Program 5: Twelve Historical Facts that Present a Solid Foundational Basis for Believing that Jesus Lived, Claimed to be Deity, Died on a Cross, and Rose Again

Introduction

Dr. John Ankerberg: The search for the historical Jesus is a hot topic in both popular and academic circles today and has drawn a lot of attention from national magazines, such as Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. Further, the media has given an undue amount of attention to the outlandish statements of the Jesus Seminar, a self-selected liberal group representing a very small percentage of New Testament scholarship. Today we will address the questions surrounding the debate over the historical Jesus and show there are a significant number of historical facts about Jesus in secular and non-New Testament sources which prove that the Jesus of history is the same Jesus of the Christian faith.

My guest is world-class philosopher Dr. Gary Habermas, author of the book, The Historical Jesus and about twenty other volumes. He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Dr. Habermas is chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty University and has written more than 100 articles, mostly on the life of Jesus, which have appeared in scholarly journals and elsewhere. Join us for this edition of The John Ankerberg Show and learn why Jesus is one of the most historically verified lives of ancient times.

Ankerberg: A popular falsehood being promoted by the tiny percentage of liberal scholars in the Jesus Seminar, is that there is very little historical evidence available to provide a strong basis for traditional Christian beliefs about Jesus. But last week Dr.

Gary Habermas listed 12 historical facts about Jesus’ life that are accepted by virtually all critical scholars and showed that the Jesus Seminar is mistaken. Today we will examine the significance of those facts. My guest, Dr. Gary Habermas, was confronted by these very facts when he was a student at Michigan State University working on his Ph.D., and they served to correct his skepticism. He talks about the persuasiveness of these facts. Listen:

Habermas: In the last program we ended with a list of about a half-dozen “Minimal Historical Facts,” reduced from the original twelve. Based on the specifics that support these facts, we can argue that Jesus died and that he appeared to his followers after his death. On the other hand, naturalistic hypotheses cannot explain these same historical facts.

Perhaps I could begin with an autobiographical note here, which might be helpful. The process of arriving at these historical facts was quite crucial in my own life. I spent 10 years in a skeptical frame of mind, followed by more intermittent years of questioning beyond that. I argued with Christians, actually debating with about anyone who claimed to be sure about their religious views. It might be a Jehovah’s Witness, a Mormon, a Christian Scientist, but more often my aim was taken at those who held orthodox Christian beliefs. I repeatedly questioned these factual foundations. My repeated mantra was, “You don’t have facts to back that up. That’s in the gospels. You don’t have data for this . . . and you don’t have data for that.” But I had further ways yet to go down the skeptical path. At one point, I realized that I was very close to embracing Buddhism.

Once a college student who was a Christian heard that I didn’t believe in the inspiration of the Bible. He asked me if that were indeed true. I will always remember his immediate response. When I told him what he had heard was accurate, he retorted, “Man, you have seven demons in you!” Then he spun around and walked away abruptly!

All my graduate studies were taken in liberal or secular institutions. For years I wondered if there was a solid enough basis for religious belief—if there was much of a foundation beyond that of faith alone, as I suspected might be about the only approach possible. I studied various sides of the key issues, different philosophies, “holy books,” and religious traditions. While the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection seemed pretty impressive for a miracle-claim, I often wondered why I could not seem to get over my doubts on the subject.

So the study of the Minimal Facts began for me as a private project. It was certainly not for the purposes of public proclamation. I repeatedly conjectured how much of the New Testament claims could be sustained apart from the belief in some notion of inspiration, which I did not allow as a response. If we could only believe what was well-evidenced, then what remained?

After several reductions of what we could know as historical events, I arrived at a shortened list of about a dozen facts. Could these events alone answer the objections to the naturalistic theories that challenged the belief that Christ had been raised from the dead? I kept narrowing the list until I arrived at the half-dozen or so facts that I now use, events which I concluded were solid. This was the initial birth of the Minimal Facts Argument for Jesus’ resurrection, although much honing was yet to take place. But it was originally designed as a personal study to answer my own questions.

Basically, I’m employing the critical method roughly the way that contemporary scholars do, treating the material similarly, and asking, even if the Bible is no more than a book of ancient literature, what can still be ascertained? After all, it cannot be less than that--it’s ancient, it’s got pages, and there’s words on the pages! That’s pretty basic! But if by treating the New Testament as a volume of ancient literature we can still arrive at these “Core”26 or “Minimal Facts,” as I now call them, I realized that this was quite significant. If on this basis alone, the naturalistic theories can be refuted and the strongest arguments that Jesus was raised from the dead still remained, then they were worth their weight in gold.

