Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ - My Summary

13 June 2017.

LEE STROBEL – THE CASE FOR CHRIST

Synopsis:

The Case for Christ records Lee Strobel's 1998 attempt to "determine if there's credible evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God." 

The book consists primarily of interviews between Strobel (a former legal editor at the Chicago Tribune, an atheist-turned-committed Christian) and biblical scholars/Christian Apologists, all in the U.S. – which, in my opinion, makes this treatise national, not “international” in scope and diversity.

Each interview is based on a simple question, concerning historical evidence Together, these interviews compose a case brief defending Jesus' divinity, and urging readers to reach a verdict of their own.

Lee Strobel’s best-selling book, The Case for Christ, described his nearly two-year examination of the historical evidence that pointed him toward the verdict that God really exists and that Jesus actually is his unique Son [my emphasis].

Lee Strobel said: “For much of my life I was a skeptic. In fact, I considered myself an atheist. To me, there was far too much evidence that God was merely a product of wishful thinking, of ancient mythology, of primitive superstition”.

A SUMMARY OF “THE CASE FOR CHRIST”

I was given to read by my good friend and fellow golfer – Peter Wong – Lee Strobel’s second book – “Lee Strobel – The Case for Faith” published January 2001– some 3 months ago.

I decided to read LS’ first book, published in 1998  – “The Case for Christ” – first – and here is my Summary of this 263-page book!

In this Summary, I have not bothered to detail too much the biographies of each of these eminent person that Lee Strobel interviewed – most of them I am not familiar with - and also, they will make this Summary too long and tedious to read!

Whoever is interested to read the whole 263-page book, kindly download the book and read at your own leisure time.

In “The Case for Christ”, written in 1998, Lee Strobel retraced and expanded upon his 1980-81 journey from atheism to Christianity by interviewing thirteen leading experts on the historical evidence for Jesus Christ.

Below is a summary of the answers to the issues he investigated.

In every case, I have quoted the interviewees’ replies ad verbatim – no point trying to paraphrase these actual replies!

Part 1: Examining the Record:

1.      The Eyewitness Evidence:

• Can The Biographies Of Jesus Be Trusted?

The First Interview: Craig L Blomberg, PhD

Craig Blomberg is widely considered to be one of the country's foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, which are called the four gospels. For the last dozen years he has been a professor of New Testament at the highly respected Denver Seminary, U.S. 

•          "Within the first two years after his death," Craig Blomberg said, "significant numbers of Jesus' followers seem to have formulated a doctrine of the atonement, were convinced that he had been raised from the dead in bodily form, associated Jesus with God, and believed they found support for all these convictions in the Old Testament."

·         Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector, and one of the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel in the New Testament;

·         that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark;

·         Luke, known as Paul's 'beloved physician,' wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles."

·         Mark in particular, as the writer of probably the earliest gospel, devotes roughly half his narrative to the events leading up to and including one week's period of time and culminating in Christ's death and resurrection.

"Given the significance of the Crucifixion," he concluded, "this makes perfect sense in ancient literature."

2.      Testing the Eyewitness Evidence:

Do Jesus’ Biographies Stand Up To Scrutiny?

The harmony among the gospels on essential facts, coupled with divergence on some incidental details, lends historical credibility to the accounts.

In short, the gospels were able to pass all eight evidential tests (the Intention Test/the Ability Test/the Character Test/the Consistency Test/the Bias Test/the Cover-up Test/the Corroboration Test/the Adverse Witness Test - demonstrating their basic trustworthiness as historical records.

3.      The Documentary Evidence:

• Were Jesus’ Biographies Reliably Preserved For Us?

The original manuscripts of the biographies of Jesus - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - and all the other books of the Old and New Testaments - have long ago crumbled into dust.

So LS asked himself:

·         how can he be sure that these modern-day versions - the end product of countless copying throughout the ages - bear any resemblance to what the authors originally wrote?

·         In addition, how can anyone tell if these four biographies are telling the whole story?

·         What if there were other biographies of Jesus that have been censored because the early church didn't like the image of Jesus they portrayed?

The Second Interview – Bruce M Metzgei, PhD

84-year old Metzgei has authored or edited fifty books, including The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content; The Text of the New Testament; The Canon of the New Testament, He is currently professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary after a forty-six-year career teaching the New Testament. His books are mandatory reading in universities and seminaries around the world. He is held in the highest regard by scholars from across a wide range of theological beliefs.

"By comparison," LS asked, "how many New Testament Greek manuscripts are in existence today?"

·         Metzgei replied: 

•  More than five thousand have been cataloged”, he said with enthusiasm.
• 
  
•        "We have what are called uncial manuscripts, which are written in all-capital Greek letters," Metzger explained. "Today we have 306 of these, several dating back as early as the third century. The most important are Codex Sinaiticus, which is the only complete New Testament in uncial letters, and Codex Vaticanus, which is not quite complete. Both date to about A.D. 350.
• 
  
•          “If we compare the present state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must ... declare it to be marvelously correct.
• 
  
•          Such has been the care with which the New Testament has been copied - a care which has doubtless grown out of true reverence for its holy words....

