still available to be used and the universe has an orderly structure.”[23] Since an infinite set of events is a complete number of events, we should be experiencing entropy (equilibrium), but we are not.

And third, this “running down” (entropy) of our universe implies that it had a beginning. Even the late Stephen Hawking affirmed:

Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang.[24]

Whether one’s cosmology (view of the origin of the universe) includes the Big Bang model or not, the universe had a beginning. In order to have a “running down” ending, there must have been a point when all the available energy was at its peak. Much like our cell phones, the fact that the battery will die implies that it was fully charged at its beginning. For our universe, then, the fact that it will “flatline” in what is called the “heat death” points to a time when it was new and full of energy.

Premises 1 and 2, then, still hold firm, and they should be upheld as formidable arguments that the universe and all that is in it had a beginning. It had a beginning and was brought into being (Premise 3) by a Cause Who necessarily exists due to His essence, namely God.

Concluding Thoughts

At times, well-meaning Christians do not feel compelled to enter debates like this, yet the apostle Peter told his Christian readers to be “ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

At other times, well-meaning Christians see the damage often done when entering such discussions. As my friend Jeremy Marshall cautions, “preachers tell the story of the home [the human story] while scientists tell the story of the house [the natural world]; preachers err when they try to tell the story of the house, and scientists err when they try to tell the story of the home.” I agree, but Someone brought both the house and the home into existence, and these point us back to Him (Romans 1:19-20).

Let us remember one significant point to all of this:

[I]f there was ever a time when absolutely nothing existed, then there would be nothing now, for nothing produces nothing but nothingness! Since something does exist, it must follow logically that something has existed always [namely, God].[25]
Wayne Jackson in Surveying the Evidence (2008)

Endnotes

Qtd. in Jeff Miller, “Can Quantum Mechanics Produce a Universe from Nothing?“
All Scripture references are taken from the American Standard Version unless otherwise noted.
The ontological, cosmological, teleological, and the moral/axiological.
Thomas B. Warren and Antony N. Flew. The Warren-Flew Debate on the Existence of God. Jonesboro, AR: National Christian Press, 1977. The link leads you to the video version of the debate.
Clyde Woods, “Concerning Creation —Genesis 1,” in New Beginnings: God, Man and Redemption in Genesis, ed. David L. Lipe (Henderson, TN: Freed-Hardeman University, 2001), 488.
Roland E. Murphy, The Gift of the Psalms (2000; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 44.
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Dutton, 2008), 128, italics added.
Joe Deweese, “Why I am a Creationist – Joe Deweese, Biochemist.” Youtube.com.
Wayne Jackson, et al., Surveying the Evidence (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, 2008), 24–25.
Bruce Milne, Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 68–69.
William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Colorado Springs, CO: Cook, 2010), 74.
Christine Sutton, “Subatomic Particle,” Encyclopedia Britannica.
Craig, On Guard, 74.
Charles Q. Choi, “Something from Nothing? A Vacuum can Yield Flashes of Light,” ScientificAmerican.com, 2013.
Choi, “Something from Nothing?”; Stephen Reucroft and John Swain, “What is the Casimir Effect?,” ScientificAmerican.com.
Choi, “Something from Nothing?”
Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 103.
Tom Hartsfield, “Infinity is Not Real,” Real Clear Science; BigThink.com.
Hartsfield, “Infinity is Not Real.”
Don B. DeYoung, “Physics,” in In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, ed. John F. Ashton (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2001), 342–43.
DeYoung, “Physics,” 342–43.
Craig, On Guard, 93.
Craig, On Guard, 92.
Qtd. in Keller, The Reason for God, 128, italics added.
Wayne Jackson, Surveying the Evidence, 25–26.

