THINK ABOUT THIS: Historian’s Analysis Offers New Approach to Evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection
Did the earliest Christians — those around in the days and weeks immediately following His death, burial and resurrection — understand who He claimed to be or did it take decades before the full truth of His divinity as the Son of God and full humanity as the Son of Man was understood and proclaimed, as in the Gospel of John?
This is a key question because New Testament skeptics who don’t accept Jesus’ claim to be God often contend the concept of His divinity didn’t actually become widely preached until John’s Gospel appeared some 60 years after the crucifixion.
If that’s the case, then it’s reasonable, their argument goes, to think it quite possible the resurrection and divinity claims for Jesus were later inventions of the disciples, not the realities that Jesus claimed about Himself.
The evidence for the literal resurrection of Christ as the most reasonable explanation for the empty tomb is immense, but Professor Gary Habermas, Chairman of the Philosophy Department at Liberty University, digs into the fine details of scripture, history and logic in a new analysis of what Christians were claiming about Jesus in the immediate aftermath of His death.
Habermas points to the evidence that what made Saul/Paul so angry in the two years or so between Jesus death and his encounter with Him on the road to Damascus was that Christians were almost immediately proclaiming Jesus to be literally resurrected, to be fully God, to have been in existence prior to his birth as a human, and to be now sitting at the right hand of God the Father.
Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity sat down with Habermas for an extended interview a few days ago and gave him a full hour to explain this new evidence. Actually, it is Habermas’ analysis that is the new element in the discussion and it is well-worth your time, regardless of your current view of Jesus, to listen and think carefully about what he says:
As has happened before on comments I’ve sought to leave on Mark Tapscott’s evangelical posts, this one was rejected with the message that it must await approval – which never comes. So I’ll leave it here:
Proving of the historicity of the crucifiction and resurrection is crucial to those evangelical Christians who seek to save the souls of literate non-believers. If they can convince us* that it really, really happened, they will have won us eternal life. That they genuinely believe that they are trying to do so in the manner they think most effective speaks highly of them. One cannot honestly question their motives; they are good people who wish the best for their fellow homo sapiens. Of course, as Trump excluded the Nazis at Charlottesville, I exclude the televangelists who rake in fortunes selling salvation. Mark Tapscott is not one of them.
One issue that devout Christian historians such as Habermas rarely is ever address is this. Is it not an unusual coincidence that, in the centuries immediately before and after the Common Era, Jesus Christ is one of a long line of “gods” that proved their divinity by resurrecting after they were killed? They iclude Osiris, Meqart, Asclepius, Zalmoxis, Inanna, even Romulus and Adonis. It’s almost as if the story of Christ and his resurrection was adapted from prior works, specifically designed to appeal to First Century Jews.
If you were to tell me that on Sunday morning, November 24th, 1963, JFK rose from the dead in order to prove he was God, and after spending 40 day consulting with his cabinet, ascended into heaven, I would be skeptical. Incredulous. I would demand extraordinary proof of such an extraordinary allegation. If I already knew that similar claims had been made for Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, well. . ..
* Yes, it may be presumptuous of me to include myself among the literate.
Jim, for the record, WordPress tells me you’ve had 15 comments published on HillFaith and I am about to make that 16, so I am not sure why you think you have been censored here. The only reason anybody is ever barred from posting a comment on HillFaith is clearly stated in the Comment Policy: “HillFaith is a forum for civil discussion. Commenters who insult, curse or libel others will be summarily blocked, without appeal. You have been forewarned.” Now, your point about other “resurrected” gods around the same time as Jesus is a familiar one, but it fails because the others’ “resurrections” either weren’t claimed to be such an event or were fundamentally different from Christ’s resurrection. For example, Osiris’s dead body was found by his wife and other gods who only temporarily revive him. Most importantly, he was murdered but his death was not in any way seen as a substitutionary sacrifice. Anybody who is interested in further reading on this issue will find this of interest: https://hbu.edu/news-and-events/2016/09/09/resurrection-paganism-resurrection-jesus-christ/
No, no, Mark. I’ve never contended for a moment that I’ve been censored here. I’m censored by Instapundit. If you re-check your Instapundit post from 9:55 eastern time this morning, you will see I left a second comment which made it through, and acknowledged (predicted?) that the one above, like others that didn’t make it on Instapundit, will probably be available here.
I know you’re not the Instapundit censor. But I would like to know who he or she is, and his/her motivation.
P.S. I have a “further reading” suggestion of my own: Tryggve Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East (2001).
Ahhh.busted! You were literally implying you were being censored here. But when you got busted you tried to snake your way out of your initial claim by accusing Instapundit. Now that’s just silly as you can see this is NOT Instapundit.
But we’re supposed to now believe you’re wanting to engage in a dialogue seeking the truth?
BTW, you realize you’re comparing MYTHOLOGY to Jesus, no?
To use Osiris, or any Pagan tradition, as what Christianity is based on, well, okay then. Yeah, you may pick off some without much faith to begin with. And this is why Jesus only had 12, not 1200. Because a small group with deep faith can change the world, as opposed to a big group with shallow beliefs.
If I were you and trying to argue against Jesus’ resurrection, at least while debating actual thinking people, I’d try a different tact.
[…] Historian Offers New Evidence For The Resurrection […]