Gary Habermas: The Resurrection Evidence that Changed Current Scholarship

folks I'm sorry I was sitting over talking to folks and they said you're almost done I said okay that's fine he said you're almost on I said okay I figured somebody's going to come and introduce me they said you know it's 5 minutes after am I supposed to go up there yeah just go so here I am glad to be with you folks tonight do a lot of this stuff do a lot of speaking and I I told some of the organizers down here it's just really neat to be walking around this atmosphere I don't

see this often so I don't say this just everywhere I go in fact I don't know if I've ever said it but you guys just seem to be really electric and interested and I think that's a a great uh group here to start and we're discussing the greatest Topic in the world tonight I mean you know JP morins is he's really good speaker it's a good you know he's he's a good guy he's just a little bit of disadvantage he doesn't have the best topic in the world you know so um we have an advantage

in here and I was also really blessed today to hear Bill Craig's testimony that that he read for you cuz a lot of us know that fell and remember when he came I think he was doing a PhD in math right the fellow that they were talking about a PhD in math and then I thought hey here's two guys sitting right here down in the front row who could tell the same kind of of testimonies we got him here tonight uh this guy in the left is Abdu Murray and the guy in the yeah 68

like he says not too many guys from Lebanon are 68 um and next to him is Nabil keshi uh these guys are pretty cool Abdu is a lawyer and he's uh getting ready to leave his uh law practice to go full-time into Christian Ministry he's already written a book on on working with uh Muslims and uh n kesi is an MD and uh he's done an MA at Biola in apologetics he's doing another ma in New Testament from duke and plans to do a PhD you know one of those um uh alphabet soup guys but

what's neat about these two guys is they were both just Muslims just a little while ago a few years ago they both come to Christ they both debate regularly are into apologetics Big Time both writing books abd's already got a book out uh I didn't miss one of yours did I you already written like five books and I just don't know about it no oh and for you guys who are like really really rough they're both in the Mixed Martial Arts so don't mess around with them Nabil has a second degree black belt in Taekwondo

and Abdu always tells him he's nothing he just can't handle him you know so you know I mean you know it helps to when you're an apologetics it helps to work with mixed martial arts I kind of go along go along together I was an ice hockey coach at liberty for uh I don't know n nine years I was a head coach and so I tell people hockey goes along with with apologetics too because Christians and hockey players solve their problems in roughly the same manner okay well that's enough of it introduction but seriously that

I just said that because these kind of testimonies like JP said the bad news is they're pretty rare but they are all around us and here's a few present I'm sure there's more out in the crowd the the Lord does wonderful things and lives are still being transformed and as you heard tonight in the testimony there's still Damascus experiences going on I I praise the Lord for that well the topic tonight uh in this session is the resurrection and I'm going to be introducing it here briefly and then I'm going to walk down the L

and I'm going to spend all my time walking back and forth some of you perhaps seen me do this before uh I tell people I have a PowerPoint for this but I'm not going to be using it because it just got to be frustrating you have to keep running back and pushing the next slide or saying next and so on I was doing this in Oxford a few years ago and someone said to me you don't need a PowerPoint you're a human PowerPoint and and you'll see cuz I'll be doing a lot of walking across

the front here so I want you to track with me while we talk a little about historiography and why the resurrection is so exceptional by way of of evidence but if you want to turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15 let me just say a few things by way of introduction I think without any question this is the grandest passage of scripture in the New Testament of the Resurrection it's the earliest extended portion in the New Testament uh friend and foe liberal and conservative date this book 1 Corinthians to about 55 ad give or take

so about 25 years after the the uh cross we'll talk talk a little bit more about historiography in a few minutes and why that's important but Paul starts out like this I'm going to be paraphrasing but the first two verses Paul says he says when I was with you Corinthians he said I preached the message to you I gave you the gospel and what you do with the gospel basically he doesn't say determines where you spend eternity but he says what you do with the gospel determines whether or not you're saved and he said that's

that's what I preached I gave you the gospel and the question concerns your response your life response your faith response your response to data now if I were writing this out I'd have an end note right here and I'd say that whenever Paul defines the gospel and and the places where the gospel data are defined is usually in Paul's Epistles or the book of Acts and the gospel data whatever else is mentioned in the vicinity these three doctrines are always mentioned deity death resurrection of Jesus now we often say death burial Resurrection but actually the

New Testament doesn't mention burial I mean it does in the gospels but when it's telling the gospel later it's mentioned several times but it's not mentioned all that often deity death Resurrection is always mentioned are always mentioned and then Paul says what have you done with this what is your stance Visa Vis A this data and verse three he says I gave you what I was given as a first important I gave you what I was given as of first importance the material I'm giving you two important things I passed on material that I heard

from others and secondly this is the most important thing I can tell you this is of first importance because it concerns the gospel now let me stop here for a moment talk a little bit about my methodology a little about his historiography and then we're going to go down and do the the uh walking and talking for the rest of this by the way at the time of the end I don't it takes me a little while to do this um we're done at 9:30 but I've been told that there's nothing else going on in

here and we can stay a little bit longer if you folks want to stay for Q&A after it's over if you need to get up and go or you told somebody you'd meet them at 9:30 no offense whatsoever just you know get up and leave at 9:30 but if some of you want to stay around especially if you some of you who consider yourself Skeptics or questioners want to talk I think there's some microphones around we'll just see how that goes um I won't go any longer than 9:30 with the lecture itself I might even

end a few minutes early but just feel free to stick around if you want to ask some questions or hear other people ask questions okay I spent 10 years as a 10 more than 10 years actually but 10 straight years as a skeptic and a questioner I I was raised in the German Baptist Church in Detroit Michigan I hope I don't offend anybody from Detroit here but I think I think Detroit's a great place to be from and uh good place to watch hockey but good place to be from and um when I was growing

