Historical Jesus As Apologetic Defense

[Honorentheos]

Out of respect for Dr. Hamblin's OP and to prevent a full derail, I am breaking this out into a separate thread.

In the other thread, I had suggested that a faith reliant on the proof of a historical Jesus was as poorly founded as sole reliance on the atheistic argument against the historical Jesus would be for an unbeliever. To me, the real questions are about Christ as divine, not Jesus as historical person.

In that thread, in response to my presenting Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ" as an example of this type of apologia, Rob Bowman said,

Furthermore, if you want to get serious you might engage the literature that addresses the existence of the historical Jesus in more detail and with more academic muscle. Here are a few examples:

Eddy, Paul R., and Gregory A. Boyd. The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

France, Richard T. The Evidence for Jesus. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1982.

Van Voorst, Robert E. Jesus outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. See esp. 6-16.

Eddy and Boyd's book is a must-read for anyone interested in this subject.

I can think of a number of antagonistic arguments against Jesus as Christ (meaning divine being made flesh, or the LDS version - Christ as exemplar and the perfect, willing being required for atonement of the sins of mankind), that rely on a historical Jesus. These include the "Jesus as zealot jew" ideas espoused by Robert Eisenmann and others; Marcus Borg and other's view of the historical Jesus as relevant but not divine; and other examples.

So what role does defending Jesus as a historical figure, in and of itself, play in Christian apologetics? Is it sufficient by itself to sustain faith? or is it really just a basic question that required answer in order to prevent easy dismissal of Christianity, but one's beliefs require more firm footing to be sustainable?

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a believer in Jesus as Christ though I believe in a historical Jesus-as-man. I personally think any atheist who relies on popular dismissals of Jesus as a historical person to support their lack of belief is on shaky ground.

Edited November 27, 2011 by Honorentheos

[TAO]

So far, it hasn't been such a significant issue, at least from what I have seen. And I think even if there were doubts historically, we'd still think he lived historically, tbh.

As to is it essential, well, that's a matter of opinion =P. I don't think knowing whether he existed or not historically is essential, but I do believe believing he existed historically may be somewhat important.

But yeah, I haven't dealt with this issue too much.

-TAO

[saemo]

The profession of Christian faith is, We proclaim your death oh Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again in glory.

These are literal beliefs. Jesus Christ, the most important person in all of history...not just a nice idea.

Edited November 27, 2011 by saemo

[Glenn101]

Believing that Jesus existed historically is of vital importance to me. Proving such is of no real importance to my faith.

The same is true for the Book of Mormon.

Glenn

[Rob Bowman]

It's quite true that many if not most non-Christians familiar with the Christian faith acknowledge Jesus to have been a real historical person while denying that he did and said many of the things reported in the New Testament, and in particular his resurrection from the dead. So of course proving that Jesus really existed does not establish the truth of Christianity.

The Jesus-myth theory is especially popular among English-speaking atheists and skeptics. Here's what I see happening in that context. In order to debunk Christianity, these skeptics recognize that they must debunk the resurrection of Jesus. Although a variety of alternative scenarios to the Resurrection have been proposed, the one that is probably the most popular is the theory that Jesus didn't die on the cross in the first place. (There are several variations of this theory). Unfortunately for these skeptics, the historical evidence that Jesus was crucified at the order of Pontius Pilate is as secure as any event in ancient history. To get around the evidence for the Crucifixion, some skeptics have found it easiest and most convenient to argue that Jesus didn't exist at all (not that no man named Jesus ever lived, but that there was no itinerant teacher named Jesus of Nazareth going around Galilee and Judea with a group of disciples during Pilate's rule in Judea). The skeptics that take this approach have painted themselves into an epistemological corner: having started with the confident Humean demand for extraordinary evidence regarding the extraordinary claim of the Resurrection, they find themselves strenuously arguing with no real evidence against the rather ordinary claim that the Romans crucified a Jewish teacher perceived as a possible threat to the Pax Romana.

