reason.cck.org.uk

Mulled cider & Love actually

In the last few weeks I have (like everyone else) been preparing for Christmas, and been doing my best to avoid going into Brighton. I have been enjoying that wonderful phenomenon known as online shopping, or more specifically Amazon.com. My wife Jac has also started to fill our home with those classic Christmas tunes again, Band Aid, Mariah Carey and others.

Christmas is a time of year that is associated with many different things for different people. It is often thought of as time to spend with our families and close loves ones. Many others will also crack out ‘Love actually’ on DVD yet again, have a few glasses of mulled wine (or cider ideally), and of course buy one another presents, some of which will no doubt be subtly making there way onto ebay in early January. If any of my family are reading, don’t worry I wouldn’t dream of it!

For others, Christmas may be a time that some will dread for a number of reasons. The struggle to fund sufficient presents, awkward conversations within a fractured family, keeping up appearances for a few days with distant relatives and for some, acute loneliness. Is this as good as we can hope for?

Where does Jesus fit in?

In recent years it may seem surprising that in what is often considered a more secular culture, there have been a number of songs recorded about Jesus by artists such as U2, The Killers, Green Day, Kanye West, REM and even Marilyn Manson. Whatever you think of him, Jesus still occupies a central part of our culture.

Jesus was a remarkable man, and according to a recent survey taken in June 2009 (published in The Daily Telegraph) around 33% of the UK population, say he is the dead person that they would most want to meet, ahead of figures such as Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe, Shakespeare and Einstein. However, he is more than just a famous dead man. Jesus made some startling claims while he was on earth, he claimed to be God and not just to be a good human moral teacher. As the author CS Lewis writes, ‘he didn’t leave that option open to us, he didn’t intend to.’

Christmas celebrates the time when God put his plan of redemption for the world into action. Jesus voluntarily left behind the glory of heaven, to become a servant for humankind, a sacrifice and a substitute for the wrong we’ve done. As humans we’ve been made as relational people, to experience the joy of love. This love is wonderfully experienced in our personal relationships with one another, but there is an ultimate one that we have been made for, with our creator.

The key doesn’t fit the lock

As people we often talk of a sense of emptiness that there is in our lives, in our quest for meaning and purpose. We try many different things for satisfaction, even good things and try to squeeze them into ultimate things. The key does not fit the lock though. Consider the way that we try to define ourselves and find security and our identity in relationships, friendships, money, musicianship, a sportsman, a lover. None of these things are bad in and of themselves, but they were not designed to be the supreme definition of our lives. How could they? All of these things will come and go, they fade over time. There is only one thing that is truly unfading and will satisfy us completely, found in Jesus Christ.

We are out of sync with God, because we have all gone against him in our lives. We have elected ourselves as the decision maker, the purpose creator and the rock upon which all other things must be built around. This is what the bible calls sin, falling short of his perfect standard, in word, thought and action. The consequence is that we are separated from our perfect holy creator, and because God is just, he can’t just overlook our errors like some modern parents do with a spoilt child. Action needed to be taken.

Descending: God comes to us

Christmas celebrates God coming among us, in the first stage of his mission which would be completed at Easter with Christ’s death and glorious resurrection. He took upon himself the sin of the world, because we can’t earn our way to God. We couldn’t do enough good works and karma to achieve the necessary 100% perfect standard. Religion teaches us to try and ascend to God, Christianity teaches that God descended to us. This is crucial.

Jesus came to earth so that we could experience reconciliation. Jesus is in the business of mending relationships, firstly our relationship with God, but also our relationships with others.

We live in a world full of broken and wounded people who need to experience reconciliation with family members, neighbours and former friends. This is possible only when we see that through Christ justice was accomplished on the cross, sin was paid for, grudges can be dropped, forgiveness can be extended.

Conclusion

More than 2000 years ago, the God-man Jesus Christ came and dirtied himself by getting involved in human culture. He showed that he is not a distant God who created the universe and left it to chance. The incarnation of Christ is the central point of human history. We date our history around him, and history has never been the same since.

Today, consider the impact that the birth of Christ could have on your life. Whatever your situation this year, there is one who knows your every need, who restores relationships, and gives you a complete and unshakeable identity because of his love and compassion for you. He has made himself accessible, will you respond?

If you want to know more, why not come to our Christmas service.

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Surely one of the most misunderstood things in the UK today is what it means to become a Christian. Because of the confused culture that we live in, I will need to start by dispelling a few myths about what it doesn’t mean along the way!

