Loading...I wasn’t sure what to expect when I was going into the debate on Jesus’s resurrection with Jonathan Sheffield last week (March 2; you can see it on Youtube). I suspected that since he works in the legal field (I’m not sure in what capacity), he would probably be mounting a kind of “court case,” marshaling proof that Jesus had been raised from the dead that would be compelling to a fair-minded jury today.
I was completely wrong about that. As I indicated in my previous post, Jonathan went a different and rather unexpected direction.
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El símil es obvio. Con esos argumentos, creo que nigún tribunal de jueces aceptaría la absolución del condenado. Ahora bien, un tribunal compuesto por un jurado popular, quizá sí, me explico,un jurado compuesto por creyentes de la iglesia del Pastor y que no puedan aceptar su muerte tal gtsñ, quedarían desvalidos, indefensos… y buscarían argumentos para negar la no resurrección del Pastor, utilizando mecanismos psicológicos inconscientes, como la Disonancia Cognitiva y otros.
Y eso es lo que ocurrió en el cristianismo con los primeros seguidores de Jesús.
Yup, the arguments make perfect sense to insiders but almost no sense to outsiders….
Yup, the arguments make perfect sense to insiders but almost no sense to outsiders….
I suspect this case would have been thrown out of court! However, it was quite entertaining to read about. Bravo!
Dale Allison once said something like “the historical evidence is enough to convince believers Jesus rose and nonbelievers he didn’t.” I think that understates the case, though to be fair I also think Christian apologists overstate the strength of the case.
As I see it, historical evidence suggests the following points:
-Christ died by crucifixion
– was placed in a tomb (though you’d disagree)
-tomb was found empty
-followers sincerely believed post-mortem appearances
-followers believed Jesus didn’t merely return to life but “resurrected” (strange!)
I think “Jesus Rose” is a good explanation for these facts, and alternative explanations tend to become increasingly complicated therefore less plausible. Still, I’m willing to admit the data alone isnt strong enough for acquittal in the courtroom analogy you mentioned. (Though if I were the judge, I’d argue Priestly really did kill Christianson and therefore the case shouldn’t be overturned even if God did later resurrect Christianson 😉).
Ultimately, my belief comes partly from plausibility of historical evidence and partly the Spirit’s witness. That combination might not persuade a jury, but it’s enough to convince me that death has been conquered and my hope rests in Christ’s victory…and that’s all it needs to do.
I think it’s absolutely fine to believe that. I don’t think it’s fine to say that the belief is based on historical evidence as the most likely explanation for established facts.
Even conservative evangelicals must admit if there was a camcorder pointed at the tomb on Easter Sunday recording Jesus walking out in victory, the case would be stronger. The fact that we don’t have that suggests the evidence isn’t as strong as it could be.
What I appreciate about your analogy is it forces the question: how strong is the case, exactly? My own view is that the explanation “Jesus rose” is better than the competing explanations in terms of plausibility and simplicity. In that sense, I think the case is stronger than someone like Allison would suggest. At the same time, I agree with Allison that it isn’t as decisive as many apologists present it.. as though the evidence settles the matter beyond dispute.
For me, the conviction comes from combination of historical data and Spirit’s witness. The historical case makes resurrection a reasonable/compelling explanation, and the Spirit provides assurance that leads to faith.
Paul would agree. In 1 Corinthians 15 he “passes on” testimony Christ has been raised and reasons why belief makes sense. And in Romans 8 he is emphatic that believers have assurance of future glorification because the Spirit’s witness. Our hope rests on both.
3days & 3nights just like Jonah
ok 2 partials & 1 full day, but in no way 3 nights, that is 2full nights
2. I lived in China for most of 25 years fulltime. & fluent in English, closest in Mandarin. there is no way, writers in KoineGreek could convey the full expression of Aramaic life & testimony.
Notice fluent HK folks, sneak in several English words when speaking quickly.
3. Jesus was/is divine- how can any human fathom that!
4. the book of Acts was mostly “Luke’s recollection” or bias- no way could that be considered HISTORY. Let’s try the Illiad & the Odyssey.
I have a hard time believing the Supreme Being would judge us for eternity based on whether we can believe 5 accounts of Jesus’ resurrection (including Paul in 1 Cor. 15) that are significantly discordant. They can’t even agree on who first saw the resurrected Jesus, and that seems pretty basic. Speaking of 1 Cor. 15, when Paul says “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received” does he mean he is repeating what he was told? In other words, he is not claiming to have first-hand knowledge of the resurrection appearances (other than his own)?
