“So comprehensive and pervasive is the resurrection of Jesus that, historically speaking, the onus is on the skeptic to overturn it.”[1]
– Historian Paul W. Barnett
This article is the second in a series of 5 facts that nearly every historian accepts as true, including atheist and non-Christian ones! These facts are:
(1) Jesus died by crucifixion
(2) Jesus’ followers believed he rose and appeared to them
(3) Sudden Change in Church persecutor Paul
(4) Sudden Change in skeptic James
(5) Empty tomb discovered
You may have heard of these labeled as the minimal facts argument which Gary Habermas champions. While attending Liberty University where Habermas taught, I had the privilege of hearing him give an extensive lecture series on the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. I would like to share some of these facts while incorporating the insight of several other world-renowned historians who also accept these historical facts as true.
In my first article, I’ve already established that:
- Jesus was a real historical person.
- External (nonbiblical) historical sources confirm that Jesus was crucified.
- The gospels, and New Testament as a whole, are historically reliable.
- Universal agreement among historians that Jesus was crucified and died.
This article will cover historical fact 2: Jesus’ disciples believed he rose and appeared to them.
What Are Our Sources?
The disciples claimed that they had seen the risen Jesus, but how do we know this? What are our sources for these claims? How do we know they actually saw him? What kind of historical remnants are left that we can evaluate today?
There are several independent and early sources which Gary Habermas categorizes in 3 groups: (1) Paul’s testimony about the disciples; (2) oral tradition from the early church; (3) written works of the early church.[2] I will not cover all of the sources contained in these categories due to limited space, but I will briefly review the primary groups.
(1) Paul’s Testimony About Disciples
After Paul converted to Christianity, he met with some of the apostles and personally spent time with Peter and James, establishing their claims of seeing the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:10-11). Remember, Paul’s letters are evaluated as historical documents, independent from the gospels, and not held as inspired Scripture by historians. This is why they are used to corroborate the accuracy of the events recorded in the gospels.
Renowned historian E. P. Sanders says that
“Paul’s letters were written before the gospels. On the other hand, his letters were collected and published after the gospels were written; thus Paul did not know the gospels, and the authors of the gospels did not know Paul’s letters.”[3]
The majority of scholars agree that Paul started writing his letters within the first 15-20 years after Jesus’ crucifixion. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul references an early creed (statement of faith) that was already in circulation before he wrote his letter. This oral tradition had been developed by the apostles which reference the sightings of the risen Jesus. So, within the earliest writings of Christianity, we have even earlier evidence of the resurrection contained in oral tradition.
(2) Oral Tradition
Because most people were illiterate in the ancient world, and obviously couldn’t reach for their phones to start recording discussions, a different yet common method was used in remembering details of events. These unique sentence structures–hymns, creeds, poetry, and short stories, made it easy to memorize in order to pass on to others.
Anthropologists have studied similar oral traditions in other cultures across the world to get a better understanding of how the ancients might have developed their techniques. Historian Richard Horsley explains that in the ancient world,
“Ordinary people had no need of writing in the cultivation of their own customs, stories, prayers, songs, ceremonies, and rituals, all of which were oral and deeply ingrained in memory.”[4]
Today, we struggle to memorize a simple telephone number, but in ancient history, committing things to memory was a daily part of life. It was not difficult to construct major statements of faith containing extremely important events that were easy to remember.
Skeptics like to insist that stories cannot be accurately passed on because they take on too many false details. They typically point to the game telephone to prove it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that objection! While this may be true concerning insignificant details within an extremely large narrative, it doesn’t appear to hold up regarding the primary details of a monumental event.
Most of us today can recall the tragic events from the Islamic terrorist attack that occurred on September 11, 2001 when two airplanes flew into the World Trade Center in New York City killing thousands of people (or consider the sinking of the Titanic). Look how easy it is to retell the primary details of these past events.
2,000 years from now, some details of the story can certainly evolve, such as, the floor levels in which the planes hit, or the exact number of passengers killed, or what color the planes were, or the exact number of people killed; regardless, the primary facts will not be lost, and the event left its mark on history forever.
This would still be the case even if we didn’t have video footage, because the video evidence we do have has already been denied as authentic by many, claiming it was a government hoax! If we already have thousands of people denying the reports of a major event that only happened 20 years ago, what makes us believe that people wouldn’t deny reports concerning an event 2,000 years ago??
