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"Jesus did not come to make bad people good, but dead people alive." Ravi Zacharias

Resurrection/Myth or Fact?

When it comes to the Christian faith, there is no doctrine more important than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christianity is not simply centered in ethical and religious teachings but on the person and work of Jesus Christ. From a soteriological perspective, if Jesus Christ was not raised from the dead, Christians are still dead in their sins (1Cor.15:7). Jesus said in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall live even of he dies.” An important aspect of possessing eternal life is the ability to raise the dead. The Jewish people knew the God of Israel as the only one who could raise the dead (Job 19:26; Ps. 17:15; 49:15; 73:24; Is. 26:19; 53:10; Dn. 12:2;12:13).

Therefore, by claiming the authority to raise the dead, Jesus was exemplifying both the same actions and attributes of the God Israel. Through the resurrection, Jesus took on the role as advocate and intercessor (1 John 2:2; Rom. 8:34). Jesus’ resurrection also guaranteed the Christian the opportunity of having a resurrected body’s like Jesus’ (1Cor. 15:20-23, 51-53; 1 Pet. 1:3; Phil. 3:20-21; John 5:25-29). Since Jesus did predict his death and resurrection (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34), if Jesus did not rise from the dead, he fails the test for a true prophet (Deut. 18:20). The resurrection demonstrated that Jesus is the promised Messiah of Israel and the whole world. The resurrection also marked Jesus Christ as the one who will be the judge all men (Acts 17:31).

Evidence/Historical Apologetics: When it comes to evidence, the skeptical issue in our culture mostly enters into the religious dialogue in the following way: “Do we really know what we think we know-especially in religion- when our beliefs are not properly based on evidence?” And in the case of God, who isn’t some physical object but a divine being, what kind of evidence should we expect to find? Verification has to do with how to test the meaning or truth of a claim. It is true that Christianity is a historical faith and it has been common for apologists to appeal to the historical evidence of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a verification of its claim to be true. Within apologetic methodology, the classical apologist says it is futile to speak about the resurrection as an act of God unless it is established that there is a theistic God who can act within human history. Historical apologetics overlaps with classical apologetics. However, historical apologists believe that the truth of Christianity, including the existence of God, can be shown from the foundation of historical evidence alone. In examining the resurrection of Jesus, one must utilize a variety of disciplines. Some of them include:  

1. Philosophy of History/Historiography: What tests do historians utilize when examining written documents in antiquity? What approach do they use in approaching a miraculous claim such as the resurrection of Jesus?

2. Metaphysics: The naturalistic worldview came to be more prominent during the Enlightenment period. Philosophical or metaphysical naturalism refers to the view that nature is the “whole show.” For theists, miracles (which are paramount to the Christian faith) are supernatural but not anti-natural. Biblical theism does acknowledge that while God is the primary Cause of all things, He also works through secondary causes. In other words, God acts in the world through direct intervention (a miracle such as creation or the resurrection of Jesus) and natural causes or indirect actions (preservation). It is beyond the scope of this article to defend the philosophical basis for miracles.. For an excellent treament of this topic, feel free to read Norman L. Geisler. Miracles And The Modern Mind: A Defense of Biblical Miracles. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1992 or Colin Brown's. Miracles and the Critical Mind. Grand Rapids. Eerdmans, 1984.

In the debate about the resurrection of Jesus, the word "fact" needs some clarification. If one argues the resurrection of Jesus is not a fact, there needs to be a clear definition of the word "fact." As Norman Geisler says,

If “fact” means original event, then neither geology nor history is in possession of any facts. “Fact” must be taken by both to mean information about the original event, and in this latter sense facts do not exist merely subjectively in the mind of the historian. Facts are objective data and data are data whether anyone reads them or not. What one does with data, that is, what meaning or interpretation he gives to them, can in no way eliminate the data. There remains for both science and history a hard core of objective facts. The door is thereby left open for objectivity. In this way one may draw a valid distinction between propaganda and history: the former lacks sufficient basis in objective fact but the latter does not. Indeed, without objective facts no protest can be raised either against poor history or propaganda. If history is entirely in the mind of the beholder, there is no reason one cannot decide to behold it any way he desires." (1)

And since history has a large role in the evidence for a miracle the resurrection of Jesus, one must always realize the following. As Geisler says:

"Every historian interprets the past in the overall framework of his own Weltanschauung (the German word for worldview). The Weltanschauungen will determine whether the historian sees the events of the world as a meaningless maze, as a series of endless repetitions, or as moving in a purposeful way toward a goal. These world views are both necessary and inevitably value oriented. So, it is argued, without one of these world views the historian cannot interpret the events of the past; but through a world view objectivity becomes impossible. A world view is not generated from the facts. Facts do not speak for themselves. The facts gain their meaning only within the overall context of the world view. Without the structure of the world-view framework the “stuff” of history has no meaning." (2)

3. Epistemology: is the branch of philosophy that investigates the nature and origin of knowledge. People rely on the testimony of others on a regular basis. Also, the historian knows it is difficult to know much of anything in history apart from eyewitness testimony. Testimony as an epistemological enterprise plays a large role in examining the eyewitness testimony to the resurrection in the New Testament. 

4. Linguistics/Hermeneutics: When examining resurrection passages, an individual will have to utilize the original languages. Biblical hermeneutics is the art and science of biblical interpretation. When a person assumes the resurrection of Jesus is not to be taken literally, hermeneutics helps answer what is to be taken literally and non-literally in the Bible. Hermeneutics also enables the reader to understand what the author of a text meant when he wrote it to his original audience.

5. Operation Science: is an empirical science: deals with present regularities, the running of the universe. Origin Science is more like a forensic  or historical science than an empirical science. The failure to make a distinction between operation and origin science has led to so much confusion about the creation/evolution debate. Neither creation nor evolution are observable events. Both have to be examined by using the remaining bits of information and evidence to try to reconstruct a past singularity. Therefore, they both fall under origin science. Hence, since the resurrection is an event of the past, is not repeatable, observable, and a singularity, it falls under the branch of origin science as well.

7. Genre Studies: It is important that an individual understands the genre of the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament before interpreting it. If someone makes the claim that the Gospels or other parts of the New Testament are myth (meaning half-truth, folklore, fantasy, or a fictionized account of history, etc), genre studies help clear up the confusion about this issue.

Something to Remember

The evidential issue is sometimes seen as the need to find some sort of infallible “proof” for God’s existence. While theists may present what they consider to be sound arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, there are always those who walk away disappointed. But why?

As Ronald Nash says,
“What tends to be forgotten is the subjective nature of proof. First, proofs are person-relative. In other words, proofs are relative, which is simply to admit the obvious, namely, that the same argument may function as a proof for one person and result in little more than contempt for someone else. Second, proofs are relative to individual persons. A person’s response to an argument will always reflect varying features such as their past and present personal history. Proofs also may be relative to persons in particular circumstances.  Therefore, proofs must pass tests that are not only logical but also psychological. No argument can become a proof for some person until it persuades a person.” (3)

The 12 Facts

As an authority on the resurrection, Gary Habermas is considered to be one of the top three resurrection apologists in the world. In his book The Historical Jesus, Habermas lists "at least twelve separate facts that are agreed to be knowable history" by "practically all critical scholars" (The Historical Jesus, pg 158). Taking into account that even four of these facts that are accepted by virtually critical scholars (1, 5, 6, and 12) the case can still be made that the literal resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation for these four facts (The Historical Jesus, pgs 162-164). The 12 facts include:

  1. Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.
  2. He was buried, most likely in a private tomb.
  3. Soon afterwards the disciples were discouraged, bereaved and despondent, having lost hope.
  4. Jesus’ tomb was found empty very soon after his interment.
  5. The disciples had experiences that they believed were the actual appearances of the risen Christ.
  6. Due to these experiences, the disciples lives were thoroughly transformed. They were even willing to die for their belief.
  7. The proclamation of the Resurrection took place very early, from the beginning of church history.
  8. The disciple’s public testimony and preaching of the Resurrection took place in the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus had been crucified and buried shortly before.
  9. The gospel message centered on the preaching of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
  10. Sunday was the primary day of worshiping and gathering.
  11. James, the brother of Jesus and a skeptic before this time, became a follower of Jesus when he believed he also saw the risen Jesus.
  12. Just a few years later, Paul became a believer, due to an experience that he also believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus.

Here are five well-evidenced facts granted by virtually all scholars who study the historical Jesus: (see See Habermas. G.R. and Licona, M. L. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus).