·         The New Testament [is] unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use In terms of which documents were accepted into the New Testament, generally there has never been any serious dispute about the authoritative nature of twenty of the New Testament's twenty seven books - from Matthew through Philemon, plus I Peter and I John. This of course includes the four gospels that represent Jesus' biographies. The remaining seven books, though questioned for a time by some early church leaders, were finally and fully recognized by the church generally," [my emphasis].

LS own conclusion: it can be concluded that the modern New Testament is 99.5 percent free of textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrines in doubt. [my emphasis].

4.      The Corroborating Evidence:

·         Is There Credible Evidence for Jesus Outside His Biographies?

The Third Interview – Edwin M Yamauchi, PhD

Edwin Yamauchi teaches at Miami University in picturesque Oxford, Ohio - one of the country's leading experts in ancient history. Born in Hawaii in 1937, the son of immigrants from Okinawa, Yamauchi started from humble beginnings.

In 1968 he participated in the first excavations of the Herodian temple in Jerusalem, revealing evidence of the temple's destruction in A.D. 70.

LS started by asking Yamauchi this question: "As a historian, could you give me your assessment of the historical reliability of the gospels themselves?"

·         "Tacitus recorded what is probably the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament," he said. "In A.D. 115 he explicitly states that Nero persecuted the Christians as scapegoats to divert suspicion away from himself for the great fire that had devastated Rome in A.D. 64."

·         "This is an important testimony by an unsympathetic witness to the success and spread of Christianity, based on a historical figure – Jesus - who was crucified under Pontius Pilate," he said.

·         "And it's significant that Tacitus reported that an 'immense multitude' held so strongly to their beliefs that they were willing to die rather than recant."

The Day The Earth Went Dark

To LS, one of the most problematic references in the New Testament is where the gospel writers claim that the earth went dark during part of the time that Jesus hung on the cross. Wasn't this merely a literary device to stress the significance of the Crucifixion, and not a reference to an actual historical occurrence?

• Scholar Paul Maier said about the darkness in a footnote in his 1968 book Pontius Pilate:

•          “This phenomenon, evidently, was visible in Rome, Athens, and other Mediterranean cities".

•          According to Tertullian ... it was a "cosmic" or "world event."

•          Phlegon, a Greek author from Caria writing a chronology soon after 137 A.D., reported that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (i.e., 33 A.D.) there was "the greatest eclipse of the sun" and that "it became night in the sixth hour of the day [i.e., noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea."

Yamauchi concluded, "So there is, as Paul Maier points out, non-biblical attestation of the darkness that occurred at the time of Jesus' crucifixion [my emphasis].

• Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch in Syria, was martyred during the reign of Trajan before A.D. 117. "What is significant about Ignatius," said Yamauchi," is that he emphasized both the deity of Jesus and the humanity of Jesus, as against the docetic heresy, which denied that Jesus was really human. He also stressed the historical underpinnings of Christianity; he wrote in one letter, on his way to being executed, that Jesus was truly persecuted under Pilate, was truly crucified, was truly raised from the dead, and that those who believe in him would be raised, too.

Put all this together, Josephus, the Roman historians and officials, the Jewish writings, the letters of Paul and the apostolic fathers - and you've got persuasive evidence that corroborates all the essentials found in the biographies of Jesus. Even if you were to throw away every last copy of the gospels, you'd still have a picture of Jesus that's extremely compelling - in fact, it's a portrait of the unique Son of God." [my emphasis].

Yamauchi concluded: "For me, the historical evidence has reinforced my commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God who loves us and died for us and was raised from the dead. It's that simple." [my emphasis].

5.      The Scientific Evidence

• Does Archaeology Contradict or Confirm Jesus’ Biographies?

The Fourth Interview – John McRay, PhD

John McRay wrote his thorough and dispassionate 432-page textbook “Archaeology and the New Testament” – a must for all students of archaeology.

 McRay has been a professor of New Testament and archaeology at Wheaton College, in suburban Chicago, for more than fifteen years. His articles have appeared in seventeen encyclopedias and dictionaries.

Luke’s Accuracy as a Historian

The physician and historian Luke authored both the gospel bearing his name and the book of Acts, which together constitute about one-quarter of the entire New Testament. Consequently, a critical issue is whether Luke was a historian who could be trusted to get things right.

"The general consensus of both liberal and conservative scholars is that Luke is very accurate as a historian," McRay replied. "He's erudite, he's eloquent, his Greek approaches classical quality, he writes as an educated man, and archaeological discoveries are showing over and over again that Luke is accurate in what he has to say." [my emphasis].

Again archaeology had answered another challenge to Luke. And given the large portion of the New Testament written by him, it's extremely significant that Luke has been established to be a scrupulously accurate historian, even in the smallest details. [my emphasis].

The Reliability of John and Mark

"There have been several discoveries that have shown John to be very accurate," McRay pointed out.