up I I actually Sports came into the lock I played football and I played hockey and I spent my afternoons playing sports and at night I would get back to my doubts and I would I'd always be concerned with what did I leave off the night before is there any basis for Christianity now some of my friends got concerned about me my parents got concerned about me uh I did wander uh in my beliefs I wondered what else was true I came very close to becoming a Buddhist in fact sometimes I think I kind of

went over the other side I I came very close to that to that way of thinking and and my folks were concerned friends were concerned and they would say hey check out this evidence check out this evidence you know try this and I went through this try this try this examine this and I rejected almost everything I saw in fact during that time I debated Christians I told them they had no basis for believing the Bible was inspired uh they got angry at me one guy wanted to fight one time you know I mean this

is Detroit so um it was it was a rough atmosphere but I was really really interested in truth in fact this is not the guy who wanted to fight another guy came up to me this guy was big he's like Abdu here and he walked up to me in college and he said I this one I was having my doubts and he said I hear you don't believe the Bible is the word of God and I said I said you're right and he looked down at me and he said man you've got seven demons in

you and he turned and walked away and I thought demon fight demon fight okay maybe the demons are better we'll see but that's where I was at that time and I didn't mind I wasn't trying to get Christians to give up their faith but I realized now I was begging for somebody to show me answers if there were any and when people would say well check this out look at archaeology look at the reliability New Testament how about fulfill prophecy how about this and I kept thinking wow there's there's some things here worth studying but

Christians just can't close the circle they just can't complete the argument and then it occurred to me that if Christians were right about the Resurrection The Resurrection had something that other potential evidences did not have it there's good data it's historical self-defeating to deny history science cannot even deny history because science has to make use of historical conclusions to do science and I thought well in principle you got some good building blocks here but I just don't know if this argument can close the circle so because I was of a skeptical mindset and did not

accept things at face value from scripture I started working on a methodology that I now call the minimal facts method I de I developed in my doctoral dissertation at Michigan State uh University I should stop and see where I am before I think about okay do they hate hate Michigan State around here okay we're in the west coast I probably can say that I'm okay um now if I said Michigan somebody's already I'm not from Michigan but somebody the University of Michigan somebody told me tonight there's a lot of there's a lot of um uh

academic uh going back and forth between Cal Berkeley and Michigan uh but at the time I was just I didn't like Michigan either sorry man um I mean University of Michigan yeah he's going to stand up in a minute he's going to want he's going to want to do something um but I went to Michigan State and I developed this methodology of working in the resurrection here's the way I started doing it I went I sort of thought like this if this book is the word of God it's like duh well then Christianity is true

uh and if this book's the word of God Jesus been raised to the death but I don't believe this book's the word of God I mean I don't believe it was inspired at the time I would have told you I thought it was pretty reliable but I was starting to kind of slip away from reliability and think it was pretty SC you know that it was just like a book of ancient literature so I started working on this method that says if the Bible inspired Jesus has been raised from the dead if it's not inspired

but it's reliable Jesus has been raised from the dead but what if the Bible what if the New Testament is the worst it can be a book of ancient literature now it's no worse than that right I tell grad students all the time you know it's a book of ancient literature because it's really really old there's pages and there's words on it that's that's all that's required to be a book of ancient literature and if you want put it on a par with Homer say well look I'm just wondering if the Iliad has any basis

in fact was there a Troy and was there a trojan horse okay fair question what do we learn from the ancient world from these reports if that's your view of the New Testament guess what I believe we can still get the resurrection so I'll usually I'll often go to State University campus and I just say this to be provocative you know just to kind of tease people a little bit and I'll say for you Christians Bible's the word of God Jesus been raised from the dead for you who don't know you think the Bible is

probably reliable but you don't believe it's inspired Jesus has been raised and for you Skeptics who believe the Bible is not reliable Jesus has been raised so here's the bad news for you Jesus has been raised it's a heads ey win tails you lose argument so you say well yeah that's cute uh but how do you pull that off well I'm going to use this minimal facts method that says this almost nothing I'm going to share with you now I'm going to start giving you some with another method and I'll tell you win I'm going

to start doing the minimal fact method I'm going to do another method called the reliability method the middle one first but what I'm going to do when I get to the minimal facts portion is I'm going to use texts that Scholars allow skeptical Scholars no matter how skeptical they are uh atheists that's fine be as skeptical as you want I'm only asking I'm only using data from Scholars who know the field by that I mean somebody with a terminal degree peer-reviewed Publications have a position where they work in this area that's criteria we use you

know when you go to a medical doctor when you go to a lawyer when you go to somebody else you want somebody as's a specialist in your area who's going to give you the best possible advice and fix you up with whatever you need so sometimes we have a bunch of websites that are readily available and if that's your thing if you want to go to the websites where all the scholars are folks with Bas who are out of their area and they claim to be Scholars they don't do any work in the area I

I mean that's fine it's America you can do what you want but I'm just saying if you go to the scholarly websites where people are as skeptical as possible and they are atheist atheist New Testament Scholars they're going to admit a body of data this is one of the most misunderstood things skeptical Scholars will allow you to use the New Testament in fact if you don't use it they will because they think there are some worthwhile passages that's the only thing I'm going to use is their data and my thesis tonight is going to be

if you take a skeptical look at the New Testament use the data they allow there's enough data to show that Jesus was raised from the dead that's my Approach now that much on methodology couple things about historiography and while I'm doing that I'll step down here you know when you do historiography you ask about whether an event occurred in history there are certain criteria let me tell you real quickly a a little story that you'll get the point how this works years ago my son was many years ago my my son was 8 years old

and we were sitting at the dinner table we often had we often would uh read scripture with their family before dinner and we had that time and my son sat there and we were done and we prayed for the meal and he said dad my Sunday school teacher asked us this week he wants us to report next week how do we know the resurrection of Jesus happened and I said Rob how do you know George Washington was the first president of the United States he come on dad I asked how do you know if the

resurrection of Jesus happened I said no Rob I'm being serious how do you know George Washington was first president United States He Stopped he goes you read books and I said what kind of books he's 8 years old and he and he goes I guess you'd want to read a book from somebody who knew George Washington okay what kind of a person who George Washington would what kind of a so we just kind of worked on this for a few moments so we thought you know if they were there especially if it was enemy testimony