Ankerberg: Next, we are going to examine further some of the 12 facts. First, did Jesus actually die on a cross? In the Qur’an, Islam claims that Jesus did not die on the cross; something else happened. Further, naturalistic scholars claim that Jesus did not die on the cross, rather he just fainted or swooned. Now, the problem with these theories is that the historical facts of Jesus’ death will not allow such interpretations. Dr. Gary Habermas explains why. Listen:

Habermas: The very first fact on this list is that Jesus died. Why do scholars in these areas so rarely question the death of Jesus today? Why do some of the co-founders of the Jesus Seminar, for example, highly influential scholars such as Marcus Borg27 and John Dominic Crossan,28 both assert that the fact that Jesus died by crucifixion is the surest fact that we have from his career? Because the data are so strong.

Now, what is some of the backup for this fact? We’ll give several responses here.

(1) To start, the majority medical view is still that death by crucifixion is essentially death by asphyxiation. When someone hangs on a cross and the weight of his body pulls down on the intercostal, pectoral, and deltoid muscles around the lungs, the body reaches a state where the weight drags down on them and it is increasingly impossible to exhale.

Actually in the 1950s, an experiment was performed in Germany by a medical doctor, where male volunteers were tied to and suspended from 2-x-4s. These males lost consciousness in a maximum of 12 minutes. Now, on the cross they could push up, in this case on the nails. When the victim pushed up to relieve those chest muscles, they could breathe more easily. But when they could not stay up there for long and slumped down again, when they were down in the low position on the cross, they began asphyxiating all over again. So, a Roman soldier at the cross did not have to have a medical degree. If the victim was hanging low on the cross for any amount of time, let’s say 30 minutes, then he’s dead.

(2) Further, we’re told in the literature that additional death blows were often administered to crucifixion victims in order to insure their deaths. But when they saw that Jesus was already dead (probably because he had been hanging in the low position for some time), we are told that they stabbed him in the chest, from which blood and water flowed out. By far the most common medical view on the blood and water is that the pericardial sac around the heart (“water”) plus the heart (the blood) had been pierced, insuring death. The act of such a final coup de grace is confirmed from extra-biblical, non-Christian accounts, including this very act of piercing the chest in order to confirm death.

In the ancient crucifixion accounts, there are a number of accounts of a coup de grace, a crushing blow, that’s done at the end of crucifixion to end the execution. We have an account of a man whose skull was crushed to finish the process; another man was threatened with a bow and arrow. As mentioned, we have other cases besides Jesus’ where the victim was stabbed in order to make sure that he was dead. Then there’s what’s known as crucifragium in Latin, the breaking of the ankles so the person cannot push back up again, causing final asphyxiation. In all of these cases, the executioner is basically showing everyone that this person is not walking away alive during his watch.

So the first two reasons include asphyxiation from hanging low on the cross, which cannot be faked. The second is the soldier’s deathblow, which in Jesus’ case consisted of the spear wound into the chest and heart. In a medical article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association some 15 years ago, the decision was that Jesus’ death resulted primarily from asphyxiation. The researchers included a Mayo Clinic pathologist, and they confirmed that the spear entered Jesus’ heart.

Again, the water came from the pericardial sac surrounding the heart and the blood from the heart itself. The conclusion was that the blow insured that Jesus had already died.29

(3) Now, a little more gore comes from a condition popularly called “sucking chest.” It’s a very well-known medical phenomenon and it occurs when someone is stabbed or otherwise pierced through the upper thoracic area. In a living person, this action produces a sucking sound from that wound. Such a sound sounds exactly as if the victim is still breathing, though that is not exactly what is happening in such a case. A hunter told me just today that when he shot a deer once through the chest, he walked up to it and heard such a noise. So, naturally, he shot the animal once again to make sure and the noise stopped, because the animal died. The point here is that such a response would be a normal action to insure death—just as would have been the case with Jesus and the soldiers. If Jesus was stabbed in the chest and he were still alive, the sucking chest syndrome would cause another finishing blow.

These are some of the reasons for holding that crucifixion was lethal and included built-in checks and balances for assurance. The medical nature of asphyxiation, the heart wound, and potentially the sucking chest condition are all very serious objections.