I happen to think there's a lesson to be learned here. The historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish teacher who was crucified at the order of Pontius Pilate is clear and compelling. But once this fact is admitted, the obvious question of what happened next cannot be reasonably avoided. How did a movement originate based on the idea that this crucified Jewish teacher was really the Messiah, the Savior and Judge of all mankind, and that God had vindicated him as such by raising him from the dead? Here is where the historical argument for the Resurrection gets going. Given the context of an event on the fringes of the Roman Empire in the early first century, the historical evidence for the Resurrection is surprisingly good. Look at the plethora of non-resurrection scenarios spun by critics over the centuries and the evidential weakness and ad hoc character of those scenarios: the fact is that non-Christians have no idea what happened but are committed to denying that the Resurrection occurred. That is why most non-Christian professional historians refuse to speculate as to what happened after Jesus' death: they realize that no naturalistic explanation works.

So while the issue of whether Jesus really existed is, from an academic perspective, really a non-issue, there is a reason why some skeptics prefer to make this an issue in their polemic against Christianity. It's just a lot easier, and probably more fun, to compile superficial lists of alleged similarities between Jesus and Osiris or Jesus and Mithra (etc.) than it is to treat the first-century sources concerning Jesus in a sober historical manner.

[WalkerW]

Nice summary of the historical evidence that is accepted is provided by William Lane Craig in one of his many debates here and here.

Edited November 27, 2011 by WalkerW

[Honorentheos]

The skeptics that take this approach have painted themselves into an epistemological corner: having started with the confident Humean demand for extraordinary evidence regarding the extraordinary claim of the Resurrection, they find themselves strenuously arguing with no real evidence against the rather ordinary claim that the Romans crucified a Jewish teacher perceived as a possible threat to the Pax Romana.

I happen to think there's a lesson to be learned here. The historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish teacher who was crucified at the order of Pontius Pilate is clear and compelling. But once this fact is admitted, the obvious question of what happened next cannot be reasonably avoided. How did a movement originate based on the idea that this crucified Jewish teacher was really the Messiah, the Savior and Judge of all mankind, and that God had vindicated him as such by raising him from the dead?

Hello Rob,

I thought the portion of your post I quote above parallels my own thoughts closely enough to be accepted without significant argument. I'm not sure it's as "clear and compelling" as you say, but the trap is the same none the less.

I'm interested, however, in the references for this statement you made -

"the historical evidence that Jesus was crucified at the order of Pontius Pilate is as secure as any event in ancient history."

Given the wide spectrum of evidence and our varied degrees of certitude on "event(s) in ancient history", I thought this rather bold and am not familiar with evidence of this nature on that particular point.

But after this, I feel like you built up to a point you were unable to make in your post, Mr. Bowman.

You say, here -

"Here is where the historical argument for the Resurrection gets going. Given the context of an event on the fringes of the Roman Empire in the early first century, the historical evidence for the Resurrection is surprisingly good."

That's very promising and I was interested in what followed. Only to be met with this -

Look at the plethora of non-resurrection scenarios spun by critics over the centuries and the evidential weakness and ad hoc character of those scenarios: the fact is that non-Christians have no idea what happened but are committed to denying that the Resurrection occurred.

You'll forgive me if I see in your response the same response Dr. Hamblin made about the BoM in the other thread; that it's the lack of compelling counter-argument for the extraordinary claim that serves as the backbone of the evidence you present here - not actual evidence for your claim.

I AM committed to being SKEPTICAL of the resurrection on the grounds that people don't return regularly from the dead. And when they do in this day and age (usually due to medical revival), it's generally not after 3 days locked in a tomb with a stone in front of it that required two Roman soldiers to move. The claims are fantastic, as you said.

You said -

"That is why most non-Christian professional historians refuse to speculate as to what happened after Jesus' death: they realize that no naturalistic explanation works."