someone who hated George Washington hated what he stood for but he believed he was a courageous person or he was a good military leader or something like that or you know anything like that would be really really helpful and he said when he finished he goes okay in other words when you ask about the resurrection you do history and I don't know cuz probably because we're in the middle of a meal he just went okay and he never asked about resur res Direction and I kind of forgot about and he kind of forgot about and

we kept eating and about a week later he got home we were at dinner again and I said hey how'd that go with your Sunday school teacher ask you how we know Jesus is raised from the dead he said yeah he came into class and he said how do we know and he I put my hand up and he said Rob and he said how do you know George Washington was the first president the United States this is a true story and and the teacher went what and then he goes oh wait a minute you're

having rest this kid aren't you so I mean it's not hard it's not hard to put some of these things together you do Resurrection like you do historical data and you're not pulling any punches you're not like inventing spiritual history to prove something I'm going to be using facts the way the critics use it tonight okay so I'm going to start down here I'm going to start with the timeline because two of the most important things we could do in history is to get early eyewitness data you have to rhyme things for I I teach

exclusively PhD students and for PhD students required books go by colors say take out your orange book you know that's what we do in grad school and then we talk about alliteration because it's easier for grad students to remember things we don't do this with undergrads because they don't remember whether you do it or not but with grad students I say the two e okay early and eyewitness just like the George Washington question we want people who are there and we want people who are in the right place you say well eyewitnesses could be wrong

yes they are but what are you going to do site 9 nine eyewitnesses because eyewitnesses could be mistaken no we still use eyewitnesses and we want them to be people who are in the right time right place asking the right questions and so on and it's real helpful if they're enemies it's real helpful if they change their view it's real qu helpful if there's checks and balances and so on that's how we do history all right on my little timeline here that's going to be creation down there this is the cross Scholars usually say 30

ad but you'd be surprised how seldom they answer that question uh probably the second most popular date is 33 I'm just going to say Ground Zero give or take it's about 30 ad down there is 2011 now before I do minimal facts let me give you a typical way that somebody I'm going to have to be real sketchy but when somebody says the New Testament is at least a historically trustworthy book let me talk about how they're going to do that if you say well how do I know the resurrection happened on this timeline I'm

going to say well one very common on the reli ability argument response is going to say well the Book of Mark is written and I'm going to use skeptical dates okay so you can see it's not that huge an issue um The Book of Mark is written about 70 AD we're only plus 40 you have to study ancient history to know how good plus 40 is it's just it it's great great time period okay using critics dates Matthew about 10 years later app plus 80 Luke about 5 years later to about plus 85 acts plus

85 Plus 90 something like that everybody conservatives and liberals puts John at about 95 ad so my point is that at the the worst it gets is we're about plus 65 to John now critics often deal with sort of a double standard when they deal with the New Testament and they're going to say yeah 95 ad Matthew uh 50 Luke 55 is that getting a little bit late well when they ask questions like that they're either they either I'm not trying to be mean but either they haven't studied a lot of ancient history or they're

not familiar with sources or they're just being overly critical the New Testament or whatever because if I said all right forget Jesus for right now and let's say Ground Zero is the death of Alexander the Great what are our best sources for Alexander the Great what are the best sources well there were several people who wrote during Alexander the Great's life but we don't have any of those sources we don't have any of them they'd be very valuable we don't have any of them the sources we have for Alexander are and I'm going to I'd

have to keep walking way out past this window because the best sources for Alexander date 300 to 450 years after his death about 330 BC the two best sources are Aryan and plutar but they're also the latest sources they're about plus 425 to 450 ad that's a long time you go okay fine I get your point maybe Alexander is not the best example uh we have better examples than that yes we do but I'm just using Alexander because a he's such a prominent Source well how about somebody who's better data and closer to Jesus's time

okay how about Tiberia Caesar he is the the Caesar who's on the throne when Jesus dies dies just a few years after Jesus dies we have four major sources for tiberias and a total of about 10 sources for tiberias we have more than 10 sources for Jesus and you go yeah but that's those Prejudice New Testament sources okay more about that in a second uh use the way critics use we still have more than 10 sources for Jesus do you know we have a dozen and a half sources outside the New Testament for Jesus doesn't

have sources outside the New Testament that are within 100 to 150 years after Jesus which is fair in the ancient world and now when I say 100 to 150 you realize that John's a lot closer than this but back to tiberias we have four sources for tiberious one is contemporary whoa we don't have anything like that for Jesus but as I'm going to argue tonight we do we have sources I'm going to spend the rest of my time explaining that go all the way back to 30 ad for Jesus okay so next best source by

the way the earliest one for tiberias the the historian who who gives the Contemporary data he's the least useful the least useful of the four sources the best source for Tiberius is tacitus and tacitus if that's tiberious down there Ground Zero tacitus we probably be 2/3 of the way up the pews here because tacitus writes sorry that's the last guy tacitus is going to that's John tacus is going to be about here tacitus writes about 120 ad he's plus 80 after Tiberius suetonius plus 85 and deasus 2/3 of the way up or further deasus is

plus 180 from tiberias go well okay I see where you're going but I have the ultimate objection for you gospels record miracles of Jesus that disqualifies him really well Greco Roman we'd say in English bios it's not pronounced that way in Greek but Greco Roman bios it's a genre of biography Greco Roman biography the pro the most uh reputable writing in the ancient world we have say the father of History so-called Herodotus all the way through such names as thiddies and all the way up to Livy and uh Julius Caesar himself and I already gave

you some names uh plenty but we also have tacus suetonius deas and so on these these guys write bios and almost every Greco Roman Source includes Miracles prophecies Port tents Livy probably second only the ti todus for his reputation as a Roman historian uh liy Records the founding of Rome by ramulus and Remis the boys who were raised by a wolf hundreds of years before his earliest Source you that's obviously false but we do doctoral dissertations on this material and it's fair to use this this material and start you go well I don't trust any

