Evidence for Christian Theism
29
The New Testament
The Resurrection Hypothesis understands the Resurrection as a divine signature upon the life of Jesus. However, before presenting the historical evidence for it we need to settle a few preliminary matters. First, we need to establish that the New Testament, which is our primary source of evidence about Jesus, is generally reliable. Then, we need to draw on that evidence to show that the life of Jesus was one to which God would affix his signature; one having, that is, the five features discussed in Chapter 21. Only then will we be ready to assess the historical evidence for the Resurrection itself.
This explains the basic structure of what follows. In this chapter I will argue that the New Testament is generally reliable and then explain various criteria of historical authenticity that apply to and further strengthen many of its claims. In the next chapter I will argue that the life of Jesus does indeed satisfy our five criteria; that is, I will argue that Jesus claimed to be God Incarnate and an atonement for human sin while also giving plausible teachings, founding a church and living a perfect life filled with suffering. And then in Chapter 31 I will present the historical case for the Resurrection.
I should also note that in all three chapters I will not be presenting original research but closely following and compendiating the work of Gary Habermas, Michael Licona, Richard Swinburne, N. T. Wright and William Lane Craig.
The General Reliability of the New Testament
The main source of evidence about Jesus is the New Testament: The four Gospels, Acts and the letters claiming to have been written by St. Paul.
Paul's Epistles. Paul converted to Christianity three years after the death of Jesus, in around AD 32, and almost all scholars agree that many of the letters attributed to him are authentic and so the earliest New Testament books. Named after the churches to which they were addressed, the letters widely acknowledged to have been written by Paul are I Thessaslonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philippians and Philemon. Though in writing them Paul was more concerned with settling matters of Christian teaching than with assembling evidence for the life of Jesus his letters nevertheless provide a certain amount of very early information about Jesus and have a personal character which, together with the careful historical detail they contain, provide a clear picture of Paul as an honest and conscientious man of obvious intelligence and learning.
Paul did not know Jesus during his earthly ministry but he spent time on two occasions with leading disciples who had followed Jesus and Paul cross-examined them about him. [1] One occasion, according to Galatians, was three years after his religious experience and conversion on the road to Damascus when he visited Peter, the leader of the Church, and James, the brother of Jesus, in Jerusalem. He also interacted with others who had known Jesus or were close to those who had known him and thus we have in Paul an authentic and trustworthy authority relaying to us eyewitness testimony about Jesus. What Paul writes is what the followers of Jesus claimed to have seen and heard.
The Gospels. Each of the four Gospels, meanwhile, seeks to tell us about the life of Jesus and what he taught and what significance it holds. The first three “Synoptic Gospels” are compilations of stories and teachings from various sources. There are differing views about when the Gospels achieved their final form but we could tentatively put Mark at AD 70 and Matthew and Luke at AD 80. [2] Luke also wrote Acts which tells us about the life of the early Church and Paul’s contribution to it. Scholars date Acts to AD 80 with many arguing that most of it was written much earlier. John probably reached its finished form by around AD 90—either written or inspired by St John who was one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus.
Like Paul’s letters, the Synoptic Gospels and Acts present themselves to us as works of history. At the beginning of his Gospel Luke writes that he has, “undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events which have been fulfilled among us just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses.” This suggests that Luke was claiming to write a work of history and so must have understood Mark, from which he drew material, as work of history also; and this in turn suggests that Matthew understood Mark as a work of history and so, in using material from Mark, was himself seeking to write a work of history. Acts, likewise, reads as a work of history and, as Swinburne notes, is “in places is so detailed and matter-of-fact that it has a diarylike quality.”
Such first impressions of historicity are borne out by closer analysis. There is, for instance, general agreement between the Gospels about the main events of the life of Jesus—even when these events have unwanted implications. The Baptism of Jesus is a good example of this. Since Jesus was held to be sinless, and baptism was administered for the remission of sins, the Baptism of Jesus is theologically problematic—a point which we will return to in the next chapter. Nevertheless the Synoptic Gospels all dutifully record this event. Their accounts of Jesus' teachings also square with each other and with the only account of that teaching outside the New Testament that has a plausible claim to authenticity; namely, the Gospel of Thomas. And they agree again on the four Roman governors and the four kings of Judea who are claimed to have interacted with Jesus and later with Paul; [3] respectively, Pilate, Gallio, Festus, Felix and Herod the Great, Herod Antipas and Herod Agrippa I and II. All eight figures, furthermore, are known to history and from the writing of contemporary Jewish historian Josephus who, as already noted, also mentions Jesus and John the Baptist. The author of the Gospel of John is also clearly seeking to write an essentially historical work since he records most of the events recorded in the Synoptic Gospels and on two occasions declaims solemnly that he or his immediate source were witnesses to those events. [4]
So far my concern has been to show that, in the absence of some reason to think otherwise, a number of key New Testament books should be regarded as basically reliable works of history. But before drawing a provisional conclusion and moving to the criteria of historical authenticity, I need to make a few qualifications.