1. Jesus' death by crucifixion

2. Jesus' followers sincerely believed Jesus rose from the dead

3. Early eyewitness testimony to belief in Jesus' resurrection

4. The conversion of Jesus' skeptical brother, James

5. Paul, once an enemy of the early faith, became a commited follower of Jesus the Messiah

Who are some of these critical scholars that Habermas mentions? To read more about this see: http://preventingtruthdecay.org/jesusresurrection.shtml

It is important to understand that I don’t want to say that just because I offer a list of core facts that are universally agreed on by historians and Biblical scholars makes it true. If so, that would be what is called a “consensus gentium fallacy” which is the fallacy of arguing that an idea is true because most people believe it. Habermas completed an overview of more than 1,400 critical scholarly works on the resurrection from 1975 to 2003. He studied and catalogued about 650 of the texts in English, German and French. Habermas reports that all the scholars who were from across the ideological spectrum agreed on the five facts that are mentioned. Therefore, the scholars and historians that Habermas researched were not all from a conservative or traditional perspective. So there was some neutrality in the study.

The Messiah/Messianic Movements

The term “Messiah,” meaning “anointed one,” is taken from the Hebrew word “masiah" which appears thirty-nine times in the Tanakh. In the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the term Messiah is translated as "christos” which was the official title for Jesus within the New Testament. While the term "Messiah" is used of those who were of Davidic kings (Psalm 18:50;89:20; 132:10-17), it is also used of Cyrus in Isa. 45:1. While God promised that Israel would have an earthly king (Gen. 17: 6; 49:6; Deut.17: 14-15), he also promised King David that one of his descendants would rule on his throne forever (2 Sam. 7: 12-17; 1Chr. 17: 11-14; Ps. 89:28-37). There are other examples in the Tanakh where God would anoint a priest or prophet for a specific task. Therefore, the term “Masiah” cannot be limited to one of the aspects of one of the major factors, for instance a ruling king. Jesus fulfilled all three office as prophet, priest, and king.

The messianic expectation at the time of Jesus was by no means monolithic. However, just as in the first century, one of the contentions in the Jewish community is that Jesus cannot be the Messiah because he died. Within the first century, Messianic movements tried to carry on after the death of their would-be Messiah. In relation to a crucified Messiah, Jewish people in the first century were familiar with Deuteronomy 21:22-23: “If a person commits a sin punishable by death and is executed, and you hang the corpse on a tree, his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury him that same day,  for the one who is left exposed on a tree is cursed by God. You must not defile your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.” Therefore, Jesus' crucifixtion was considered by the Jewish people to be a curse.

Given these issues, it is important to examine the issue of Jesus and blasphemy in ancient Judaism. Blasphemy in ancient Judaism was regarded as stretching out one’s hand against God by impugning God’s honor and holiness. According to Mark 14:62, Jesus affirmed the chief priests question that He is the Messiah, the Son Of God, and the Coming Son of Man who would judge the world. This was considered a claim for deity since the eschatological authority of judgment was for God alone. Jesus provoked the indignation of his opponents because of His application of Daniel 7:13 and Psalm 110:1 to himself. Jesus’ claim that he would not simply be entering into God’s presence, but that he would actually be sitting at God’s right side was the equivalent to claiming equality with God. And of course, we see the chief priest accuses Jesus of blasphemy (Mark 14:63-65). Jesus was also accused of blasphemy by asserting his authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:7). Scribes did not forgive sins. Forgiveness was a divine prerogative of the God of Israel.

As N.T. Wright says,
If nothing happened to the body of Jesus, I cannot see why any of his explicit or implicit claims should be regarded as true. What is more, I cannot as a historian, see why anyone would have continued to belong to his movement and to regard him as the Messiah. There were several other Messianic or quasi-Messianic movements within a hundred years either side of Jesus. Routinely, they ended with the leader being killed by authorities, or by a rival group. If your Messiah is killed, you conclude that he was not the Messiah. Some of those movements continued to exist; where they did, they took a new leader from the same family (But note: Nobody ever said that James, the brother of Jesus, was the Messiah.) Such groups did not go around saying that their Messiah had been raised from the dead. What is more, I cannot make sense of the whole picture, historically or theologically, unless they were telling the truth. (4)