of it if this miracle or if there's Miracles the GRE or Roman sources is not a rival to Christian Miracles then you got to ask the question of which Miracles are are evidenced and I'll just say this to be provocative and then I'm going to have to move on to my minimal facts deal um almost every skeptic skeptical scholar not the Fly by Night guys that don't work in the field that just take shots of Christianity but skeptical Scholars I don't care how liberal they are how far the left virtually everybody today believes that Jesus

was a miracle worker now they're going to differ on how Supernatural these things were and everything else that's another question but it's almost unanimous today among even Jesus seminar people they'll call Jesus a miracle worker and Exorcist in fact two of the best books that are out in this subject are each almost 500 pages long arguing the way critics argue from the New Testament to show that Jesus did this but the what is being claimed is the best book just came out do you guys know that Craig keener's books just came off they were at

the ETS which is why we're here in San Francisco of J theological society and on the table Baker academic books a two volume set of books on the miracles of Jesus more than a thousand Pages Ben witherington who's teaching somewhere here tonight excellent New Testament scholar Ben calls it the best thing ever written on the miracles of Jesus and it documents Jesus's Miracle work we're not counting the resurrection we're talking about peoply touched and healed and exorcisms nature Miracles and so on and then Craig does a bunch of contemporary Miracles bunch of contemporary Miracle claims

and he just lays the data there and says you make these decisions now some of you maybe are not Christians you're Skeptics you hear your Christian friends say Miracles are still occurring today Craig documents a bunch of them including and you're going to have to make your own decisions about these things including resurrections Lazarus type resurrections where people are going to die again not Jesus type resurrections but this is over a thousand pages long the guy who's doing it has a PhD from duke and he has a minor in Classics when he did his commentary

in the Gospel of John he had 20,000 cross references to Classics his commentary in Acts which is coming his commentary from acts I understand it's going to have it's going to be several thousand pages and a 100,000 classical references so just check this out two volumes Miracles Craig Keener ke n r Baker books okay I'm just going to stop right there I'm just all I'm making is two points New Testament books are in the right place right time closest to the data to be taken seriously as Greco Roman biography and they're much better positioned than

almost anything in the ancient world and secondly Miracles bother you because they're in the New Testament look at that data for Jesus being a miracle worker and here's one odd thing the you know how we think that when Legend happens the story keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger John is down here at plus 65 John reports less miracles than any other gospel critics don't talk about that when things don't fit their thesis they quit talking but why does John have less miracles than Mark does and Mark's the earliest okay I'm done with some of

these reliability deals I'm going to move now to this minimal facts thing and I'm going to use the New Testament the way Skeptics use the New Testament and we going to argue that if you use data Scholars allow Jesus has been raised from the dead now let me just start with a provocative comment from one of the top historical Jesus Scholars around I believe he called himself a liberal his name is EP Sanders he recently retired from duke he used to teach at Oxford he's got a couple books out that changed the course of New

Testament scholarship very reputable he wrote a little book I believe 1993 it's called the human figure of Jesus and he starts with data Scholars know data that Scholars know about the historical Jesus and guess what he says when it comes to the aftermath of Jesus's death he's telling you what scholars believe today what critics believe and he says Scholars agree that after his death Jesus appeared to his early disciples and then he says he says this twice in the book Jesus appeared to his disciples how he appeared exactly how he appeared I'm not prepared to

say but twice he says my point is he's not even given his view he's telling you what the consensus of scholarship is today and he says Jesus appeared to his early followers Skeptics concede that much well I've got an article on my website you can check it out ghab mass.com it's underneath the Articles tab it's it's an article published in the journal for the study of historical Jesus which is a critical Journal it's interesting um I'm an Evangelical when I sent them the material they called me and they said um you want us to consider

this for publication right yeah now um uh a little embarrassed to tell you this but if you knew what our Journal was about you'd know we don't publish things on Resurrection because we think that Jesus's life ended on Good Friday do you still want us to consider your article I had a little egg on my face because I hadn't read their prey on what their Journal does it which just bill Craig said to me he goes hey you want to publish this man it'd be a coup if you got into the journal for study of

historical Jesus wants to send it to them well he hadn't read it either he hadn't read the Praises either they said we don't take articles in this but do you want us to send it out to our readers you know we don't want them but you I said I to keep a stiff upper lip right yeah send it out see what they say all right few months later he said hey do you mind if we hang on to this a little bit longer I know we've had it pretty long but we're still considering it yeah

go ahead called me a few months later and they said guess what we're going to do whole issue on Resurrection yours going to be the lead article now here's what's interesting I'm an Evangelical right my article is on what critical scholars believe on the resurrection they're letting me tell them what they believe I'm not I'm not saying that's horrible I'm just saying I'm not I'm not saying that like in a making fun of way I'm just saying this these data are out there and you can find what the critics are saying and that's what I'm

going to be using here okay so I'm going to cut this gap down considerably because I'm going to use two passages from Paul and you go but there you go again use the New Testament critics use the New Testament they will use it if you don't they will use it because they think like studying Homer or something else in fact they'd say don't even compare it to Homer it's way better than Homer but they'd say there's some texts that are better uh accepted than others here's an example they'd say the Apostle Paul has 13 books

that bear his name now here's a skeptic talking they're going to say we're not going to let you use those 13 books because we think a lot of them were written by Paul we'll let you use six or seven of the books they call these the authentic Epistles and if you doubt what I'm saying pick up B's introduction to the New Testament and you can see he will list all these books as acceptable books to use because Paul's a known quantity he's a scholar who changed his mind who was at the ative 1 Corinthians chapter