So simple

One of the amazing things about the Christian message is that it is so simple that even young children are able to understand it for themselves. This is one of the major stumbling blocks for so many people; that becoming a Christian requires a real sense of humility to accept it. We live in times where generally we like to have felt that we have earned whatever we get in life. If we have got a beautiful wife, it’s because we are sufficiently good looking, powerful or wealthy enough to attract them. If we have got a good mark in exams or coursework, it’s because we have been competent enough to achieve it. In essence we like the idea that things work on a system of ‘karma’.

The big story

However, the values of Christianity are quite different. The grand story of the Bible  goes like this: In the beginning God was intimately involved in the creation of the universe, and looked upon it and saw that it was good. He was thrilled, in much the same way that we are on one of the amazing nights where we gaze up at the skies and are in awe of what we see. He fashioned men and women in his image to come and steward the earth.

However, it was at this point that the first man and woman (Adam & Eve) were tempted to go against God and they decided to disobey God in their desire to become equal to God, and having autonomy and power themselves. When they committed this offence, they put a barrier between themselves and God.

Like Father like son

As the human race has gone on, things have not changed. As our forefather Adam set the precedent for how we would behave. The bible says that we are all individually inclined to go our own way, to want to be God ourselves, and to be the judge for how we want to live our life. Romans 3:23 says the very sobering words. ‘For all have fallen short of the glory of God’.  In short, we find ourselves in a mess and separated from the very creator who we were made for relationship with.

Around 100 years ago, The Times newspaper invited a number of key thinkers and philosophers of the time to write essays on the question ‘What’s wrong with the world?’.  One man’s response was short, very short in fact: ‘Dear Sirs, I am, Sincerely yours, G.K. Chesterton’. There is something very refreshing about this witty yet deeply truthful response.

In 21st century Western culture we want to blame almost everything on other people; we may laugh when we hear the latest ridiculous lawsuit filed against a company ‘for eating cheese that was so cheesy it caused mental distress’, but we tend to pass the buck often whether its our family upbringing or some other circumstance. We need to face up to the truth: we are guilty of doing wrong.

Jesus enters the arena

I’m so glad that wasn’t the end of the story and that God didn’t just leave us stranded in our guilt and shame. Jesus Christ the second member of the Trinity, came down to earth and entered human history, that is God-in-human skin. He added humanity to his divinity. He left the glory of his heavenly throne, not to be served by us, but to serve us. How remarkable is that!

Having lived a relatively low key life, he went on to teach the most phenomenal and radical teaching, and healed many. Thirty-three short years on from his birth he was to be brutally crucified. The worst thing was to happen in history; the death of the Son of God. Who could have thought this terrible evil and injustice upon an innocent man could become such a liberating truth for us?

Grace triumphs

This is, remarkably, exactly the way that God chose to demonstrate his justice and his love for us. Jesus on the cross took the penalty for all of our guilt, for both the things that we did which we shouldn’t have done, and the things we should have done that we didn’t do. For every time that we spoke out in a hateful way against a friend or family member, and for every time we didn’t walk across to help a stranger in need.  All of these events, although they were sins against the people involved were sins against him.

Becoming a Christian means recognising this simple fact, and knowing that karma will not be enough to deal with it. The U2 singer Bono rightly acknowledges the following:

“I’d be in big trouble if karma was going to finally be my judge. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.”

Like him or loathe him, this is an interesting admission from a man who has done much to try and make the world a better place, more than most. Yet he knows its not enough!

We can’t pay our way back into a relationship with God, the price is way too high. The only man who was in credit with God, Jesus, paid it all for us. The question is will we accept this free gift of Grace?

God’s grace was given to us, because of the exchange that took place. Jesus took all of our sin on the cross, and then three days later he rose again to show that he had conquered this evil and even death ultimately! We now have the opportunity to know God personally in this life, and we will spend eternity with him in heaven too.

Conclusion

So becoming a Christian does not mean we are British, that we went to church when we were younger. It doesn’t mean we are a good person, in fact it means recognising that we are not good enough. We are all in the same boat, whether we’ve been raised going to church or not, we were all cut off from God, but we all have equal opportunity to accept what Jesus did for us on the cross and to know God personally.

Romans 10:9 says the following:

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

If you know that you’re at this point where you are ready to go for it and accept Jesus into your life, then its worth speaking to a friend who you know has a personal relationship with Jesus, and come along to a good lively bible believing church, who will be able to help you develop your relationship with God further. If you’re in Brighton, we’d be delighted to have you along at CCK. For further information, click here.