Minor Discrepancies of Detail. It was noted above that there is general agreement between the Gospels on the main events of the life of Jesus and this of course implies that there is minor disagreement. As we saw in Chapter 24, ancient historians did not have the same standards of accuracy as modern historians. In a modern newspaper report or a larger work of history each sentence is understood to be literally true or false: It will be true if it describes accurately what really happened and it will be false if it does not. Ancient works of history, by contrast, must be judged by the standards the writer was seeking to satisfy: Accurate in their main historical claims with minor discrepancies of detail. This point needs to be borne in mind when faced with minor discrepancies of detail between the Gospel accounts.
However, as N. T. Wright notes, those minor discrepancies of detail not explained by the different standards of historical accuracy in the ancient world may actually give us further grounds for regarding the New Testament testimony as genuine. This idea seems counterintuitive but is widely recognised in law courts entrusted with the task of evaluating eyewitness testimony. The reason is as follows: It is psychologically impossible, given variations of viewpoint and the fallibility of human memory, for multiple eyewitness accounts to be in perfect agreement down to the smallest detail. Thus any judge faced with multiple statements that do so agree is likely to deduce that there has been a collusion to mislead the court. Nor, obviously, can there be any truth in testimonies which are in hopeless disagreement on all points. What is looked for in reliable testimony from multiple eyewitnesses is precisely what we find in the Gospel accounts: Agreement on all the most salient features of an event with just that measure of discrepancy which plausibly accounts for the normative fallibility of the human witnesses.
Metaphysical Parables. The second qualification to the general reliability of the New Testament: There may be some passages in John and perhaps elsewhere which the original author did not intend to be taken as literal history—such as when an event is described which we have very good reason to think did not occur, which is not multiply attested and which naturally lends itself to an allegorical reading. In these cases the author may be giving us what Swinburne has called a “metaphysical parable.” This, as the reader may recall from Chapter 24, is a fictional episode used to set out some deeper theological truth.
Swinburne suggests that one obvious example of this is the miracle of Jesus at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:2-18. This tells of a mysterious pool of water that is regularly disturbed by an invisible force. The first invalid to get into the water after the disturbance is healed. However, there is one man who is never able to get into the water in time. And so Jesus, taking pity on the man, miraculously heals him.
If this story is taken to be historical it postulates regular events of the most extraordinary kind for which we have no evidence from any other source. “Perhaps John was misinformed,” speculates Swinburne, “but then he also tells us that man had been sick for thirty-eight years,” and likewise, "the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness for thirty-eight years until Joshua, which is the Hebrew name for Jesus, led them through the river Jordan to the promised land." Throughout John it is clear that symbolism is of central importance to its author. And so plausibly this story is a metaphysical parable: a way for John to tell us that, “Jesus helps the sick in soul through the water of baptism into the kingdom of Heaven.”
The Miracles. Here the skeptic may be tempted to suggest that since all the miracles reported in the New Testament are “events of the most extraordinary kind” we have very good reason to think none of them occurred. And so on the logic of the preceding qualification he may want to suggest that all the miracles of Jesus are “metaphysical parables.” However, our reason for doubting the historicity of John 5:2-18 is not that Jesus worked a miracle but the allegorical character of the story together with the lack of historical sources for the healing pool of Bethesda—sources which we might expect if such regular healings occurred there. And this brings us to the third and final qualification: That while we do not have lists of eyewitnesses for the miracles Jesus performed during his ministry, we do have a list of eyewitnesses to the Resurrection, and so the former miracles can be rationally affirmed on the strength of the evidence for the latter.
This is an important point and so worth spelling out in detail.
The main reason skeptics object to the Gospel stories is that they describe miraculous events; events which, if they had occurred, would be violations of the laws of nature. Implicit in such objections is Hume’s mistake of assuming that our inductive experience of the laws of nature is our only relevant background evidence. But as we have seen in Chapter 24 and again in Chapter 27, equally relevant to our assessment of a purported miracle is any background evidence for the existence of God—such as the nine lines of evidence presented in Part II. And if on the total background evidence it is probable that there is a God then it is probable that there exists a being with the power to violate the laws of nature. Evidence that there is a God is therefore evidence that miraculous events can occur—which will have particular relevance in cases where the event is of a kind that God would have reason to bring about.