Yes, he appears to be repeating the basic view of Jesus’ followers in some kind of creedal form.
Wow.
Extremely well done.
And very deftly positioned … not setting out to disprove the resurrection, only to burst the notion that it has been proven to any reasonable degree.
The analogy you propose is clever, but stacks the deck in a way that works against the case rather than clarifying it.
The court is being asked to overturn an already established murder conviction. Once a person has been convicted, the verdict carries a presumption of validity. The burden for reversing that verdict is extremely high. New evidence must be decisive (ieDNA evidence directly contradicting earlier findings). Here, testimony decades later, anonymous documents, and conflicting reports would certainly fail to meet the standard to overturn conviction.
But that’s not analogous to the historical question of the resurrection. Historians arent trying to overturn prior legal verdict that Jesus stayed dead. Theyre simply asking what best explains the available data? Closer to an ordinary investigative-question, not appeal of a conviction.
A better legal analogy would look more like a law that made it a crime to falsely claim someone rose from the dead. Imagining a case involving data similar to the historical facts surrounding the resurrection, I would not find the suspects guilty.
The question wouldnt be “Is there enough evidence to overturn a settled conviction?” but rather “Is there enough evidence to show these witnesses could be telling the truth?”
Analogies are never perfect. But if anything, Bart’s analogy doesn’t accurately capture the improbability of the claim. Dead people (or dead animals) do not come back to life several days after they have died. After three days, the body has begun to decompose — as Mary noted to Jesus when he ordered Lazarus’ tomb to be opened after four days. For Jesus (or Lazarus) to come back to life after that stretch of time would contradict everything we know about how the physical world works– it would be an extraordinary event, a miracle, defying physics and biology. Your faith tells you that this happened. Okay. But for those of us who don’t share your faith to find it the most likely explanation of the Gospel accounts, it’s not enough to say that it shows “plausibility and simplicity,” per your previous comment; it would require copious, utterly irrefutable evidence of its validity, AND every counter-explanation that accords with physical reality would need to be disproven as completely impossible, before the explanation that contradicts physical reality could be considered the most likely one.
Considering the typical legal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt”, I think it is clear that a jury would not be convinced that Jesse came back from the dead. A reasonable doubt is generally defined as “doubt based upon reason and common sense and is not based purely on speculation”. In this case, there is plenty of evidence and testimony that undermines the assertion that Jesse rose from the dead. If I was a juror on that case, I would have too many problems with the testimony of Paul to consider my reasonable doubts dismissed, let alone after considering the contradictory “corroborating evidence”.
This whole discussion reminds me of the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus where the rich man begs for his brothers to be warned of his fate but is told “neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead”. As you mentioned in your first post on this topic, the issue of the resurrection truly comes down to faith, not evidence. That raises the question of why faith is so important to God in the first place. If even those who witness a resurrection aren’t convinced, then how can they ever be saved?
I worked in LE for 13 years, although only 3 1/2 years with a badge. I worked in Accreditation/Policy/Procedure as a civilian as well as other support areas. I knew dozens of active LEO as friends and co-workers. I also served jury duty a couple of times prior to my LE time. One of the most important lessons I learned was gathering, preserving, and presenting evidence. Every time I hear Apologists present “evidence” I cringe. I know the difference between the civil standard (a preponderance of evidence) and the criminal standard (beyond a reasonable doubt) for proof. There’s also “clear and convincing” proof, but I have no experience with that standard. Your example, just like the case for resurrection, fails miserably. I’m not persuaded at even a lower standard, “more likely than not”. I’ve read the cases presented by at least seven of the major contemporary apologists, including the investigator, Wallace. None of them are convincing at even the lowest standard. They all base the majority of the case on biblical sources and tradition. In the jury trials where I sat, it was clear early on the prosecutors had no case. BTW, I’m a life-long Christian.
Brilliant! But if Jude Priestly’s family had Perry Mason representing them in court 🤔,…… even then they wouldn’t win 😄
So the jury would need to ask if Jesse was alive when he was seen. Or was it a spirit? If it was a spirit, then Jesse was definitely dead.
“Then a great clamor arose; and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” (Acts 23:9)
Nice.