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One of the key things to note about the era of 1st century Palestine, is that it was primarily an oral culture. This means that information was rarely written down about  things that we might today consider to be highly significant ( let alone every single minor event; a stark contrast to 21st century western society). The main way that information was passed on was through verbal communication. However, we do still have a good number of documents which help to verify information about Jesus and the origins of the early church.

The primary sources for Jesus’ life are the Gospels in the Bible.  The main two sources are Tacitus and Josephus. These two records are very important because they verify the death of Jesus at the hand of Pontius Pilate, which collaborates the Gospel records (Mark 15:1-15, Matthew 27, Luke 23, John 18:28-40).

Cornelius Tacitus (born A.D. 52-54)

A Non-Christian Roman historian, in A.D. 112, Governor of Asia, son-in-law of Julius Agricola who was Governor of Britain A.D. 80-84. He wrote in the reign of Nero, making reference to Christians in Rome, and to Jesus’ death:

‘But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumour, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.’ (Translated quote found in: McDowell, Josh., Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1990, Scripture Press, p.82)

Flavius Josephus (born A.D. 37)

A Jewish Historian, in A.D. 66 he was the commander of the Jewish forces in Galilee. The following quote has been debated as to its entire validity. Certain sections of the text have been judged, by some, as unlikely to have been written by a Jewish scholar. For a preliminary overview of this see: Strobel, Lee The Case or Christ, Zondervan, 1998, pp.78-80. However, the important sections attesting to the life and death of Jesus are reliable. Josephus’ writings were translated into the Arabic, which does not contain those sections of the text that have been judged suspicious. The following is a quote from the Arabic translation:

‘At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and (he) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned Him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become him disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that He had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that He was alive; accordingly, He was perhaps the Messiah concerning who the prophets have recounted wonders.’ (Translated quote found in: McDowell, Josh., Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1990, Scripture Press, p.82)

Thallus (a Samaritan-Born historian)

He wrote in A.D. 52, which is one of the earliest writers concerning the life and death of Jesus. Unfortunately we no longer have the originals of his work, but a man called Julius Africanus, who was a Christian writer of about A.D.  221, discusses his work. He cites a section of Thallus that confirms that there was a darkness that covered the land after Jesus died, which is also recorded in Luke 23:44 and Mark 15:33. He writes:

“ ‘Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun – unreasonably, as it seems to me’ (unreasonably, of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and it was as the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died)’ (Translated quote found in: McDowell, Josh., Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1990, Scripture Press, p.84)

Phlegon

A first century historian, like Thallus, his work is now lost. However Julius Africanus (above) in A.D. 221 again quotes a section of his work:

“ ‘During the time of Tiberius Caesar an eclipse of the sun occurred during the full moon’ ” (Translated quote found in: McDowell, Josh., Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1990, Scripture Press, p.84)

Lucian of Samosata

Roman of the Second century: he wrote in The Passing Peregrinus:

‘ . . . the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world . . . Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.’ (Translated quote found in: McDowell, Josh., Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1990, Scripture Press, p.82)

Suetonius (A.D. 120)

Another Non-Christian Roman historian writes in Life of Claudius:

‘As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (another spelling of Christus), he expelled them from Rome’ (Translated quote found in: McDowell, Josh., Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1990, Scripture Press, p.83)

Plinius Secundus, Pliny the younger

Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor (A.D. 112). The following quote comes from a letter that he wrote to Emperor Trajan. The main concern of his letter is how to treat the Christians. In the second century, during the reign of the Caesars, the populace was expected to worship Caesar as a god. This the Christians did not do. Pliny had been putting to death those Christians who would not bow down to a statue of Trajan. In the letter he writes the following:

‘They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up’ (Translated quote found in: McDowell, Josh., Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1990, Scripture Press, p.83)

Further reading

There are many more sources that attest to the origins of the early church, and many instances where books are quoted, which no longer exist, but would have been accessible in the day in which they were quoted. For further research, I have suggested some books below:

• McDowell, Josh., Evidence That Demands a Verdict, 1990, Scripture Press, Chapter 5.

• Strobel, Lee The Case or Christ, Zondervan, 1998, Chapter 4

• Bruce, F. F., Jesus and Christian Origins outside the New Testament, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974.

• Habermans, Gary., The Historical Jesus, Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1996

To view Ruth’s recent testimony about how she became a christian, click here

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Who, When and Why?

In the year AD 525, a Bulgarian monk who lived in Rome as a member of the central governing body of the Roman Catholic Church, Dionysius Exiguus devised the Anno Domini (in the year of our Lord) dating system. The system states a year with regards to the year of the Incarnation (conception) of Jesus Christ. He invented a new system of numbering years to replace the Diocletian years that had been used in an old table because he did not wish to continue the memory of the tyrant, Roman Emperor Diocletian who persecuted Christians.