What reason might God have to work miracles through Jesus? Most of the miracles of Jesus during his ministry were healings and it is a priori very plausible that God Incarnate, being morally perfect, would perform them out of compassion and also to show that, while for good reason he temporarily allows suffering, God has the means and the will to eventually bring it to an end. And since, as we saw in Chapter 21, God Incarnate would also need to found a Church, it is likewise probable that he would perform miracles to accumulate a following and demonstrate his divine authority—of which the Resurrection, again, would be the supreme proof. The Virgin Birth and Ascension, finally, would help those who learned about them to properly understand the doctrine of the Incarnation—a point discussed at the end of Chapter 21.
However, even if we have good reason to think that there is a God who can suspend the laws of nature, and good a priori grounds for thinking that he is likely to do so in some particular way, we will still require substantial historical evidence to affirm that a miracle has in fact occurred. A moment ago I noted that we do not have lists of eyewitnesses for the miracles Jesus performed during his ministry. The exception is the Resurrection for which, as we shall see in Chapter 31, the evidence is very strong. If God affixed his signature to the life of Jesus by raising him from the dead, it is very plausible that he worked other miracles through him. Curing lepers and healing withered hands fulfil a similar purpose to the Resurrection—both vindicating the authority and teachings of Jesus and providing evidence of God’s reality and intentions. [5] In short: if the Resurrection really happened then the probability of the other miracles is increased beyond the evidence available for them and so they may be regarded as historical also—just as, analogously, it is rational to believe a man who claims to be able to consistently win at poker on thin evidence if he has already provided very strong evidence that he can read minds.
Provisional Conclusion. The Principle of Testimony is a basic principle of rationality which states: In the absence of a reason to believe otherwise, what people tell us is probably true. “Most of our beliefs about the world,” observes Swinburne, “are based on what others claim to have perceived—beliefs about geography and history and science and everything else beyond immediate experience.” We would indeed be imprisoned within the small circle of our own immediate experience if testimony did not normally have this force. And we should likewise understand that testimony, again in the absence of a reason to believe otherwise, in its most natural literal sense.
Many of the early Christians, including Paul, were killed for refusing to recant Christian doctrines founded on the life and teachings of Jesus and this suggests that they had a very strong and literal belief in those doctrines. We have also seen that the authors of key books of the New Testament understood themselves to be writing works of history and that those books commend themselves as basically reliable historical sources. In view of all these special considerations and the absence of a reason to believe otherwise, I conclude that on the historical evidence and against the background evidence for the existence of God from natural theology the New Testament is a generally reliable source of information about Jesus.
The Criteria of Historical Authenticity
As noted at the start of this chapter, my conclusion that the New Testament is a generally reliable source of information about Jesus is supported by the so-called “criteria of historical authenticity” that apply to and further strengthen many of its claims. Before introducing these it is important to note that they state sufficient but not necessary conditions of historicity; in other words, that one or n number of criteria apply to p is further reason to regard p as historically authentic but that only one or none of the criteria apply to q is not a reason to regard q as historically inauthentic. It should also be borne in mind that they are not infallible guides to authenticity; rather, we should regard them as “Indicators of Authenticity.” We could summarise all this by just saying that the probability that some saying or event in the New Testament is historical is greater for its satisfying the criteria than it would be if it did not. There are a number of such criteria but I will mention only five which are the most important and will be of use in the following two chapters.
Early Multiple Attestation. According to this criterion the historicity of p is more probable if p appears in early, multiple and independent sources near in time and space to the alleged occurrence of p. It applies at many points to the New Testament of which I will give just one example here. The Resurrection appearances are multiply attested in Pauline and Gospel sources and were quickly proclaimed by the first Christians in the very city where Jesus had been crucified and buried. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul says that the risen Jesus was seen by as many as five hundred witnesses at one time—and adds that many of those witnesses are still alive to be questioned. If Paul made up this claim and then announced it in the place where, within living memory of his audience, it was alleged to have occurred, he would have been exposed as a fraud. This gives us further reason for thinking that it is historically reliable.