Regarding the Divide Between the Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History

On June 17, 2017October 15, 2023 By Jovan PayesIn 2017, Christian Apologetics, Freed-Hardeman University, Graduate Work, Jesus Studies, New Testament, Research Papers, Technical Studies, Theology1 Comment

There is a long-standing view that an impassible divide exists between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. This paper is about crossing this epistemic divide centered on what can be known about Jesus. Many scholars believe this divide cannot be bridged, but this paper argues that it can. This challenge reminds me of two cautionary tales.

Growing up in San Francisco, I was surrounded by bridges. Traveling northbound from the San Francisco peninsula, one crosses the Golden Gate Straight by virtue of the world-famous Golden Gate Bridge. Traveling eastbound, out of “the city,” there is the less famous double-stacked Oakland Bay Bridge, which is the workhorse among the Bay Area bridges. There are two events connected to these bridges that have taught me two relevant lessons.

First, few know that many said the Golden Gate straight could not be bridged. In fact, engineering experts said a bridge would never be built because the straight was too long, the winds were too strong, the waters would be a nightmare for construction, and the fog would further hamper the process. Yet, four years of construction (1933-1937) later, the impossible expanse was built. Sometimes, the naysayers give you the planks upon which to build your bridge.

Second, during the 6.9m 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a large section of the top-level (outbound) of the Bay Bridge collapsed. I watched, on a small battery-powered radio/tv, a news report of a vehicle attempting to jump the divide, only to fail tragically. The vehicle had no ability to jump the gap. I learned that day that hope is not enough to cross a wide gap. We must evaluate the evidence to “look before we leap.”

Christianity and the Impassable Divide

These anecdotes inspire me to challenge the so-called “impassable” ditch at hand. It is not a small challenge, for the claim has been made by some of the sharpest minds in “thinking” history. It is, nevertheless, part of the calling of every Christian to be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15 ESV).[1] Peter was aware that Christians will be called upon to explain the connection between their behavior and their conviction in Jesus as Lord (1 Pet 4:1-5). Life and faith converge in Jesus. What some would argue is an impassable gulf -reality and value/significance- was the connective tissues of a Christian ethical apologetic. It may be argued, then, that first-century Christians were already crossing the “impassable” bridge between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

Peter anticipated no epistemic difficulty -no crisis- explaining how “Jesus as Lord” connects with significance to the everyday issues of his life and his future. Accordingly, this early text assumes that the full identity of Jesus held an immediate significance to the lives of struggling Christians. It is the result of both his historic existence and his spiritual Lordship viewed as one tightly interwoven reality. This “interwoven reality” is not, however, the view of many within the academic circles of biblical and philosophical criticism.

This issue at hand is multifaceted and complicated, but it is not insurmountable nor impassable. One must evaluate the evidence and acknowledge the complexity of the problem at hand in order to offer a solution. For instance, there is a large time-gap between today and the first-century. This raises a lot of genuine historical questions all by itself concerning sources which provide any measure of access to Jesus. Further, those ancient sources must be evaluated to test their genuineness to weigh their authenticity and accuracy to verify if they are primary or secondary sources, literary or non-literary sources. These and many other questions are used to evaluate ancient sources that allow the historian to reconstruct a probable and revisable picture of the ancient past. If the current matter were simply an issue regarding sources, then there are numerous literary sources from the first-century which point to Jesus, the events and personalities surrounding his ministry, his death, and the belief and practices of early Christians. Many have discussed and debated these sources,[2] but the tension at hand focuses on a level a bit “deeper” than literary sources (though they will be considered).

At its core, the problem at hand is epistemic; that is, it centers on “how” knowledge is obtained, how knowledge connects the self “within” (internal) to the world “without” (external).[3] David Lipe briefly summarizes it as, “the study of the origin, nature, extent and reliability of knowledge.”[4] Vergilius Ferm points out that epistemology seeks to answer the following questions:

What is the source of human knowledge? What are its limitations? How do we come by our knowledge of the external world, of ourselves, of others? How can we trust our ideas as valid?[5]
“Epistemology,” in Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Lefferts A. Loetscher (Baker Books, 1955)