Nor should they be required given the extraordinary nature of the claims in abscence of compelling evidence for the event. In a narrow sense I don't know that it's necessary for a professional historian to speculate on how the idea that Jesus was resurrected came into being. Just as I don't think the disbeliever in LDS truth-claims is compelled to give a historically supported explaination for the authorship of the BoM.

In a broad sense, I am aware of a number of theories on the development of Pauline/Roman Christianity from the roots of what historical evidence and source material is available.

To me, it becomes more compelling to examine Christianity in total. To look more closely at the origins of the Hebrew nation, tribal Israel, temple Judism, and to examine the reliability of scripture in informing us of how the world works. To me, this is why most Christian television programming is packed with campy shows on how science really does support the Biblical claims that most knowledgeable people see as debunked. It's why there are creationist museums and expeditions to find Noah's ark. People on both sides of the argument seem to instinctively know it's the weight of the evidence in total that is most compelling.

So I'd ask this - if you feel the argument for the resurrection truly is compellingly supported by available evidence I'd be interest in seeing the argument for. The argument made above (that critics have no good explanation for it) is a poor filter and one that should have you doing temple work in a year from now.

Thanks.

[Rob Bowman]

Honorentheos,

Thanks for your reply. Your comments appear as block quotes with my responses following.

I thought the portion of your post I quote above parallels my own thoughts closely enough to be accepted without significant argument. I'm not sure it's as "clear and compelling" as you say, but the trap is the same none the less.

I'm interested, however, in the references for this statement you made -

"the historical evidence that Jesus was crucified at the order of Pontius Pilate is as secure as any event in ancient history."

Given the wide spectrum of evidence and our varied degrees of certitude on "event(s) in ancient history", I thought this rather bold and am not familiar with evidence of this nature on that particular point.

I'll have to summarize. First, the New Testament writings, which date from about AD 45 to 95 and were produced by several different authors, report that Jesus was crucified, and of course all four Gospels mention the role of Pilate in the matter. From the data given to us we can determine that Jesus died in AD 30 or 33, with the earliest references in the epistles of Paul clustering around 15-30 years after the event. Paul's quotation of an early "creed" transmitted to him from the Jerusalem apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 that affirmed that Christ had died, been buried, was raised, and appeared to his disciples pushes the earliest testimony to the event back to within a few years of its occurrence (most scholars, including non-Christian scholars, agree that Paul received this tradition from the Jerusalem church shortly after his conversion, about AD 34 or 35). The Gospel "passion narrative" found especially in the Synoptics appears to have pre-dated those works and to have originated no later than the 40s, regardless of when one dates the Synoptics (proposals range from the early 60s through the mid-80s). There is no contrary tradition or belief circulating in the Mediterranean world during the first hundred years and more after Jesus' reported death. For example, the second-century apocryphal gospels, most of which espoused religious beliefs very different from the NT, agreed that Jesus had been crucified. Our earliest references to Christ from Roman writers (e.g., Tacitus) agree that he had been crucified as ordered by Pontius Pilate. Josephus also mentions Jesus' execution in his late first-century Jewish Antiquities, in a passage that apparently has some later Christian interpolations but nonetheless in the main most likely originating from Josephus. What makes all of this unanimity from such disparate sources so compelling is that the very idea of a crucified Messiah is simply something first-century Jews would not invent. Paul admitted that the idea was deemed scandalous by his fellow Jews and intellectually gauche by the sophisticated Greeks (1 Cor. 1). Paul did not need to defend the historical claim that Jesus was crucified; he needed to defend his belief that a person who died in that way could be the Messiah and Savior that Christians claimed him to be. Anyone familiar with the attitudes of ancient Jews and Gentiles toward crucifixion, their utter revulsion at it, will understand this point (see, e.g., Martin Hengel's little book Crucifixion). The early Christians were saddled with the fact of Jesus' crucifixion as an apologetic liability in their cultural context, so it is simply not credible to suppose that they made it up.

But after this, I feel like you built up to a point you were unable to make in your post, Mr. Bowman.

You say, here -

"Here is where the historical argument for the Resurrection gets going. Given the context of an event on the fringes of the Roman Empire in the early first century, the historical evidence for the Resurrection is surprisingly good."