However, none of these responses was the chief reason for the failure of the swoon theory, as it lost its popularity back in the days of Nineteenth Century German Liberalism. Borg, Crossan, and the JAMA article, plus the vast majority of critical scholars today, all attest to its failure. But back in 1864, a German Liberal scholar named David Strauss updated his earlier Life of Jesus. Strauss was so liberal that he had been dismissed from the leading liberal German university at that time, Tübingen. He was pensioned off for life because of his highly critical views. Yet, his infamous critique of the apparent death hypothesis remains even at present the most influential reason for dismissing this hypothesis which, by the way, was the most popular natural theory up until about 1835.

Expanding his thoughts, here’s what Strauss asserted: The main problem with the swoon theory is the logic as much or more than it was the medical issues. It’s basically self-contradictory. Let’s check out his reasons: Jesus should have died on the cross, but he did not. Don’t worry about it. He should have died in the tomb without medical help. No problem. Assuming a burial in a tomb, he couldn’t have rolled the stone away in his physical condition. That took several men, and he’d be rolling the stone uphill out of the little gully in front of the tomb in his severely weakened condition. But don’t bother--he rolled the stone away anyway. How far did he walk? I don’t know, perhaps he traveled a quarter of a mile, at least, to where the disciples were hiding, walking on feet that were pierced by nails for hours.

As Strauss pointed out, these are not the main issues. The chief problem with postulating that Jesus didn’t die by crucifixion occurs when Jesus arrives at the residence where the disciples were staying and knocks on the door. What are his followers going to see? What will Jesus look like? He’s pale. He’s sweating. The side wound has opened up again and he is bleeding. He’s hunched over, limping severely, and clearly in much pain. He has not even washed his hair—sweat and blood are caked in it. Then he delivers his surprise message, rather haltingly: “Fellows . . . I told you . . . that I would . . . rise again from the dead.”

What happens next? Jesus is alive, for sure. But was he raised in a new body? Decidedly, No! Peter might start barking out orders: “Someone get the Lord a chair. Andrew, go get some warm water and a cloth—these wounds must be cleaned immediately. John, go get the doctor and tell him it’s an emergency.” His disciples would probably even exclaim, “Thank the Lord, he has been spared,” or perhaps just simply, “He’s alive!” But they wouldn’t say, “Thank the Lord, he’s been raised from the dead in a new body!” That’s precisely what the term “resurrection” meant. So don’t expect to see Phillip over in the corner saying, as the New Testament teaches often, “Oh boy! Someday I’m going to have a new resurrection body just like Jesus’ body!” No thanks--I think I will keep the body I have right now!

Now, this is precisely Strauss’ point. The swoon theory teaches something that we often miss here: Jesus would be alive, indeed, for at least a little while, but he most certainly would not be raised from the dead! That’s quite clear. So what’s the main problem here? If the disciples didn’t at least believe that he was raised, they would have no cause to teach the New Testament message of the Good News of the gospel message! Hence, even as Paul states, there would be no church, no cause even for preaching, no forgiveness, no eternal hope in Jesus. The disciples would at the very least have to believe that Jesus had been raised. The swoon theory doesn’t even give us that truth—in fact, it is diametrically opposed to it! So it cannot even get off the ground in the first place.

(4) Lastly, we have many multiple and independent historical sources for Jesus’ death by crucifixion—at least a dozen. It is the most-reported event from non- New Testament sources, including well-known non-Christian historians such as Josephus, Tacitus, the Syrian Lucian, along with others.

In conclusion, asphyxiation, the heart wound, sucking chest, Strauss’ critique in particular, and a wealth of independent historical sources is more than we need. But other problems remain for this theory, too.

(5) What do critics due with Paul’s conversion, specifically on this view? (7) How do they explain James’ conversion?

How were these two apostles convinced to join the early church crowd here, given this response? The conclusion assuredly is that Jesus died on the cross due to Roman crucifixion.

Ankerberg: Now, I also asked Dr. Habermas to say a word about Hugh Schonfeld’s book, The Passover Plot, which claims Jesus was given drugs while on the cross and just appeared to die. Here’s Dr. Habermas’ response:

Habermas: Now, what happens when we apply this critique of the apparent death theory to a book like the 1965 bestseller, The Passover Plot? The author suggested that Jesus did not die on the cross. By the way, a lot of people don’t remember this, but Schonfield remarked that this view was only a suggestion—he did not assert that this really had to be what happened. In fact, he considers and even notes other possible but natural hypotheses of what may have occurred!30

But Schonfield favored the view that Jesus may not have died on the cross. Well, his view would have to explain all of the historical and medical hurdles just mentioned here—asphyxiation, the heart wound (which he seems to accept, even stating that it would make Jesus’ chances for survival “very slender”!31). What about the sucking chest? But most of all, he would have to explain Strauss’ famous critique. And then there are still all the many independent, even non-Christian historical sources that oppose his view.