15 we started with it and the end of Galatians 1 beginning of Galatians 2 those two texts all right where are we on our timeline 1 Corinthians is written about 55 ad some will say 58 some will say 54 53 I mean 55 is a fair date and we're at plus 25 earlier than the gospels and and I think we should use the gospels I think we need people who are going to do dissertations on the gospels and reestablish their Authority and they're coming back in right now I'll just say the best book on this

topic right now is Richard Bam's book Jesus and the eyewitnesses almost 500 pages from a Cambridge University scholar saying there's eyewitness testimony behind the gospels we need to use them but they're going to grant you that Paul's in the right place at the right time so for right now I'm going to take Paul and Run 1 Corinthians 15 Paul started just to remind you again Paul Paul says when I came to you I gave you the gospel this is the gospel I preached and depending on how you responded that determines on where you that determines

where you are Vis A Christianity he says whether you're saved or not then verse three I gave you what I was given now it's very very important and that's why the critics like Paul because in the New Testament there are a bunch of early credle statements we can pursue this during the Q&A if you want but these early credle statements are early texts that predate the book in which they're written there are dozens of them in the New Testament and many of the best ones best as in early go back to the 30s ad and

so Paul is the right guy right place scholar he knows the disciples and brothers of Jesus he's checked out the sources as you'll see and he says I gave you what I was given this is when he wrote it Amir plus 25 he said says in the first two verses the same message I gave when I came to you when did he come to Corinth some people say this is the easily most easily identified date in the New Testament he comes to Corinth 51 to 52 ad we know because there's an inscription with the name

of the leader of Corinth he held a post mentioned in the New Testament and we're told that he was in charge when Paul came to Corinth there's an inscription that's been found and what's really interesting about this that these Greek leaders only serve for one year so it's 51 to 52 ad all right so Paul writes this material Paul taught the same thing to them plus 21 Paul says I gave you what I was given when where and from whom did Paul received this material well let me give you the critical uh conclusion and then

I'll give you the data for it Richard bam says in this book I refer to he calls us a new testament consensus now I've been saying this for 35 years actually that this argument that we can get this material back to 35 but Richard bacham says it one time in one book and everyone says Richard bacham says it cuz he's that respectable Cambridge University he says it's a consensus New Testament position that Paul received this material about 35 5 ad how would you know that we don't have any books from that time how do we

know Paul checked this stuff out in 35 ad Paul's an authoritative Source we're using one of the authoritative books and Paul does the math for us let's do the math here's the cross when did Paul become a Christian now another way if you prefer another way to ask this is how soon is acts one after act how soon is acts 9 after acts one some people put Paul's conversion the Damascus experience where he had an experience that he believed to be an appearance of the or Jesus some people put that at plus one that's minority

view but some people put a plus one plus two is quite popular two or three are the most popular views a few I mean somebody's going to say four but the most popular views are the Damascus experience or acts 9 is about 2 to 3 years after acts 1 one so Paul's conversion is about let's just do two real quickly he comes to the Lord he believes he sees the Lord comes a plus two and then he says in Galatians 1: 16 he says I met the Lord and then he says I didn't go running

up to Jerusalem to see those who were Apostles before me I spent three years with the Lord in Arabia and then I went up to Jerusalem to see the apostles okay here's the math again if Paul comes at plus two he spends 3 years with the Lord and then goes up to Jerusalem at the end of 3 years 2 + 3 5 go well I think Paul's conversion was plus three okay good plus three goes with Jerusalem 36 ad plus 6 and so bacham says consensus view that Paul comes up and you can get a

whole list of guys who say that he was in Jerusalem a maximum of 6 years after the cross so this is really really early now what's this based on well in Galatians 1:18 Paul says then I went up to Jerusalem after 3 years and I spent 15 days with Peter and James the brother of the Lord now what's the theme of the book of what do you think they talked about well I mean just knowing Paul Paul says I preached nothing but Christ and him crucified Paul can't go anywhere for 15 it's impossible no one's

going to argue that Paul went to Jerusalem for 15 days and didn't mention the gospel data to to Peter and James besides the theme of the book of Galatians I mean in a sentence goes like this it's all about the gospel get it right or your reprobate you know but make sure you know what the gospel is don't go some other way and you're Christian Galatians about ascertaining the truth of the Gospel not going off and trying to do good works or other things it's all about the gospel so Paul comes at about plus 5

plus 6 and he spends 15 days with Peter and James the well-known Cambridge New Testament scholar of the last generation CH Dodd made a very famous comment he said Paul spent 15 years with Paul spent 15 15 years Paul spent 15 days with Peter and James and it's safe to say that they did more than talk about the weather all right so Paul talks to them here and gets this material now in Galatians 1:8 there's a Greek word hisasi the root word is histore h i s t o r h i s t o r

it's a Greek word from which we get our English word history doesn't necessarily mean history but it's a Greek word and in several non-evangelical word studies histore is the work of a person who goes and gets eyewitness data you know when you turn on your news at night it says Eyewitness News that hisor has to do with somebody who goes and checks out the data firsthand doesn't rely on somebody else's report goes and checks it out and Paul says I went to Jerusalem at about plus 5 talk about the gospel talk with Peter and James

the brother Jesus and I did the work of a firsthand reporter then is G there's no chapter division there in the originals and and Paul moves right into Galatians 2 and he says4 years later I went back to Jerusalem critics put this at about 48 ad or plus 18 and he said I spent I I went to Jerusalem and you know Galatians 2:2 is an incredible verse listen to what Paul says you talk about honesty Paul says I went up to Jerusalem to set before them the gospel I was preaching to see if I was

running or had run in vain what yeah I went up to Jerusalem I put the gospel on the table the gospel I was preaching I want to make sure we're all on the same page I want to make sure we weren't preaching a different gospel I want to make sure everybody was saying the same thing isn't that incredible I wanted to see if what I was preaching was the same thing we're all preaching you go Paul if you don't mind me saying so it took you 18 years to do that I think Paul would say

you know you're really not listening to my argument let me give it to you again Jesus did it I met him plus three you got a better Source I didn't think so plus five I spend 15 days with Peter and James can you beat that yeah okay right all right well plus 18 guess who's here Peter James the brother of Jesus Paul and John the big four you can't pick anybody in the early church is more influential they go well Barnabas and Titus were there well yeah they're they're teaching breakout sessions some of you folks