For fun, see (perhaps query an AI) Pneumatic Christology vs Docetism and ask it if Jesus/Jesse was a spirit post-crucifixion.
I’ll also note that there could be a “trick” in the account of “Doubting Thomas”…it never said Thomas actually reached out and touched the wounds. Further, a “piece of fish” could be seemingly-manifest just as much as clothing, or other things.
I think the symbolic nature of the resurrected Christ is more exemplified by the eating of fish, the appearing to others in his new-state (and they didn’t recognize him), and “roasting fish over the fire by the seashore”. New state, new role, new being. The pre-resurrection Christ and the post-resurrection Christ may very well have different agendas, the previous duties being completed.
Notice that Jonathan never addresses/refutes Bart’s thesis.
At Bad News in the debate(38:42) Bart said that the gospels were written 40-60 years after the fact and that they couldn’t have been written by eyewitnesses, therefore their work is unreliable. Nero died 6-9-68ad. He executed Peter and Paul 64adish. Their writings had to precede their deaths. The deaths of Mark, Matthew and James are of the same time and their work preceded their deaths. Luke fails to record any of these deaths and the destruction of the temple therefore his work precedes these events. The New Testament (except John’s work) is therefore within 15-30 years of Jesus and is the product of eyewitness contemporaries.
Bart argued that uneducated Aramaic speaking Galileans couldn’t have produced writings in Greek. I am bilingual because many where I live speak Spanish and I am exposed to it. Others taught me some, but it’s not the result of schooling, I basically taught myself. To say that it would be *IMPOSSIBLE* for the writers to learn is incorrect. Bart has been using these arguments for decades, but they reject the traditions of apostolic succession in favor of modern(18th century) inventions.
CONTINUE:
I believe Dr. Ehrman rejects Luke(Acts) as a reliable source/witness for two reasons. One-there are contradictory details in the historical record. Two-the record contains Peter claiming that he and ALL of the apostles were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus.
One-State jury instructions say that when there are contradictory details in the witness’s statements the jurors are directed to look past those and focus on the statements that corroborate the story. Acts corroborates the gospel on the core facts seen in the Apostles Creed. Jesus was crucified during the reign of Tiberius, at the hands of Pontius Pilate, buried, and rose from the dead. That is corroborated eyewitness testimony.
Two-If all of the apostles were eyewitnesses of the resurrection then Bart’s thesis fails. Is he driven to prove his belief that there is no God? If there is no God then absolutely nothing produced everything, which is believed by faith and is as much a miracle as a virgin birth or someone rising from the dead. It depends what miracles the heart predetermines to believe.
In my opinion Jonathan’s thesis was interesting, but Bart totally embarrassed him. However, they both missed the elephant in the room. Corroborated eyewitness testimony is evidence.
A good jury would not conclude Jesse came back from the dead and not overturn the conviction. But we can imagine their lawyers, standing outside the courtroom and speaking to the media, saying that the empty coffin is enough. It proves that Jesse is alive. All those lawyers then need to do is flatter Trump’s ego so that he will issue a posthumous pardon and see to it that the case makes its way to the supreme court. Alito and companions on the supreme court would then overturn the conviction and, agreeing with Trump, rule that the whole case was a witch hunt against Priestly and, again agreeing with Trump, that Jesse is alive.
I might be compared to someone listening to the lawyers outside the courtroom as they are speaking to the media. (I did not read the account of the debate between Bart and Jonathan. I am scanning the comments.) Your comment is the only comment that mentioned the empty coffin. A man is murdered and his corpse is placed inside a coffin. The coffin is sealed. 24-hour security is arranged to prevent someone from “stealing the corpse”. (This has a “Jeffrey Epstein” slant. Is Epstein really dead, or was an innocent man murdered to be the body double for the autopsy?) Three days later, eyewitnesses report that the 24-hour security guard is absent from their posts, and that the lid is removed from the coffin. This initial report is corroborated by additional eyewitnesses who extended the investigation by looking inside the coffin for the corpse of the murdered man. As attorneys say, “these facts are not disputed”. Tens of thousands of Jerusalem residents walked inside the empty tomb. The empty tomb is not to convince us, but these Jerusalem residents. The empty tomb convinced the Essenes who wrote the “Q” content of the Synoptic Gospels.