That's very promising and I was interested in what followed. Only to be met with this -

Look at the plethora of non-resurrection scenarios spun by critics over the centuries and the evidential weakness and ad hoc character of those scenarios: the fact is that non-Christians have no idea what happened but are committed to denying that the Resurrection occurred.

You'll forgive me if I see in your response the same response Dr. Hamblin made about the BoM in the other thread; that it's the lack of compelling counter-argument for the extraordinary claim that serves as the backbone of the evidence you present here - not actual evidence for your claim.

I'm sorry, but my comments in that post were compressed and gave you a misleading impression. I was assuming you were familiar with the basic factual evidences in support of the Resurrection. Those evidences fall into several categories: evidence of Jesus' burial in a tomb, evidence of the body being reported missing from the tomb just a few days later, evidence of family members and friends seeing Jesus alive after the tomb was empty, and evidence of Paul's encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. All of this evidence gains its traction from the fact of Jesus' death; what we have are two reasonably indisputable facts that need to be connected:

Jesus died by crucifixion - - - - - - - - - - - - Shortly after Jesus' death, a fast-growing movement of people was proclaiming that God had raised Jesus from the dead.

How does one explain the second fact in view of the secure historicity of the first fact? This is the historical problem of the Resurrection belief. The problem is explaining why a group of people believed, and were able to persuade many other people to believe, that a Jewish teacher condemned as a heretic by the Jewish establishment and crucified by the Romans had been raised from the dead to immortal life at God's right hand. Let's list quickly the standard non-resurrection solutions to this puzzle:

• The earliest disciples did not think God had raised Jesus from the dead; this was a later myth created by Paul or someone else years later.
  
• The earliest disciples made it up to deceive people and create a following for themselves.
  
• The earliest disciples were hallucinating or suffering from delusions.
  

These choices exhaust the hypothetical scenarios, as best I can tell; if Jesus did not rise from the dead then one of the above three scenarios must be correct. Yet all three of these theories have intractable, insuperable difficulties.

1. We know that the Resurrection belief pre-dated Paul and was held by Jesus' original disciples, because Paul's writings reflects his interactions with those earliest Christian leaders in some very telling ways. We know from Galatians 1-2 that Paul had met with Peter (Cephas) and James in Jerusalem very early in the Christian movement's history and that he shared the same gospel message with them though not the same gospel field of ministry. We also know that Paul had some conflicts with these men or with others claiming to speak and act in their names. From 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 we know that it was accepted fact that Peter, James, and the other Jerusalem apostles, among others, had seen the risen Jesus before Paul, a point of some embarrassment to Paul. Thus, Paul's writings prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not originate the Resurrection belief and that this belief was held by Jesus' original followers.

2. The conspiracy theory that the disciples made up the Resurrection story to create a following for themselves simply doesn't work, for at least two reasons. First, the supposed motive is implausible in the extreme. Obviously, people can and do make up religious stories, but the stories are generally self-serving and make some sense in their cultural context. Men lie, but they lie to gain power, prestige, wealth, women, or all of the above, and the earliest Christians got none of these things and in fact showed no interest in gaining these things. And again, the message that a crucified Jew condemned as a heretic was really the Messiah was going to be a hard sell, to put it mildly. All four Gospels report that women followers of Jesus were the first persons to see the empty tomb and to see the risen Jesus, reports that were far from self-serving to the men in leadership of the Christian movement and that created another apologetic liability. What man would make up a story in which Mary Magdalene, a formerly demon-possessed woman, was the lead witness to the Resurrection? Second, the conspiracy has a very difficult time explaining Paul's conversion from Christian-hating Pharisee to the Christian apostle to the Gentiles. Paul's own testimony is that Christ appeared to him and made that dramatic change happen, and there is non plausible scenario in which Paul concocted that story as part of a grand conspiratorial deception.