So as one might expect, the swoon theory of The Passover Plot sold many copies, but it was largely ignored even by critical scholars. In fact, it appeared in critiques by scholars who basically wanted to distance themselves from such writings, reminding their readers that we cannot rule out material in this manner.32

In fact, after David Strauss’ critique in 1864, Albert Schweitzer’s famous book on The Quest of the Historical Jesus lists no scholars who came up with the swoon theory after 1840. Historically speaking, if you pardon the pun, Strauss’ critique killed the swoon theory.

Ankerberg: Dr. Gary Habermas is laying out 12 historical facts that are accepted by virtually all critical scholars today. The importance of these 12 facts is that they form a solid historical foundation for traditional Christian beliefs about Jesus, they repudiate the Jesus Seminar, and shoot down all naturalistic explanations which have attempted to explain away Jesus’ resurrection. The next fact we’re going to look at is that Jesus was buried. Why is that so important? Listen:

Habermas: For the Christian believer for whom the death and resurrection of Jesus are crucially important, as Paul mentions its being “of first importance,” where do we go next? Jesus died on the cross, as many non-Christian writings attest, including, apparently, the Jewish Talmud. And then we’re told, “He was buried.” Now, this is often not questioned--it’s a pretty normal event: people who die get buried. But what facts do we have at our disposal in favor of the burial accounts, as we learn of them in the New Testament?

(1) Although today critics are not so inclined to take the gospels as well as they accept at least Paul’s “uncontested” epistles, let’s begin with the comment that just because a critic doesn’t necessarily like the gospels, that does not somehow whisk or otherwise automatically explain them away.

(2) Although other suggestions besides Joseph’s tomb have been favored by some scholars as Jesus’ resting place, where is the actual evidence that Jesus was buried somewhere else? That’s the key. Where are the facts indicating that he was buried in another location? I’m not so much asking for potential options here (“Maybe this . . . , perhaps that . . . .”), but where is the actual evidence that another scenario is precisely what happened to Jesus? Let’s ask the critical scholar the same question in reverse that they request of Christians: where’s your data to show that Jesus wasn’t buried just like the gospels stated?

(3) All four gospels agree both regarding the tomb where Jesus was buried, as well as its being empty. A lot of scholars have also made the point that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were not exactly household names in the early church to mention in these burial accounts unless they were the fellows who actually buried Jesus. Why dredge up these names out of obscurity if so little mileage is gained from the exercise, especially if they weren’t really the people anyway? It makes more sense that they were the ones who actually performed the burial process.

(4) Continuing, we have a few exceptionally early texts that we’ve mentioned before, such as 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, which is probably the earliest and declares the conclusion clearly that Jesus’ was buried. The pre-Pauline creed repeats that, “He died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised again the third day, and that he appeared.” [1 Cor. 15:3-5] Now, what follows from that sequence in this very early, pre-Pauline text? If somebody is dead, then buried, then raised, and then appeared, the strong implication is that the one who went down in burial is the same one who came up in order to appear. Paul does not doubt that there was a burial, but he’s going to go further than that to the empty tomb. But if we stop precisely at the burial, that’s some very specific, early evidence.

(5) Another early consideration is drawn from the early sermon summaries such as Acts 2:29-32 (which is Petrine) and Acts 13:29 (which is Pauline), both of which contrast the corruption that occurred to David’s body with what did not happen to Jesus’ body after his burial. As I mentioned above, critical scholars often grant that these summaries contain the abbreviated theology that marks them as early preaching synopses, and here they teach a burial in a verifiable location.

We might list briefly several other pointers to the traditional accounts of Jesus’ burial, like

(6) Jerusalem being the very last place that any Christian should ever want to publically proclaim Jesus’ burial if he had not been buried there. It was the only location in the ancient world where the claim could so readily be refuted, perhaps after a walk of just an hour or so. Thus, the city of Jerusalem is a horrible place to preach if Jesus actually had not been interred there.

