Tag Archives: Mike Licona

How Do We Investigate Whether a Resurrection Occurred? – #7 Post of 2011

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Very few skeptics with whom I’ve interacted have actually investigated the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ (there are some exceptions, but they are few in number).  The typical response is to dismiss all miracle accounts as either impossible or so improbable as to not be worth researching – taking cues from arch-skeptic David Hume.  Some take Bart Ehrman’s lead and argue that a miracle such as the resurrection cannot, in principle, be investigated.

The armchair skeptic has always puzzled me, because investigating the claim of a resurrection seems relatively straightforward.  Thomas Sherlock, a writer in the 18th century, saw this as well, in his book The Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection:

Suppose you saw a Man publickly executed, his Body afterwards wounded by the Executioner, and carry’d and laid in the Grave; that after this you should be told, that the Man was come to Life again; what would you suspect in this Case? Not that the Man had never been dead, for that you saw yourself: But you would suspect whether he was now alive: But would you say this Case excluded all human Testimony, and that Men could not possibly discern whether one with whom they convers’d familiarly was alive or no? Upon what Ground could you say this?

A Man rising from the Grave is an Object of Sense, and can give the same Evidence of his being alive, as any other Man in the World can give. So that a Resurrection considered only as a Fact to be prov’d by Evidence, is a plain Case; it requires no greater Ability in the Witnesses, than that they be able to distinguish between a Man dead and a Man alive; a Point, in which I believe every Man living thinks himself a Judge. I do allow that this Case, and others of like Nature, require more Evidence to give them Credit than ordinary Cases do; you may therefore require more Evidence in these, than in other Cases; but it is absurd to say, that such Cases admit no Evidence, when the Things in Question are manifestly Objects of Sense.

What evidence could be given for a resurrection?  “It requires no greater Ability in the Witnesses, than that they be able to distinguish between a Man dead and a Man alive; a Point, in which I believe every Man living thinks himself a Judge.”

We look at the testimony of those who claimed Jesus rose from the dead and we determine whether they are to be believed or not.  This is what needs to be done before we dismiss, with a wave of our hand, the question of the resurrection.  For those of you wanting to know whether Jesus actually rose from the dead, you’re going to have to carefully inspect the testimony; you are not going to arrive at an answer by sitting in your recliner and pronouncing, “Miracles can’t happen.”

Philosopher John Earman takes David Hume, the hero of modern miracle skeptics, to task for his failure to critically examine the evidence:

Hume pretends to stand on philosophical high ground, hurling down thunderbolts against miracle stories. . . . When Hume leaves the philosophical high ground to evaluate particular miracle stories, his discussion is superficial and certainly does not do justice to the extensive and vigorous debate about miracles that had been raging for several decades in Britain.

Earman concludes with these remarks about verifying miracles:

I acknowledge that the opinion is of the kind whose substantiation requires not philosophical argumentation and pompous solemnities about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proofs, but rather difficult and delicate empirical investigations . . . into the details of particular cases.

If you want to start digging for yourself, might I recommend three books?  The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach  by Mike Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, and The Resurrection of the Son of God by N. T. Wright.

What About Genocide in the Old Testament?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

I’ve mentioned Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God before, but I ran across this video clip where historical Jesus scholar Mike Licona interviews Copan about alleged genocide in the Old Testament.  Copan summarizes some very key arguments from his book during this informative clip.

httpv://youtu.be/4lap_BdOJQo

What Can Historians Tell Us About Jesus’ Resurrection?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona locked horns once again over the resurrection of Jesus on the Unbelievable? podcast last April.  The two scholars discussed various elements of the New Testament that historians could use to reconstruct the life of Jesus for much of the radio show.  In the final segment of the debate, however, Ehrman once again charged that historians cannot tell us whether Jesus was resurrected – the conclusion that Jesus was resurrected is simply not one that the methods of historical analysis will allow.