3. This leaves the popular notion that the earliest disciples, and Paul as well, were suffering from delusions, hallucinations, or some such psychological deception. Again, I will focus on two big problems for this scenario. First, it is extremely unlikely given the diversity and contexts of the reported appearances. The reports rather clearly tell us that there were a number of such appearances of Jesus to his disciples for a period of just a few weeks after his death, then nothing -- until the isolated appearance to Paul. These appearances were to individuals and to groups. They were never pre-arranged or scheduled for set times at set places (as is usually the case, for example, with Marian apparitions). People who reported seeing Jesus in several instances were predisposed not to believe in Jesus or to accept his resurrection as fact even after hearing about it (e.g., the two disciples on the Emmaus road, Thomas, and of course Paul), whereas religious visions (e,g., Marian apparitions again) typically are experienced by devout believers. Second, there is the evidence for the empty tomb. With all these people reporting experiences of seeing Jesus risen from the dead, it was inevitable that some of Jesus' followers would go to the tomb and look to see if the body was still there. Had they found the dead body still there, that would have ended the whole story. What actually happened, rather clearly, is that they found the tomb empty. Again, the reports in the Gospels that Mary Magdalene and other women found the tomb empty first are difficult to explain away. Even the implausible claim of some early opponents that the disciples had stolen or moved the body (reported, for example, by Matthew and John) reflect the fact that the body no longer remained in the tomb. The empty tomb by itself, or the reported appearances by themselves, leave loopholes for skeptics to exploit, but the combination of these two facts makes for an extremely strong argument that Jesus did in fact appear alive to his followers shortly after his death and burial.

If the Resurrection was not a legend (option 1), a lie (option 2), or loony (option 3), we are left with the conclusion that it really happened, a conclusion that follows not simply from the difficulties attending those three alternatives but from the positive evidences of the death of Jesus on the cross, the empty tomb, and the reported appearances of Jesus alive shortly after his death and later to Paul.

I AM committed to being SKEPTICAL of the resurrection on the grounds that people don't return regularly from the dead. And when they do in this day and age (usually due to medical revival), it's generally not after 3 days locked in a tomb with a stone in front of it that required two Roman soldiers to move. The claims are fantastic, as you said.

No one is submitting the Resurrection story to Ripley's Believe It or Not. The claim is not that this weird thing happened once upon a time. Granted that people do not naturally or spontaneously rise from the dead, the claim is that God raised Jesus from the dead so as to conquer death on our behalf and to vindicate Jesus as the Messiah and divine Son of God. The Resurrection is fantastic outside a biblical, theistic worldview, but this extraordinary event fits perfectly into that worldview, one that has inspired a disproportionate number of the world's greatest scientists, philosophers, philanthropists, and artists. And this faith has, as I have summarized here, surprisingly strong evidence that unbelievers have great difficulty explaining away.

You said -

"That is why most non-Christian professional historians refuse to speculate as to what happened after Jesus' death: they realize that no naturalistic explanation works."

Nor should they be required given the extraordinary nature of the claims in abscence of compelling evidence for the event. In a narrow sense I don't know that it's necessary for a professional historian to speculate on how the idea that Jesus was resurrected came into being. Just as I don't think the disbeliever in LDS truth-claims is compelled to give a historically supported explaination for the authorship of the BoM.

Well, as I have summarized, there is very good evidence for the event. I cannot agree with you that a professional historian studying the origins of the Christian faith can neglect to investigate the origins of the Resurrection belief, because one is essentially the same as the other. While not every non-Mormon needs to justify his rejection of the Book of Mormon via some historical explanation of its origins, any non-Mormon who seeks to present a cogent case against the Book of Mormon needs to have some sort of working hypothesis as to how it was created. As an evangelical scholar researching the Book of Mormon, I accept this responsibility. But I don't want to derail this thread by getting into that subject here.

[kolipoki09]

I've always referred to N.T. Wright's work on the subject, including Jesus and the Victory of God and The Historical Jesus and Christian Theology

Even as a Latter-day Saint, I find Wright to be one of the finest Protestant authorities on the Historical Jesus available.