This system became popular when “The Father of English History”, Saint Bede used Anno Domini dating in his famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People).

Emperor Charlemagne, who was King of the Franks from 768 to his death and his successors further popularized the use of this system.

Birth of Christ

One problem with this system, is that scholars believe that Jesus was actually born around 4 BC! In the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew writes that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod (Matt 2:1). Further, King Herod ordered the massacre of all boys in Bethlehem and it’s vicinity, who were two years old and under. (Matt 2:16). Famous Roman-Jewish historian, Josephus, dates the death of King Herod at 4 BC. And hence, the problem arises!

Even though the centrality of Christ in the Christian’s life is of utmost in the Bible, the AD calendar dating system does not find it’s roots in the Bible!

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Fact 3: The birth of the Early Church

It can be very easy in our 21st century beliefs to assume that people “ in those days” believed any kind of resurrection rubbish because they believed miracles were possible , but now that we have sophisticated minds which are more critical and scientific we know better.

We are only able to hold onto these kinds of views because we are mostly uninformed about resurrection beliefs in first century Palestine.

If we look at the beliefs of Jews and Greeks in the first century we can see that neither group believed that dead men rise! It was practically unthinkable.

But what about the resurrection in Jewish scripture and greek mythology, surely that is where they got their ideas from?

Greek mythology and resurrection

In short this is not true; there were some very fundamental differences in the concepts of ‘resurrection’ in all both parties. As we have already seen from 1 Cor 15 in the previous article, Paul is preaching a bodily resurrection, not merely a spiritual one. Greek thinking at the time was dominated by Platonic and Homeric thought, and in neither of these types of texts do we find any consideration of a bodily resurrection. Tim Keller writes ‘ In Greco-Roman thinking, the soul or spirit was good and the physical and material world was weak, corrupt, and defiling…therefore salvation was conceived as liberation from the body.’

In other words, in the views of the Greeks’ if you could lose your body then your soul would be free. If this is what you were hoping to achieve, being resurrected in the body was not only implausible to the Greeks, but it was also completely undesirable.

What about the Jews?

It is probable that the Jews were unaware or not impacted by these Greek worldviews, after all they were God’s chosen people in their eyes. They were immensely proud to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and would have been unlikely to look to the Pagans for a change of belief; since they believed they were given the Old Testament scriptures by God, why then look to another culture for a sudden change of view?

So what was the Jewish worldview involving resurrection?

Jewish Resurrection thinking

N.T. Wright points out in his extensive scholarly work, The Resurrection of the Son of God, that the Jewish community did have an expectation for a form of resurrection, but one at the end of the world. This is mostly seen in a few passages in the Old Testament such as Daniel 12:2-3, which alludes to an end-time resurrection for the nation of Israel as a whole. Such sentiments are displayed in Isaiah chapters 24-27 of  which talks of God’s judgement, and the hope for resurrection at the end of the world (Isaiah 26:19). This is also seen in Ezekiel 37, arguably the most famous of all resurrection passages.

It is true also that in non-canonical Judaic writings from 400 BC ( like 2 Maccabees, Ecclesiasticus) up to the times of Jesus that similar themes were established. The main two being the restoration of Israel, and resurrection bodies being given at the end of the world.

Messiah as warrior

However, we will note here that just like the long-awaited Jewish messiah was expected to be a warrior who would overthrow with power those governing over the Israelites (rather than a man who would be crushed and crucified); there was no expectation for the Messiah himself to be resurrected, nor for any other form of resurrection in the Jewish community before the end of the world.

Conclusion

N.T. Wright summarises: ‘The immediate conclusion is clear. Christianity was born into a world where its central claim was known to be false’.

The first two factors of the empty tomb, and the post-death encounters of Jesus alone are extremely persuasive in convincing us of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but the birthing of the early church is quite simply the knock out blow. In Acts 2:41, Peter preaches the first sermon about Jesus’ resurrection  and we see 3000 promptly respond to become followers of Christ.

This incredible birthing of the early church took place in Jerusalem, the very area where these resurrection events had taken place a few short weeks earlier. Frankly, you could understand this world religion growing from a myth if this all happened a few thousand miles away, but not in a place where there were eye-witnesses. Surely it would have been quashed immediately?

In the final article of this series I will look at the implication of all these facts combined.

For the other articles looking at the resurrection of Christ please click below.

http://reason.cck.org.uk/tag/resurrection/

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Having established the historicity of the empty tomb of Christ in our previous article in this series, we now move onto looking at the evidence for the post-mortem appearances of Jesus to people.

