The Historical Jesus

As a result of this preaching, ⁽⁹⁾ the church was born and grew, ⁽¹⁰⁾ with Sunday as the primary day of worship. ⁽¹¹⁾ James, who had been a skeptic, was converted to the faith when he also believed that he saw the resurrected Jesus. ⁽¹²⁾ A few years later, Paul was converted by an experience which he, likewise, believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.

These facts are crucial for our contemporary investigation of Jesus’ resurrection. With the exception of the empty tomb, virtually all critical scholars who deal with this issue agree that these are the minimum of known historical facts surrounding this event. As such, any conclusion concerning the historicity of the resurrection should properly account for these facts. An additional vital (and major) function of these known historical facts will be explained in the next section below.

These known historical facts have a twofold part in our case for the resurrection which is developed in this section. First, they answer the various theories which have been proposed in order to account for Jesus’ resurrection on naturalistic grounds. These hypotheses, chiefly popularized by liberal scholars in the nineteenth century, are rarely held today by critics, especially since they failed to account for the historical facts surrounding this event (such as those just mentioned above). Several reasons for this rejection could be enumerated.

Each naturalistic theory is beset by many major objections that invalidate it as a viable hypothesis. Combinations of these improbable theories likewise fail, again on factual grounds.⁶⁵ Three other historical reasons also illustrate this initial major point. David Hume’s essay against miracles, as well as more recent updates, are invalid rejections of the possibility of miraculous events, thereby eliminating such reasoning as the traditional backdrop for these alternative theses.⁶⁶ Nineteenth century liberal scholars themselves destroyed each alternative theory individually,⁶⁷ while twentieth century critical scholars of various schools of thought have rejected these theories wholesale.⁶⁸ In conclusion, naturalistic alternative hypotheses have thereby been shown to be unable to account for these facts concerning Jesus’ resurrection.

This leads to the second major argument for the resurrection based on the known historical facts. Not only do the naturalistic theories fail due to these historical facts, but these same facts also establish numerous positive evidences that corroborate the historical and literal nature of this event. Nine such evidences will be listed here, all of which have been taken from our list of accepted historical facts listed above. Thus, the factual basis for these nine evidences is admitted by virtually all scholars. However, because of the limitations of this chapter, these nine will simply be stated with very little elaboration.

The key evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is ⁽¹⁾ the disciples’ experiences, which they believed to be literal appearances of the risen Jesus, since these experiences cannot be explained by naturalistic theories (as just shown) and because they are attested as both early and eyewitness sources, as pointed out above. Other positive evidences include ⁽²⁾ the transformation of the disciples into bold witnesses, ⁽³⁾ the empty tomb and ⁽⁴⁾ the fact that the resurrection of Jesus was the very center of the apostolic message, all of which require adequate explanations. It was also found that the disciples proclaimed this message in Jerusalem itself, where it is related that in repeated confrontations with the authorities, ⁽⁵⁾ the Jewish leaders could not disprove their message (Acts 1-5). Additionally, ⁽⁶⁾ the very existence and growth of the church, ⁽⁷⁾ featuring Sunday as the primary day of worship demand historical causes, as well.

Two additional major facts arguing for the historicity of the resurrection are that two skeptics, ⁽⁸⁾James, the brother of Jesus, and ⁽⁹⁾ Paul, became believers after having experiences which they also believed were appearances of the risen Jesus. Fuller concludes that even if the appearance to James had not been recorded by Paul (1 Cor. 15:7), such an occurrence would still have to be postulated anyway in order to account for both James’ conversion and his subsequent promotion to a position of authority in the early church.⁶⁹ The same could be said even more emphatically concerning Paul.⁷⁰

When combined with the failure of the naturalistic theories, this minimum of nine evidences provides a strong case for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. This is especially so in that each of these evidences was based on a known historical fact.⁷¹ In particular, when the early and eyewitness experiences of the disciples, James and Paul, are considered along with their corresponding transformations,⁷² the historical resurrection becomes the best explanation for the facts, especially since the naturalistic theories failed.

Four Key Historical Facts

Earlier, twelve facts were enumerated as knowable history, accepted as such by almost all scholars. It is this writer’s conviction that even by utilizing only four of these accepted facts, a sufficient case can be made for the historicity of the resurrection, which will strengthen the earlier apologetic.⁷³

The four facts to be used here are ⁽¹⁾ Jesus’ death due to crucifixion, ⁽⁵⁾ the subsequent experiences that the disciples were convinced were literal appearances of the risen Jesus, ⁽⁶⁾ the corresponding transformation of the disciples, and ⁽¹²⁾ Paul’s conversion appearance, that he also believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus. These four “core” facts are even more widely accepted as knowable history than the rest of the twelve, being accepted by virtually all critical scholars.⁷⁴

Each of these four facts is established by means of normal historical methodology (see Appendix 1). The death of Jesus due to crucifixion is evidenced not only by 1 Corinthians 15:3, but is further corroborated by the nature of crucifixion (including Yohanan’s skeleton, which we examine in the next chapter), medical testimony concerning Jesus’ heart wound, and Strauss’ famous critique of the swoon theory. Other New Testament creeds (like Phil. 2:8; 1 Cor. 11:23-26), as well as certain non-Christian and early non-New Testament Christian sources (see chapters below) are also helpful.

The fact of the disciples’ experiences that they believed to be appearances of the risen Jesus, is corroborated chiefly by the early and eyewitness testimony of 1 Corinthians 15:3ff. Other creeds (like Luke 24:34), and especially contemporary research on early confessions in the book of Acts,⁷⁵ are particularly valuable. Non-biblical references will also be discussed below.