Historically speaking, I will mention a few messianic movements that have attempted to carry on after their leader has died. The first is obviously Messianic Judaism or Christianity. Of course, this has survived for 2,000 years. And as already mentioned, given the pattern that many Jews in the first century would not keep following a dead Messiah, it needs to be asked if there would be a Christianity today apart from the resurrection. The second movement was led by Sabbatai Sevi. Sevi was a seventeenth-century Jewish teacher who claimed to be the Messiah and was heralded by a contemporary named Nathan. It is said after Sevi’s death in 1676 that his brother found his tomb empty but full of light. Whatever happened to him, no one ever reported seeing him again. His disappearance has characteristics of an apotheosis legend and sounds as if it was borrowed from the early Christian story. The Sevi account lacks historical report. In contrast to the resurrection claim of Jesus, there are multiple eyewitness appearances of Jesus after his resurrection (see 1 Cor 15).

The third messianic movement is the present Lubavitcher movement. Some of the followers of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson think He was the Messiah and that He will come back from the dead (Schneerson died in 1994). Some in the Lubavitcher movement have even asserted that Isaiah 53 can be used as a proof text that the Messiah will rise from the dead. Of course, this has led to great controversy. Some in the Orthodox community have complained that  the attempt to portray Schneerson as one who will rise from the dead and return a second time sounds remarkably similar to the Christian claim about Jesus.

The Early Worship of Jesus

Another issue that must be answered is the explanation for the early worship of Jesus. Could a dying Messiah cause a major shift in the devotional practice of first-century Jews? What has the best explanatory power for a more explicit Christology in a very short time interval after the death of Jesus? One of the most interesting and crucial debates in Christian scholarship is how there was such a high Christology among the early Jewish community in light of a strict adherence to Jewish monotheism. One feature that stands out about Jewish monotheism in the first century is that there was a refusal to accept and worship any other deities of a Roman religious environment.

“Apotheosis,” can be defined as accepting a human figure as divine. In apotheosis, a human becomes one among many gods.The divine-many theory has been refuted by such diverse theologians as Oscar Cullmann (The Christology of the New Testament), Reginald Fuller(The Foundation of New Testament Christology), Gary Habermas (“Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions” in Religious Studies 25 [1989]), and Ronald Nash (Christianity and the Hellenistic World ). Furthermore, no Greek or Roman myth spoke of the literal incarnation of a monotheistic God followed by his death and physical resurrection. (4) The attempt to say that the Jewish believers were simply emulating the Gentiles in their polytheism won't work. After all, there are several references to the negative views of Gentile polytheism (Acts 17: 22-23; 1 Cor 8:5). And it can be forgotten that Jews were resistant to Hellenism and paganism. Paul is seen as calling Gentiles sinners (Gal 2:5) and idolaters (Rom 1:23).

In their recent book Putting Jesus Back In His Place: The Case For The Deity of Christ, authors R.M. Bowman and J.E. Komoszewski note that critics are correct to note that acts of veneration toward a specific individual do not always imply deity or deification. Komoszewski and Bowman also note that what needs to be asked is whether a specific figure can be identified as the recipient of honors that are reserved for God alone. If the first followers of Jesus expressed such honors in the context of religious activity or spiritual devotion to this figure, such honors can and do indicate that such honors regard him as God. It was clear that Jews made a distinction between the God of Israel and any of the exalted figures who could be seen as prominent in God’s entourage such as Moses or Enoch. How important was the devotional practice in Jewish monotheism? As Richard Bauckham says, “In exclusive monotheism of the Jewish religious tradition, as distinct from some other kind of monotheism, it was worship which was the real test of monotheistic faith in religious practice.” (5)

In his book, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion And Ancient Jewish Monotheism New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado asks do we have a devotional pattern is open, corporate, and public? In light of this issue, how is it that a community of monotheistic Jewish people ended up giving Jesus the same honors and spiritual devotion that we reserved for the God of Israel alone? Hurtado notes that the devotional practice of the early followers of Jesus demonstrate the same devotion and honors that were revered for the God of Israel were given to Jesus. What are some of these devotional practices? First, there are hymns to Jesus (John 1:1-18; Col 1:15-20; Phil.2:5-11; Rev. 4:8,11; 5:9-10;15:14) and other passages that are hymnlike in form and function: Rev 5:13-14 (a doxology); 7:15-17;11:15. Second, there are prayers to Jesus: we see prayer to Jesus in prayer-like expressions such as “grace and peace” greetings at the beginning of Paul’s letters and in the benedictions at the end.