•  "For example, John 5:1-15 records how Jesus healed an invalid by the Pool of Bethesda. John provides the detail that the pool had five porticoes. For a long time people cited this as an example of John being inaccurate, because no such place had been found.
• But more recently the Pool of Bethesda has been excavated - it lies maybe forty feet below ground – and, sure enough, there were five porticoes, which means colonnaded porches or walkways, exactly as John had described.
• And you have other discoveries - the Pool of Siloam from John 9:7. 
• Jacob's Well from John 4:12;
• The probable location of the Stone Pavement near the Jaffa Gate where Jesus appeared before Pilate in John 19:13, even Pilate's own identity - all of which have lent historical credibility to John's gospel."

"Archaeology has not produced anything that is unequivocally a contradiction to the Bible," McRay replied with confidence…… There's no question that archaeological findings have enhanced the New Testament's credibility. No discovery has ever disproved a biblical reference.” [my emphasis].

Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Few vestiges of the past have generated as much intrigue as the Dead Sea Scrolls, hundreds of manuscripts dating from 250 B.C. to A.D. 68 that were found in caves twenty miles east of Jerusalem in 1947. They apparently had been hidden by a strict sect of Jews called the Essenes before the Romans destroyed their settlement. Primarily, these documents give us insights into Jewish life and customs.

The gospel of Matthew describes how John the Baptist, imprisoned and wrestling with lingering doubts about Jesus' identity, sent his followers to ask Jesus this monumental question:

"Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (Matt. 11:3).

 He was seeking a straight answer about whether Jesus really was the long-awaited Messiah. 

Through the centuries, Christians have wondered about Jesus' rather enigmatic answer. Instead of directly saying yes or no, Jesus replied:

 "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor"

(Matt. 11:4-5).

·         Jesus' response was an allusion to Isaiah 61. But for some reason Jesus included the phrase "the dead are raised," which is conspicuously absent from the Old Testament text.

·         This is where Dead Sea Scroll 4Q521 comes in. This non-biblical manuscript from the Dead Sea collection, written in Hebrew, dates back to thirty years before Jesus was born. It contains a version of Isaiah 61 that does include this missing phrase, "the dead are raised."

·         "[Scroll scholar Craig] Evans has pointed out that this phrase in 4Q521 is unquestionably embedded in a messianic context,"

In essence, Jesus is telling John through his messenger that messianic things are happening. So that answers [Johns] question: Yes, he is the one who is to come.

McRay said. "It refers to the wonders that the Messiah will do when he comes and when heaven and earth will obey him. So when Jesus gave his response to John, he was not being ambiguous at all. John would have instantly recognized his words as a distinct claim that Jesus was the Messiah."

"4Q521 makes it clear that [Jesus'] appeal to Isaiah 61 is indeed messianic. [my emphasis].

McRay's conclusions have been echoed by many other scientists, including prominent Australian archaeologist Clifford Wilson, who wrote, "Those who know the facts now recognize that the New Testament must be accepted as a remarkably accurate source book." [my emphasis].

6.      The Rebuttal Evidence

• Is The Jesus Of History The Same As The Jesus Of Faith?

The Jesus Seminar is a self-selected group that represents a minuscule percentage of New Testament scholars but that generates coverage vastly out of proportion to the group's influence. In the end they concluded Jesus did not say 82 percent of what the gospels attribute to him. Most of the remaining 18 percent was considered somewhat doubtful, with only 2 percent of Jesus' sayings confidently determined to be authentic.

The Fifth Interview – Gregory A Boyd, PhD

Boyd first clashed with the Jesus Seminar in 1996, when he wrote a devastating critique of liberal perspectives of Jesus, called “Cynic Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies”. The heavily footnoted, 416-page tome was honored by readers of Christianity Today as one of their favorite books of the year. His popular paperback Jesus under Siege continues the same themes on a more introductory level.

"The Jesus Seminar represents an extremely small number of radical-fringe scholars who are on the far, far left wing of New Testament thinking. It does not represent mainstream scholarship, and ironically, they have their own brand of fundamentalism”, Greg asserted.

So they say Jesus and his early followers didn't see him as God or the Messiah, and they didn't see his death as having any special significance. His crucifixion was unfortunate and untimely, and stories about his resurrection came later as a way of trying to deal with that sad reality."

However, Boyd asserted:

·         "For one thing, the sheer centrality of the supernatural in the life of Jesus has no parallel whatsoever in Jewish history.

·         Second, the radical nature of his miracles distinguishes him. It didn't just rain when he prayed for it; we're talking about blindness, deafness, leprosy, and scoliosis being healed, storms being stopped, bread and fish being multiplied, sons and daughters being raised from the dead. This is beyond any parallels.

·         Third, Jesus' biggest distinctive is how he did miracles on his own authority. He is the one who says, 'If I, by the finger of God, cast out demons, then the kingdom of God is among you' - he's referring to himself.

·         Jesus says: 'I have been anointed to set the captives free.' He does give God the Father credit for what he does, but you never find him asking God the Father to do it - he does it in the power of God the Father. And for that there is just no parallel.”

[All italics my emphasis].

PART 2 Analyzing Jesus

7: The Identity Evidence

• Was Jesus Really Convinced He Is the Son Of God?

The question of what Jesus thought about himself is a critical issue. Some professors maintain that the myth of Jesus' deity was superimposed on the Jesus tradition by overzealous supporters years after his death.