Ehrman has made this charge before.  I witnessed him say the same thing at a debate between him and Licona two years ago.  This time, though, some nuances of his position appeared.  When Ehrman argues that historians cannot conclude that the resurrection of Jesus occurred, we have to ask what he means by resurrection.  Ehrman seems to mean the following: Jesus died and then a few days later was supernaturally re-animated by the Christian God in a miraculous act.

Why does Ehman say that historians cannot draw this conclusion?  As far as I could tell, it is because of the words supernaturally, Christian God, and miraculous.  Ehrman seems to be saying that these are theological words, not historical words.  They are words used by people of faith, not by professional historians.

So how did Licona respond?  He agreed to define the resurrection of Jesus as follows: Jesus died and then a few days later came back to life.  Notice that Licona completely dropped the theological words that seemed to give Ehrman so much heartburn.  Now the two scholars could move on and talk about the historical evidence supporting the non-theological resurrection.  Unfortunately, and much to my disappointment, the show ran out of time and the new discussion was never pursued.

What’s the point in recounting their conversation?  First, it cleared up what Ehrman’s real beef was.  Second, it gives me an occasion to call for Ehrman and his admirers to drop this approach, as the point has been made.  I, like Licona, am glad to use the non-theological definition of the resurrection in order to advance the historical debate.  Let’s get on with it.

Is the Qur’an Wrong about Jesus? – #9 Post of 2010

Post Author: Bill Pratt

It may surprise some Christians that the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, speaks about Jesus.  In fact, the Qur’an speaks of Jesus as a great prophet of God and records some of the miracles that Jesus performed.

However, the Qur’an denies one important event in the life of Jesus, his crucifixion.  According to the Qur’an, Jesus was never crucified by the Romans.  He was taken straight to heaven without being executed.

Herein lies a couple of significant problems, it seems, for Islam.  First, virtually every professional historian who has studied the events of Jesus’ life agrees that he was killed by crucifixion.  This fact is just not debated by any reputable scholars, as far as I am aware.

Second, we have another problem, what Jesus scholar Mike Licona calls the “Islamic catch-22.”  You see, Jesus predicted that he would die a violent death, predicted it several times.  According to Licona, “We find this reported in Mark, which is the earliest Gospel, and it’s multiply attested in different literary forms, which is really strong evidence in the eyes of historians.”

So what?  How is that a problem for Muslims?  Licona explains:

If Jesus did not die a violent and imminent death, then that makes him a false prophet.  But the Qur’an says that he’s a great prophet, and so the Qur’an would be wrong and thus discredited.  On the other hand, if Jesus did die a violent and imminent death as he predicted, then he is indeed a great prophet – but this would contradict the Qur’an, which says he didn’t die on the cross.  So either way, the Qur’an is discredited.

If the Qur’an, which Muslims claim is perfect, contains an error as egregious as denying the crucifixion of Jesus, it simply cannot be trusted to be a reliable historical document.

What Historical Evidence Exists for the Resurrection?

The Resurrection—Tischbein, 1778.
Image via Wikipedia

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Quite a bit of historical evidence exists for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  In this post, I will follow the lead of historians Gary Habermas and Mike Licona and give you five key facts that the majority of modern historians agree upon (see their book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus).

How can I say what the majority of historians agree upon?  According to Licona, “Habermas has compiled a list of more than 2,200 sources in French, German, and English from 1975 to the present.  He has identified minimal facts that are strongly evidenced and which are regarded as historical  by the large majority of scholars, including skeptics.”  Skeptics are defined as people who deny that Jesus rose from the dead in any way.

The first fact is that Jesus was killed by crucifixion.  What ancient sources attest to Jesus’ crucifixion?  The four Gospels, the Roman historian Tacitus, the Jewish historian Josephus, the Greek writer Lucian of Samosata, the pagan Mara Bar-Serapion, and the Jewish Talmud.  The extremely skeptical scholar John Dominic Crossan said, “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical ever can be.”