have come a long distance because of the you get everybody you might even stay in a hotel for four days because man it's going to cost us some expense but we just want to see all these guys together how far would you have gone to hear Peter Paul and Mary no she might have been there but Peter Paul James the brother of Jesus and John the biggest most influential guys Paul said it's at least the third time I've checked this out he's a good researcher you know you couldn't email a message it takes a long

time to get on a ship and come back to Jerusalem and check this out and then Paul says in verse 6 Galatians 2:6 five words in English they added nothing to me I set before them the gospel I preach make sure we're on the same page and they added nothing to me you know you hear people say today there were multiple gospels going around in the in the early church you go what are your data for that well it's because you Orthodox people destroyed the other heretical books then how do you know there were any

well there must have been cuz we have them later we'll see that's a problem you have them later if you want to use heterodox books you have to get them from the second and third and fourth centuries but I say to the people say to me sometimes why did you only put Why did Christians only put four gospels in the cannon I'll say sorry we took everything that was available by 100 AD that's all there was see Paul went back and checked it out and they added nothing to me now that's from the disciples perspective

of approving Paul Paul says 1 Corinthians 15:11 talked about the disci the disciples who saw appearan of the Risen Jesus Paul said whether it is I or them so we preach and so you believe isn't that incredible so I Paul said I don't care if he asked me ask Peter ask John ask James we're all going to preach we're all preaching the same thing you ever thought about that oh get this here's an end note for those of you who have had you'd say well you know I'd like to be a minister I'd like to

do something but you don't know my past I have some things where I've I'm not proud of some things in my past well think about these four people at Jerusalem three out of the four had issues Paul was a persecutor he killed people for their commitment to the Lord and he's here and he's a big name Peter denied his Lord three times he's there James was an unbeliever in fact James 3 the Greek says Jesus's family members thought he was nuts the Greek says they thought he was beside himself and you know they try to

say come on come on come on over here you're embarrassing us we got to live here you're embarrassing us how' that have been there when appeared to his brother James seriously I mean what would it look like Jesus goes bro it's me and here's the scars it's me what did he do did he fall on his knees all we know is that that he was a pastor of the early church because he met the Risen Jesus three of the four guys had issues which increases the value of their testimony cuz they didn't have re reason

to agree especially not James and Paul all right I'm going to have to wrap this up real quickly so let me get back here this is only plus five don't lose track of what this is this is only when Paul heard their experiences Paul knew his but this is only when Paul heard their experiences if he heard it from Peter and James they had it before he had it and it takes a while to write these texts to get these text stylistically it maybe be similar today to you got words to a song but you

still haven't made it into a song yet because in the Greek 1 Corinthians 153 and following reads like this da da da da da da da da da da d da da da that's not how the Greek sounds but what I mean is it's it is in stanzas it's believed to be in stanzas like that takes a while to put it in that form this is when Paul hears it they had it before Paul it takes a while to put it in that form and the events are right here and in fact the three leading

Scholars today who study this early christology the three guys Larry herado Ed just retired from Edinburgh James DG Dunn just hired just retired from Durham and the aforementioned Richard bacham from Cambridge they've just all said recently that coming out of the gate in 30 ad Christianity could only have survived if there were two doctrines from the beginning it didn't develop down there these two doctrines came out from the beginning and here's the two a high christology Jesus was worshiped a high christology and the resurrection if he was resurrected he died so you have death resurrection

and deity of Jesus the gospel James DG Dunn who's as influential as anybody in New Testament scholar in studies today James DG Dunn says the latest this material could have been put in that early Cadence da da da da da da da the earliest this could have been written is 6 months after the cross so if the cross is 30 ad the experiences are even earlier but the material was categorized put in stanzas 6 months later folks we have data that go back to the earliest times eyewitness and I didn't do eyewitness the way evangelicals

usually do it's a little hard to go through the gospels but we're using Paul Paul was an eyewitness Michael Martin the well-known atheist philosopher who goes up Christian says we only have one testimony from an eyewitness to a resurrection appearance and that's Paul now do you want to get upset with him and say well there's a lot of other eyewitnesses or you want to say let's talk about Paul see I mean he gives you Paul what makes EP Sanders say Scholars allowed that the earliest um disciples thought they saw Jesus okay I'm going to close

I'm going to bring this to a close here real quickly and then ask you if you have any questions let's go to the end of 1 Corinthians 15 last verse Paul says a lot of things follow from the resurrection of Jesus being true Ministry follows he says stand firm because there's uh nobody has a better message in this he says stand firm in the faith secondly he says your labor in the Lord's not in vain so be steadfast go about your work in fact the very next work the very next verse Paul's taken up um

an offering for poor Believers that's 161 1 Corinthians 16:1 and then he says back up a couple verses he says the main thing that's true because of the Resurrection is the resurrection of Believers the resurrection of Jesus is linked almost every area of Doctrine the early church almost every area of Doctrine but the one that's mentioned the most almost 20 times in the New Testament Believers are told that they will be raised from the dead like Jesus John says we shall see him as he is and we shall be like him Paul says he'll change

our V body to be like unto his glorious body many other texts and I tell people if you back up to 1 Corinthians 155 5657 Paul is taunting death he's taunting death and he says death where is your sting grave where is your Victory he gets us from the Old Testament but what he's saying is the resurrection changed the normal order of things and eternal life is here for those who give their lives to Christ but Paul is is taunting death seriously I mean he's he's like in our language today I started off by talking

about hockey and mixed martial arts and football and so on Paul's getting in Satan's face or he's getting in death's face if you want to say it that way because he's he what basically what Paul's doing is he he's going he's going you've got something on me death you're a loser seriously he said cuz when he says death where's your sting grave where is your Victory he's going you lost you lost you lost look at the score I mean that's what he's doing and he's saying since Christ has been raised from the dead and he