Fact 2: The Appearances of the risen Jesus

We need to turn again to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, to see his reporting of public testimony about the resurrection. It is quite extraordinary that in 1 Cor 15:3-8 we hear that Jesus appeared not only to a few people, but more than 500 people on one occasion, these appearances went on for almost six weeks before Jesus left his disciples again for good (Acts 1:9-11). Paul tells us (1 Cor 15:6) that ‘most of them are still living’. This statement is very significant indeed as Tim Keller comments:

‘Paul’s letter was to a church, and therefore it was a public document, written to be read aloud. Paul was inviting anyone who doubted that Jesus had appeared to people after his death to go and talk to the eye-witnesses if they wished.’

The implication is clear, there is no way that Paul could have written this in a public document unless these 500 eye-witnesses really existed. When taken together with the gospel accounts that we looked at with regard to the empty tomb, we have multiple attestations that these appearances were completely genuine.

Even the sceptical New Testament scholar Gerd Ludeman makes this emphatic declaration: ‘It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.’

Physical or Spiritual Resurrection?

Some people have tried to imply that these resurrection appearances were not in fact physical ones but a host of spiritual visions by reading the latter part of Paul’s letter (1 Cor 15:42-44), where he contrasts the natural body and the spiritual one. Surely this shows that Jesus’ resurrection was only spiritual and therefore it was not a bodily resurrection after all?

Well, if we take a closer look at the greek words  ’pneumatikos’ (which is used to describe ’spiritual’ in this context),  and ‘psychikos’ (describing ‘natural’ ), we find that it is used in the same letter by Paul in 1 Cor 2:14-15. Here Paul is also contrasting the spiritual man with the natural man.

In this context, he is talking about the difference between a Christian ( the spiritual man) and a non-christian (the natural man). Clearly, Paul does not believe that Christians do not have physical bodies, therefore it follows that we should not take this to mean a non-physical resurrection which Paul is describing.

William Lane Craig summarises the point for us:

‘Natural man does not mean ”physical man,” but ”man oriented toward human nature.” And Spiritual man does not mean ”intangible, invisible man” but “man oriented toward the Spirit.” The contrast is the same in 1 Corinthians 15. The present, earthly body will be freed from its slavery to the sinful human nature and become instead fully empowered and directed by God’s Spirit. Thus, Paul’s doctrine of the resurrection body implies a physical resurrection.’

Were they just hallucinations?

One of the most regular points made by sceptics at this stage is that surely even if the disciples believed that it was a physical resurrection, they could have just imagined and hallucinated the experience.

This argument is really starting to clutch at straws because we are being asked to believe here that every one of the multiple encounters of the risen Jesus was a mere hallucination, including very tangible physical events like Jesus cooking breakfast on the beach (John 21:1-25). Take into account that some of these people included Jesus’ own brother James, sceptics like Thomas (John 20:24-29) and that these appearances took place for so many people, over 40 days and we are really being asked to ignore very compelling evidence.

Another point worth making is that this theory provides very narrow explanatory scope, as it does not explain away the empty tomb of Jesus. As N.T. Wright points out even if hallucinations happened, this does not explain why people came to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. In a Jewish world-view, any visions or hallucinations of a dead person did not mean that you believed they were alive, it confirmed even more that they were dead!

Summary

As we take a close look at the evidence, it would seem very clear that Jesus’ followers had genuine encounters with the him after death, and that they were bodily in form. It is also very clear that Paul wrote the letter of 1 Corinthians in such a manner that anyone who did not believe could have checked out the evidence by speaking to eye-witnesses very easily.

For links to our other articles on the resurrection click here.

Click here for my recent interview with CCK.

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As we look at our 3rd article in the series on Jesus’ resurrection, we turn our attention to the first of  three key facts that we will examine.

Fact 1: The Empty Tomb

The first detail that we need to concern ourselves with is the empty tomb. I’m making the very non-controversial assumption, which is agreed among New Testament scholars today, that Jesus of Nazareth did in fact die on that cross at Golgotha.

The Burial

After Jesus had died, he was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, who was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin (the council of Israel). This is highly probable due to the fact that there would have been very little reason for the early gospel writers to have lied about this. This would have been an embarrassing truth for them; that one of the leaders of the pack who effectively arranged the murder of Jesus, then gave his own tomb for him to be buried in. New Testament scholar Raymond Brown said that it was ‘almost inexplicable’ for the early Christians to have made this up. This is significant in that it would mean that both Jews and the followers of Christ, alike, would have known where this tomb was.