This post for me puts the proverbial nail in the coffin of trying to prove the resurrection historically and exposes it as sort of a category error as Bart mentioned in yesterday’s post and that faith is belief or better trust. Yet, I do think it’s still a live question as to why this particular person who claimed to be the Messiah (he wasn’t the only one) created this movement. So I would say the “witnesses”, those who have committed their lives to Christianity are witnesses of something (maybe second order) and we are left to decide if we want to take as our stance in life. After all, we have to believe something and if we take naturalism as our “story”, that is also easily caricatured. Setting the fine-tuning arguments to the side, does one really believe they have no independent soul and are just a “meat puppet” or “wet robot”, with our every move (and word) a result of the big bang? In this case, what does it even mean to say one has an opinion? For some of us that sounds just as crazy as a man coming back from the dead. Did I light a fuse?
Now that is brilliant!
Acts
Previously Bart, you have rejected the book of Acts as being historically reliable on a wholesale level, yet I haven’t seen your evidence for the position yet. I didn’t see any on-line course(by you) to the point either. What evidence would I present to the jury to support your view? Is there an irreconcilable conflict in the basic narrative? Are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
Previously I pointed out that state jury instructions direct us to focus on, verified information, witness’s statements that are basically in agreement, and things the juror reasons to be true(not get hung up on the discrepancies).
I read Colin J. Hemer:The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, where he examines 84 factual details from the second half of Acts(I think he addresses the first half in a different publication). I found that Acts contains way more accurate information than errors or discrepancies. I would like to take your propositions and compare them to see which are major and which are minor points. Gleason Archer:Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties addresses the Acts discrepancies rather satisfactory IMHO. My opinion is that correctly understanding Acts is critical to the entire historical study.
You will find discussion of the matter in my book Jesus Interrupted and in the discussions of Acts in my textbook The New Testament. There are irreconcileable differences from Paul when what Acts says overlaps what Paul says; there are internal contrdictions within the narrative itself; there are discrepant theological positoins; and there are complete historical implausibilities given what we know of, say, Jerusalem in the first century. I’m not blowing smoke but basing my views on years of research done for many decades before me.
I saw Samuel Green and Matthew Payne on YouTube critiquing your book Jesus Interrupted so I guess I should read it. Buy it on Amazon or on your Ehrman site? I seriously want to understand in detail why you hold the different views you find…. compelling, or the most reasonable explanations. Let me also repeat that I greatly appreciate your life’s dedication in this area. However, I don’t see some of your points being convincing at all, but that’s why I want to thoroughly understand you; to be sure that I got it right and also don’t misrepresent you in conversation or writing. I want to perfectly understand why you don’t trust the NT (especially Luke/Acts), why you believe in Q, and why you reject traditional dating of scripture, and don’t believe that the truth of the matter can be known through apostolic succession.
Our time is valuable so thank you for your time in advance
Yup, I lay out the reasons in my book. As you know, I started out firmly believing there were no mistakes in the Bible and definitely did not want ot start thinking otherwise and resisted hard for a long time. But I finally realized that what I wanted to be true was not necessarily true because others told me it was or because I wanted it to be. You’ll definitely have to decide for yourself. (Q is not really a big issue, I should think, when it comes to the accuracy of the Bible. I believed in Q when I was still a committed evangelical Christian). (I should also point out that the views of mine that Green and Payne — I don’t know who they are — were attacking were not things I came up with at all. Most of that book involves things I heard — and didn’t want to accept — while being trained to be a minister as the decidely Christian Princeton Theological Seminary. they are the standard views of scholarship among Christian critical scholars of the Bible throughout the country)
If I may be allowed to interrupt this private conversation because it mentioned the “Q” content of the Synoptic Gospels. The empty tomb convinced the Essenes, and these convinced Essenes fabricated the “Q” content. The Bethlehem Nativity (Immaculate Conception, Virgin Birth, Bethlehem, the feeding trough (the manger) as the cradle, the Shepherds in the Hills, the Bethlehem Star, Simeon and Anna in the Temple, the Magi, the Wrath of Herod, the Slaughter of the Innocents, and the Flight into Egypt), the Nativity of John the Baptist, the teaching of the Return of Jesus, casting out demons, Walking On The Water, the Transfiguration on the mountain, 40 Days of Fasting in the Wilderness, the nature of the encounter between Jesus and John the Baptist, Apocalyptic teachings: all was fabricated narrative by the convinced Essenes whom I have labeled as the “Q” Community. “John of Patmos” was a member of the “Q” Community. 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 2nd Timothy, 2nd Peter, Jude, and the addendum of 1st Peter were written as pseudepigraphal forgeries. The Essenes of Judea and the Therapeutae of Egypt were the result of the Seleucid ruler’s attempt to eliminate the Jewish religion in 180 BCE. That’s all, Folks!