Examples in the former are seen in Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor.1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3-4; Phil.1:2 and Philem. 3, where there is the liturgical-sounding formula “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the [or “our”] Lord Jesus Christ (Jesus the Messiah).” 1 Corinthians is dated between 50 A.D. and 55 A.D. which makes it one of the earliest books in the New Testament about the historical life of Jesus. One passage that stands out is 1 Corinthians 16:22: “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed. Maranatha.”  Maranatha means “Our Lord Come!” Because this liturgical expression was present at the worship gathering for Jesus to come eschatologically, it is evident that this was a plea that was a widely known feature of early Christian worship that started among Aramaic-speaking believers and had also become a part of the prayers among Pauline Christians. Hurtado says, “What is even more significant is that there is nothing in comparison to a corporate invocation to Jesus to any other group related to a Jewish tradition at that time period."

The willingness to include Jesus into public devotional life is to place Jesus in a role attributed to God in Jewish expectation. Third, by observing that the first Messianic community were calling upon the name of Jesus as Lord (Acts 9:14, 21; 22:16;1 Cor. 1:2; Rom. 10:13), it can be noted that this is the same pattern that is used in the Hebrew Bible where it refers to “calling upon the Lord”(Gen. 12:8;13:4 ;21:23 ;26:25; Psalms 99:6;105:1; Joel 2:32). The heavy reliance upon the Hebrew Bible should be no surprise since the first followers of Jesus were exclusively Jews. The book of Acts gives a reference to the early followers of Jesus as “the sect of Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5).

Fourth, the Lord’s Supper is another significant part of the early worship practice of the first followers of Jesus.1 Corinthians 11:22-36 is proof that some sort of some sacred meal tradition goes back earlier than Paul’s commitment to becoming a follower of Jesus. Fifth, we see that there was a pattern of confessing Jesus in passages such as Matt 10:32; John 9:22;1 John 1: 4:2-3; 15. “Confessing Jesus” was applied to owning up before others who did not share it (Matt. 10:32), and to affirming ones faith before the gathering of believers (Rom 10:9). In Rom. 10:9-13, Paul makes “Confessing Jesus as Lord” the verbal mark of being a follower of the Messiah.

Some critics assert that the discples hallucinated about the appearances of Jesus. Therefore, this is what explains their willingness to commit their lives to Him. This hypothesis has serious flaws. To see a refutation on this issue-read Gary Habermas's article here on this article here http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/crj_explainingaway/crj_explainingaway.htm#ch.2 as well as Glen Miller's article here: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/hallucn.html.

Therefore, what has the best explanatory power for the early devotional practice of the early Messianic movement? The first disciples were adamant about not proclaiming a spiritual resurrection, nor the belief called translation as seen in people such as Elijah and Enoch. Both of them did not die but were simply translated to heaven (2 Kings 2:11; Gen. 5:24) Instead, they preached a physical, bodily resurrection. They had touched and ate with the Risen Lord. This was the claim they lived and died for. It is the resurrection that has the best explanatory power for what changed the devotional practice of the monotheistic Jews in the first century.

Issues of Eyewitness Testimony

 Considering that most of the major world religions or faith claims are based on some sort of revelation, it is important to realize that since they are all contradictory revelations, they all cannot be true. They and many other supposed revelations do not follow the biblical process of testimony and witness which in both the Old and New Testaments appear as the primary standard for establishing and testing truth claims. (7) 

As just stated, there are several faiths that claim to be founded on divine revelation. Islam as well as Morminism are just two examples. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, claimed an angel appeared to him and directed him to what are called the golden plates. Smith then showed them to eleven others. Smith is supposed to be responsible for translating these plates into The Book of Mormon. Like the apostles of Jesus, Smith suffered and died for his beliefs. However, there is a major difference between the eleven witnesses to the gold plates and the apostles of Jesus. While six of the eleven witnesses left the Mormon Church, we have no record of the apostles of Jesus (Paul, James and John, others) even leaving the early Christian movement.(8) Furthermore, in the case of Joseph Smith, even though they may have been eyewitnesses to the plates, this does not mean the plates contain the revealed truth of God. (9)

Furthermore, in the case of the Mormon claim as well as supposed supernatural sightings etc, they fail the test of coherence. In examining an ancient document, a historian asks does an event or teaching fit well with what is known concerning other surrounding occurrences and teachings. Coherence involves the extraordinary consistency of Jesus’ resurrection with his unique life and teachings, including his predictions of his death and resurrection. The resurrection coheres with Jesus’ entire ministry and His divine claims-His Amen and Abba statements, His "I" and "I AM" statements, His actions, the use of Jewish divine categories such as Wisdom, Shekinah, the Memra, the Name, Son of Man, etc, and His ministry that is built on the messianic expectations of the Hebrew Bible.

