Q3. What kind of evidence would it take to convince you that Jesus bodily rose from the dead? Please explain why you chose this particular criterion. Would you honestly say you are objective in regards to your reading of the historical evidence in favor of the resurrection of Jesus?

A3. I truly think that any event like the resurrection from this period in time would be difficult to prove conclusively. It’s simply too long ago, and the narrative style of the day too prone to distortion. Even if an unambiguous extra-Biblical contemporary resurrection account could be found, it would still need to be dated reliably and so forth (even though such an account would surely get my attention!).

However, there are some consequences if the Christian creed is true. Then the resurrection not only took place, but Jesus is an omnipotent being occupied with the salvation of those who accept him as saviour. This is something that could conceivably be proven at any time and therefore, retroactively, prove the truthfulness of the Gospels and thus the resurrection. This could – as an example – be a miraculous event like the stars suddenly spelling out “ACCEPT JESUS AS YOUR PERSONAL LORD AND SAVIOUR AND ESCAPE THE FIRES OF HELL!” and the gates of Hell and Heaven being opened to touring visitors. This miracle would convert 1,000,000 times as many people as any number of missionaries and preachers in one swift move, and it would provide proof anyone could accept. I choose this type of proof because it is open to objective and independent analysis and removes the element of faith, which is a generator of false positives like no other. I don’t choose it to be facetious. If it seems absolutely absurd, it may be because we have gotten used to not expecting omnipotent things from an omnipotent god…

I have never read any historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, so I can not assess any objectivity. The resurrection stories in the Gospels and that one dodgy passage from Josephus fail any objective standard of historicity, which is exactly why you don’t read about the resurrection in history books as if it were a historical fact.

Q3. You have been quite emphatic about your claim that the resurrection story happens in a sort of idea vacuum; that it is inconceivable that any of the Gospel writers could have had any cultural outside influence while writing the Gospels. Yet, you point out correctly that the Jews were waiting for a God-man to save them, and indeed, there were many contenders to the throne at the time. Also, ancient texts are notorious for their fictionalizing to create a compelling narrative structure. The intellectually honest thing to do – and the default position of historians – on any text from this time, secular or religious, is therefore to analyse it critically with regards to these problems. You have claimed repeatedly that it is too much of a stretch to do so.

What actual evidence (not mere armchair speculation) do you have for your positive claim that the Gospels are literally trustworthy in form and content in such a landscape, and that they should therefore be exempt from such critical scrutiny? And why would texts such as the Illiad, the Quran or the book of Mormon NOT be exempt for the same reasons?

A3. I never said the resurrection story arose in an idea vacuum. It most certainly arose within a certain cultural framework and plausibility structure; that of first century Palestinian Judaism. The problem is Tim keeps on wanting to posit the wrong context over Christian resurrection belief so as to make his case ‘work’. I am not saying it is simply a ‘stretch’ for him to do this, I am saying it is wholly incorrect and completely amiss for him to do this. It has been easily demonstrated by current mainstream scholarship that this is the case and I think it has also been demonstrated in this particular debate.

Please note, I never said the Gospels should be exempt from critical scrutiny. In fact, one way we know how incredibly accurate they are is because they have been exposed to so much critical scrutiny. I think it would be accurate to say that no other ancient work has received so much critical scrutiny as the Gospels. The amazing thing is they have come out vindicated time and time again.

Lastly, for Tim to put the Gospels in the same league as The Quran or the Book of Mormon serves as a reminder to all of us reading this that Tim is unfamiliar with modern archaeology and historiography. Either that, or he is unfamiliar with these other works, especially the Book of Mormon (my understanding is that even The Illiad fares better, as it seems to have some actual history and geography in it).

Q2. Can you give your own brief definition of ‘miracle’? Why do you define it that way? Do you think miracles are possible? Why or why not?

A2. A miracle cannot be defined outside of culture. If a group of people observe, or examine evidence of, a certain event and are unable to explain this event in terms of the explanatory tools they have at their disposal, then this event is a miracle to these people. Rain would be a miracle to primitive peoples. An iPhone would be a miracle to 13th century scholars. This definition of miracle does not require the event itself to be supernatural, simply unexplainable. It also allows event formerly classed as miracles to be re-evaluated as explicable events at a later date. I imagine that I am not in the majority when I use this definition, but I think it is a reasonable one.

Any miraculous event needs to be evaluated by its own merits, and examined using the best tools of the day. The reason the age of miracles is over is because our tools of analysis and understanding are becoming more honed. In an age where most people experienced miracles many times during a lifetime, people would tell stories of miracles, amplify them (miracles, by their very nature, need not be plausible or comprenhesible and therefore suffer litte risk of fact-checking) and pass them along, thus causing the plethora of supernatural legends from that age. This still happens in certain parts of sub-Saharan Africa, as an example, and for much the same reasons.

