#943 If Jesus’ Resurrection Was Historical, Why Not More Jewish Conversions?

Dr. craig’s response

Having just done an interview with a Messianic Jewish podcaster in Israel, I found your question to be especially interesting, Danny. I’m sure that many Jews confronted with the gospel have asked themselves the same question.

Although the population of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus could swell to hundreds of thousands during Passover, best estimates of the resident population of Jerusalem place it around 30,000-50,000 inhabitants. So if you do accept as historical the figures in the book of Acts of 3,000 conversions at Pentecost (Acts 2.41) and some time later of another 5,000 conversions (Acts 4.4) and that still latter “the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6.7), I think you can see that the reception of the gospel of Messiah Jesus in Jerusalem was no mean feat. So it seems to me unwarranted to downplay the number of converts in Jerusalem as “a relatively modest proportion of Jerusalem's Jewish population at that time.” Moreover, your point about the reception of the gospel in the Jewish Diaspora raises an interesting question: what impact did the conversion of pilgrims during the feast of Pentecost have upon Diaspora Jews who returned with their new-found faith in Messiah Jesus to their home countries following the feast? The amazing fact is that belief in Jesus’ resurrection originated, not in some far-flung location, but in Jerusalem itself, the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified as a criminal.

More importantly, though, I think that your question exaggerates the public nature of the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. The resurrection appearances of Jesus were not to unbelieving Jews but to the limited circle of Jesus’ disciples. Admittedly, Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a couple of unbelievers (Thomas, James) and later even a persecutor (Saul of Tarsus), but these were the exceptions rather than the rule with respect to the general populace. As Peter proclaimed to Cornelius’ household, “God raised him on the third day and made him manifest; not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10.40-41). (Indeed, one of the old questions that Christian apologists had to contend with was why Jesus did not appear to members of the Sanhedrin. As Peter’s comment makes evident, the principal purpose of Jesus’ post-mortem appearances was not to convince unbelievers, but rather to commission Jesus’ disciples for world mission.) So it is a mistake to speak of “the public demonstrability of the resurrection appearances.” Given the privacy of the resurrection appearances, it’s hardly surprising that people would be sceptical about the disciples’ proclamation. Probably many reacted in the way Thomas did upon hearing the news: “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe” (John 20.25).

True, the transformation in the lives of the first disciples after the catastrophe of Jesus’ crucifixion became a public fact. They had obviously come to believe that Jesus was risen from the dead. But that change was accompanied by extraordinary claims about Jesus’ resurrection that ran radically contrary to Jewish beliefs about resurrection from the dead, which was always a corporate event at the end of history and never an individual event within history. So again, while for us, looking back in hindsight, this fact is an important historical datum requiring explanation, it would be understandable if Jews at that time were sceptical that the disciples were correct about their radical new belief concerning Jesus’ fate. The disciples could be written off as either deceivers or deceived.

So, really, the only publicly available evidence for Jesus’ resurrection was the empty tomb of Jesus. That was a publicly inspectable fact that anyone in Jerusalem could check out for himself. The problem is that an empty tomb is in itself ambiguous. The fact of the empty tomb could not be denied, but alternate explanations of it could be given, explanations that might strike unbelievers as more plausible than so extraordinary an event as Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. In fact, we have a good idea of what unbelieving Jews were saying in response to the disciples’ proclamation. While most New Testament scholars do not give credence to Matthew’s story of the guard at the tomb, nevertheless most recognize that his story contains a precious historical nugget that gives us insight into “how these events were perceived by contemporaneous Jewish witnesses.” In the story the chief priests instruct the guards, “Tell people,  ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’” Matthew then reports, “this story has been spread among the Jews to this day” (Matthew 28.15). This editorial comment by Matthew shows that he was exercised to refute a widespread Jewish counter-explanation of the fact of the empty tomb, namely, the theft hypothesis, an explanation that was to be later revived by 17^th century Deists. This was the earliest response of unbelieving Jews to the disciples’ proclamation of the resurrection, Matthew’s story’s probably being the tail end of a long polemical controversy extending right back to the earliest years in Jerusalem following Jesus’ crucifixion.

As for “the sociological and theological barriers that may have prevented more widespread acceptance in Jerusalem,” when you think of how contrary to typical Jewish beliefs about the Messiah Jesus’ humiliating public crucifixion was, and how unlike Jewish beliefs about the afterlife Jesus’ alleged resurrection was, and how authoritative the declarations of the Sanhedrin were that Jesus was a failed messianic pretender and that the disciples were deceivers-- declarations re-enforced by persecution of Jewish believers in Jesus--, then it might seem remarkable that thousands of people in Jerusalem did believe the disciples’ proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection!

Yes, Jesus’ resurrection was “an event of . . . unprecedented metaphysical significance—a publicly crucified individual returning to life,” but that fact would not by itself trigger a mass movement, any more than the U.S. government’s having the remains of an extraterrestrial spacecraft and its crew stashed away in Roswell, New Mexico, would trigger widespread belief in such a fact, however Earth-shattering its implications. Today we realize that the theft hypothesis is hopeless, but it’s hardly surprising that many Jews in the early Christian era were unwilling to believe that Jesus rose again and was indeed the Jewish Messiah.

But now, how about you, Danny? With the benefit of hindsight, you now know that

These facts cry out for explanation. I can think of no better explanation of these facts than the one that the original disciples themselves gave: “God raised Jesus from the dead.”