To read more about the reliability of the New Testament- feel free to read this article called Jesus of Nazareth: How Historians Can Know Him And Why It Matters by Craig Blomberg: http://www.henrycenter.org/files/blomberg.pdf

What Are The Gospels?: A Comparison With Graeco-roman Biography (Biblical Resource)

 

What Are The Gospels?: A Comparison With Graeco-roman Biography (Biblical Resource) by Richard A. Burridge

Genre Issues: Another problem in the entire resurrection debate is the failure to deal with the genre of the Gospels. In studying for his doctoral dissertation, Richard Burridge, dean of King’s College in London England, researched the genre of the gospels. Burridge says, “Genre is the like a kind of contract between the author and the reader, or between the producers of a programme and the audience, about how they will write or produce something and how you should interpret what they have written. Therefore, it is important that you know what the genre of the thing is before you come to interpret it."(10)

As Burridge diligently searched for a genre, he compared the content of the gospels to other Hellenistic bioi (“lives” or biographies), such as Isocrates’s Evagoras, Xenophon’s Agesilaus, Satyrus’s Euripides, Nepos’s Atticus, Philo’s Moses, Tacitus’s Agricola, Plutarch’s Cato Minor, Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars, Lucian’s Demonax, and Philostratus’s Apollonius of Tyana. Burridge placed special attention on the prologue, verb subjects, allocation of space, mode of representation, length, structure, scale, literary units, use of sources, style, social setting, quality of characterization, atmosphere as well authorial intention and purpose. Because of the gospel’s similarities to these ancient biographies, Burridge concluded that the genre of the gospels is an ancient bioi as well. (11)

C.S. Lewis, who wrote several fantasy novels said "First then, whatever these men may be as Biblical critics, I distrust them as critics. They seem to lack literary judgment, to be imperceptive about the very quality of the texts they are reading . . . If he tells me that something in a Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he had read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavour; not how many years he has spent on that Gospel . . . I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this." (12)

Most of the modern world’s standard of accuracy is defined by an age where tape recorders, video cameras are prevalent. However, as Ben Witherington says so well, “Works of ancient history or biography should be judged by their own conventions.” (13)

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham

As stated, epistemology is the branch of philosophy that investigates the nature and origin of knowledge. How do we know something? The role of testimony is one of the primary ways humans can know anything about historical events. Testimony as an epistemological enterprise plays a large role in the most recent work by British scholar Richard Bauckham in his book called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Bauckham does a superb job in evaluating how testimony can be treated as historical knowledge. He also compares the use of eyewitness testimony in the Gospels and the survivors of the Holocaust. of course, we see in the New Testament where testimony is used as a means of verifying events. As Bauckham notes on his book, the Greek word for “eyewitness” (autoptai), does not have forensic meaning, and in that sense the English word “eyewitnesses” with its suggestion of a metaphor from the law courts, is a little misleading.The autoptai are simply firsthand observers of those events.

As Gregory Boyd and Paul Eddy note in their book The Jesus Legend: A Case For the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Tradition, Christianity cannot be understood apart from it's first century Jewish context. Therefore, it is important to mention that the Jewish tradition placed a strong emphasis on eyewitness testimony. For example, only by appealing to a credible eyewitness could one certify a claim as factual. One of the primary stipulations of the Sinai Covenant was that bearing false witness was considered to be a major crime (Exod 20:16). The Jewish law of multiple witnesses reflects the life-or-death importance of the command (Deut 17:6-7; Num. 35:30). It can also be observed that the emphasis on eyewitness testimony was carried on through the early church. The Sinai teaching that multiple witnesses was retained Mark 14:56,59; John 5:31-32; Heb 10:28) and also used for church discipline (Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor 13:1;1 Tim 5:19). Also, the principle of giving a true testimony and making a true confession are evident in the early church (Matt 10:18; Mark 6:11;13:9-13;Luke 1:1-2;9:5;21:12-13;22:71;John 1:7-8,15,19,32,34;3:26,28;5:32; Acts 1:8,22;3:15;5:32;10:37-41;13:31;22:15;18;23:11;26:16; Rom 1:9;1 Cor 1:6;15:6;2 Cor 1:23; Phil 1:8; 1Thess:2:5;10;1;1 Tim 6:12-13;2 Tim 2:2; 1 Pet 5:1; 2 Pet. 1:16; 1 John 5:6-11; Rev 1:5; 2:13; 3:14;6:9; 11:3; 17:6). As Robert Stein observes, the sheer pervasiveness of these themes in he early church testifies to "the high regard in which eyewitness testimony was held."