(7) It was quite likely that the Jewish leaders would be concerned about not losing track of Jesus’ body, both since they had tried for such a long time to silence him and because losing his body would be too close to the disciples gaining a step up in being able to proclaim that he had been raised from the dead. Besides, the Jewish polemic that the disciples stole Jesus’ dead body (Matt. 28:11-14) supports both their profound interest in the question, as well as their acknowledging the traditional place of his burial!

(8) If the Roman soldiers were the ones who had buried his body, they could hardly have forgotten where anyone at all was buried in the space of just a few days, let alone someone of Jesus’ stature. Besides, Pilate might have asked them for the details, especially given his questioning the centurion regarding the truth of Jesus’ death (Mk. 15:44-45).

(9) Perhaps even most recent scholars maintain the likelihood that Mark employed an earlier source for his passion and burial accounts. This source would itself confirm further Joseph’s traditional burial site.

(10) Although the women witnesses are usually considered to be the best evidence for the empty tomb, their trip to the stone sepulcher with spices to finish the burial process strongly supports the traditional burial. There was no question in their minds that they were going to the right burial cave.

So there are some early creedal/sermonic texts that record Jesus’ burial. We’ve got the unanimous gospel testimony, plus the likely pre-Markan source as further attestation. Both the location of Jerusalem and the female testimony, plus several additional arguments, all support the traditional account of Jesus’ burial taught by the gospels. Especially when we consider that no actual evidence places Jesus’ body elsewhere, these are very strong considerations favoring Jesus’ burial in Joseph of Arimathea’s private family burial cave.

Ankerberg: The next fact we want to look at is the empty tomb. This, too, is a fact of history and it leads to the question: What happened to Jesus’ body? Dr. Habermas explains:

Habermas: Okay, then, let’s move on to the next step. Jesus died. He was buried. Afterwards, what happened in that tomb? Well, the Christian account is that he was raised from the dead, but in-between his burial and his resurrection, he left an empty tomb behind. Are there any reasons to believe that?

I think that the first point to be made here is that the burial and empty tomb accounts are almost always flip sides of the same coin. Thus, all ten of the arguments just enumerated above, except for (8) regarding the Roman soldiers, extend the traditional burial accounts in the tomb belonging to Joseph to that same sepulcher being empty very quickly afterwards. However, we will employ a different order that the list we just gave above.

(1-3) Again, the initial set of three points above concerned all four gospels recording their accounts that Jesus’ burial tomb was discovered to be empty. This point of multiple source attestation is a strong one. On the other hand, no specific sources claim that Jesus’ body was actually buried elsewhere. The gospel testimony here needs to be disproven in order for it not to count. Only fairly radical to radical critical scholars would tend to avoid the gospels most of the time. Moderate scholars, for example, use gospel passages carefully, but fairly widely. The traditional burial and the empty tomb scenarios definitely begin with the best case.

(4-5) At least two other evidences should be considered at least as strong as this unanimous gospel testimony: as we’ve said often now, the earliest witnesses to the empty tomb were reportedly women. Why is that so crucial? Because if you’re making up a story by placing different words back into the mouths of Jesus and the earliest Christians sometime later, such as our Monday morning quarterbacking scenario, you would dare not use the women as your star witnesses. They should not be the first line of defense.

Why were they used unanimously, then? In the first century Mediterranean area, women were generally allowed to testify in a court of law, but inversely to the importance of the testimony needed. They were not thought to be able to tell the truth, as we are actually told in the literature. So they shouldn’t testify regarding crucially important matters. So why do we utilize folks who are doubtfully helpful for the witness stand? It might be similar to making little children our chief witnesses.

Question: the bottom line is, why would we ever allow witnesses to take the stand when they are considered less than the best? Answer: when they are still the best and/or the only witnesses.

The other reason of the two in this category is this: again, as with the burial, so with the open tomb, the city of Jerusalem is the very last place to proclaim the empty tomb if it were false, because a mere afternoon or evening walk could disprove it.

Even if the body were still there but too decomposed to be recognized, the chief point here is that the early New Testament proclamation was not that there was a body in the tomb but that we don’t know the identity. The message was that the tomb was empty—meaning that no one was buried there.

(6) Probably the next strongest argument for the empty tomb is not one of the reasons above for Jesus’ burial. It has been quite well established for the last few decades33 that for Jews, the resurrection of the dead was a bodily event—bodies were raised from the dead. So if a dead body were buried, and rose again, it would rise in a bodily manner.

