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More Questions On the Resurrection

January 03, 2010     Time: 00:21:28
More Questions On the Resurrection

Summary

Conversation with William Lane Craig.

Transcript More Questions on the Resurrection

 

Kevin Harris: We have questions about the resurrection, Dr. Craig, and that is one of your favorite topics of all time, so we are going to dive right in. We appreciate the questions that we get at ReasonableFaith.org. We have been doing a series of podcasts addressing questions, getting to as many as we can. Here is one that is pretty representative.

Dr. Craig, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul gives a list of all the witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. Some are identified such as Peter, the Twelve, James the Apostle, and Paul himself. My question is: who were the five hundred? Paul says that there were five hundred eyewitnesses to the resurrection. Of course, some could be assumed from the Bible, but is there any other literature that gives us insight to who they might be? Has any other church father identified or confirmed someone who was part of the five hundred?

Dr. Craig: There is no reference to the five hundred brethren that saw Christ anywhere else that I know of in early Christian writings included in the New Testament. So it is an astonishing claim when you think about it – that there would be five hundred Christians who it says “at one time” saw Jesus risen from the dead. This is quite an astonishing claim. One wonders why don’t we have a story of this incredible event anywhere else in the New Testament? Yet, Paul says that some of these people are still alive, though some have died which shows that Paul knew who these people were. This wasn’t just sort of a meaningless cypher on a list. Paul was aware of these people; he knew that some had died in the interim, but that many were still around and could be questioned about this. C. H. Dodd, the great New Testament scholar from Cambridge University, said that Paul is saying in effect that the witnesses are there to be questioned if you want to go talk to them. So this appearance must have occurred – Paul knew the people who had seen it. So how does one explain what it is and when it occurred?

Well, if you think about it, an appearance to five hundred people at one time would have to occur out of doors. There wouldn’t be any sort of auditorium or inner building in which this plausibly could have occurred. That suggests that it probably took place in Galilee. We know that in Galilee Jesus spoke to crowds of people that numbered sometimes in the thousands on the Galilean hillsides. The Gospel narratives tend to focus on the appearances in Jerusalem. This may be why this appearance is not related in the Gospels because they tend to leave out the Galilean appearances and focus on the Jerusalem traditions.

But it is very intriguing, Kevin, to notice that in Matthew 28, he does narrate an appearance in Galilee on a mountain top. One of the singular things about this mountaintop appearance in Matthew is that it is the only post-resurrection appearance which is by appointment. It says that the disciples went to the mountain which Jesus had appointed them to go to. [1] All of the other appearances were spontaneous, unexpected appearances. But this was a rendezvous where Jesus had apparently arranged a time and a place at which he would meet the disciples in Galilee. It is not at all implausible that others who had known Jesus during his lifetime would gather with them on the mountaintop to see this appearance of Jesus to them. It is very interesting that it says that when Jesus appeared and came to them that some doubted. The grammar there suggests that although the twelve disciples believed others who were with them doubted that this really was Jesus perhaps or that this was a genuine resurrection appearance or something of that sort. They hadn’t seen the previous appearances. They hadn’t been perhaps in Jerusalem and seen the crucifixion. So some doubted.

So that is suggestive that it could be that the mountaintop appearance related in Matthew 28 is the appearance to the five hundred brethren that finds its way into this pre-Pauline tradition that is cited in 1 Corinthians 15. We have no way of knowing, but it is an interesting conjecture.

Kevin Harris: Paul appeals to the five hundred and he appeals to other eyewitnesses. Was he pretty standard here by ancient standards? Was he keeping with ancient standards on relating a certain amount of witnesses to establish something? [2]

Dr. Craig: Right, the ancient historian’s method would be to cite eyewitnesses. They didn’t trust literary sources so the historian would try to talk about the actual persons that he interviewed or that he himself was part of these events and experienced them. There is a high value placed on being able to cite the eyewitnesses, just as you have here in 1 Corinthians 15. So my doctoral mentor Wolfhart Pannenberg says that what Paul is trying to do here in 1 Corinthians 15 is give a convincing historical proof by the standards of that time.

Kevin Harris: Fascinating. 1 Corinthians 15. One of the longest chapters in the New Testament. It is just – I call it a cheesecake chapter. It has so much in it.

Dr. Craig: It is a wonderful treatise; a separate little treatise on the resurrection.

Kevin Harris: It is almost the New Testament in a nutshell. One more question about the five hundred. What kind of an effect do you think they had on the start of the church – this five hundred? Surely some of them were hanging around at Pentecost or maybe involved there.

Dr. Craig: It makes you wonder, but it is just impossible to know because the early church was focused in Jerusalem. This was where the center was – in Jerusalem. So these folks, if they were in Galilee, would have had to come to Jerusalem and perhaps stay there. That is not at all impossible but we just don’t know for sure.

Kevin Harris: Another question on the resurrection.

Dear Dr. Craig, my question is regarding myth growth rates and if you have ever considered the remarkable growth of myth around Alexander the Great and the lifetime of his contemporaries.