The second fact is that Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them.  Several sources attest to this fact.  The apostle Paul reports his interactions with the disciples (Peter, James, and John) on this topic, and Paul also records early oral traditions from the church (see 1 Cor. 15:3-7).  The Book of Acts records early Christian sermons that spoke about the resurrection.  All four Gospels record the fact that the disciples thought they saw Jesus alive after his crucifixion.  The apostolic fathers Clement and Polycarp both report the resurrection appearances as well.  The atheist scholar Gerd Ludemann said, “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.”

The third fact is that the church persecutor Paul converted.  The fact that Paul converted after being hostile to Christianity is confirmed by Paul himself, but also by Luke, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Tertullian, Dionysius of Corinth, and Origen.  These other sources also report that not only did Paul convert, but that he was willing to die for his beliefs.

The fourth fact is the conversion of the skeptic James, Jesus’ half brother.   The Gospels of Mark and John both report that James was not a believer in Jesus while Jesus was alive.  Paul records the fact that James saw the risen Jesus.  Luke records in Acts that James became a leader in the Jerusalem church, as does Paul in Galatians.  We know that James was even martyred for his beliefs from Josephus, Hegesippus (as reported by Eusebius), and Clement of Alexandria (as reported by Eusebius).

The fifth fact is that Jesus’ tomb was empty.  This fact does not garner the near universal assent of critical historians, although Habermas estimates that about 75% of the scholars he studied do grant this fact.  All four Gospels allude to the empty tomb and Paul certainly implies the empty tomb in 1 Cor. 15.  Several persuasive arguments have been made to support the historicity of the empty tomb (see Is There Evidence for the Empty Tomb?)  According to Oxford University church historian William Wand, “All the strictly historical evidence we have is in favor of [the empty tomb], and those scholars who reject it ought to recognize that they do so on some other ground than that of scientific history.”

Now, given these five facts, what historical hypothesis best explains these facts?  Licona and Habermas argue that the bodily resurrection of Jesus best explains the five facts and outdistances all other theories in its explanatory power.  Remember, alternative theories must explain these five facts better than the resurrection does in order to command a higher historical probability than the resurrection.  In my experience, the alternative theories all suffer from major deficiencies, leaving the resurrection hypothesis on solid historical ground.

Thoughts on Ehrman/Licona Debate – Part 2

So what about their arguments?  Were they effective?  First let’s examine Mike Licona.

Licona has argued this historical approach for proving the resurrection in a book entitled The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, co-authored with Gary Habermas.  The approach is fairly straight-forward and effective at making a historical case for the resurrection.  Licona, along with Habermas, has clearly done a significant amount of research on the topic, and his claims about the historical facts about Jesus were not at all disputed by Ehrman.

The problem with his approach, however, is that it will always remain unconvincing to any person who does not believe that the God of the Bible exists.  To the person who is a serious skeptic of the existence of God, any explanation will be better than Jesus rising from the dead.  The skeptic has to at least be open to the existence of God, or Licona’s argument will fall on deaf ears.  This is exactly what happened in the debate.

This is a general weakness of historical apologetics.  Worldview and philosophical presuppositions will often prevent the argument from winning over skeptics, which leads us to Ehrman’s case.

Ehrman disputed Licona’s historical argument on the grounds that historians must always reject an explanation that includes the supernatural.  The problem with Ehrman’s claim is that he rejects the possibility of a miracle ever occurring without ever examining the evidence.  Ehrman will tell you that a historian can never show you that Jesus rose from the dead.  But isn’t this a classic example of begging the question?

A person begs the question when they assume what is trying to be proven.  The question before Ehrman is whether historians can prove that Jesus rose from the dead.  He is to give evidential reasons as to why they cannot.  But his response to the question is, in effect: “Since historians can never prove whether the resurrection occurred (because it is miraculous), well then the resurrection can’t be proven by historians.”  Ehrman fails to consider any evidence, and basically rules out the possibility of proving any miraculous event from the start.

There is another problem with Ehrman’s argumentation.  He spent considerable time denigrating the historical reliability of the gospels, claiming they were written by partisan Christians who were trying to convert people.  He also claimed that the oral and written traditions of the early Christians were purposefully changed many times in order to better reach their audiences.  In other words, the writers of the gospels felt free to deceive people to win them over.