Schools of thought, such as empiricism and rationalism, and the debates which they create have formed the basis of the dichotomy that pits the “historical Jesus” against the Christ faith-claim. In particular, with rationalism (Decartes, Spinoza, Leibniz), mind (a priori) is regarded as being given authority/primacy over the senses (a posteriori); that is, a priori knowledge is superior to a posteriori knowledge. Conclusions drawn would be deductively reasoned knowledge such as Aristotle’s “laws of thought.” On the other hand, empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) approaches knowledge from the other direction -the senses/experience; that is, a posteriori knowledge is regarded superior to a priori knowledge. This would be inductively experienced knowledge grounded in life.[6]

Enter Immanuel Kan (1724-1804). In the late eighteenth century, Kant would attempt to split the difference by attempting to synthesize and hold both in tension. That is, we can know “how” we know something, but the knowledge is completely subjective. Knowledge is only a perception, a “representation,” and not actually real to life (the thing in-itself).[7] Kant develops the thought this way:

all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us.[8]
Michael Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant,” https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html

Yet, as Norman Geisler points out, Kant’s epistemology results into a self-defeating “philosophical agnosticism.”[9] Attempts like these to explain how we obtain knowledge is at the core of the so-called impassable gulf between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

The Contours of the Impassable Divide

This debate fundamentally represents the struggle between connecting the tangible to the intangible, life and significance, the historic and the historical. In addition to a number of certain epistemic concerns, the divide is infused with an anti-supernatural bias which has manifested in at least five forms.[10] They are summarized briefly here, with the danger of oversimplification:

Gotthold E. Lessing (1729-1781) argued that there is an “ugly ditch” between historical contingent truths and the eternal necessary truths. His “ugly ditch” language has essentially framed the whole conversation.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argued that there is a gulf between facts (contingent truths) and values (experience/reasons) that cannot be bridged but by faith (not knowledge).
Martin Kähler (1835-1912) expressed his concern for a reconstructed (historical) Jesus that must be mediated by the trained hands of critical scholarship. Kähler affirmed an impassable divide between the historical (reconstructed) Jesus and the historic (real) Jesus that cannot be cross unless by faith evoked by the historic Jesus.
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) viewed that the “historical” has no connection to the eternal, so real history is immaterial to the “leap of faith” toward the spiritual/eternal.
Rudolph Bultmann (1884-1976), argued that Jesus —as built on untrustworthy sources (Christian testimony, myths, and legends)— is not relevant for faith nor spiritual truth claims. It is the symbolism that matters at an existential level, that is, the meaning intended by such “sources.”

These all reflect a gap, a ditch, a divide, for which it is claimed that they cannot be bridged. It will be, then, the approach of this paper to first briefly critique the arguments for this impassable gap. Then, attention will be given to ancient sources, both within the New Testament canon and outside the New Testament canon to demonstrate that history and value claims must be intertwined to make sense of evidence. From this, provisional conclusions will be made that are reasonable and consistent with this evidence.

Critique of the Impassable Gap of the Historical Quest

The problem with the arguments used to articulate the dichotomy of the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are typically self-defeating and beg the question at the methodological level. The “gap” issue significantly touches on the crux of the quest for historical Jesus. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) points to Lessing’s publication of Herman S. Reimarus’ Fragments in which Reimarus separates what the apostles said about Jesus from what Jesus said about himself.[11] Since Schweitzer, the publication of Fragments has been viewed as the early stages of the quest for the historical Jesus.

Gotthold E. Lessing

Reimarus influenced Lessing, and who in turn, affirmed a tension between the relationship of history and revelation. Lessing states this as “the ugly broad ditch”; namely, “accidental truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason [and revelation].”[12] For Lessing, a Spinozan pantheistic deist, there is no supernaturalism in the world. So, events are fortuitous (accidental) and have no meaning/significance of themselves. Why, because like Spinoza, Lessing argues that since God is immanent and extends throughout creation, he naturally governs the world with its unbreakable natural law. Accordingly, supernatural activity (miracles, providence, etc) is impossible because to do so would violate his own nature as expressed in natural law. Thus, miracles are impossible and God does not reveal himself in history. Thus, Jesus the real-person (a posteriori) is not associated with the faith-truth as the Christ (a priori) by definition. In fact, no religious claim can be absolutely true.