Concerning some of the differences noted in the resurrection accounts as seen in the gospels which are also based on oral tradition, Distinguished Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne reminds us that “the differences are certainly not substantial enough to cast doubt on the basic story.”[5] So, I believe the skeptics objections fail here concerning the unreliability of the reports due to any differences we see in the story.
1 Corinthians 15: Early Creed
Scholars have identified oral traditions, which developed prior to the New Testament, written down in the New Testament.[6] This is the very early creed I referenced earlier in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church. This creed which has been unanimously recognized by historians, shows that Christians believed Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples before Paul wrote it in his letter, stating, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5, ESV).[7]
Many historians, including the atheist and skeptical ones (Gerd Lüdemann, Robert Funk, Michael Goulder), have dated this creed to within 2-3 years of Jesus’ crucifixion. Other historians have dated it to within months of the crucifixion! Eminent historian N. T. Wright says that
“It was probably formulated within the first two or three years after Easter itself, since it was already in formulaic form when Paul ‘received’ it.”[8]
This means there wasn’t enough time for a legend to develop which normally takes several generations. New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg explains that if there were a significant gap of 100-200 years from the time of Jesus’ crucifixion to when the resurrection started being discussed, then we should consider the possibility that those later writers missed something concerning the initial first-century events; however, he notes,
“Instead, we have an unbroken tradition of reflection on the meaning of the resurrection from the pre-Pauline confession of faith in 1 Corinthians 15, most likely composed no later than a year or two after Jesus’ death, all the way through to the twenty-first century today.”[9]
This creed also says that there were 500 witnesses of the risen Jesus (1 Cor. 15:7). Cambridge historian Richard Bauckham emphasizes that as Paul writes to the church at Corinth, Paul references that many of the eyewitnesses are still alive, which means that if anyone doubts what he is saying, they can go and speak to the eyewitnesses themselves.[10]
Distinguished biblical scholar John Granger Cook, who does not believe in the resurrection, says that “there is evidence for belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (e.g., 1 Cor 15:1-8).”[11] Based on this very early oral tradition and the evidence, Cook understands why there have been people throughout history believing that Jesus was resurrected.
Dean Overman reminds us that this early creed does not contradict any of the traditional gospel accounts, and that “they offer corroborative evidence of the description of Jesus consistent with the substance of writings we know as Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John.”[12]
(3) Written Tradition
The four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are an excellent historical source showing that the disciple’s believed Jesus was risen and appeared to them. Historical manuscript expert Peter Williams says that
“It is widely agreed that the four Gospels are the earliest extended accounts of Jesus’s life and teaching.”[13]
So, the gospels, along with the writings of early church leaders, Clement and Polycarp–who mention the disciples’ claims concerning the risen Jesus–provide us additional independent sources.[14]
Theologians Paul Rhodes Eddy and Greg Boyd rightly point out that historians who are overly skeptical toward the gospels are not justified in their approach, noting that
“A wide range of scholars have argued precisely the opposite—that the burden of proof should remain on those who claim that any given portion of the Gospels is not reliable.”[15]
There’s just no reason to dismiss the historical data based on the presence of miracle claims.
Distinguished historian James D.G. Dunn says that we can uncover the historical Jesus and what occurred precisely because of these gospels, noting,
“There is no credible ‘historical Jesus’ behind the Gospel portrayal different from the characteristic Jesus of the Synoptic tradition…But this assuredly is the historical Jesus that the Christian wants to encounter. And should the scholar and historian be content with anything less?”[16]
Concerning the historical reliability behind the gospel appearance stories of the risen Jesus, theologian William Lane Craig explains that
(1) there wasn’t enough time for legends to develop between the event itself and the formulation of the gospels
(2) the disciples and living eyewitnesses mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 would be present in the early community exercising control over the appearance traditions
(3) the presence of the apostle’s and their authority would naturally guard the appearance traditions, preventing new fictitious appearance stories to circulate with any real credibility.[17]
Wright adds that “the four canonical resurrection accounts…almost certainly go back to oral traditions which provide the answer to the question of the origin and shaping of Christianity.”[18]
They Sincerely Believed Jesus Was Risen
Now, obviously, just because the disciples claimed Jesus was risen, doesn’t mean Jesus was actually risen; however, it does prove that they sincerely believed Jesus was risen and that he appeared to them. People may die for something that isn’t true, but people don’t die for what they know is not true; in other words, the disciples weren’t lying and didn’t invent the story.