In addition, Ehrman cited numerous alleged examples of discrepancies and contradictions among the gospels.  He documents all of these in his books.

Ehrman, while explaining the alleged late dates of the gospels, also mentioned that he believes Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke copied material from Mark and from each  other.  This is the standard position that many New Testament scholars hold.

What occurred to me while listening to Ehrman is that these positions he is holding do not make sense, when taken all together.  If the writers of the gospels were writing their material to gain converts, and they were copying each other, then why in the world did they make so many mistakes?  Ehrman claims to have found numerous discrepancies and contradictions that are supposed to undermine the accuracy of the gospels, but why are these discrepancies there?

Were the gospel writers so idiotic that they each changed the previous Jesus narratives, knowing they were contradicting previous oral and written testimonies?  Did they think nobody would notice?  By this theory, the writers of the gospels were not only liars, they also were ridiculously stupid and careless.

But it gets even worse.  The church fathers started compiling the four gospels in the second century and left all of the alleged errors in there!  By Ehrman’s logic, they also knew of these issues, they also were hoping to gain converts, and they also were willing to change history to succeed.  Why not change the gospels and clean them up?  If you are Ehrman, you have to believe that the gospel writers and church fathers were all deceptive and all stone dumb.  They were unable to get their stories straight, and in the end just left a big mess for enlightened scholars like Ehrman to clean up.  This theory strains credulity, does it not?

Isn’t a better explanation that the gospel writers wrote the accounts of Jesus from different perspectives, shared their accounts with each other to ensure accuracy, and strove to retain the historical truth?  Almost all of the alleged discrepancies can be readily explained, after all, by realizing that the gospel writers were recording history with different perspectives and different goals in mind.  And maybe the church fathers refused to change anything because the church community had always accepted these writings as authentic and accurate, and maybe, just maybe, they are.

Thoughts on Ehrman/Licona Debate – Part 1

Last night, Darrell and I attended the debate between Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona at SES in Charlotte.  They debated whether historians can prove Jesus rose from the dead.  Here is my summary of the arguments that each of them presented.

Licona opened the debate with a historical argument that goes like this.  First, he argued, virtually all historians (close to 100%) agree on three key facts about Jesus:

  1. He died by crucifixion.
  2. His disciples believed they saw Jesus appear several times after he died.
  3. The apostle Paul believed he saw Jesus appear after he died.

Then, Licona explained that the historian’s job was to figure out the best explanation of these three facts.  There are four criteria that the professional historian should use to judge possible explanations of the facts:

  1. explanatory scope
  2. explanatory power
  3. plausibility
  4. less ad hoc

According to Licona, the explanation that Jesus actually rose from the dead meets all four criteria whereas all other explanations offered by skeptics fails to meet the above criteria (Licona spent a lot of time evaluating the idea that the disciples plus Paul hallucinated Jesus’ appearances).  Therefore, historians can “prove” that Jesus was raised from the dead.

Ehrman opened his case by making two key arguments.  First, he spent several minutes arguing that the four gospels are of poor historical value.  He showed this by claiming they were written late, they weren’t written by eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and death, and they are full of contradictions and discrepancies.

Second, he argued that it is impossible for historians to ever prove a miracle occurred.  Why?  Because the job of the historian is to find out what most probably happened in the past.  But, he argued, since a miracle, by definition, is always the least probable explanation of a historical group of facts, then a historian can never conclude that a miracle indeed occurred.  In other words, no matter what the evidence suggests, Ehrman claimed that a historian would always be wrong to accept a miracle as the explanation because miracles are the least possible explanation, and historians only deal with probability.

Interestingly, Ehrman did fully accept Licona’s three facts about Jesus as historically true.  He just didn’t accept the explanation of Jesus rising from the dead to explain those facts.  His favorite explanation seemed to be hallucinations, so the two debaters spent a lot time discussing hallucinations.

Next post, I will share my thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of each man’s arguments.