knows people he knows he can be hurt he gives a list of how many things have happened to him he knows he can still be hurt Scholars today call this the already but not yet Jesus's conquered the strongest force in the universe death it's not here yet but the basis is already done in fact those who G on before us Paul says they've not died in vain so that's the difference of whether Christ has been raised from the dead or not that he that that death has been defeated eternity has been ushered in for those

way back to the first two verses for those who who respond properly to Christ so I'm going to go ahead and stop right here and and uh if now again if some of you folks have to leave I don't know how long before they'll kick us out I've heard we have to be out of out of here at 10:00 and us the speakers we've got to go back to San Francisco the last bus leaves at 10: but until someone kicks us out I'll stay here uh one thing I should mention I haven't talked much about

naturalistic theories and you Skeptics will often say yeah but I can give you a thesis that works better with this than Resurrection I'm going to say that the same data the scholars admit are the data that disprove alternate theories and that's why today the vast majority of Scholars vast majority of Skeptics do not give naturalistic responses you still again you have to go with go back DP Sanders where he says today the consensus of scholarship is that the earliest disciples saw he doesn't even say thought they saw Jesus I say thought they saw Jesus Sandra

says the earliest disciples saw Jesus that's pretty amazing this is the scholarship that has really changed Resurrection studies and more people today in the literature think something literally happened to Jesus after his death than those who think nothing happened okay do we have we we do have at least one mic do we have two we have two mics okay here's some questions um you T is this on hello you talked about pre-existing uh phrases in the Epistles that Scholars agree uh were predated the writing down can you talk about what those are and why why

they agree that it's yeah this is something that hasn't made it into the pews yet in our Evangelical churches effect that's not even generally taught in seminary but in the New Testament there are a bunch of early statements and and and these are different but roughly synonyms almost synonyms would be Creeds confessions Traditions or what they're called and you know they're there because uh for example the writers like Paul Paul says twice in the book of First Corinthians I gave you what I was given that means that's a tradition that's something he's passing on sometimes

the New Testament says here's a trustworthy saying or sometimes it says um uh observe the traditions of the elders so it tells us that there's something coming that was passed on to him let me remind you too that the that Josephus says that what Pharisees did was pass on tradition Paul was a Pharisee so Paul's used to doing this kind of research that's what the scholars did remember JP said Jesus confronted the professors of his day they taught just the same way we do today careful checking of tradition and passing on you go well how

can I tell where these are well some of the latest translations including the one I was using up here many of the latest translations I believe the cev does this um they are starting to put these in in um verse you can flip through the New Testament you can find a lot of them yourself so Scholars have known this I mean it's just been a given for probably 30 years that studied you you study these grad school and they and they almost always concern the gospel message not always but they almost always concern the gospel

message so like Paul says I gave you a what I received as of first importance the other time he says that is the communion passes Christ died for sins according scriptures I'm sorry that's this one but in 1 Corinthians 11 he says Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and he broke it gave thanks so again that's about the gospel that's about a shed blood so um you have to be really good in Greek if you want to do these things because what what how they know these things are in the

text is that they the Greek breaks the syntax of the I guess the best thing I tell you if you folks have written grad papers or research papers and you try to tie your words into a quote from somebody you can't get the syntax exactly right that's how they read in the New Testament they're like not syntactically you know it's it's hard to pick them up but Scholars agree where they are and Skeptics are the ones who discovered this stuff it's not this is not was it was not an Evangelical Enterprise although evangelicals have been

getting into it in the last decade or so okay um so despite all this evidence I guess why is it that there's still so many theories out there and still so many spite of the evidence why is it that there are so many people who are still just veryable disbelieving about excellent question if the evidence is so good why do people dis believe I'll give you an a real easy but obvious answer first of all um study psychology seriously people don't believe what they don't want to believe whether there's data or not Christians don't believe

things Christians are can be prejudiced the same way like non-christians can be we don't believe things let's put this way if you're a Republican or you're a Democrat and someone tells you so and so is you know what I'm saying you go I don't care what he said he's a liar so so first of all it doesn't make sense and then when it does make sense you just call them a liar because you say all those guys lie so what I'm saying is people don't believe uh what they don't want to believe and and there's

been a lot of studies on the nature of belief and we there's something much more important to us than evidence as human beings it we believe things almost always when they're in accord with what we previously believe in fact in a recent secular scientific well scientific but in a recent secular psychological test one of the people groups in this country who are angriest with God are atheists almost 20% of atheists are angry at God which prompted one fellow to say this is a great quote he said you know something I don't believe in unicorns but

I don't spend my whole life hating on them that's a cool response people don't believe what they don't want to believe that's all of us that's Republicans Democrats that's wealthy and poor that's that's just how we are and so really the fact that this good evidence has nothing to well has very little to do with with people quote unquote converting with people changing their views that's why when Bill Craig got up here and read that testimony today there are people who study it and I I'm sure Craig Hazen is going to do this tomorrow you

can talk to these two guys right here afterwards who came to Christianity from Islam I I'm just I'm going to say out loud from my skeptical and almost Buddhist leanings um no religion in the world has anything like the kind of apologetics Christians have other religious people will debate but here's how non-christians generally there are exceptions but here's how non-christians generally debate if I'm the non-Christian you're the Christians here's how they debate you're wrong what' you say you're wrong I don't believe that you're wrong you're wrong but here's how they don't debate I'll give you