He goes on to quote A. N. Sherwin White, who we get a lot of research from, that mythological development was a long process in the ancient world and by ancient standards, yet this questioner is saying Alexander the Great and the mythological development in his lifetime seems to mitigate against A. N. Sherwin White’s research that it takes a long period of time.

Dr. Craig: Let’s clarify exactly what A. N. Sherwin White said. What Sherwin White says in his book Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament is that these mythical tendencies or the tendencies for oral traditions to corrupt cannot wipe out the hard core of historical facts within, say, two generations after the event. You can still recover a historical core even within two generations despite these mythologizing tendencies. So he isn’t denying that the tendencies are there and operative. On the contrary, he says the writings of Herodotus for example are just filled with legendary stories. They have all sorts of fabulous tales that Herodotus passes on but nevertheless he says Herodotus is still able to get at the facts about the war that he narrates and is still able to get back to the historical core. I think the case of Alexander the Great is a wonderful illustration of this. The earliest biographies that we have of Alexander the Great come about four hundred years after the death of Alexander, and yet historians still regard them as largely trustworthy accounts of Alexander’s life. The fabulous legends about Alexander the Great don’t begin to arise until after these two authors have written their biographies.

Kevin Harris: What is interesting about this questioner here who wrote to you, Dr. Craig, is that he seems pretty convinced that there is no mythological development in the resurrection – between the resurrection event and when the documents about it went down in the New Testament. He seems convinced, doesn’t seem to have become a Christian or embraced faith in Christ, but he does find it convincing that there was no room for mythological development between the life of Christ and the resurrection, and when the first documents when down.

Dr. Craig: Again, I want to be careful about how we state this because I think it has been misunderstood. The point that Sherwin White makes is not that there is no mythological or legendary development but that it is not to such an extent that the hard core of historical facts is obliterated. That is why in my case for the resurrection I focus on the historical core of these narratives. That a group of women for example discovered Jesus’ tomb empty on the first day of the week after his crucifixion but the names of the women, the times of their visit, the details of the narrative are part of the secondary and circumstantial features in the narrative. I don’t claim to be able to show their historical credibility. It is the core of the narrative that I think you can show is plausibly historical and which most scholars today do regard as representing a genuine historical core to the narrative. [3]

Kevin Harris: So we don’t need to misuse A. N. Sherwin White. His name has come up in a lot of Christian apologetic books in defense of the resurrection, defense of the New Testament. We want to make sure that we not misuse his data.

Dr. Craig: That is correct. By the same token, to not offer facile criticisms of him as I have also seen done on the internet where, for example, it is pointed out the number of fanciful and legendary tales that Herodotus does pass on. A. N. Sherwin White appeals to Herodotus as a case study for the rapidity with which these legendary tales accumulate. He says what the tests show is that even two generations is too short a time span for these mythological tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical facts. Pointing to legends and fanciful tales in Herodotus does nothing to negate the point that Sherwin White is making. Quite the contrary, Sherwin White is saying here is a very unreliable author who loves to narrate these mythological stories, love to hand on these legendary tales, and yet even with him we are still able to reconstruct with confidence the historical core of what happened in the war that he relates.

Kevin Harris: We got a question, Dr. Craig, somewhat related to the resurrection. It deals with the ascension of Jesus. There are two parts to this question:

Dr. Craig, what is meant by the ascension of Jesus? Does it mean he physically ascended out of the physical universe and into physical heaven?

Dr. Craig: I think it certainly does mean that he physically left this universe. Whether the destination to which he went is also a physical reality I think is a further question that is a matter or theological speculation. The point of the ascension narrative is to say that Jesus of Nazareth is no longer present with us in this physical way. He has left and his Holy Spirit now stands in his place and continues his ministry.

Kevin Harris: What he couldn’t do localized, he can now do in a global way.

Dr. Craig: Through the Holy Spirit who stands in his place. That is right. So sometimes the Holy Spirit is actually referred to as Christ because he becomes so closely identified with Christ. If you look at Romans 8, Paul there says that, “If the Spirit of Christ is in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also raise your mortal bodies from the dead through the Spirit of Christ. If Christ is in you, then your bodies which are dead because of sin are alive because of righteousness.” [4] There he moves from talking of the Spirit of God, to the Spirit of Christ, to simply Christ and equating them because the Spirit is so closely identified with Christ in his present role. But Christ himself, physically, has left this universe. What I would say, from a modern perspective, is that he has exited our four-dimensional space-time realm and is no longer in this realm. Now, what his condition is external to, so to speak, our four dimensional space-time realm is a matter of theological conjecture. I think it is very possible that Christ existing outside of the space-time universe doesn’t have a physical body. This is something that is manifest only when he is present in space-time.

Kevin Harris: Borg brought this up in a debate that you had with him in Denton at the University of North Texas. [5] He said that he just found it very hard to believe that Jesus ascended physically into a state that is not physical and “how do you explain that?” You told him what you just said here. You mentioned a tuning fork.