Lessing’s argument, however, presumes that “natural law” is inflexible. A further problem in Lessing’s epistemology is its self-defeating agnosticism that not only arbitrarily forces a divide between history and truth. For, in order to make the observation (a posteriori) that history and value (a priori) are detached from one another, Lessing must make an absolute value statement based on how history and value relate to each other historically. So, Lessing is doing what his thesis says is impossible to do: to intertwine history and evaluative judgments.

Immanuel Kant

This is essentially the same fundamental flaw in Immanuel Kant’s agnosticism (that he knows that one can perceive but not know a thing in itself). Again, Kant says,

We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which therefore does not necessarily pertain to every being, though to be sure it pertains to every human being.[13]
Quoted in Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant.”

People only know what they think they know, and what they know is not necessarily true “in itself.” This is the tension of his contradictions (“antinomies”) which, therefore, force him to reject a priori (and ontologically) arguments for believing a thing to be true in itself. For example, what is logically necessary, is not actually necessary.[14] Consequently, the Bible is not the result of God adapting to human finiteness (which is logically necessary) but is instead a book of mythology. It is not actually necessary that the Bible be from God, and such a truth claim is only a perception. Instead, what has more logical value and tangible significance to Kant is one’s duty to their neighbor.[15] Thus, the events of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels, then, is a subjective statement of a spiritual truth-claim that Jesus is the Christ of faith.

In order for Kant to make this claim (that we only know perceptions, no what is real in-itself), he is must make an absolute truth (a priori) claim in a world that he has argued can only be perceived in a subjective manner. Kant self-defeats himself by crossing the divine he denies is possible cross. Would not the argument, “I know for certain that it is impossible to know a thing in itself” argue that Kant knows this as a historical truth claim in itself? Kant derails himself.

Søren Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard argued for a dichotomy which “real history” is unimportant to faith, or rather, that it is impossible to move from the historical toward the spiritual. Kierkegaard finds no causation between a historical event and meaning (its value, or truth). In fact, this is his great paradox when it comes to truth claims since human knowledge is unable to have certainty about meaning and significance. Thus, for example, spiritual truth is beyond human rationality. For Kierkegaard seeking how to explain or understand the nature of God, one enters a paradox/contradiction. The act to explain the nature of God, is in effect, to limit a full understanding of God. To be certain about something is to limit what can be known about something.

In this sense faith —in particular, Christian faith— is a different beast altogether, for it carries within it a built-in certainty to its truth claims. In Kierkegaard’s view, it is purely nonsense that by understanding what happens in history (Jesus of history), one can obtain knowledge of the contradiction — the non-historical (Jesus of faith). Therefore, fact and history are not as important to Kierkegaard as the “leap of faith.” The problem is, as Geisler sums up, “while the historical as such does not bring one into contact wth the eternal, neither can the eternal be divorced from real history.”[16] Yet, Kiekergaard’s case proves too much on this point, for “the shift in emphasis from fact to value leads to the denial of fact and its support of faith.” It is not that all of his observations are to be dismissed, but he undermines the role of fact to understand value-claims.