The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg is also excellent.

[CV75]

So what role does defending Jesus as a historical figure, in and of itself, play in Christian apologetics? Is it sufficient by itself to sustain faith? or is it really just a basic question that required answer in order to prevent easy dismissal of Christianity, but one's beliefs require more firm footing to be sustainable?

To me, reliance on documented history is a reliance on the arm of the flesh, as is reliance upon the analysis and interpretation of history by others. The same goes for apologetics. Reliance on divine revelation and the Spirit is the way faith in Christ is established and built.

History and Christian apologetics certainly have a place for those who are inclined to examine the world from these perspectives "in good faith.". As with any other vocation or interest, properly applied they can improve our condition, but they are at best only the best that man can come up with and in and of themselves are insufficient to engender saving faith. Divine revelation on the other hand is the best that God can come up with and is the only way that faith works.

It is the open mind and not the history and apologetics themselves that draw people into faith, as people interested in just about any other worthwhile and edifying pursuit can develop faith without an appreciation of history or apologetics.

So I would say that apologetics, and in this thread specifically defending Jesus as a historical figure, draws people of like interest into a discussion where they can learn something new and enjoy expanding their horizons irrespective of whether they develop faith or not. I believe that as long as people are engaged in something constructive (“of good report or praiseworthy”) they will eventually come across an opportunity to consider divine revelation and develop faith in Christ.

I’m sure people can talk themselves into believing something using history, apologetics, science, finance, etc. as their foundation, but the firmer footing is in the experiences with the Spirit (Luke 6:48; Matthew 16:18).

[Honorentheos]

Mr. Bowman,

I appreciate your rather lengthy reply along with the time and thought that must have gone into it.

Before we proceed, I wish to make clear that I am not disputing that there is evidence for Jesus' crucifixion, or even that there is evidence for the resurrection. My concern is with the degree of certainty we attribute to any particular event based on the source material attesting to it.

That said, while I don't question the idea that Jesus was crucified I have to take issue with your original statement that I questioned. That being - ""the historical evidence that Jesus was crucified at the order of Pontius Pilate is as secure as any event in ancient history."

I'm not particularly well-versed in the depth or even the full breadth of biblical scholarship, but I didn't see any new source or argument in those you made of which I was not already aware. By suggesting you felt it was as secure as any event, I had hoped for something new. Anyway. You do have a tendency to make statements like a weatherman might, fearing to lose one's job by appearing to give what is really a warranted amount of uncertainty to a statement. It's understandable, I just wasn't familiar with your style to be sure this was the case until now.

If we break the evidence cited into groups we could potentially do so justly by separating those friendly to Christianity (i.e. - the New Testament writings) from those antagonistic (i.e. - Tacitus and Josephus). Of the later, both authors wrote some time after the event in question, but I think Tacitus' account is fairly reliable. As you noted, Josephus’ account is less reliable on the grounds it has been tampered with in some places if still valuable. At a minimum, Tacitus confirms that by the mid-1st century CE Romans were aware of the origin story of the Christian sect that he describes as prolific in the City-State. Just on this evidence alone (Tacitus and Josephus) I would be willing to go along with you had you said something like, "It's reasonable to believe that Jesus was crucified at the command of Pontius Pilate" or even the stronger statement "The available evidence suggests we are on solid ground in accepting that Jesus was crucified, etc., etc."

As for the friendly sources you cite, we have to swallow a very big "What if" right out of the gate in accepting Paul's account of seeing Jesus resurrected in order to view it as anything but hear-say. Consider -

1 Cor. 15:3-9

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

I feel you are arguing for the resurrection in the same instance you are making your case for more historically supportable evidence for the crucifixion and therefor unjust couple the two together without cause. My opinion - you have your priorities backwards in how you present your evidence given the lack of first person accounts in either catagory. Since all the accounts of the crucifixion are second-hand, I would give priority to the antagonistic ones first. And then with some qualifier. Then you can interject the friendly sources. But you need to figure out how to qualify them separate from the resurrection declarations.