We find multiple attestation of this fact in each of the gospel accounts (Mark 15:42-47, Matt 27:57-61, Luke 23:50-54, John 19:38-42) but we are not reliant on this. Actually, there is an even earlier account in 1 Cor 15:3-5, which attests to the burial, that can be dated to around 36AD (within 6 years of Jesus’ ministry) confirming the burial.

More could be made to support this issue, but I want to look at two further reasons why the empty tomb is so strongly agreed on by New Testament scholars today.

Women giving testimony?

Firstly, the inital observers of the empty tomb that Jesus had been in were women. In our culture we simply don’t understand the significance of this. In First century Jewish culture, women were not seen as equal to men and they were not even allowed to be called as witnesses in court. Even part of the daily prayers that men said were to give thanks that they were not born as a woman. Shocking!

Tim Keller writes: ‘There was no possible advantage to the church to recount that all the first witnesses were women. It could have only undermined their credibility of the testimony.’

In light of these facts, N.T. Wright comments that there must have been enormous pressure on the early Christians to change these facts, but the reality is that they didn’t! They maintained their historical integrity and gave an account of what really happened.

Jewish Belief

Secondly, one of the first things that the Jewish leaders claimed is that the disciples stole the body (Matt 28:12-15), which means that they pre-supposed that the body was missing and the tomb was empty. There was no attempt to say that the wrong tomb was checked, or it had been moved. For the non-believing Jews, there was no issue about the empty tomb. It was obvious that the body was gone, and so a new story had to be created to try and cover it up. They had no desire for the birth of a new religion whatsoever.

Summary

When we add all of these pieces of historical evidence together, it seems to verify the fact that Jesus’ grave was found empty on the Sunday after he had been crucified. This provides us with our first part of the jigsaw in looking at whether the resurrection of Jesus really happened. Join us next week when we look at the next piece of evidence, the post-mortem appearances!

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In this second article, we are going to be looking at how we tackle the historical evidence which is available to us, when considering if Jesus really rose again from the dead.

Investigating History

As the events we are looking at took place around 30 AD, it is obviously a more complex process than investigating a recent event like a Coldplay gig at Wembley Stadium, or a more serious event like the Holocaust in World War 2. Today, we have access to photography and film as well as written accounts of what goes on via newspapers. This is obviously a world away from first century Palestine, where most people were illiterate and oral tradition was the main form of communicating information.

Giving the New Testament a fair hearing

Given the culture of the time, it is all the more remarkable that we have such excellent sourcing to look into the events of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We are very grateful to people like Luke who was sent by a man named Theophilus to investigate the claims of Christianity (Luke 1:1-4). Luke was not a Jewish believer, so Theophilus may have trusted him not only as a medical doctor ( a man of great intelligence), but also because of his Gentile background to be impartial in his scrupulous digging for facts. This reminds us that God in his sovereignty and providence, is not against those who wish to look into these matters for themselves; after all he has given us brains to reason with.

One of the major sources that we will be looking at for information is the New Testament itself including the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Let me remind you again that we do not have the luxury of simply writing off the Bible, “because it is the Bible”. If this is your automatic response then I want to encourage you to look at these ancient documents as a historical text just like today’s New Testament scholars do. Be sceptical about your scepticism. It’s important not to put the cart before the horse, and we’ll see some of the reasons why the gospel accounts are reliable as we investigate further.

Reading the Bible as History

Although I do believe that the Bible is the word of God (and so is without error), we will be treating it in a similar way to any other ancient text like the works of Thucydides, Plato or Aristotle, for the purpose of historical analysis. Even if you think that there are passages in the New Testament that carry difficulties, other than those we will consider for this article, put these to one side for now. They are not relevant in this particular investigation. I am arguing for the resurrection of Jesus here, not for the infallibility of the bible as a whole (that is for another article). This hopefully means that we are investigating this from the same perspective, a historical agenda rather than a theological one.

My point here is that when historians look at texts, they make assumptions that not all the text is going to be accurate, but there are still facts which can be mined from the information available. It is this approach that I am arguing for, as we look at the relevant texts. We do not need to agree on everything else written in the Bible to come to the conclusion that the resurrection happened.

Historical Methodology

One of the things which is very important at the outset, is that we treat this hypothesis fairly, using typical tools of historical analysis to make an assessment on the truthfulness of the claim that Jesus rose again.

Dr. William Lane Craig shows in his book Reasonable Faith that if we use normal historiographical methods, then it is very conclusive indeed that Jesus was raised from the dead.  The Philosopher of History, C.B. McCullagh, suggests using a form of inductive reasoning called ‘Inference to the best explanation’ to do this most effectively. This method essentially means taking the initial facts that we have available to us and seeing which theory has the greatest explanatory power, explanatory scope and is the most plausible theory with the information available.