The Sixth Interview: Ben Witherington III, PhD

Educated at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Master of Divinity degree, summa cum laude) and the University of Durham in England (Doctorate in Theology with a concentration in New Testament), Witherington has taught at Asbury, Ashland Theological Seminary, the Divinity School of Duke University, and Gordon-Conwell.

 It was a 1977 book by British theologian John Hick and half a dozen like-minded colleagues that prompted a firestorm of controversy by charging that Jesus never thought of himself as God incarnate or the Messiah. These concepts, they wrote, developed later and were written into the gospels so it appeared that Jesus was making these claims about himself.

To Witherington, however:

•    "Jesus sees his miracles as bringing about something unprecedented - the coming of God's dominion.”
•         "He doesn't merely see himself as a worker of miracles; he sees himself as the one in whom and through whom the promises of God come to pass.
•          "It implies that Jesus had a degree of intimacy with God that is unlike anything in the Judaism of his day. Jesus is saying that only through having a relationship with Him does this kind of prayer language - this kind of 'Abba' relationship with God - become possible. That says volumes about how He regarded himself." [my emphasis].

John’s Portrait of Jesus

In its opening scene the gospel of John uses majestic and unambiguous language to boldly assert the deity of Jesus:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth”.

 (John 1: 1 -3, 14).

In his book Reasonable Faith William Lane Craig points to a substantial amount of evidence that within twenty years of the Crucifixion there was a full-blown Christology proclaiming Jesus as God incarnate.

"Jesus thought he was the person appointed by God to bring in the climactic saving act of God in human history. He believed he was the agent of God to carry that out - that he had been authorized by God, empowered by God, he spoke for God, and he was directed by God to do this task. So what Jesus said, God said. What Jesus did was the work of God. [my emphasis].

In the very place of God

 Like Witherington, many other scholars have painstakingly picked apart the earliest evidence for Jesus and reached the same conclusions.

Wrote Craig:

·         "Here is a man who thought of himself as the Son of God in a unique sense, who claimed to act and speak with divine authority, who held himself to be a worker of miracles, and who believed that people's eternal destiny hinged on whether or not they believed in him."

·         "Did Jesus believe he was the Son of God, the anointed one of God? The answer is yes.

·         Did he see himself as the Son of Man? The answer is yes.

·         Did he see himself as the final Messiah? Yes, that's the way he viewed himself.

·         Did he believe that anybody less than God could save the world? No, I don't believe he did.

·         Now, God, in his divine nature, doesn't die. So how was God going to get this done? How was God going to be the Savior of the human race? He had to come as a human being to accomplish that task. And Jesus believed he was the one to do it. Jesus said in Mark 10:45, 'I did not come to be served but to serve and give my life as a ransom in place of the many.' [all my emphasis].

Scholars said that Jesus' repeated reference to himself as the Son of Man was not a claim of humanity, but a reference to Daniel 7:13-14, in which the Son of Mary is seen as having universal authority and everlasting dominion and who receives the worship of all nations.

8.       The Psychological Evidence

 • Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed To Be The Son Of God?

In the preceding chapter Dr. Ben Witherington III offered convincing evidence that even the earliest material about Jesus showed he was claiming to be God incarnate. That naturally raises the issue of whether Jesus was crazy when he made those assertions.

The Seventh Interview – Gary R Collins, PhD

With a Master's degree in psychology from the University of Toronto and a Doctorate in clinical psychology from Purdue University, Collins has been studying, teaching, and writing about human behavior for thirty-five years. He was a professor of psychology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for two decades, most of that time as chairman of its psychology division.

Collins stressed:

·         When Jesus multiplied the bread and fish, there were five thousand witnesses. How could he have hypnotized them all?

·         Second, hypnosis doesn't generally work on people who are skeptics and doubters.

·         So how did Jesus hypnotize his brother James, who doubted him but later saw the resurrected Christ?

·         How did he hypnotize Saul of Tarsus, the opponent of Christianity who never even met Jesus until he saw him after his resurrection?

·         How did he hypnotize Thomas, who was so skeptical he wouldn't believe in the Resurrection until he put his fingers in the nail holes in Jesus' hands?

·         Third, concerning the Resurrection, hypnosis wouldn't explain the empty tomb."

Gary asserted: “Jesus exhibited no inappropriate emotions, was in contact with reality, was brilliant and had amazing insights into human nature, and enjoyed deep and abiding relationships.

Jesus backed up his claim to being God through miraculous feats of healing, astounding demonstrations of power over nature, unrivaled teaching, divine understanding of people, and with his own resurrection, which was the ultimate evidence of his deity”. [all my emphasis].

9.      The Profile Evidence

• Did Jesus Fulfilled The Attributes Of God?

The Eighth Interview: Donald A Carson, PhD., D.A.

Carson, a research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, has written or edited more than forty books, including The Sermon on the Mount; Exegetical Fallacies; The Gospel According to John; and his award-winning The Gagging of God. He taught at three other colleges and seminaries before joining Trinity in 1978.

 Mystery of the Incarnation

Lee asked Dr Carson:

·         How in the world could Jesus be omnipresent if he couldn't be in two places at once?"

·         How could he be omniscient when he says, 'Not even the Son of Man knows the hour of his return'?

