#957 Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection

Dr. craig’s response

I am thrilled to receive a question from far away Nepal! The short answer to your first question, Ashutosh, is that in comparing Jesus’ crucifixion and Jesus’ resurrection you are comparing apples with oranges. (I hope that this metaphor communicates in your culture! The idea is that one is comparing two things that are on different levels.)

Let me explain. In my case for the resurrection of Jesus, I distinguish two steps: (1) establishing the facts to be explained and (2) determining the best explanation of the facts.

With respect to (1) the facts include (i) Jesus’ interment in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea, (ii) the discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb by a group of his female disciples, (iii) the disciples’ experience of postmortem appearances of Jesus alive, and (iv) the disciples’ suddenly and sincerely coming to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead despite every predisposition to the contrary. These facts do represent the consensus among historians today.

With respect to (2), I argue that the hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” is the best explanation of those facts. It is here that disagreement arises among scholars. Virtually no one argues that there is a better explanation than the resurrection hypothesis. But a great many will simply remain agnostic about the matter. They will often grant that something very dramatic happened that produced the radical change in the disciples, but they will not identify it. They are, in effect, left without any explanation. Now obviously, worldview considerations play a major role here. If a person is a naturalist or anti-supernaturalist, then the resurrection hypothesis is ruled out of court for him, regardless of the facts. So the disagreement among scholars is not historical, but philosophical.

Contrast this with the case of Jesus’ crucifixion. Here Jesus’s crucifixion is itself an observable,  well-established fact. It is analogous to step (1) in the case for the resurrection. But if we were to move to step (2) and ask for the explanation of Jesus’ crucifixion, then there will be a diversity of opinion among historical scholars. Some will attribute it to Jesus’ radical, personal claims which appeared blasphemous in Jewish ears. Others will say that Jesus’ claim to be King of the Jews was politically threatening to the Roman governor. Others will say that the Jewish Temple authorities felt threatened by Jesus’ teaching and activities. Others will say that Jesus was crucified simply for disturbing the peace during the volatile Passover festival.

I hope now that my metaphor about comparing apples and oranges becomes clear. You can only compare step (1) with step (1) in both cases and step (2) with step (2) in both cases. So now you need to ask yourself, Ashutosh, given the established facts (i)-(iv) listed above, what do you think is the best explanation of these facts? In the case of Jesus’ crucifixion, one does not need to confront the problem of inferring a supernatural or miraculous explanation. But in the case of the resurrection, we are confronted with such a question. Are you open to a supernatural explanation of the facts? If you believe that God exists, then I don’t think that you can be closed to such an explanation, as secular scholars are. You can take the risk.