Attestation has particular force when it originates in a hostile witness and we see this throughout the New Testament also. To again give just one example: The Sanhedrin, the Jewish court which engineered the crucifixion of Jesus, responded to the Christian claim that he had risen from the dead by accusing the disciples of stealing the body. This is an incidental admission from hostile witnesses of a fact that actually corroborates the Resurrection Hypothesis; namely, since the Sanhedrin would certainly have produced the corpse of Jesus if they could, the accusation strongly suggests that the tomb of Jesus was empty which is precisely what the Christians claimed a group of women had discovered on Easter morning. As Paul Maier notes, "if a source admits a fact that is decidedly not in its favour, the fact is to be presumed genuine."
Dissimiliarity. This criterion states that the historicity of p is more probable if p is dissimilar to the prior beliefs of those claiming its occurrence. The death and Resurrection of Jesus satisfy this criterion very clearly: Since first century Jews expected a Messiah who overthrows the Roman occupiers and a general resurrection at the end of history, a Messiah who dies and is individually resurrected in the middle of history represents a very strange and dramatic mutation within the Jewish worldview. N. T. Wright makes this point central to his massive study The Resurrection of the Son of God in which he argues that only the Resurrection itself can satisfactorily account for the emergence of a sincere Jewish belief in a dying and rising Messiah. The historicity of the New Testament claim that Jesus rose from the dead is thus highly probable on the criterion of dissimilarity.
Embarrassment. The criterion of embarrassment states that the historicity of p is more probable if p is problematic for the one who claims the occurrence of p—since people do not lie to their own disadvantage. It applies to many New Testament claims but to none more obviously than the crucifixion of Jesus. Prior to the Resurrection the Apostles had believed that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied to defeat the foreign occupying power and restore the throne of David in Jerusalem. His ignominious execution by the very foreign power his followers expected him to overthrow was therefore a profound embarrassment: It dashed their hopes of his triumph and appeared to confirm the Sanhedrin claim that Jesus was a false prophet accused by God. On the criterion of embarrassment the historicity of the crucifixion is highly probable.
The Criterion of Historical Congruence. This criterion states that the historicity of p is more probable if p coheres with known historical facts about the context in which p is said to have occurred. This criterion applies at many points of the New Testament of which I will mention just one: The New Testament claims that Joseph of Arimathea requested the body of Jesus from Pilate so that he could bury it before the Sabbath; that Joseph and Nicodemus together bound the body in linen and placed it in a hewn tomb; and, finally, that when the Sabbath was over a group of female followers of Jesus arrived at the tomb with spices to anoint the body. Because all of these details are congruent with our knowledge of Jewish burial customs in the first century the criterion of historical congruence gives us further grounds for affirming their historicity.
Semitisms. This criterion states that the historicity of a New Testament sentence p is more probable if it contains traces of an Aramaic or Hebraic origin. Since the New Testament was written in Greek and Jesus spoke Aramaic, traces of Aramaic in the Greek of the New Testament argue in favour of a primitive tradition that originates in Jesus. We see this, for example, in Paul’s quotation of a creedal tradition in Corinthians. “I delivered to you,” he reminds the Corinthians, “what I also received," suggesting the transmission of an oral tradition. Paul then recites a list of eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus which, as Habermas and Licona point out, contains numerous hints of an Aramaic origin that would seem to vouch for its authenticity—including the fourfold use of the Greek term for "that," hoti, common in Aramaic narration, and the use of the name Cephas (“He appeared to Cephas”) which is the Aramaic for Peter.
Conclusion
As noted, these criteria of authenticity further strengthen the conclusion reached in the first half of this chapter: That several key New Testament books are historically reliable sources of information about Jesus. Having established this, let us now consider whether the historical evidence shows that the life of Jesus has the five features of God Incarnate discussed in Chapter 21.
[1] In Galatians 2:6 Paul tells us that he actually compared notes with the Apostles and they, "added nothing to my message." This gives us historical grounds for accepting Paul's account to be a faithful representation of the testimony of those who were with Jesus before and, allegedly, after his death.
[2] It is not known exactly who Matthew, Mark and Luke were but it is clear that they were Christians associated with the leadership of the early Church.
[3] Some of these interactions allow us to assign precise dates to events described in the New Testament. Gallio, for example, was governor of Greece for only one year, AD 52, and so Paul’s appearance before him described in Acts 18:12 must have occurred in AD 52.
[4] For instance, John 19:35 says, “The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.”
[2] It is not known exactly who Matthew, Mark and Luke were but it is clear that they were Christians associated with the leadership of the early Church.
[3] Some of these interactions allow us to assign precise dates to events described in the New Testament. Gallio, for example, was governor of Greece for only one year, AD 52, and so Paul’s appearance before him described in Acts 18:12 must have occurred in AD 52.
[4] For instance, John 19:35 says, “The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.”