·         How could he be omnipotent when the gospels plainly tell us that he was unable to do many miracles in his hometown?

·         The Bible itself seems to argue against Jesus being God?

Creator or Created?

·         Isaiah 57:15 describes God as "he who lives forever."

·         John 3:16 calls Jesus the 'begotten' Son of God,

·         and Colossians 1:15 says he was the 'firstborn over all creation.'

·         Don't they clearly imply that Jesus was created, as opposed to being the Creator?"

Carson replied, using John 3:16: "It really means 'unique one.' The way it was usually used in the first century is 'unique and beloved.'

So John 3:16 is simply saying that Jesus is the unique and beloved Son - or as the New International Version translates it, 'the one and only Son' - rather than saying that he's ontologically begotten in time."

"I think 'supreme heir' would be more appropriate," he responded. [all my emphasis].

Was Jesus A Lesser God?

·         If Jesus was God, what kind of God was he?

·         Was he equal to the Father, or some sort of junior God, possessing the attributes of deity and yet somehow failing to match the total sketch that the Old Testament provides of the divine?

·         "Jesus said in John 14:28, 'The Father is greater than I am”.

·         Jesus says, 'If you loved me, you'd be glad for my sake when I say I'm going away, because the Father is greater than I am”.

That is to say, Jesus is returning to the glory that is properly his, so if they really know who he is and really love him properly, they'll be glad that he's going back to the realm where he really is greater. 

As Jesus says in John 17:5, 'Glorify me with the glory that I had with the Father before the world began' - that is, 'the Father is greater than I am”.

Matching the Sketch of God

According to the Bible, the fact that it did occur is not in any doubt.

Every attribute of God, says the New Testament, is found in Jesus Christ:

·         Omniscience? In John 16:30 the apostle John affirms of Jesus, "Now we can see that you know all things."

·         Omnipresence? Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" and in Matthew 18:20, "Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

·         Omnipotence? "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," Jesus said in Matthew 28:18.

·         Eternality? John 1:1 declares of Jesus, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

·         Immutability? Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

·         Also, the Old Testament paints a portrait of God by using such titles and descriptions as Alpha and Omega, Lord, Savior, King, Judge, Light, Rock, Redeemer, Shepherd, Creator, giver of life, forgiver of sin, and speaker with divine authority.

·         It's fascinating to note that in the New Testament each and every one is applied to Jesus. Jesus said it all in John 14:7: "If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well." [all italics my emphasis].

10.  The Fingerprint Evidence

• Did Jesus – And Jesus Alone – Match The Identity of The Messiah?

The Ninth Interview: Louis M Lapides, Div., Th. M

Lapides, a Jew, earned a bachelor's degree in theology from Dallas Baptist University as well as a master of divinity and a master of theology degree in Old Testament and Semitics from Talbot Theological Seminary.

Lee asked: "If the prophecies were so obvious to you

Lapides replied: Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah, or the Anointed One, who would redeem God's people.

Against astronomical odds - one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion - Jesus, and only Jesus throughout history, matched this prophetic fingerprint. This confirms Jesus' identity to an incredible degree of certainty. [my emphasis].

PART 3 Researching the Resurrection

11: The Medical Evidence

Was Jesus' Death a Scam and His Resurrection a Hoax?

The Tenth Interview: Alexander Metherell, M.D., PhD.

As you would expect from someone with a medical degree (University of Miami in Florida) and a doctorate in engineering (University of Bristol in England), Metherell speaks with scientific precision. He is Board-certified in diagnosis by the American Board of Radiology and has been a consultant to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health of Bethesda, Maryland.

Metherell said:

•         "Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal. They usually consisted of thirty-nine lashes but frequently were a lot more than that, depending on the mood of the soldier applying the blows. The soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them. When the whip would strike the flesh, these balls would cause deep bruises or contusions, which would break open with further blows. And the whip had pieces of sharp bone as well, which would cut the flesh severely”.
• 
  
•          "Jesus was in hypovolemic shock (means the person is suffering the effects of losing a large amount of blood), as he staggered up the road to the execution site at Calvary, carrying the horizontal beam of the cross.
• 
  
•         Finally Jesus collapsed, and the Roman soldier ordered Simon to carry the cross for him”.
• 
  
•          “Because of the terrible effects of this beating, there's no question that Jesus was already in serious to critical condition even before the nails were driven through his hands and feet."
• 
  
•          "The Romans used spikes that were five to seven inches long and tapered to a sharp point. They were driven through the wrists," Metherell said, pointing about an inch or so below his left palm.

·         Lee interrupted: "I thought the nails pierced his palms. That's what all the paintings show. In fact, it's become a standard symbol representing the Crucifixion."

•          "Through the wrists," Metherell repeated. "This was a solid position that would lock the hand; if the nails had been driven through the palms, his weight would have caused the skin to tear and he would have fallen off the cross. [my emphasis].
• 
  
•          So the nails went through the wrists, although this was considered part of the hand in the language of the day. And it's important to understand that the nail would go through the place where the median nerve runs. This is the largest nerve going out to the hand, and it would be crushed by the nail that was being pounded in."
• 
  
•          This fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy in Psalm 22, which foretold the Crucifixion hundreds of years before it took place and says, 'My bones are out of joint."'
• 
  
•          "Once a person is hanging in the vertical position," he replied, "crucifixtion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation”.
• 
  
•          "Even before he died - and this is important, too - the hypovolemic shock would have caused a sustained rapid heart rate that would have contributed to heart failure – and Jesus died of cardiac arrest. [my emphasis].