(7-9) Some very early texts such as the pre-Pauline creedal passage in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, for Jews, required that if Jesus died for our sins, was buried, was raised, and appeared to his followers, it would be a bodily event and so the tomb would have been empty. So when the same person is buried and then raised, what emerges is a body. What’s gone down has come up. There is a strong implication here in 1 Corinthians 15 that requires an empty tomb.

The early sermon summaries in Acts 2:29-32 and Acts 13:29 are additional texts that more specifically report that, unlike David, Jesus was buried but did not remain in the tomb. That Jesus’ body did not decompose, as David’s did, indicated that the sepulcher was empty.

And if, as we mentioned above, recent scholars largely maintain the likelihood that Mark employed an earlier source for his passion and burial accounts, then this source would confirm both the traditional burial as well as the empty tomb, just as Mark reports.

(10) Once again, it must be considered highly likely that the Jewish leaders would be concerned about knowing exactly where Jesus’ body was buried, both since they wanted to be sure that this time they were finally going to silence him and because losing track of his body could potentially be to allow the disciples to proclaim that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

We have already mentioned the Jewish polemic that the disciples stole Jesus’ dead body (Matt. 28:11-14). Both Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 108) and Tertullian (On Spectacles 30) assert that this continued to be the Jewish contention around the Mediterranean world until at least 200 AD. If these accusations were in fact the Jewish claims, then this serves as enemy attestation that Jesus’ tomb was empty.

True, the Jewish leaders taught that the disciples stole Jesus’ body, though scarcely any major scholar has held that thesis for well over 200 years. Some of the chief reasons for this dismissal, even among critical scholars, is that liars who know that they are lying tend not to make good martyrs. Further, the disciples’ life-long transformations and their honest beliefs are also huge issues. Neither do we have adequate explanations for the conversions of James the brother of Jesus or for Paul. So that explanation does not make a lot of sense. But what remains? If the disciples did not steal Jesus’ body, what we are left with is an empty tomb. So it seems, rather, that the Jewish leaders were simply fabricating an explanation in order to try to explain the unexplained historical fact that Jesus’ dead body was missing.

So here’s ten arguments favoring the historicity of the empty tomb, though literally twice that many could have been listed. This historical fact is simply that strong. The female testimony, the proclamation in the city of Jerusalem where the claim could have been either verified or falsified, and the multiple source attestation, in my estimation, are the strongest three arguments here, though there are certainly other good ones, as well.

Ankerberg: Now, we’ve looked at three historical facts about Jesus today: that he did die from crucifixion; he was buried, and his tomb was empty. Next week we will examine the fact that all of Jesus’ disciples believed that Jesus had appeared to them after they had seen him crucified and buried. What explains this fact? Group hallucinations, visions? Or that Jesus really appeared? We’ll answer those questions next week. But now Dr. Habermas summarizes what we’ve seen today and its importance to you:

Habermas: Where are we going with all this? First, critical scholars will grant at least a dozen or two historical facts at the end of Jesus’ life on earth. We only used twelve of these. For those who may think that twelve is too many, believe me, that’s very few allowed by the published authors who deal with these subjects. But then we cut that list down rather arbitrarily to about a half-dozen of these. We argued that, on that basis alone, the Jesus Christ who died by crucifixion was the same person who was raised from the dead. These two events were sandwiched around a burial and an empty tomb. We provided ten reasons for accepting the historicity of each of these historical events.

The thing we have not said much about yet is Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. What are the chief evidences for these historical events? The critical community is willing to admit that Jesus’ disciples had experiences that they really thought were appearances of the risen Jesus. This is the best evidence for the resurrection, as we’ll see.

Endnotes

26 This was one of my original names for these facts.

27 Borg, Jesus, A New Vision, 179.

28 John Dominic Crossan states, “Jesus’ death by execution under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be” (5) (Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus [San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1995], 5. Cf. also Crossan’s Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994), 145.)

29 William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 255 (21 March 1986).

30 Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot: A New Interpretation of the Life and Death of Jesus (New York, N.Y.: Bantam, 1967), pp. 165-173.

31 Ibid, p. 165.

32 One example is by well-known New Testament critical scholar John A.T. Robinson who lists this text as an example of one “that anywhere else would be laughed out of court.” (Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament? [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977], pp. 14-16.)

33 An excellent example is argued clearly by Robert Gundry, in Sōma in Biblical Theology, with Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, Academie [sic] Books, 1987). See especially chapter 13, “The Sōma in Death and Resurrection,” pp. 159-183.