The Resurrection of Jesus

Jesus death by crucifixion: Crucifixion was a common form of execution employed by the Romans to punish members of the lower class, slaves, the rebellious and those accused of treason. From the first century B.C through the end of the first century A.D. Dionysus, of Halicarnassus, Livy, Philo and Josephus report of people being tortured with whips or fire before they were crucified.(1) After being tortured the victim often was followed by a crowd to a place outside the city where it was then crucified. (2) Why should we think that Jesus died by crucifixion? We have four reasons to think so. 1. The crucifixion of Jesus is attested by christian and non christian sources alike. Flavius Josephus was a jewish historian born in Jerusalem. From the Testimonium Flavianum (75-95 A.D.): „About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man. For he was a doer of startling deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous things about him. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.“ (3) Today most scholars agree, that there are three christian interpolations added afterwards. They are: “if indeed one should call him a man“, “He was the Messiah“ and „ For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous things about him“ On the other hand part of the passage is not typically Christian: -“a wise man“ is not a typical Christian formulation -“those who had first come to love him did not cease to do so“ conforms to Josephus characteristic style -Most scholars agree, that the word phylon „tribe“, is not a typically Christian word (4) Josephus had keen interest in spiritual matters, had close connections to Jewish Priests and Pharisees and grew up and spent a lot of time in Jerusalem during the period the early church was growing and Jews had embraced the Christian message. We therefore have good reasons to think that Josephus heard about Jesus and that the trimmed version of the text of Josephus about Jesus is authentic. The person arguing for a whole interpolation is taking the position of the minority of recent scholars and has the burden of proof, also because there are just two known cases in the whole Testimonium Flavianum that are suspected of interpolation. (5)(6) Tacitus is generally regarded as the greatest of Roman historians (7) In the Annals (116-117 A.D.) he writes about how Nero reacted to the rumour that he set Rome on fire: "Therefore, to squelch the rumor Nero created scapegoats and subjected to the most refined tortures those whom the common people called „Christians,“ [a group] hated for their abominable crimes. Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate. Suppressed for the moment, the deadly superstition broke out again, not only in Judea, the land which originated this evil, but also in the city of Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.“ (8) The text shows no signs of interpolation, fits to the style of Tacitus and its very doubtful that a Christian interpolator would have used insulting remarks of Christians. Therefore the vast majority of scholars believe that the text is authentic. (9) The canonical Gospels Pior to the 1990 a large segment of the New Testament scholarship had the view that the Gospels belong to a unique genre seen as a type of mythology. Therefore anyone making a claim of historicity of an event in the Gospels had the burden of proof. (10) Over the past 20 years a huge shift has occurred away from the view above, towards seeing the Gospels as the genre bioi meaning a type of Graeco-Roman biography.(11) The shift was initiated by Richard Burridge, who tried to disprove the claim that the gospels are the genre of Graeco-Roman biography but then reversed his opinion. He writes that it „has played a key role in establishing that the Gospels were read in the early century primarily as biographies.“ and further: „I do not think it is now possible to deny that the Gospels are a subset of the broad ancient literary genre of 'lives,' that is, biographies.“(12) From being of the genre bioi it does not follow that the Gospels can't include mythical or invented elements. But because the Gospels are of the genre of bioi a Person making the claim that a specific event is not historical has the Burden of Proof. When it comes to the historical Jesus and the early Christianity many and perhaps most scholars see the canonical Gospels as the best sources. (13) Therefore I include them in my sources for the crucifixion: In the Gospels the crucifixion is f.i mentioned in Mark 15:12-15. (67-70 A.D.) The Letters of Paul are one of the earliest sources dating between 48-65 A.D. They mention the crucifixion f.i. in 1. Cor. 15:3-5 (54-55 A.D) So we have seen that the crucifixion is attested by Christian and non Christian sources alike. 