Answering the Skeptics

Archaeology has now established that the use of nails was historical.

·      Metherell's conclusions were consistent with the findings of other physicians who have carefully studied the issue.

·      Among them is Dr. William D. Edwards, whose 1986 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded, "Clearly, the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted.... Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge."' [my emphasis].

12.  The Evidence of the Missing Body

• Was Jesus’ Body Really Absent From His Tomb?

The empty tomb, as an enduring symbol of the Resurrection, is the ultimate representation of Jesus' claim to being God. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:17 that the Resurrection is the very linchpin of the Christian faith: "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins."

Theologian Gerald O'Collins put it this way: "In a profound sense, Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter. It is not Christianity at all."

The Resurrection is the supreme vindication of Jesus' divine identity and his inspired teaching. It's the proof of his triumph over sin and death. It's the foreshadowing of the resurrection of his followers. It's the basis of Christian hope. It's the miracle of all miracles. [my emphasis].

The Eleventh Interview – William Lane Craig, PhD., D. TH

Craig has a Master of Arts degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham, England. Craig studied the Resurrection for the first time, while earning another doctorate, this one in theology from the University of Munich.

"Was Jesus Really Buried In the Tomb?

The gospels say Jesus' corpse was turned over to Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the very council - the Sanhedrin - that voted to condemn Jesus. Is this correct?

For one thing, the burial is mentioned by the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 15:3-7, where he passes on a very early creed of the church:

"This creed is actually a summary that corresponds line by line with what the gospels teach," he explained. "When we turn to the gospels, we find multiple, independent attestation of this burial story, and Joseph of Arimathea is specifically named in all four accounts. On top of that, the burial story in Mark is so extremely early that it's simply not possible for it to have been subject to legendary corruption."

Is Joseph of Arimathea Historical?

LS asked Craig: "Mark says that the entire Sanhedrin voted to condemn Jesus," I said. "If that's true, this means Joseph of Arimathea cast his ballot to kill Jesus. Isn't it highly unlikely that he would have then come to give Jesus an honorable burial?"

Luke’s account said Joseph of Arimathea wasn't present when the official vote was taken.

The majority of New Testament scholars today agree that the burial account of Jesus is fundamentally reliable. John A. T. Robinson, the late Cambridge University New Testament scholar, said “the honorable burial of Jesus is one of the earliest and best-attested facts that we have about the historical Jesus."

Craig added: So when this early Christian creed says Jesus was buried and then raised on the third day, it's saying implicitly but quite clearly: an empty tomb was left behind." [all my emphasis].

How Secure Was The Tomb?

"When you read the New Testament," he continued, "there's no doubt that the disciples sincerely believed the truth of the Resurrection, which they proclaimed to their deaths.

The idea that the empty tomb is the result of some hoax, conspiracy, or theft is simply dismissed today.

William Lane Craig, who has earned two doctorates and written several books on the Resurrection, presented striking evidence that the enduring symbol of Easter - the vacant tomb of Jesus - was a historical reality:

What’s the Affirmative Evidence?

Craig said:

·         "First," he said, "the empty tomb is definitely implicit in the early tradition that is passed along by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, which is a very old and reliable source of historical information about Jesus.

·         Second, the site of Jesus' tomb was known to Christian and Jew alike. So if it weren't empty, it would be impossible for a movement founded on belief in the Resurrection to have come into existence in the same city where this man had been publicly executed and buried.

·         Third, we can tell from the language, grammar, and style that Mark got his empty tomb story actually, his whole passion narrative-from an earlier source. In fact, there's evidence it was written before A.D. 37, which is much too early for legend to have seriously corrupted it.

·          Fourth, there's the simplicity of the empty tomb story in Mark. Mark's account of the story of the empty tomb is stark in its simplicity and unadorned by theological reflection.

·         Fifth, the unanimous testimony that the empty tomb was discovered by women argues for the authenticity of the story, because this would have been embarrassing for the disciples to admit and most certainly would have been covered up if this were a legend.

·         Sixth, the earliest Jewish polemic presupposes the historicity of the empty tomb.

·         In other words, there was nobody who was claiming that the tomb still contained Jesus' body.

·         The question always was, 'What happened to the body?' The Jews proposed the ridiculous story that the guards had fallen asleep. Obviously, they were grasping at straws. But the point is this: they started with the assumption that the tomb was vacant! Why? Because they knew it was!"

·         The core of the story is the same: Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of Jesus, puts it in a tomb, the tomb is visited by a small group of women followers of Jesus early on the Sunday morning following his crucifixion, and they find that the tomb is empty. They see a vision of angels saying that Jesus is risen. 

C   Craig added: 'This suggests that there is a historical core to this story that is reliable and can be depended upon, however conflicting the secondary details might be’.