Loveday Alexander, in his book The Preface to Luke’s Gospel offers the translations: “those with personal/firsthand experience; those who know the facts at hand (Bauckham, pg 117). One of the greatest assets of Bauckham’s book is the reminder that ancient historians thought that history had to be written during a time when eyewitnesses were still available to be cross-examined.

In examining the role of testimony in the Holocaust, Bauckham quotes Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel. Weisel says: 

If the Greeks invented tragedy, the Romans the epistle, and the Renaissance the sonnet, our generation [i.e., Jews who Witnessed the Holocaust] invented a new literature, that of testimony. We have all been witnesses and we feel we have to   bear testimony for our future. And that became a single obsession, the single most powerful obsession that permeated all the lives, dreams, all the work of those people. One minute before they died they thought that was what they had to do. (Bauckham, pg 501).

Baukham goes on to say:

The sense (not a properly one generic one) in which the witnesses of the Holocaust created a new literature of testimony. Is much the same sense that in which the witnesses of the history created the Gospels. Those witnesses understood the imperative to witness to a command of the risen Christ, but the parallel is sufficient to be suggestive. In both cases, the uniqueness required precisely witness as the only means by which the events could be adequately known. In both cases, the exceptionality of the event means that only the testimony of participant witness can give us anything approaching access to the truth of the event. (Bauckham, pg 501).

Of course, we see in the New Testament where testimony and witness is used as a means to verify events:

In studying the eyewitness testimony of people within a courtroom, psychologists have noted that the witnesses who participated were not required to recall the peripheral details of the event, but the gist of the events they recalled. Bauckham quotes Alan Baddeley in relationship to eyewitness memory: "Much of our autobiographical recollection of the past is reasonably free of error, provided that we stick to remembering the broad outline of events. Errors begin to occur once we try to force ourselves to come up with detailed information from an inadequate basis.This gives full rein to various sources of distortion, including that of prior expectations, disruption by misleading questions, and by social factors such as the desire to please the questioner, and to present ourselves in a good light."

While the Christian has a responsibility to uphold and defend the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:15), Christians also are called to make daily application of the resurrection into their daily lives (Romans 6:1;7:25). If Christians understood that God wanted to radically transform their lives every day through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the world would be a different place. The gospel is not simply a message about the death of Jesus, but his resurrection as well (1 Corinthians 15:1-12). We as Christians are called to live the resurrected life by bringing restoration and justice to a world that desperately needs hope.

Sources:

1. Geisler, Norman L.: Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids : Baker Book House, 1976, 291

2. Ibid, 288.

3. Nash, R.H. Faith and Reason: Searching For A Rational Faith, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1988, 106-109.

4. John Dominic Crossan and N.T Wright. The Resurrection of Jesus. Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press. 2006, 71.

5. Geisler, Norman L. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Mich. Baker Books, 1999, 46.

6. Hurtado, L.W. One Lord, One God: Early Christian Devotion And Ancient Jewish Montheism. Philadeplphia, PA. Fortress Press. 1988, 38.

7. See Elwell, W. Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996. Available online at http://bible.crosswalk.com/Dictionaries/BakersEvangelicalDictionary/bed.cgi?number=T688.

8. See Habermas. G.R. and Licona, M. L. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus.

Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004, 185-186.

9. Ibid, 185-188.

10. See Burridge, R. And Graham Gould. Jesus: Then And Now.Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2004, 29.

11. Craig, W L. Christian Reasonable Faith, Wheaten, ILL: Crossway Books. 1984, 218. See Burridge, R. What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Graeco Roman Biography. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Second Edition, 2004.

12. Lewis, C.S. Christian Reflections. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967, 154-55.

13. Ben Witherington III. New Testament History. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 2001, 18.

19. Bauckham, R. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2006, 356.