He is not here; he has risen, just as
he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his
disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There
you will see him.' Now I have told you." Matthew 28:6-7
To answer our question from a historical standpoint, we
must first determine what facts concerning the fate of Jesus of Nazareth can be
credibly established on the basis of the evidence and second consider what the
best explanation of those facts is. At least four facts about the fate of the
historical Jesus are widely accepted by NT historians today.
FACT 1: After His crucifixion, Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in
a tomb.
This fact is highly significant because it means that the location of Jesus'
tomb was known in Jerusalem to Jews and Christians alike. New Testament
scholars have established the fact of Jesus' entombment on the basis of
evidence such as the following:
1. Jesus'
burial is attested in the information (from before A.D. 36) that was handed on
by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5.
2. The burial story is independently attested in the source material that was
used by Mark in writing his Gospel.
3. Given the understandable hostility in the early Christian movement toward
the Jewish national leaders, Joseph of Arimathea, as a member of the Jewish
high court that condemned Jesus, is unlikely to have been a Christian
invention.
4. The burial story is simple and lacks any signs of being developed into a
legend.
5. No other competing burial story exists.
For these and other reasons, the majority of NT critics concur that Jesus was
in fact buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb.
FACT 2: On the Sunday after the crucifixion, Jesus'
tomb was found empty by a group of His women followers. Among the reasons that
have led most scholars to this conclusion are the following:
1. In
stating that Jesus "was buried, that He was raised on the third day,"
the old information transmitted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 implies the
empty tomb.
2. The empty tomb story also has multiple and independent attestation in Mark,
Matthew, and John's source material, some of which is very early.
3. The empty tomb story as related in Mark, our earliest account, is simple and
lacks signs of having been embellished as a legend.
4. Given that in Jewish patriarchal culture the testimony of women was regarded
as unreliable, the fact that women, rather than men, were the chief witnesses
to the empty tomb is best explained by the narrative's being true.
5. The earliest known Jewish response to the proclamation of Jesus'
resurrection, namely, the "disciples came during the night and stole Him
while we were sleeping" (Mt 28:12-15), was itself an attempt to explain
why the body was missing and thus presupposes the empty tomb.
For these and other reasons, a majority of scholars hold firmly to the
reliability of the biblical testimony to Jesus' empty tomb.
FACT 3: On multiple occasions, and under various
circumstances, different individuals and groups saw Jesus alive after His
death. This fact is almost universally acknowledged among NT scholars for the
following reasons:
1. Given its
early date as well as Paul's personal acquaintance with the people involved,
the list of eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection appearances that is quoted by
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 guarantees that such appearances occurred.
2. The appearance narratives in the Gospels provide multiple, independent
attestations of the appearances.
Even the most skeptical critics acknowledge that the disciples had seen Jesus
alive after His death.
FINALLY, FACT 4: The original disciples suddenly and
sincerely came to believe Jesus was risen from the dead, despite having every
predisposition to the contrary.
Consider the situation the disciples faced following Jesus' crucifixion:
1. Their
leader was dead and Jewish messianic expectations did not expect a Messiah who,
instead of triumphing over Israel's enemies, would be shamefully executed by
them as a criminal.
2. According to OT law, Jesus' execution exposed Him as a heretic, a man
accursed by God.
3. Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone's rising from the dead
to glory and immortality before the general resurrection of the dead at the end
of the world.
Nevertheless, the original disciples suddenly came to
believe so strongly that God had raised Jesus from the dead that they were
willing to die for that belief.
We come now to our second concern: What is the best explanation of these four
facts?
In his book Justifying Historical Descriptions, historian C. B. McCullagh lists
six tests historians use to determine the best explanation for a given body of
historical facts. The hypothesis given by the eyewitnesses-"God raised
Jesus from the dead"-passes all these tests:
1. It has
great explanatory scope. It explains why the tomb was found empty, why the
disciples saw postmortem appearances of Jesus, and why the Christian faith came
into being.
2. It has great explanatory power. It explains why the body of Jesus was gone,
why people repeatedly saw Jesus alive despite His earlier public execution, and
so forth.
3. It is plausible. Given the historical context of Jesus' unparalleled life
and claims, the resurrection makes sense as the divine confirmation of those
radical claims.
4. It is not ad hoc or contrived. It requires only one additional hypothesis:
that God exists.
5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus
from the dead" does not in any way conflict with the accepted belief that
people do not rise naturally from the dead. The Christian accepts that belief
as wholeheartedly as he accepts the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the
dead.
6. It far outstrips any of its rival theories in meeting conditions 1 through
5. Down through history, various alternative explanations of the facts have
been offered-the conspiracy theory, the apparent death theory, the
hallucination theory, and so forth. Such hypotheses have been almost
universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. No naturalistic hypothesis
has, in fact, attracted a great number of scholars.
Therefore, the best explanation of the established facts
seems to be that God raised Jesus from the dead.
We have firm historical grounds for answering our question in the affirmative.
The historical route is not, however, the only avenue to a knowledge of Jesus'
resurrection. The majority of Christians, who have had neither the resources,
training, nor leisure to conduct a historical inquiry into this event, have
come to a knowledge of Jesus' resurrection through a personal encounter with
the living Lord (Rm 8:9-17).
How Is
the Transformation of Jesus' Disciples Different from Other Religious
Transformations? By Gary R.Habermas
1
Corinthians 15:5–8 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After
that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time,
most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared
to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as
to one abnormally born.
When
people discuss the beliefs of Jesus' disciples and their willingness to suffer
martyrdom for their convictions, they often make comparisons to other religious
persons whose lives were also changed due to their own religious beliefs. Like
Jesus' disciples, many have willingly given their lives for their beliefs.
Examples include modern Muslims, the followers of various religious teachers,
and certain UFO groups. Even political ideas, such as communism, have inspired
life changes and martyrdoms.
Under these circumstances, can Christians continue to make evidential use of
the disciples' transformations?
Initially, we need to make a crucial distinction. Transformed lives, whether
the disciples' or others', do not prove that someone's teachings are true.
However, they do constitute evidence that those who are willing to suffer and
die for their religious commitments truly believe them to be true.
So, can we distinguish between the disciples' transformations and the
experiences of others? In general, people committed to a religious or political
message really believe it to be true. Of course, beliefs can be false. But in
the case of Jesus' disciples, one grand distinction makes all the difference in
the world.
Like other examples of religious or political faith, the disciples believed and
followed their leader's teachings. But unlike all others, the disciples had
more than just their beliefs-they had seen the resurrected Jesus. This is a
crucial distinction; their faith was true precisely because of the resurrection.
Let's view this another way. Which is more likely-that an ideology we believe
in is true or that we and a number of others saw a friend several times during
the last month? If eternity rested on the consequences, would we rather base
our assurance on the truth of a particular religious or political view, or
would we rather that the consequences followed from repeated cases of seeing
someone?
But unlike the world's faiths, which rest on certain beliefs being true, the
disciples both heard unique teachings and saw the resurrected Jesus. Jesus was
the only founder of a major world religion who had miracles reported of Him in
reliable sources within a few decades. But most of all, He confirmed His
message by rising from the dead. The disciples, both individuals and groups,
saw Him repeatedly. Even two skeptics-James the brother of Jesus and Saul of
Tarsus (Paul)-witnessed the resurrected Jesus.
No wonder the disciples were so sure of their faith! Not only had they been
promised heaven, but then they had actually been shown a glimpse of it!
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