Martin Kähler

Martin Kähler, who builds on Kant, also voiced his concern that the “real Christ” is not the Christ of Faith. This point is easily misunderstood. Kähler rightly argued that historical research should inform faith, so he was loved by liberals but hated by conservatives. Kähler also rejected attempts to separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith and was loved by conservatives and hated by liberals. He served, therefore, as a middle ground historical critic, who was “loved” and “hated” by conservative and liberals but for different reasons. Kähler coined the phrases “historical Jesus” (historische) and “historic Jesus” (geschichtliche), yet what he meant by the terms is not how most employ the term today. The “historical Jesus,” according to Kähler is a reconstructed Jesus based on scholarship which may, or may not correspond to the “historic Jesus” — that is, the real-life Jesus. Kähler took issue with equation the two.[17]

It came down to two problems. First, there is limited knowledge, or the lack thereof, to sufficiently “reconstruct” Jesus. Second, believers are at the mercy of the “fluid results” of scholarly reconstructions about Jesus. Jesus was, therefore, mediated by the elite scholars. For this reason, Kähler declares, “the real Christ, that is, the influential Christ, with whom millions in history have had fellowship in a childlike faith… is the preached Christ.”[18] The proclaimed Christ solved this problem. For this reason, Kähler made a distinction between the “historical Jesus” from the “historic Jesus.”

The line he draws on this point, between the two, is too strong and undermines the fact that the New Testament builds its case upon sources which are built on eyewitness accounts (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-3). Even if one were to argue that there is a minimal amount of authentic evidential sources about Jesus, then to that degree a faithful reconstruction of the historic Jesus can be made and understood. Which in many respects is the case for everything that could be said about Jesus of Nazareth has not been recorded (John 20:30; 21:25).

Rudolf Bultmann

One of the most significant contributors to the dichotomy of the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith is Bultmann. Bultmann’s significance for New Testament criticism and theology are, according to Ricard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, equaled by few and excelled by none in the areas of form-criticism and the practice of demythologizing the New Testament.[19] Working on his form-critical methodology, Bultmann differentiated between the sayings of Jesus and the deeds of Jesus (e.g. Reimarus), between the pre-scientific worldview of Jesus’ day and today, and the fact that to accept this worldview would be to sacrifice one’s intellect. Thus, he argued for a non-historical symbolism based upon kerygmatic (proclamation) themes.

What matters from the New Testament point of view, he argued, are the transcendent truths of faith (existential meaning). Thus, the resurrection “myth” did not happen, but what matters is the transcendent truth the “resurrection” is suppose to provide.[20] However, form-criticism, when properly applied is about finding genres and even sub-genres of types of literature within a text(s). It is not inherently anti-supernatural as Bultmann wielded it. In one way, it is a tool for genre classification. In another, it provides the framework for what tools an exegete may require for interpretation.[21]

Yet, Bultmann infused his approach with a naturalism which rejects the supernatural by definition. Consequently, at the methodological level, Bultmann begs the question that miracles are not possible and builds an interpretive framework in which miracles do not make sense. However, if one employs a theistic worldview that leaves the possibility open that miracles are possible,[22] then Bultmann’s approach would not have created his mythological approach to understanding Jesus, which his student Ernst Kasemann viewed as docetic.

Ancient Sources on Jesus of Nazareth

Turning now to consider sources within the New Testament canon and those outside the New Testament canon. The New Testament documents clearly emphasize a concern for and establish the historical underpinnings of the gospel message. It is the presentation of Jesus as a historic, and not mythic, figure which leads Edward M. Blaiklock to affirm that “Christianity triumphed over its most serious opponent, the soldiers’ worship of the soldierly Mithras, largely because Christianity could oppose to the legendary Mithras the historical reality of Christ.”[23]

Canonical Christian Sources

Broadly, though, there are three tests of historicity, according to James P. Moreland, that establish that New Testament documents are “as reliable as, superior to, most other ancient documents.”[24] These general tests are: bibliographical tests, internal tests, and external tests.