2. The second reason for thinking that Jesus died by crucifixion, already mentioned briefly, is that the reports are early. If Jesus died at 30-33. A.D and 1. Corinthian was written 55 A.D there are just about 25 years or less in between. Thats very short on a scale of historians. 3.A third reason is that the Passion Narratives on the crucifixion are credible because the criterion of embarrassment weights in favour of a historical kernel. Also the narrative is plausible given peripheral details like the following of the crowd attested by Lucian as mentioned above or the practice of breaking the legs of the victims mentioned by Cicero. (14) 4.The fourth reason to think that Jesus died by crucifixion is that it is very improbable to survive a crucifixion. There is in fact just one account in antiquity about a person surviving crucifixion. Josephus reports seeing three of his friends crucified. He quickly pleaded with his friend the Roman commander Titus, who then ordered that all three should be removed immediately and should get the best medical care Rome had to offer. Although they tried to rescue all just one survived. We don't have any evidence that Jesus was taken from the cross alive nor that he got the best medical treatment the Romans had to offer, therefore the historian, led by probabilities, has to conclude that if Jesus was crucified he died during this process. (15) The disciples of Jesus had an experience that made them believe that Jesus body was resurrected The claim that Jesus appeared bodily to the disciples is present through the NT. (See f.i 1 Cor 15:3-5; Luke 24:36-49 for appearance to disciples, 1 Cor. 9:1 for appearance to Paul.) It is further described in Acts 10:39-41 that Jesus ate and drank with the disciples. In Luke 24:36-43 we get to know that Jesus was described as having „flesh and bones“ and that he could have been touched. After Jesus death, the disciples endured persecution, and a number of them experienced martyrdom. The strength of their conviction indicates they were not just claiming that Jesus had appeared to them. They really believed it. In Acts we get to know about several imprisonments, flogging, and martyrdom of the Apostles. (16) Outside the NT the persecution and martyrdom is attested by several sources: Clement writes that Paul and Peter like many, possibly all, Apostles where suffering „unto death“ . (17) and that there was a vast number of believers suffering tortures and persecution. (18) Also Polycarp comments on the suffering of Paul and other Apostles. (19) We also get to know by Josephus that James the brother of Jesus was executed under the Sanhedrin and that John the Baptist was executed by Herod. (20) Those accounts show us that the disciples were willing to die for their claim that Jesus appeared to them. Although scholars differ on the nature of the experience of the disciples, most temporary scholars writing on the subject agree that after Jesus was crucified, the disciples had some experiences that made them believe Jesus has appeared to them. (21) See note for samples. (22) We see that the leader of the disciples was crucified, that the movement of the disciples was shattered, and shortly after they recovered claiming that Jesus had appeared to them, and were willing to suffer and not just one, but many, maybe all of them suffered martyrdom. What is the probability (posteriori) that the events above occurred without that the resurrection happened? Given this data I think we have sufficient reasons to conclude that it is more probable that the Resurrection occurred than that it did not. Sources: (1) Hengel, M. Crucifixion. 46-63 (2) Lucian, Peregrinus. 34 (3) Josephus, Testimonium Flavianum. Book 18 Chapter 3,3 (4) Edwin M. Yamauchi, Jesus Outside the New Testament in Jesus under Fire. 213 (5) Michael R Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus. 240-241, (6) Edwin M. Yamauchi, Jesus Outside the New Testament in Jesus under Fire. 212 (7) Gilderhus, M. T. History and Historians. 20 (8) Tacitus, Annals. Book 15 Chapter 44 (9) Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament. 39 (10) Funk, Hoover and the Jesus Seminar 4-5 (11) France, R.T. The Gospel of Mark 5 (12) Burridge, R.A. What are the Gospels? viii-ix (13) Ehrmann (2004), Johnson (1996), Meier (1991), Witherington (2006) (14) Cicero, Phil. 13.27 (15) Josephus. Life 420-21 (16) Acts 4, Acts 5, Acts12 (17) 1 Clement 5.2-7 (18) 1 Clement 6.1 (19) Policarp. Phil. 9:1-2 (20) Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 20.200; 18.5.2 (21) Habermas, „Mapping“ in Stewart, 79 (22) Borg, Braaten, Carnley, Craffert, Dunn, Ehrman, Lapide, Lüdemann, Montefiore, Vermes, Viney, Wright