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WillowOne's Positions

Historical evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus

Form

The "minimal facts" argument (Gary Habermas, Michael Licona; used by William Lane Craig):

  1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
  2. His tomb was found empty.
  3. His disciples sincerely believed they saw him alive afterwards.
  4. Paul, a persecutor, and James, a sceptic, converted after experiences of the risen Jesus.
  5. The best explanation of these facts is that Jesus rose from the dead.
  6. Therefore the Resurrection occurred, and Christianity is true.

My Positions

  1. A true resurrection is a miracle, and I hold that no miracle has ever been verified (see Argument from Miracles). David Hume's standard applies: the testimony would need to be such that its falsehood was more miraculous than the event. Fourth-hand anonymous reports written decades later do not approach that standard.
  2. The "facts" are not established. Only the first is accepted by most historians. The empty tomb appears first in Mark, written forty years later; Paul, our earliest source, never mentions it. That the disciples "believed they saw" Jesus is a claim about their psychology that the texts assert but cannot demonstrate. The conversions of Paul and James are reported only by Christian sources with an interest in reporting them.
  3. Even granting all the "facts", resurrection is not the best explanation. It is the worst, because it has the lowest prior probability of any explanation on offer. Hallucination, grief visions (which are common and well-documented among the bereaved), legendary development, mistaken tomb, body removal, and plain invention are all mundane, all attested in other religious movements, and all more probable than a corpse reanimating. The apologist must argue that every naturalistic explanation is impossible, and none of them is.
  4. The argument depends on the Historical Reliability of the New Testament, which I do not accept. The resurrection accounts are the least consistent part of the gospels: they disagree on who went to the tomb, whether there was one angel or two, whether the disciples were told to go to Galilee or to stay in Jerusalem, and whether Jesus appeared to them in one place or the other. The earliest manuscripts of Mark end at 16:8 with no appearances at all.
  5. "The disciples would not have died for a lie" is a common supporting claim, but it is false on two counts. First, we have no reliable record of how most of the disciples died. Second, people die for sincerely held false beliefs constantly; sincerity is evidence of belief, not of truth. The 9/11 hijackers died for theirs (see Atheism).
  6. The argument, if it worked, would equally establish the resurrection claims of other traditions, and the apologist would not accept those. The standard of evidence is being adjusted to fit the desired conclusion.

Also see