First, is the bibliographical test, which establishes the number of extant manuscripts and how far removed they are from the originals. In the case of the New Testament documents, the extant Greek manuscript copies exceed 5,000 (not including quotations, ancient translation, lectionaries), in fragmentary or complete form, many of which are from the second-century. In this regard, the New Testament is the most attested document of the ancient world.[25]

Second, the internal tests evaluate any claims of representing eyewitness history. The Gospel accounts and Acts reflect eyewitness testimony (Luke 1:1-4; 3:1-2; ). Luke tells us explicitly that his Gospel is in keeping with three aspects of early Christian testimony: preexisting accounts, earliest eyewitness testimony, and those who served to deliver the Word to the world. Moreover, Luke chronicles his involvement as a collaborator with Paul (Acts 16:10-17, 20:5-15, 21:1-18, 27:1-38, 28:1-10). The letters reflect personal encounters with Jesus (1 John 1:1-4; 2 Pet 1:16-17; 1 Cor 9:1; 15:1-11), or with those close to first-generation disciples of Jesus (Gal 1:18-19; 2:1-14).

Third, the external test verifies if there is material evidence to confirm the reliability of the document. Edwin M. Yamauchi demonstrates that despite a long-standing skepticism against the historicity of New Testament, there are numerous significant and “insignificant” confirmation of the social, political, and geographical background of the New Testament and demonstrates the literary source to be reliable.[26] One instance may illustrate these observations. In Acts 18:12-17, Paul stands before the tribunal of the governor (proconsul) of Greece (Achaia), one L. Junius Gallio. There is an inscription was found from Delphi with Gallio’s name on it. Most likely it refers to his proconsulship during July 51 to July 52, which means Paul’s year-and-a-half stay began a year or so before this time (ca. 50-51).[27]

Non-Christian Sources

The other side of this issue is ancient testimony outside of the New Testament. Rudolf Bultmann belief that the quest for the historical Jesus lacked non-Christian sources. He ignored Christian sources specifically because they eyewitness documents which he believed inserted legendary and mythological elements, and therefore, cannot be trusted. While the extant sources are not all the kinds which a historian might like (legal documentation, birth records, etc.), what is available serve as independent literary reinforcement of that Jesus of History and Christ of faith are one interwoven as one figure.

E. M. Blaiklock surveys the sort of extant ancient sources available from the first-century. The majority of which are not focused on the region of Judea nor on history. In fact, he writes, “Bookends set a foot apart on this desk where I write would enclose the works from those significant years. Curiously, much of it comes from Spanish emigrants in Rome.”[28] Yet, what is available impressively corroborates with the historical framework of the New Testament and the significance they assert for Jesus of Nazareth.

Non-Christian sources, moreover, may be grouped into six categories of various weight and detail.[29] There are ancient historians (Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Thallus), government official correspondence between (Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Emperor Hadrian), Jewish sources (Talmudic references to Jesus, Toledoth Jesu document), other Gentile sources which do not speak favorably of Christianity (Lucian, Mara Bar-Serapion), and gnostic sources (Gospel of Truth, Apocryphon of John, Treatise on Resurrection). The latter certainly have their theological slants, but they to point to Jesus as a historical figure.

Of these non-Christian sources, two sources will receive particular attention: first-century references to Jesus in the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (ca. AD 56-121) and Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (ca. AD 37-100).

Cornelius Tacitus

Tacitus was a Friend of Pliny and Suetonius. He began writing history in AD 98 with a volume about his father-in-law, Argicola, and another about Germany, Germania. Then early in the second-century, Tacitus published two more volumes, Histories (ca. AD 100-109) and Annals (ca. AD 109-116).[30] The Histories focus on the political troubles of Rome during A.D. 69-96, including the destruction of Jerusalem (Histories 5). The Annals chronicle the reign of Augustus to Nero (AD 14-68). In describing the depravity of the Caesars, Tacitus digresses with a note about the burning of Rome:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. 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 Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.[31]
(Annals 15.44)

Robert L. Wilken explains the usage of the term “superstition” (Lat. superstitio) in its common and familiar sense, “the term superstition referred to beliefs and practices that were foreign and strange to the Romans… that had penetrated the Roman world from surrounding lands.”[32] This is how Tacitus and other Romans felt about such groups.