It is clear that a drastic transformation occurred in these men. For example, at the time of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, the disciples clearly displayed cowardice by denying and abandoning Jesus, but after seeing him risen, they were willing to endure intense persecution and death while receiving nothing in return. Theologian Gerald O’Collins notes,
“Peter, Paul, and other apostolic witnesses who meet the risen Christ are understood to have the mission of testifying to that experience and founding the Church. These witnesses have seen for themselves and believed.”[19]
This was the driving force that led the disciples to forsake everything. Seeing the risen Jesus and realizing that this was their Messiah completely transformed their character. However, as any normal person, they were hesitant at first to accept that Jesus was alive and well after his unexpected and humiliating death on the cross.
Inevitably, you’ll hear a lot of skeptics say that the ancient world was filled with gullible and superstitious people, so you can’t trust their testimonies. But it’s a fallacy to take certain examples of ignorant people groups (as we still are today in many ways) based on a primitive understanding of how certain aspects of nature works, and universally apply that to all facets of their daily experience. Ignorance of modern science does not equate to everyone in the ancient world being stupid. The disciples knew that dead people stayed that way.
New Testament scholars Darrell Bock and Benjamin Simpson note,
“The appearances are met with both worship and doubt. All the Gospels note how difficult it was for the disciples to accept that Jesus was raised. It was not an ‘automatic’ response of faith. These ancients acted much like modern people in their hesitation.”[20]
Hence the title, Doubting Thomas, who had to see to believe (John 20:25). And don’t forget that when Jesus appeared to his disciples, they were terrified and doubted because they thought he was a disembodied spirit, leading Jesus to prove he was physically there as a glorified body (Luke 24:36-40). O’Collins adds, “Instead of persuading themselves into thinking that they saw him, they had to be persuaded that he was gloriously alive again.”[21]
Although his disciples initially believed he was a spirit, Jesus makes it unquestionable that he is bodily risen by having them physically touch him. Jesus even consumed tangible substance—he ate some dinner with them! (v 40-43). Recall, the Jewish context here is one that believed in bodily resurrections, not disembodied spirits, which they soon came to accept concerning Jesus’ physical body that interacted with them. Notable historian Craig Evans also agrees, saying, “For them [Jews] resurrection involved the body and not simply a spirit.”[22]
Their timidity gradually dissolved while unwavering courage eventually emerged, leading them to proclaim the risen Jesus to everyone they could, no matter the cost. Distinguished New Testament scholar Michael Bird says,
“Though his earliest followers should have been convinced by an ignominious death that Jesus was a false prophet and pseudo-messiah, they quickly came to the conviction that he was not only the Messiah, but was more than the Messiah and was now to be identified with the Lord in some way.”[23]
Prominent Jewish (non-Christian) historian Paula Fredricksen said this about the disciples believing they saw the risen Jesus, declaring,
“I know in their own terms what they saw was the raised Jesus. That’s what they say, and then all the historic evidence we have afterwards attest to their conviction that that’s what they saw. I’m not saying that they really did see the raised Jesus. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what they saw. But I do know that as a historian that they must have seen something.”[24]
This is quite the admission from a respected scholar who does not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Historian E. P. Sanders says,
“That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgement, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know.”[25]
Eminent historian Larry Hurtado says,
“One thing can be stated with confidence. Shortly after Jesus’ execution, at least some of his followers became convinced that he had been delivered by God from the hold of death.”[26]
Princeton New Testament scholar Dale Allison says,
“I am sure that the disciples saw Jesus after his death.”[27]
Historian Michael Licona explains that the disciples sincerely believed Jesus had appeared to them and that they suffered persecution and some martyrdom, saying that “the strength of their conviction indicates they were not just claiming that Jesus had appeared to them after rising from the dead. They really believed it. They willingly endangered themselves by publicly proclaiming the risen Christ.”[28]
The book of Acts is another independent source attesting to numerous accounts of the disciples experiencing persecution for declaring that Jesus had risen (Acts 4:3; 5:18; 12:2-4; 14:22). Additional nonbiblical sources also say the disciples suffered and some died as found in the writings of Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, Tertullian, Origen and Dionysius of Corinth.[29]
Professor Sean McDowell’s entire PhD dissertation was on the fate of the apostles, saying that “we do have reliable historical evidence to trust the ancient and uniform testimony that (1) all the apostles were willing to die for their faith, and (2) a number of them actually did experience martyrdom.”[30]
So, to reiterate, being a martyr doesn’t make what you believe to be true, actually true; however, it shows that one is convinced that what they believe is true. Although we’ve seen religious groups today willingly die for what is not true, such as Muslim extremists who flew planes into the World Trade Center, these people died for traditions passed on to them. The disciples are a different example because they were the direct witnesses themselves who started the tradition.[31]
If you saw something that you believed to be true, would you be willing to die for it? Some people believe they have seen Bigfoot, but they would never be willing to hold to that belief if it meant losing everything they owned, suffering in agonizing ways and dying because of it. I think we would all be quick to second guess the reliability of our vision and most likely attribute what we saw to a natural explanation of some kind, rather than experience martyrdom.