That’s an excellent hypothetical case that demonstrates the absurdity of citing Biblical stories as evidence.
I don’t understand why the decision was made to include four accounts of the Gospel narrative. Normally, the more witness evidence you have, the better, but here each contradict the others – and so frequently. Did the compilers not consider the impact of these differences on credibility – that is, the risk of depopularising the belief? Why not stick with one account, or harmonise them into one – surely the safer (more believable) option?
They weren’t gathering the Gospels to provide historical proof for outsiders but to show which accounts were trustworthy for those who were aleady followers of Christ. These four were widely used and were seen as theologically useful, so they were accepted.
The anonymous accounts may be eye witness testimony, but they would count as hearsay and not be admissible in court. The same goes for Paul’s letter.
Grave desecration is a felony in many (most?) American jurisdictions, so if someone dug up a coffin without proper authorization, there would definitely be an investigation by the police. If the body was exhumed legally, then there would be a court order or written permission from next of kin. Either way, there would be records which the lawyers would have to produce in order to prove that the grave had been disturbed.
These days, we have much stricter standards for evidence, at least in criminal cases.
Emphasis on ‘resurrection’ and ‘back from dead’ in this ‘legal case’ is unnecessary. There are four general categories of naturalistic examples of life after ‘death’ in no need of supernatural resurrection. Case D, below, is the most applicable towards Christianity. (A) Several documented cases where people were medically declared dead (incompetent staff), but then ‘awoke’ in their casket, body bag, or mortuary (most of these are very sad and horrible experiences for these people). (B) Cases where people were thought to be dead, mistaken corpses, and in two cases, other persons were incorrectly convicted of their murder and even executed, while the original victim surfaced completely alive years later. (C) Sensational rumors of deaths spread as pranks. (D) By far the most numerous, countless examples of staged deaths for some defined/designed purpose. Two particularly pertinent examples include staged deaths of Nazi SS officer Horst Kopkow in 1948 and Spanish spy Juan Pujol Garcia in 1949 by government officials to protect them. In 70 CE, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai successfully played dead to escape “the anger of the besieged populace he found intolerable”.
Perhaps Priestley’s family should extract DNA from any item of clothing Jesse wore after the ‘resurrection’ and have it tested against a pre-murder sample, assuming their attorney can establish a credible chain of custody for the post-resurrection sample.
If you can experience a person’s presence 2,000 years after his earthly life, experience his life, light, love, vibrations, and energy, does that mean that he is eternal?
I personally think that the resurrection stories in the NT are rather dumb, and they prove to me next to nothing.
It’s this other stuff, the experience of his presence, that invites me to believe and perhaps even know that he is eternal.
To add to all of this discussion…Hindu tradition has numerous stories of the resurrection of gurus and saints. To wit, Paramahansa Yogananda writes extensively about this phenomenon in his two volume, 1500 page commentary on Jesus’ sayings: “Resurrection has been well understood by accomplished yogis of India since the dawn of the highest ages. Jesus himself was a realized yogi: one who knew and had mastered the spiritual science of life and death, God-communion and God-union, one who knew the method of liberation from delusion into the kingdom of God.” (Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You (Kindle edition-p. 1912)
He writes, “I myself was blessed to receive the visitation of my resurrected guru Sri Yukteswarji, who appeared to me in flesh and blood more than three months after his death in 1936. ” (Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 43.).
These two quotes are just a minimal example of Yogananda’s writings on the crucifixion and resurrection.
Thanks!
Way behind on my blog reading, but can’t help responding: great analogy! I’ve tried to think of something like this, myself, but couldn’t articulate it so well! I think changing the time period from 30AD to 1930AD really helps people better understand the time lengths involved! Imagine if the only information we had on Mahatma Gandhi in 2026 were letters from some guy who never met him, 3 anonymous accounts (2 cribbed off the first) written from the 1970s to the 1980s, and a final account showing up in 1999! In comparison, there are volumes and volumes of information about Gandhi, many of it primary and contemporary: personal letters, manuscripts, publications, news articles, etc.
I have started watching the debate