There are three key facts that we can outline when looking at the evidence based on both biblical and non-biblical accounts; the empty tomb of Jesus, the appearances of the risen Jesus and the birth of the early church. Over the coming weeks we will look at these one at a time, and then draw a conclusion.

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Christians believe that Jesus was not merely just a great moral teacher or even a prophet (as Muslims believe), but that he was genuinely the second member of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, God Incarnate or more simply the ‘God-man’. The resurrection of Jesus has always been (to Christians) one of the major proofs that he was indeed the Son of God.

As Dr. Tim Keller points out in his book Reason for God “If Jesus rose from the dead, you have to accept all he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether he rose from the dead or not.”

The apostle Paul would seem to agree when writing to the church in Corinth, that if there was no physical resurrection we may as well all pack up and go home.

‘And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. (1 Cor 15:14)’

It really doesn’t get any more black or white on this issue, does it?

As this is an incredibly large topic I have decided to break it down into 5 separate articles, which you will see added over the coming weeks.

I want to encourage you as you read this set of articles to really think like you have never done about anything else in your life! If Jesus really died on that disgusting bloody cross, and rose again; the implications could not be greater than any fact in human history, it reveals whether God exists, who he is, what he is like and if he gives a monkeys’ about who you are. We will look at this in greater detail in the articles that follow.

Being Sceptical about Naturalism

Many people in western society believe in a philosophical position known as naturalism, which posits that everything that we see is explainable in terms of natural causes and laws. When this is applied to the resurrection of Jesus Christ we end up in a total cul-de-sac; as this is a completely circular argument which works out something like this:

‘The resurrection of Jesus can’t have happened because it would be a miracle, and miracles don’t happen’

The reality is as a sceptic, you can’t know that miracles don’t exist, you just might not have experienced one. This means the position that you should approach this critical subject on is being agnostic (not sure).

If you feel you’re not at this point yet then you may find it helpful to read the article below: go to:

Why can’t I be an Atheist?

My main point of this introduction to the subject is that we need to leave our pre-suppositions at the door. We need to allow history to speak for itself and follow the evidence where it leads, whatever that means for us.  If you think you are ready for this then you are ready for the next article, which will follow shortly.

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I want to spend a few minutes addressing those of you who have decided that you are Atheists, that there is definitely no God. It may be helpful to initially ask the question ‘What God is it that you don’t believe in?’.

I am fully aware that there are many different ideas of who God is, and sometimes the representation of God given to you (even by Christians) may seem lacking in credibility. If you think of God as being an old man in the sky with a white wispy beard looking something like my younger brother Duncan (for those of you who know him), then I can appreciate your unbelief! This is one of the types which is often laughed at in the media, understandably! (No offence bro, I love you really!!).

Recently, I was watching an episode of Peep Show (series 2) where one of the main characters Jez shows his indignation for this god who he refers to as a ‘big toga-wearing bearded killjoy’.

There may be other examples of different gods that you don’t believe in like the god of the gaps, (a theory sometimes used to give explanations for areas of the world which science has not found an explanation for as yet) or a god who asks people to blow themselves up and kill others to show their devotion as believers. I also share my disbelief in all of these gods with you.

The Philosophical Problem

So why can’t you be an atheist?

Well, if to be a theist (belief in a God, still active in his creation) means having knowledge that there is a God who exists, being an A-theist is to have an absolute knowledge that no God exists. Philosophically this position is actually impossible to hold, for the simple reason that no human being has absolute knowledge of the whole universe, so at best all that an Atheist can say is ‘From the areas I have been to (eg. Brighton, East Sussex) I have not discovered a God.’ This does not mean that God does not exist, merely that in your travels you have not discovered him, as yet. This means that technically everyone who doesn’t believe in God is agnostic (in the general sense) on this issue (doesn’t know). This is a point that even the popular scientist Richard Dawkins concedes in his book The God Delusion.

Fire, Fire, the house is on fire

Once we have realised that we can be ‘at worst’ an agnostic this then leaves us with two approaches to agnosticism, which are best understood in the story format below.

If someone one day rang you in your office at work and told you that your house was on fire, you would have three options before you (broadly speaking), (a) you could go home and check that the house wasn’t on fire, (b) you might just make a phone call to a neighbour to confirm that this wasn’t the case, or (c) you could just hope for the best, that there wasn’t really a fire and be ignorant of this impending situation. Surely option (c) is not one that we would advise of others in this example, nor one we would take ourselves?

