Did Jesus really rise again from the dead? (part 2)
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.