Q2. You mention in your rebuttal the fair and true point that creeds evolve over time, and that the pertinent question is not when the faith started, but when a particular *idea* within a faith came about. The earliest christian writings, i.e. Paul and Mark 1:1-16:8, make no mention of bodily resurrection. Indeed, Paul speaks to Jesus only in an ethereal vision. Later writings become more and more emphatic about the “fleshiness” of the resurrected Jesus, to the point of groping his feet and wounds and feeding him fish. This indicates to me that the bodily resurrection is a later addition to the resurrection story. Can you provide me with solid evidence that the concept of a BODILY resurrection has been present in Christianity since its inception?

A2. It is incorrect to say Paul makes no mention of a bodily resurrection, as the previous answer demonstrates. Furthermore, Jewish belief at the time does not allow for any other kind of resurrection except a physical ‘standing up among the corpses’ type of resurrection. All one needs to do to see what kind of resurrection Paul meant is refer to a Greek lexicon. To see this point being illustrated superbly in a debate, check out the pertinent section in Richard Carrier’s debate against William Lane Craig at Northwestern Missouri State University in 2009. You will see it is hopeless to argue against the physicality Paul uses in regards to Jesus’ resurrection.

Further, Mark does mention the resurrection! He mentions Jesus’ resurrection 4 times explicitly – Mark 8:31, 9:9-10, 9:31, 10:34 – and two times implicitly – Mark 14:28 and 16:6. A notable fact about some of these resurrection related statements is that a number of them include the phrase ‘Son of Man,’ which is undoubtedly a phrase that goes back to Jesus himself.[1] Another indicator that certain portions of Mark are ultra early is the pre-Markan Passion narrative. Here, Mark talks about the high priest but does not mention him by name (14:53-63) – this makes it likely that Caiaphas was still the high priest when this section originated so there would be no need to state his name. The latest date for this tradition is 37 AD because Caiphas was the high priest from 18-37 AD.

Lastly, Tim makes it plain in his question he thinks Mark and Paul leave out bodily resurrection but that Matthew, Luke and John include it. Is he seriously asking us to believe that bodily resurrection managed to simply creep into Christianity between the years of 65 (when Mark was written) and 70 (when Matthew was written)?

[1] This phrase – Son of Man – even passes all of the idiosyncratic criteria laid out by the Jesus Seminar. Nonetheless, they reject it because it suggests a Messianic consciousness, which they will not ‘allow’.

Q1. Do you believe Jesus existed as a historical person? If so, what do you think we can know that’s historically probable about him? Why do you think this?

A1. I don’t really think we have enough evidence either way. The arguments for and against are equally convincing to me, but I don’t think it’s important. The Christianity we have came from traditions and theologies from the early Christians and those ideas are the ones that matter, historically. Nobody knows exactly who the earliest Christians were – the history is simply lost. But the ideas attributed to Jesus were, and still are, hugely influential. That is the main thing, which I could wish Christians could focus on. The ideas are in no way devalued by conceding that the person who said them might not have been an all-powerful God.

Q1. Much of this debate has centered on sociology rather than evidence from both sides (from my side, about the nature of belief, from yours, about the likely behaviour of early Christians and about transfer of religious ideas). I agree with you that we need more history. So, name your single best piece of primary historical evidence for the resurrection. Can you also give a reason why you chose that particular piece of evidence over all others, and why you think it’s the best?

A1. A particularly good piece of evidence for the resurrection can be found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”

I believe Paul wrote all thirteen epistles attributed to him. Most ‘critical’ scholars think he wrote seven: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Galatians and Philemon. These same critical scholars recognize there are primitive creedal statements – such as the aforementioned passage – within these documents (another example is Philippians 2:5-11, read an article on that here). 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 has been almost universally recognized as an early pre-Pauline creedal statement. Here is why this matters: 1 Corinthians is usually dated around 54 AD, which is early, but the creed is even earlier. Here is a likely timeline:

30 AD – Crucifixion
31 AD – The creed is first formed
34 AD – Paul’s conversion
37 AD – Paul confirms creed from Peter, James and John in Jerusalem [1]
55 AD – 1 Corinthians written

This is using conservative numbers, meaning it could even be earlier. Either way, this puts us right on top of the actual event of the resurrection. The upshot is that the creed originated far too early for legend and myth to have crept in. There are a number of technical details that solidify this creed as early: for example, it uses the Aramaic name for Peter, Cephas, and leaves out the women as witnesses; both of these facts demonstrate its antiquity. Only a person with limited knowledge of current NT scholarship can doubt these facts. The evidence is so compelling that uber-skeptic and NT scholar Robert Price uses an ad hoc argument against it, claiming the creed is a late interpolation, even though there is no literary evidence of this.

Gary Habermas writes the following (source):

Whenever these early sources are also derived from eyewitnesses who actually participated in some of the events, this provides one of the strongest evidences possible. Historian David Hackett Fischer dubs this ‘the rule of immediacy’ and terms it ‘the best relevant evidence’. When scholars have ancient sources that are both very early and based on eyewitness testimony, they have a combination that is very difficult to dismiss….This is even conceded by atheist scholar Michael Martin. [2]

[1] The way we know about Paul’s Jerusalem meeting is via Galatians 1:11-24 and Galatians 2:1-10. Galatians is another book even critical scholars recognized as being authentically Pauline.
[2] Of course, Martin merely believes Paul thought he saw the risen Jesus.