Let’s take it one stage further then. What if your wife and children were rumoured to be inside as well? I’m sure that we would agree that a phone call would not be enough to ease our concerns, we would need to stop whatever we were doing at work and go and check it out for ourselves.

I would suggest if you do not know if there is a God, then it is the kind of thing that you can’t afford to be ignorant about. You can’t be the person who doesn’t bother to look into the facts at all, nor can you simply rely on a simple phone call to find out. For some of you this may represent being reliant on other members of your family who think it’s stupid and rely on them, or relying on the cynical superficial media coverage which focuses on ‘Priests who are paedos’. Maybe you had a bad experience meeting a Christian once before, and this has put you off. I appeal to you not to lightly throw out the ‘baby’ with the ‘bathwater’.

You need to investigate this grand claim for yourself. If the God of the Bible exists then the cost is too great for you to be ignorant of the facts, and the benefits to glorious to miss out on. I’m not just talking about heaven and hell here either, this incredible truth will revolutionise your life in the here and now too.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster

Some people will object at this point and say ”Well technically we can’t be sure that some other object like a Flying Spaghetti monster, a tooth fairy or Father Christmas doesn’t exist, therefore given that we can only be agnostic on these issues (even though in reality we know that they are extremely unlikely to exist) we should put God in this same box.”

This may sound plausible enough as a rational argument, but upon closer inspection it falls apart because it presumes that there is no evidence for God in the same way in which there is no evidence for a flying spaghetti monster.

On this site you will find a more in depth analysis of some of these points, but I will briefly outline some of the ‘footprints’ of there being a God which we can go and investigate. Here I will summarise the points of the arguments briefly:

1.    A Created Order

Whether we like it or not, the world sure looks as if it has been created by an intelligent designer. The universe had a beginning, whether you want to call this a big bang or not, things of this grandeur do not begin by themselves, they have a creator behind them.

http://reason.cck.org.uk/who-made-god/

http://reason.cck.org.uk/hasnt-the-theory-of-evolution-shown-the-bible-to-be-false/

2.    Fine-Tuning of the universe

The World has been made in such a way that it is incredibly fine-tuned, and if several scientific constant’s where very slightly different, we would not exist at all.

http://reason.cck.org.uk/how-does-modern-science-show-that-there-is-a-god/

3.    Scientific Investigation

Because there is a God, there is a law-giver and because of this as scientists we are able to assume that the world has order to investigate. Without this assumption of order, we would have no basis for believing that there was an ordered universe for us to investigate. Everything would be chaos.

John C Lennox – Has Science buried God?

4.    Meaning in Life

If there is no God, then ultimately there is no point for us being here, except to do whatever we like. One day it will all be forgotten anyway, and so we may as well ‘eat, drink, for tomorrow we die’. If you’re not having a good time, then why not just end it now? Yet, we know that there is meaning to our existence, which comes ultimately from our creator.

http://reason.cck.org.uk/is-life-without-god-meaningless/

http://www.bethinking.org/right-wrong/intermediate/the-practical-impossibility-of-atheism-in-the-meaning-value-and-purpose-of-life.htm

5.    The existence of Morality

If there is no God, then there is no objective morality either. We need someone to provide a standard of what is right and wrong or we just do whatever we like, and as society norms change so will our sense of what is right and wrong. At its worst this becomes, if it feels right then do it.

http://reason.cck.org.uk/can-morality-exist-without-god/

6.    Jesus Christ’s Life & Resurrection.

The greatest evidence for me that God exists is that around 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ lived on Planet Earth as a man. He went around doing incredible miracles and giving remarkable teaching. However, the pinnacle of his work was actually completed in his death and resurrection as he took upon himself the sin of the world, and then on the third day rose again. Dead men don’t rise…and the evidence points so strongly that Jesus did. How? Christians believe that he was raised by the power of God (1 Cor 6:14).

http://reason.cck.org.uk/tag/resurrection/

http://bethinking.org/resurrection-miracles/intermediate/the-resurrection.htm

To some of you reading this, this will sound fanciful…but I invite you not to take my word for it, but to look into it yourself.

Conclusion:

So does God exist? It’s a big deal for sure, and one which could potentially change your life forever depending on what you find out. If you consider yourself an atheist or agnostic then do not close off your heart. Before you start your investigation, why not ask God to reveal himself to you if he exists. For all the intellectual questions we have (which are totally viable) the bible says that it is a decision of the heart to not pursue God (Psalm 40:1), so I invite you to ask God to show himself to you as you look into these matters.

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