Dr. Craig: Yes, that’s right. I think it is a handy analogy. Imagine a tuning fork which you would pluck and it would set up a vibration and you would hear a hum. Then imagine you put that tuning fork, still vibrating, inside of a vacuum jar in which there was no air to serve as the medium. Now there would be no sound at all even though the fork itself had not changed. It is still vibrating, it hasn’t intrinsically changed in any way, but because there is no medium now it is not manifesting any sort of a sound because there is nothing to carry the vibrations to make a sound. Now, it seems to me that Christ’s human nature could be like that. When Christ’s human nature is not present in a space-time manifold that human nature doesn’t manifest itself as a body. But the minute Christ re-enters space-time then that human nature manifests itself as a physical body just as when air is reintroduced into the vacuum jar, that fork vibrating will manifest itself in sound. [6]

Kevin Harris: Perfectly logical.

Dr. Craig: It seems to me that it makes sense.

Kevin Harris: He follows up with kind of a reiteration of the question:

Is heaven a physical place outside of the universe? If not, how could Jesus who resurrected physically, bodily have ascended into heaven?

Well, we just answered that about just how Christ’s body would manifest.

Dr. Craig: Right. I think what one could add, Kevin, is that heaven technically speaking doesn’t exist yet. Heaven is going to be the state that will exist after this space-time universe is dissolved and done away with. Then there will be a new heavens and a new earth that we will inhabit in immortal, supernatural, resurrection bodies.

Kevin Harris: I’m looking forward to that.

Dr. Craig: Yes, exactly.

Kevin Harris: Now that will be a very physical place.

Dr. Craig: That will be physical. That’s right. But when people die now, technically speaking they don’t go to heaven. That is a popular misconception.

Kevin Harris: Oh, it is.

Dr. Craig: It isn’t really biblical teaching. What happens when you die is you go into a kind of intermediate state of disembodied existence until the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. Then there will be the new heavens and new earth.

Kevin Harris: Can we be confident though that our dead loved ones go enter the presence of God even though it is an unembodied state?

Dr. Craig: Yes, because Paul says very clearly in 2 Corinthians 5, “To be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord.” In Philippians 2 he says, “I would rather depart and go to be with Christ for that is far better.” So even in this state of disembodied existence in which the soul exists apart from the physical body there is a closer and intimate communion with Christ.

Kevin Harris: The Scripture seems to represent Christ’s ascension that he went to be at the right hand of the Father, which is a way of saying in the presence of God.

Dr. Craig: Yes, and to a position of authority. To sit at the right hand is to be in a position of authority and exaltation. So it is not talking about a geographical location. This is an idiom for the exaltation of Christ to a position of authority.

Kevin Harris: Let’s do a final question on the resurrection, Dr. Craig. This questioner says,

I was once discussing with my friend about the resurrection. The main core of the argument was this:

1. If Jesus resurrected then he is God.

2. Jesus resurrected.

3. Therefore, Jesus is God.

I had this discussion many times and discussed the various evidences that show Jesus had resurrected. But I failed to talk about premise 1 and my friend made me realize this; that is, if Jesus resurrected then he is God. I thought about it and it does seem that the most we can deduce from Jesus’ resurrection is that he had supernatural powers that would allow him to rise from the dead but it doesn’t follow that he is the God of the universe. Am I missing something vital here? Please point it out because it seems that premise 1 involves some sort of bloated conclusion “if Jesus resurrected then he is God.” Is there a way to prove the premise that if Jesus resurrected then he is God?

Dr. Craig: I think he is right in thinking that this is a bloated conclusion and that this is far to facile to simply say that because Jesus resurrected he is God. I think the proper way to formulate the argument is to say that if Jesus is raised from the dead then this represents a divine vindication of Jesus’ radical personal claims whereby he put himself in the position of God. So the resurrection is God’s vindication of those allegedly blasphemous claims for which Jesus was crucified. Then I think the resurrection does in fact serve as a confirmation of Jesus’ divinity by this indirect route.

Kevin Harris: So it tends to verify Jesus’ truth claims.

Dr. Craig: Right.

Kevin Harris: And Jesus’ claim to divinity. John 8:58 and so forth. So it would vindicate Christ’s claims. He is asking that the most it could prove would be that Jesus had supernatural powers and was able to somehow resurrect.

Dr. Craig: Right. He is thinking here that anyone who can rise from the dead must be endowed with some great supernatural powers and abilities. Obviously, that wouldn’t prove deity. That wouldn’t prove divinity. So he is missing a step here.  [7] The step that is missing is placing the event of the resurrection in its proper religio-hisorical context. It is the religio-historical context of an event which will reveal to us the meaning, and in particular the religious significance, of the event. That is why it is important to see the event of the resurrection in the context of Jesus’ own unparalleled life and ministry and his allegedly blasphemous claims for which he was crucified. If God raised this man from the dead, then God has unequivocally committed himself to the man who allegedly blasphemed him and has vindicated the truth of those claims. [8]