·         Jesus was in the tomb Friday afternoon, all day Saturday, and on Sunday morning - under the way the Jews conceptualized time back then, this would have counted as three days. [all italics my emphasis].

13.  The Evidence of Appearances

 Was Jesus Seen Alive After His Death On The Cross?

The Twelfth Interview: Gary Habermas, PhD., D.D.

After earning a doctorate from Michigan State University, Habermas received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Emmanuel College in Oxford, England. He has authored seven books dealing with Jesus rising from the dead, including The Resurrection of Jesus: A Rational Inquiry, The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic; The Historical Jesus; and Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?

Presently at Liberty University, where he is currently distinguished professor and chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Theology and director of the Master's program in Apologetics.

On the face of it, this is incredibly influential testimony that Jesus did appear alive after his death. Here were names of specific individuals and groups of people who saw him, written at a time when people could still check them out if they wanted confirmation.

“Convince Me It’s a Creed”

·         First, Paul introduces it with the words received and delivered [or passed on in the NIV], which are technical rabbinic terms indicating he's passing along holy tradition.

·         Second," Habermas said, "the text's parallelism and stylized content indicate it's a creed.

·         Third, the original text uses Cephas for Peter, which is his Aramaic name. In fact, the Aramaic itself could indicate a very early origin.

·         Fourth, the creed uses several other primitive phrases that Paul would not customarily use, like 'the Twelve’, ‘the third day’, ‘he was raised’, and others.

·         Fifth, the use of certain words is similar to Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew means of narration."

In 1 Corinthians 15:11, Paul emphasizes that the other apostles agreed in preaching the same gospel, this same message about the Resurrection. This means that what the eyewitness Paul is saying is the exact same thing as what the eyewitnesses Peter and James are saying.

The Book of Acts is littered with extremely early affirmations of Jesus' resurrection, while the gospels describe numerous encounters in detail. 

Concluded British theologian Michael Green: "The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity.... There can be no rational doubt that they occurred." [my emphasis].

• Are There Any Supporting Facts That Point Toward The Resurrection?

·         First, the disciples were in a unique position to know whether the Resurrection happened, and they went to their deaths proclaiming it was true. Nobody knowingly and willingly dies for a lie.

·         Second, apart from the Resurrection, there's no good reason why such skeptics as Paul and James would have been converted and would have died for their faith.

·         Third, within weeks of the Crucifixion, thousands of Jews became convinced Jesus was the Son of God and began following him, abandoning key social practices that had critical sociological and religious importance for centuries. They believed they risked damnation if they were wrong.

·         Fourth, the early sacraments of Communion and Baptism affirmed Jesus' resurrection and deity.

·         And fifth, the miraculous emergence of the church in the face of brutal Roman persecution "rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of Resurrection," as C. F. D. Moule put it.

Taken together, LS concluded that this expert testimony constitutes compelling evidence that Jesus Christ was who he claimed to be - the one and only Son of God.

The Mystery of the Five Hundred

The creed in I Corinthians 15 is the only place in ancient literature where it is claimed that Jesus appeared to five hundred people at once. The gospels don't corroborate it. No secular historian mentions it.

·         First, even though it's only reported in one source, it just so happens to be the earliest and best authenticated passage of all!

·         Second, Paul apparently had some proximity to these people. He says, 'most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.'

The weight of the evidence clearly and convincingly supports the creed as being powerful evidence for Jesus' post-Resurrection appearances.

The Testimony of the Gospels

Habermas said that Jesus appeared:

•          to Mary Magdalene, in John 20:10-18;
•          to the other women, in Matthew 28:8-10;
•          to Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus, to Luke 24:13-32;
•          to eleven disciples and others, in Luke 24:33-49;
•          to ten apostles and others, with Thomas absent, in John 20:19-23;
•          to Thomas and the other apostles, in John 20:26-30;
•          to seven apostles, in John 21:1-14;
•          to the disciples, in Matthew 28:16-20.
•          And he was with the apostles at the Mount of Olives before his ascension, in Luke 24:50-52 and Acts 1:4-9.

Indeed, Acts is also littered with references to Jesus' appearances.

•          The apostle Peter was especially adamant about it. He says in Acts 2:32, "God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact."
•          In Acts 3:15 he repeats, "You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this."
•          He confirms to Cornelius in Acts 10:41 that he and others "ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead."
•          Not to be outdone, Paul said in a speech recorded in Acts 13:31, "For many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people."

Asserted Habermas:

"The Resurrection was undoubtedly the central proclamation of the early church from the very beginning. The earliest Christians didn't just endorse Jesus' teachings; they were convinced they had seen him alive after his crucifixion. That's what changed their lives and started the church. Certainly, since this was their center-most conviction, they would have made absolutely sure that it was true." [my emphasis].

Mark does single out Peter:

·         Mark 16:7 says, 'But go, tell his disciples and Peter, He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you'

·         This agrees with 1 Corinthians 15:5, which confirms that Jesus did appear to Peter,

·         and Luke 24:34, another early creed, which says, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon,' or Peter”.

So what Mark predicts about Peter is reported to have been fulfilled, in two early and very reliable creeds of the church-as well as by Peter himself in Acts."

