Questions on the Sources for the Resurrection
September 14, 2014 Time: 21:59
Summary
What New Testament sources are there for the resurrection and what does it mean that the majority of scholars affirm certain facts about Jesus?
Transcript Questions on the Sources for the Resurrection
Kevin Harris: Dr. Craig, let's answer some questions on the resurrection. We get these through ReasonableFaith.org. You know, Bill, it all comes down to the resurrection anyway, doesn't it?
Dr. Craig: For Christians, that is absolutely foundational.
Kevin Harris:
Hi, Dr. Craig. While listening to one of your past debates on Jesus' resurrection, something you claimed made me a bit uncomfortable. When you are dealing with an objection concerning the possibly inconsistencies between the Gospel narratives, you claimed that there are several key agreements by all four Gospels. You go on to note that this is important to the historian who is trying to extract a main core which is largely unaffected by secondary details. However, the agreement that you listed which gave me pause was the last one – the postmortem appearances of Jesus. I am concerned that we can't say that all four Gospels concur on this with a whole lot of assurance knowing that the ending of Mark is sketchy or inauthentic. I know from elsewhere that you don't think we ought to work with those sketchy parts of Mark, but only with the authentic verses. Can we still say therefore that all four Gospels concur on the postmortem appearances of Jesus or must we only say that three do?
Dr. Craig: I think that we can say that all four concur on the fact of the postmortem resurrection appearances of Jesus because even if Mark chapter 16 ends with verse 8, whether the original ending of Mark was lost or whether the Gospel actually ended with verse 8, it is very clear that Mark knows of Galilean appearances of Jesus to the disciples because in the words of the angel to the women he foreshadows these appearances. He says, “Go tell Peter and the disciples that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him as he promised.”[1] So Mark clearly knows of resurrection appearances of Jesus and that these are Galilean appearances. They occurred in Galilee. He even mentions Peter in connection with these. So Mark foreshadows these resurrection appearances even if his Gospel does end at verse 8 and he does not narrate them. We don't know if he went on to narrate appearances for sure because we don't know if the Gospel was meant to end at verse 8. But I think what is clear is that Mark knows the tradition of Galilean resurrection appearances, and in that sense he is on the same page as Matthew is. Matthew, as you know, after the disciples return to Galilee, experience this appearance of Jesus on the mountaintop in Galilee where the people had gathered to rendezvous with Jesus.[2] It was this appearance, I suspect, that Mark is foreshadowing and referring to.
John also has Galilean appearances in the epilogue to the Gospel of John.[3] Luke and John, in the body of their Gospels, have Jerusalem appearances[4], but John also does know of Galilean appearances because he has the appearance to the disciples by the Sea of Galilee as they are out fishing. So in Mark and Matthew and the epilogue to John we have the tradition of Galilean appearances. In Luke and in John we have Jerusalem appearances. In all four Gospels we have resurrection appearances of Jesus after the discovery of the empty tomb.
Kevin Harris: Bill, how do you and other scholars use the longer ending of Mark – the disputed part of it – in resurrection evidence? Is there anything to be gleaned?
Dr. Craig: I don't use it at all because we really don't know how early it is. It appears to be kind of pastiche that is assembled from the other Gospels. It is a nice example, frankly, of how early harmonizers might have worked to try to paste together a coherent account of the order of the resurrection appearances. As you probably know, one of the disputed questions is the order and the location of the resurrection appearances. As I put them together it seems to me that we would say that they first occurred in Jerusalem in the upper room where there was a resurrection appearance to Peter alone, and then also to the Twelve, or minus Judas Iscariot – the disciples gathered in the upper room. Then in John it says a week later there was another Jerusalem appearance that included Thomas in the upper room.[5] The disciples had remained in Jerusalem for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread which lasted a week. Then they returned back to Galilee. Then we have these Galilean appearances which are climaxed by the appearance on the mountaintop in Galilee that is narrated in Matthew. Then the disciples returned for Pentecost to Jerusalem, and there you have the final resurrection appearances that are mentioned in the first chapter of the book of Acts. So the resurrection appearances follow very naturally the festival pilgrimages of the Jews – Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread in Jerusalem, then back home to Galilee, and then back to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost. I think this makes very good sense of the sequence and the location of these resurrection appearances.