Anyway, this is being nit-picky I suppose. I just expected more given your declaration of how secure the account of Jesus’ crucifixion must be and am a bit disappointed.

As to the resurrection, I think we should rephrase you points as follows:

1 - we know that Paul gives an account of the resurrection that he says comes from the Jerusalem apostles as well as his own interaction with the resurrected Christ. We don't know that the belief predated Paul, but it appears his account would have us believe so. That's not saying it didn't, just that we need to be more precise in how we accept the sources' testimonies.

2 - I think we should turn here to the Gospel of Matthew which tells us that the Jewish leadership already acknowledged there was a following of Jesus. The gospel author is the only one, I believe, who tells us that the soldiers were bought off so they would deny that they were present in front of the tomb the entire time and that Jesus was raised in a miraculous form. I find that as hard to believe as anything you assert, really. If a Roman soldier had seen the things attested to, would they really be willing to take money from the Judean leadership and lie about it in the face of supernatural forces as well as their political and military leaders? I don't know that's in the realm of believable. And given the author of Matthew is prone to stretch the truth in order to make a point (such as in the case of the story of Palm Sunday for example) I wonder if his narrative is meant to give an explanation for something being asserted in Jerusalem at that time? I.e. - Matthew attests to a very early belief by the Jews that the disciples stole Christ's body and told the tale he was raised.

3 - I don't think the argument for a group hallucination is any more likely here as it is for explaining the events during the Kirkland temple dedication. I think there is much more to it than this, but on the whole, I find this argument against weak, as I do when it's used in other cases. I don't, for example, believe the three witnesses to the BoM were subject to a group hallucination, either.

In the end, I think the likely answer is a mix between 2 (lie) on the part of a few leading to 1 (legend) on the whole.

In addition to the issue with Matthew I noted, I think we should consider the Markian Appendix which appears to be a substantial expansion and much more supernatural account of what may have occurred at the tomb than we have in Mark's more reliable narrative. The reasoning being if we accept Markian priority then we have to challenge the reliability of this portion of Mark as well as any narrative in the synoptics that is closer to the Appendix account than the earliest portion of Mark's Passion. If verse 8 is truly the end, we can not be certain that anything in the Gospels about Christ's resurrection is reliable at all other than the women found the tomb empty and ran away so fearful they are said to have told no man.

As to the need to have a reasonable working explanation, I do have one that suites my needs but I don't wish to shove it on to others. In short, I think the evidence is reasonably good that Jesus was executed for treason against the Pax Romana and likely for the types of agitation for a religious Kingdom of Israel. I think the Jesus of Mark is a much more realistic version than the passive Christ of Luke or the theologically marvelous Word of John. I think that taking the star prophecy and other militantly religious anti-Roman evidence into account we see reasonable explanations for why the followers of a particular group might choose to claim he was raised from the dead by God. I think there is less evidence, but not out of the realm of possibility, for the idea that Paul may have been a more Roman-sympathetic practitioner who shaped these beliefs into a less-polarizing form of belief and may have helped form the ideas of Jesus as exemplar that we often attribute to the man today. Again, these are just my own thoughts but they are not something I'm out to convert others to. As you said, a person does need to have some explanation for the evidence that works for them. Perhaps mine is flawed, and I am happy to examine why.

Anyway, if you would like, I would be happy to discuss any point in more depth with you. I am not as big a fan of "text wall" posts as I once was (the above evidence to the contrary). So perhaps you could pick a specific point or two and we can examine it more closely?

Thanks.

[Honorentheos]

To me, reliance on documented history is a reliance on the arm of the flesh, as is reliance upon the analysis and interpretation of history by others. ... I’m sure people can talk themselves into believing something using history, apologetics, science, finance, etc. as their foundation, but the firmer footing is in the experiences with the Spirit (Luke 6:48; Matthew 16:18).

I appreciate your candor, CV75, and in the context of this OP have no argument against it.