More to the point, Tacitus is a Roman historian with no interest in proving Jesus existed; however, he knew the basic facts of his death as he “suffered the extreme penalty” and during the proper time frame and location while Pilate was procurator in Judea (AD 26–36).

Flavius Josephus

Flavius Josephus is a self-described first-century Pharisee and Jewish rebel during the early Jewish rebellion against Rome, who surrendered to Rome.[33] He wrote of the Jewish and Roman dynamics of the Jewish War provides a retelling of Jewish history in Antiquities of the Jews, an autobiography (Vita), and a defense of Judaism (Against Apion). There are three references in his works which are of interest, Antiquities 18:63-64, 18.116-119 and 20.200. The latter two are rather straightforward as they reference John the Baptist and James the brother of Jesus.

The first reference is Antiquities 18.116–117, in which John the Baptist is mentioned:

Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.

The reference is strikingly similar to the way the Gospel accounts outline the fate of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29).

The second reference is Antiquities 20.200, in which the Christian leader, James, is mentioned in passing as a digression to Josephus’s discussion of Ananus’s ambition to exercise his authority. Josephus mentions him as “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ… James”:

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was put upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and, when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Jesus is James’s “famous” brother. The Gospel accounts describe Jesus as having siblings (Matt 13:55; Mark 6:3; John 6:42) and the apostle Paul acknowledged James as “the Lord’s brother” (Gal 1:19). Interestingly, Origen (ca. 184-253) comments on this reference, “though he [Josephus] did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great” (Comm in Matt 10.17).[34]

The third reference, known as the Testimonium Flavianum (18:63-64), is complicated by Josephus’ favorable description of Jesus. The passage includes such descriptions of that question whether one should call Jesus “a man,” “he was [the] Christ,” “a doer of wonderful works,” “for he appeared to them [the disciples] alive again the third day,” and “as the divine prophets had foretold.” The textual strength of the passage is strong, but it appears to be out of balance with what is know about Josephus’s belief about Jesus (Origen above).

Origen, who appears knowledgeable of this material in Josephus, curiously does not seize upon the passage as it stands today. Eusebius appears to be the first ancient author to cite the testimonium in its present form (Ecclesiastical History 1.11).[35] James South argues, along with many scholars, that this passages is evidence of a tampering with the passage, the “culprit” most likely being an unknown Christian scribe.[36] The general approach, then, is to redact the passage to eliminate the positive language from the passage.[37] Like the following redaction of William Whiston’s translation:

Now, there was about this time, Jesus a wise man. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst 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.

Nevertheless, historical scholarship agrees that Josephus said something about Jesus here. What is clear, though, is that Josephus, a premier historian of first-century Judea is fully aware of Jesus, as he is aware of Pilate, Herod, John the Baptist, and James.

Concluding Thoughts

A study like this needs to come to a sense of balance with regards to objectivity. Norman Geisler reminds that “if objective means, ‘a fair but revisable presentation that reasonable men and women should accept,’ then the door is open to the possibility of objectivity.”[38] The goal has been to cross the impassable epistemic gulf believed to exist between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. It is believed that the goal has been reached. There are just a few general observations which should be made in conclusion. First, E. P. Sanders makes an important point and warning about sifting through the available sources concerning Jesus:

Ancient history is difficult. It requires above all common sense and a good feel for sources. Our sources contain information about Jesus, but we cannot get at it by dogmatically deciding that some sentences are completely accurate and some are fiction. The truth will usually lie somewhere in between. As I have already said more than once, and may repeat several more times, we have very good knowledge of Jesus at a somewhat general level. With regard to chronology, we know that he was active during some part of the period 26-36 C.E. It is wrongheaded to try to turn the gospels – and, for that matter, Josephus – into modern encyclopaedia [sic] articles, or to suppose that one sentence is dead right, and the others are completely wrong.[39]

Only when we seek to establish by the ancient evidence what can be established historically, then we are in the position to intertwine reliable history (a posteriori) and the significance (a priori) of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The impossible bridge, then has been made. Second, despite the complexity of historic inquiry, a worldview and framework can be articulated that is objective and not be anti-supernatural.