"No Rational Doubt”

•          Jesus was killed on the cross - Alexander Metherell has made that graphically clear.
•          His tomb was empty on Easter Morning -William Lane Craig left no doubt about that.
•          His disciples and others saw him, touched him, and ate with him after the Resurrection 
• 
  
• - Gary Habermas has built that case with abundant evidence.

·         As prominent British theologian Michael Green said, "The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity... There can be no rational doubt that they occurred, and that the main reason why Christians became sure of the Resurrection in the earliest days was just this. They could say with assurance, 'We have seen the Lord.' They knew it was he. And all this doesn't even exhaust the evidence”. [my emphasis].

14 : The Circumstantial Evidence

Are There Any Supporting Facts That Point to the Resurrection?

The Thirteenth Interview: J. P. Moreland, PhD.

Moreland, who also has a Master's degree in Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, currently is a professor at the Talbot School of Theology, where he teaches in the Master's Program in Philosophy and Ethics. His articles have been published in more than thirty professional journals, such as American Philosophical Quarterly, Meta-philosophy; and Philosophy and Phenomeological Research.

LS asked Moreland: “Can you give me five pieces of circumstantial evidence that convince you Jesus rose from the dead?”

First Piece: The Disciples Died For Their Beliefs

Moreland stressed that, to his followers, Jesus Christ was the Messiah of God who died on a cross, returned to life, and was seen alive by them. And they were willing to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming this, without any payoff from a human point of view.

Second Piece: The Conversion of Skeptics

The early followers of Jesus, including Paul, claimed to have seen public events that other people saw as well. Furthermore, when Paul wrote 2 Corinthians – which nobody dispute he did – he reminded people in Corinth that he performed miracles when he was with them earlier. He would be foolish to make this statement if they knew he had not.

Third Piece: Changes to Key Social Structures

•         Five weeks after Jesus was crucified, over ten thousand Jews began following him, and claiming he is the initiator of a new religion. After the death of Jesus, the Jews no longer offered animal sacrifices.
•          Second, the Jews emphasized obeying the laws that God had entrusted to Moses. These Jewish followers of Jesus now think differently.
•          Third, the Jews religiously kept the Sabbath Sunday free. After following Jesus, and becoming Christians, they worship on Sundays, as this is the day Jesus rose from the dead.
•          Fourth, the Jews believed in monotheism – only worship one God. The Christians believed that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit represent one God – radically different from orthodox Jewish thinking!
•          And fifth, these Jewish Christians now believed that Jesus is the Messiah who suffered and died for the sins of the world.

These changes to the existing Jewish social structures were thus not minor adjustments – they were monumental changes!

Fourth Piece: Communion and Baptism

The practice of baptism came from Jewish customs, and the Jews were very much against Gentile or Greek ideas to affect their worship.

As for the Holy Communion, these early Jewish Christians celebrated his execution, because they were convinced that they had seen him alive from the tomb.

These two sacraments can be dated back to the very earliest Christian community – too early for the influence of any other religion to creep into their understanding of what Jesus’ death meant.

Fifth Piece: The Emergence of the Church

All the above circumstantial evidence:

•         The willingness of the disciples to die for what they had experienced;
•         The revolutionized lives of skeptics like James and Saul;
•          The radical changes in social structures cherished by Jews for centuries;
•          The sudden appearance of Communion and baptism;
•          The amazing emergence and growth of the church

Led LS to agree with Moreland that the Resurrection – and only the Resurrection – make sense of them all! No other explanation comes close. [my emphasis].

CONCLUSION

The Verdict of History

What Does the Evidence Establish and What Does It Mean Today?

Lee Strobel asked, and received convincing answers, as shown above, to all these questions:

·         Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?

·         Do The Biographies of Jesus Stand Up to Scrutiny?

·         Were Jesus’ Biographies Reliably Preserved For Us?

·         Is There Credible Evidence for Jesus Outside His Biographies?

·         Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus’ Biographies?

·         Is the Jesus of History the same as the Jesus of Faith?

·         Was Jesus really convinced that he was the Son of God?

·         Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed He Was the Son of god?

·         Did Jesus fulfilled the Attributes of God?

·         Did Jesus – and Jesus Alone – Match the Identity of the Messiah?

·         Was Jesus’ Death A Sham and His Resurrection A Hoax?

·         Was Jesus’ Body Really Absent From His Tomb?

·         Was Jesus Seen Alive After His Death On the Cross?

·         Are There Any Supporting Facts that Point To The Resurrection?

Lee Strobel’s New Revised Thinking

“By November 8, 1981……the atheism I had embraced for so long, buckled under the weight of historical truth. It was a stunning and radical outcome, certainly not what I had anticipated when I embarked on this investigative process”.

Lee now believed in John 1:12:

“Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”

Lee added: “……I had become something different: a child of God, forever adopted into his family, through the historical, risen Jesus”.

And Lee echoed Apostle Paul’s words here in his conversion:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”

(2 Corinthians 5:17).

Reaching Your Own Verdict

In the end, the verdict is yours, and yours alone. Just remember:

“If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins”

(John 8:24).

He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Yeow Eu Ming

13 June 2017.