And this is precisely what many non-Christian scholars believe. They think there is a naturalistic hypothesis that better explains the data than to believe the disciples actually encountered the bodily risen Jesus. And if God didn’t exist, then they would be absolutely correct in thinking this. If there is no God, then there is no resurrection. Unfortunately, I do not have room to cover the objections to those conclusions in this article.
But what we have covered clearly demonstrates that we have historical evidence that the disciples believed they had encountered the living physical body of Jesus after his death, and that nearly every scholar accept this as a historical fact—even the ones that don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.[32] That is remarkable and indicative that God does exist.
The next article will cover: Historical Fact 3: Sudden Change in Church Persecutor Paul. Thanks for reading. Be bold and share this!
Blessings,
Andrew Drinkard
[1] Paul W. Barnett, “Is the New Testament Historically Reliable,” ed, Steven B. Cowan and Terry L. Wilder. In Defense of the Bible: A Comprehensive Apologetic for the Authority of Scripture (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Academic, 2013), 250.
[2] Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2004), 51.
[3] E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin Books), 15. Kindle.
[4] Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2013), 19-20.
[5] Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 148.
[6] Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 52.
[7] Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages referenced are in the English Standard Version. This creed is accepted among scholars as stretching from v3b-8 with v6 as an addition by Paul to persuade others by the massive eyewitness account of the risen Jesus. Many scholars do accept 6a, but ultimately, as Dale Allison points out, we do not know if or what Paul modified in v6-7; see Resurrecting Jesus, 233-234. For an in-depth treatment, see Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians: Revisiting the Major Issues (2009), 230-241. O’Connor believes Paul slightly altered the traditional phrase of v7 and moved it as a transitional piece in order to emphasize the legitimacy of his authoritative apostolic position (2009), 236.
[8] N. T. Wright, Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 319.
[9] Carl Stecher and Craig L. Blomberg, Resurrection: Faith or Fact?: A Scholars’ Debate Between a Skeptic and a Christian (Chicago: Pitchstone Publishing, 2019) 150-151.
[10] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2017), 308.
[11] John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Apotheosis, Resurrection (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 3.
[12] Dean L. Overman, A Case for the Divinity of Jesus: Examining the Earliest Evidence (Blue Ridge Summit: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 7.
[13] Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Wheaton: Crossway Publishing, 2018), 32. Kindle.
[14] Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 52-55.
[15] Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007) 241.
[16] James D. G. Dunn, New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 47.
[17] William Lane Craig, Did Jesus Rise From the Dead?, in Moreland, J. P. Moreland, Zondervan, and Zondervan Staff. Jesus under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids: HarperCollins Christian Publishing, 1996), 124.
[18] Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 615.
[19] Gerald O’Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2009), 91.
[20] Darrell L. Bock, and Benjamin I. Simpson, Jesus According to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 393.
[21] O’Collins, Christology, 94.
[22] Michael F. Bird, Craig A. Evans, Simon Gathercole, Charles E. Hill and Chris Tilling, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature—A Response to Bart Ehrman (Grand Rapids: HarperCollins Christian Publishing, 2014), 92.
[23] Michael F. Bird, Are You the One Who Is to Come?: The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 123.
[24] Paula Fredricksen, “The Search for Jesus–Peter Jennings,” Faith Reason, January 23, 2011, accessed January 19, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIG007Zxqy8&list=PLD6FE5E6AE7F5266B&index=7https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DiIG007Zxqy8&list=PLD6FE5E6AE7F5266B&index=7.
[25] E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin Books), 305. Kindle.
[26] Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2015), 122.
[27] Dale C. Allison, Jr., Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York: Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, 2005), 346.
[28] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2010), 366.
[29] Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 366; Habermas and Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 56-60.
[30] Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2015), 2.
[31] Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 370.
[32] Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 372.