Third, both Christian and non-Christian sources do provide evidence and information that is objective and informative regarding what was believed to have occurred by eyewitnesses and historians. Finally, at minimum here, it can be affirmed that historical evidence points to Jesus as a “wise man” who “drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles,” died under the proconsulship of “Pilate” who was influenced by the “principal men” among the Jews to condemned Jesus “to the cross;” nevertheless, Jesus had disciples “that loved him at the first who did not forsake” and they are may thought of as “tribe of Christians… so named from him… [and] … are not extinct at this day.” Bridge toll paid.

Endnotes

Unless otherwise stated all quotations are taken from the English Standard Version of The Holy Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001).
Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 187–228; F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974); Edward M. Blaiklock, Jesus Christ: Man or Myth? (1974; repr. Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1984),19–31; Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1987), 190–233; Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University, 1989), 139–49.
C. Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics and Philosophy of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), 39–40.
David L. Lipe, Values in Thought and Action (Henderson, TN: Hester Publications, 2001), 7.
Vergilius Ferm, “Epistemology,” in Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Lefferts A. Loetscher (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1955), 1:385.
Ferm, “Epistemology,” 386.
Michael Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant,” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/#TraIde.
Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant.”
Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapid, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 401–05.
Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 141–42.
Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 385–86
Ricard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 102.
Rohlf, “Immanuel Kant.”
Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 402.
Lipe, Values, 78.
Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 409.
Soulen and Soulen, Biblical Criticism, 92.
Martin Kähler, “Martin Kähler on the Historical Jesus,” in The Christian Theology Reader, 2d ed., ed. Alister E. McGrath (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), 294.
Soulen and Soulen, Biblical Criticism, 28, Evans, Apologetics and Philosophy, 18–19.
Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 517–18; Colin Brown, “Quest of Historical Jesus,” DJG 334–35.
Stephen H. Travis, “Form Criticism,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, ed. I. Howard Marshall (1977; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 153–64.
Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 320–30.
Blaiklock, Jesus Christ, 11.
James P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (1987; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1988), 133–57.
Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, 135-37; Philip W. Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 103–98.
Edwin Yamauchi, “Archaeology and the New Testament,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gæbelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 1:647–69.
Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 545-86; Mark Cartwright, “Corinth,” http://www.ancient.eu/corinth/.
Blaiklock, Jesus Christ, 11-12; see, Wayne Jackson, “Jesus Christ: Myth or Genuine History,” https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1061-jesus-christ-myth-or-genuine-history.
Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 187–228; Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 381–85; James T. South, Just Jesus: The Evidence of History, Kindle ed. (Chillicothe, OH: DeWard Publications, 2012), loc. 237–555.
Albert A. Bell, Exploring the New Testament World (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1998), 289.
Tacitus, Annals 15.44. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi1351.phi005.perseus-eng1:15.44.
Robert L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 50.
Bell, New Testament World, 289.
Origen, “Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew Book 10.” http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101610.htm.
Ken Olsen, “Eusebius Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum,” http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5871.
South writes, “What we have here is likely a legitimate text from Josephus, in which he mentioned Jesus, but which has been re-worked by a Christian editor” (Just Jesus, loc. 318); Charles K. Barrett, New Testament Background: Selected Documents (1956; repr., New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1961), 198.
Olsen, “Eusebius Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum”; Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 39.
Geisler, Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 320–30.
E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (repr. London: Penguin Books, 1995), 55–56.

Bibliography

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Ferm, Vergilius. “Epistemology.” Pages 385-87 in vol. 1 of Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Edited by Lefferts A. Loetscher. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1955.

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Olsen, Ken. “Eusebius Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum.” http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5871.

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Stanton, Graham N. The Gospel and Jesus. Oxford Bible Series. Edited by Peter R. Ackroyd and Graham N. Stanton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

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