Kevin Harris: Dr. Craig, any clue as to where the appearance to the over five hundred people occurred?[6]
Dr. Craig: Ah! I wondered if you might ask that. We don't know. Paul doesn't say. But when you think of an appearance to five hundred people this would have to be something that took place out of doors. You wouldn't have a hall that would hold that many people that would be accessible to Christians. So it would be out of doors. When you think of the disciples going back to Galilee, it was in Galilee that thousands of people had flocked to hear Jesus preach. The thing about the Matthean appearance on the mountaintop is that this appearance story is unique in that it is the only appearance story that is by appointment. The other ones were all unexpected. They caught the disciples off guard. They shocked and surprised them. But the appearance on the mountaintop in Matthew is by appointment. It was a rendezvous. It says they went to the mountaintop to which Jesus had appointed them and then he came to them. I think it is not at all improbable that in addition to the twelve disciples there would be other followers of Jesus who would gather with them for this rendezvous to see Jesus. Perhaps they were among those whom Matthew describes when he says, “They saw him . . . but some doubted.”[7] This could well have been among the crowd that was there. So I think it is not at all inconceivable that the appearance to the five hundred brethren might well have been the Matthean mountaintop appearance that is described in Matthew's Gospel.
Kevin Harris: Another question:
Dr. Craig, first I would like to thank you for all that you've done. By preaching Christ to those in need, your work has made me stronger in Christ. My question is about consensus. In your debates and published work you cite Gary Habermas' survey of scholars and historians on the resurrection of Jesus. You say that 75% of scholars hold to the burial and empty tomb of Jesus. I was reading a blog post one day written by a PhD student in classics who responded to someone who used your argument and in return he cited a philosophy survey taken by David Chalmers that say 70% of philosophers are atheists. I guess my question is: how would you respond to this kind of argument? It seems kind of dubious.
Dr. Craig: What is important to understand about my survey of the literature and Habermas' survey of the literature is that this is meant simply to say these conclusions we've reached are not the idiosyncratic conclusions of evangelical or conservative scholars. The evidence that we marshal and present is evidence that has convinced the wide majority of specialists in this area of New Testament historical Jesus scholars. Now, in philosophy, certainly the number of theists, I think, are in the minority. However, the majority of philosophers don't specialize in philosophy of religion or natural theology. They are ethicists, political theorists, epistemologists, philosophers of mind, philosophers of science. They are working in other areas. So this isn't necessarily their area of specialization. And when you look at the renaissance in Christian philosophy, certainly there has been a greatly increased presence of Christians and theists in the academy, in philosophy, compared to back in, say, the 1930s and the 1940s which were very dark days indeed.[8] Today, in contrast to those days, Christian philosophers represent a sizable and quite respected minority of philosophers that need to be taken seriously. But obviously, ultimately, the truth is to be determined by the worth of the arguments, not by counting noses. I am not saying that the empty tomb is historical because most New Testament scholars think it is. Rather, what I am saying is that most New Testament scholars think it is historical because there are good arguments for the empty tomb that they've considered.
As for this survey of philosophers – I've seen this, Kevin, and I am very suspicious of this survey. No one seems to have inquired behind this survey to see who was polled and what was the response rate. When I looked into this, I understand that there was a polling of around 900 major universities in philosophy departments, but I've not been able to find anything about the response rate to this. As you know, a survey that has a low response rate doesn't yield a credible result. I also know, just anecdotally, that neither I nor any of my colleagues were contacted in this survey. At Talbot School of Theology and Biola University, we have about 17 PhD philosophers in our departments and I don't think any of us were surveyed. Can you imagine the way a survey would look if it systematically skipped every Christian college and divinity school in the United States and only polled secular universities on this issue? Of course the results would be skewed. So I don't trust the results of this survey one little bit until I see a list of what institutions were surveyed and then what was the response rate to the survey. Until then I think these results should be taken with a grain of salt.
Kevin Harris: It follows under the same heading of “the majority of scientists are naturalists,” or something like that.
Dr. Craig: Exactly. I think people use these surveys simply to try to bolster their preconceived opinions. But they don't really inquire as to whether or not these surveys are really reliable in what they say. By contrast, what Habermas did is not a survey of people, it is a bibliographical essay. He looked at everything that has been published on the subject of the resurrection of Jesus in English, French, and German.
Kevin Harris: From everybody.
Dr. Craig: Yeah, from everybody in English, French, and German over the last twenty-five years or so, and it confirmed exactly what my own study anecdotally had shown me, namely, for a person who really knows the literature in the field it is very clear that the majority of scholars who have written on these subjects believe that the burial story is fundamentally accurate, that the empty tomb story is fundamentally accurate, that there were these appearances of Jesus, and that the original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe that he has risen from the dead. I don't think anyone can seriously challenge that that is a correct characterization of what New Testament scholarship thinks. But, again, at the end of the day all that is used to show is that these are not conclusions unique to evangelical or conservative scholars. These are conclusions that are the broad mainstream of New Testament scholarship. That speaks, I think, to the power of the evidence that has convinced these folks.
Kevin Harris: On a related note, we see things like this bandied about the Internet all the time. “Look at these statistics – the majority of scientists are this, the majority of philosophers are this, the majority of doctors are this.” These things are thrown at us. Another thing that we hear is that in the Bible Belt where there are more churches in the United States, there are higher rates of pregnancy, alcoholism, and divorce, and things like that. What do we say in response to that? Can you show or prove a correlation between those societal ills and the fact that this is an area that has a lot of churches in it? On the surface perhaps but what do those kind of statistics prove?
Dr. Craig: You are absolutely right, Kevin. A critical sociologist knows that you have to really dig deep into these things to try to show causal connections, and that very often they don't exist or just gratuitously assumed.[9] I've learned to be rather skeptical of polls of people. That is what we are really talking about here with respect to this poll of philosophers that was conducted which is very much in contrast to what Habermas did which is not a poll, it is a bibliographical essay on the literature in the field.
Kevin Harris: Yes. It is perfectly appropriate, in fact necessary, to quote specialists in their field and to see what they say. Why? Well, because it could add weight to the evidence. It brings about a key piece. It is not inappropriate to appeal to authority or anything like that.
Dr. Craig: It is interesting. I think that same survey shows that when you look at philosophers of religion, the majority of them do believe that God exists. Now, of course, it is open to say, “Well, they believed that God existed before they became philosophers.”
Kevin Harris: And that is why they became it.
Dr. Craig: Fine, fine. But nevertheless it is remarkable to say that here you have an area where you've got the specialists in the field who hold to one thing, and they are ignored or marginalized by the philosophical community as a whole. I want to say quite candidly that philosophers who are working in other areas like ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, political philosophy, and so on may know next to nothing about philosophy of religion and the theistic arguments. I think this is most evident in some of the debates, frankly, that I've been in where very prominent philosophers have really looked almost silly in some of the things they've said because it is just very clear they don't read or know the literature in this area of specialization. It would be like me trying to enter into a debate on political science or some other area of philosophy that I am not expert in.
Kevin Harris: So what a non-specialist would do (or something that is outside of one's field), one would just look at that field and see what the specialists have said.
Dr. Craig: Sure. And you can read some of the literature yourself if you get an opportunity. That is one of the great things about philosophy. In contrast to science which is so highly, highly specialized and so narrow in its specializations that often scientists can't even talk to each other who are working in diverse fields. Think of, for example, quantum chemistry compared to evolutionary biology. It is like a different world. In philosophy at least, there is still enough commonality that an ethicist can read philosophy of religion or epistemology with profit and understanding if he cares to.
Kevin Harris: Bill, in wrapping up today, this has always been impressive to me that this many specialists in this area of study would hold to these historical facts like the empty tomb. Have those been pretty static in the body of literature?
Dr. Craig: No, not at all. That is what is so impressive about this, Kevin. This is a revolution that has occurred over the last half-century. If you look at the late 19th century, scholars were enormously skeptical about the historical value of the Gospels. Some people even denied that Jesus of Nazareth ever existed. They thought he was a mythological figure. Even on into the 1930s and the 1940s, Bultmann was still interpreting the Gospels in terms of myth and legend. The empty tomb stories were dismissed as a late developing legend that had no primitive traditions to it. Then what happened during the 1950s is this so-called New Quest of the Historical Jesus began, and particularly what has been called the Jewish Reclamation of Jesus where it began to be understood that the proper interpretive context for understanding Jesus of Nazareth is not pagan mythology but first century Palestinian Judaism. When seen against that backdrop, the Gospels begin to emerge as very credible sources for the life of Jesus.[10]
So there has been a tremendous revolution within historical Jesus studies over the last half-century that I like to compare to the renaissance that has occurred in Christian philosophy over the last half-century as well. In both of these fields there has been a reversal of scholarship with regard to some of these very important issues. When I did my work in Germany on the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus and I began to marshal evidence for the burial, the empty tomb, the appearances, the transformation of the first disciples, I was simply impressed with the diversity and the kinds of arguments that supported these. But it wasn't until I was really finished and kind of looked back over the body of the work that it suddenly began to dawn on me that these were the majority opinions of New Testament scholarship. I had just thought these are great arguments that have convinced me, but it wasn't actually until I was done that it suddenly dawned on me that these are the majority views today, in contrast to back in the 1930s and 40s when these narratives were dismissed as myth and legend. So that is something that really just floored me. It took me aback. In fact, it makes me almost shake my head in disbelief that the central facts undergirding the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus should today be acknowledged by the majority of New Testament historical Jesus scholars – whether Christian or non-Christian, evangelical or non-evangelical. It is really quite remarkable.[11]