10 reasons for my position they don't do that they don't have 10 reasons for their position and nobody has anything like a resurrection so if you want to compare data for data no we don't take a backseat to anybody and that includes scientific naturalism as you heard JP talk about today so data yeah but that's not the issue people don't change parties just because you give them an argument for a different candidate that's not what makes people change parties because they're angry at the other side right and atheists are frequently not always but a fair

percentage of atheists are really angry at God you ask some of them these guys deal with Skeptics you talk to these folks and you say if you're just why do you care if Christians believe in God here's the here's the answer from my atheist friends I have a lot of atheist friends we chat a lot here's the answer that kills me I'm just interested in truth well really should be interested in a football game you know if if all you have if all you've got is this life like Paul says 1 Corinthians 15 eat drink

and be merry for tomorrow you die don't waste time trying to change losers if you don't believe what they believe watch a football game just relax you know go out for a steak dinner I don't think I'm not saying this about all of them but I'm just saying a good number of them it's not so much truth it's so much that your beliefs are a threat to them okay here's here's one back here there's one okay yes sir um uh you U I'd like to ask for your opinion concerning how you would Bridge what lesing

calls the ugly ditch moving from the historical data of the resurrection of Christ to proving that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in other word how do you bring about the Bri Bridge lob between the facts of history and the necessary truths of reason that's one question second question I have is if you maintain the distinction between heresy and myth between history and heresy and myth I'm hery hery meth yeah if you make a distinction would you say in some sense that heresy is the indirect proof for the resurrection of Jesus what's an indirect

proof heresy the false teachings heresy yeah what do you say in some sense they indirectly prove the resurrection of Jesus okay all right first question is what about Ling's ugly ditch great question part of my dissertation on that guy um lesing and this and the 18th century has a very famous it's not really a critique of Christianity but it's a critique of people who need evidence to believe and he says there in between history on the one hand and faith on the other hand there's an ugly ditch which I cannot get across no matter how

many times I make the Le what he says is history cannot come to the aid of establishing faith faith should stand on its own and he said he believed he said he was a Christian a lot of people doubted that but that's beside the point he says faith stands on its own doesn't need to be evidenced history doesn't come to the basis I I would just say even Skeptics today they want to know if there's basis for what you believe I think today in a world where science Reigns where naturalism Reigns people want to know

if there's evidence to me it's it it's not even it's not an objection that almost anybody would give today that doesn't mean it's false but I would say the problem with lesing history doesn't come to the a of faith is if you're going to ask me to believe something about Jesus and then you teach as Christians do that what you believe determines on what Paul said whether Christ is raised from the dead or not determines whether the Christian is true and whether your faith is true or false and whether your loved ones who died have

died in vain the New Testament teach let's just start there the New Testament teaching says history is if these things didn't happen history you have no reason to believe so history puts New Testament puts the two together I would say evidentially secondly if history does back Faith at this point you know why is it I think JP was doing this why is it today that we think his that Faith should just kind of float without being tied to anything if there if there are data on which Faith should be ba could be based if if

you're a person or anybody here if says well I'm really glad you have evidence and I came to this conference with somebody else but I personally don't need evidence I just believe fine I mean if that's where somebody is that's fine but if somebody says I want to know what the data are and if I have to believe the resurrection in order to be a Christian and if Christ's Resurrection determines my resurrection then I want data because I want to know where the where Christianity stands Visa other belief systems I think lesson just playing wrong

it just doesn't make sense to say I'm going to believe in a vacuum without data now you say could her be kind of if I understood your question could be kind of a backdoor evidence for Christianity exactly yeah I I think in a way that's what I was getting at when I said why are 20% of atheists in the survey why are they angry at God I think the fact that people that are ticked and people that keep going after Christians and they can say well it's because you guys are taking over so much of

society and doing your own thing well that's what America's about you know people can believe whatever they want and people have elections and you know there's nothing wrong with that but I'm just saying yeah the fact that people a don't believe but they spend their time going after it then secondly people believe other things I do think there's some things there that say um sort of paradoxically that that is a witness to those who I mean I think it is I think that's a pointer I wouldn't say it's a very strong evidence but I think

it's a pointer okay okay we got a lot of hands back here um ESPN has a show called First Take couple of weeks ago they were uh the the one of the one of the reporters asked why is it do you think that Tim TBO is hated by the media yeah and he said the the the guy in the media he said because he lives his faith so loud that it convicts us it makes us uncomfortable therefore we don't want it in our face and he constantly puts it in our face whether he's on the

sideline or on the field Tim tibo lives his faith you made a mention before we even got started about the historians being his being Hypocrites about how they're willing to take the date of Homer as saying wow that's a great date that's as close as we can get that's authentic but when we can get six months within the with within the resurrection of Jesus Christ that's not good enough we need to get even closer yeah and John's the worst New Testament Source if you want to say it that way date-wise at plus 65 which in

ancient historical problem in ancient historical terms is not even close to being an issue like I said the best source for Tiberius is 15 years later t tacitus on Tiberius is 15 years later than John on Jesus and Paul's half the distance so yeah I think there's a lot of let's put this way let's be honest if Christians were in power in the Western University system we would probably do the same thing naturalists are doing we probably try to squash other people people who don't that's just how humans behave you know I mean we just

kind of shut them up shut up you're talking out against Christianity um we'd probably do the same thing and we might get lazy and we might not learn the evidences do you ever think about that maybe maybe it's that heresy question but maybe it's good to be the minority because it forces us to come up with those who are attacking us I'll tell you what I had I was in Western Europe just a few weeks ago in Northern Ireland England East West what used to be East and West Germany and Sweden I was speaking in

secular schools you know I was introduced in Sweden University of Stockholm they said Gary Hest is going to come and talk about the resurrection welcome to the most secular country in the world that's what they said and they told me that there might be some some hecklers while I'm talking this is very secular society we can't impress that on you enough there's going to be some heck you may have some hecklers and you're definitely going to have some tough questions I gave the same lecture I got I well I don't remember any critical qu real

critical questions I might have had one then I went to I was Germany I was in two universities in Germany and I did this and one guy raised his hand and asked about a naturalistic theory he said how do we know Jesus died in the cross you know what was interesting about that the guy who asked the question and when I gave him reasons to how we know Jesus was Daddy he he said okay and he was done it wasn't that tough but that was the only critical question I got that I remember from three

universities and that guy who asked the question was the campus minister so that's interesting but I'm just saying I think we would get lazy if we were in you know sometimes we say persecution makes the church stronger I think philosophical and historical and scientific critique makes the church stronger and I totally agree with JP the stuff the church is doing today our Scholars our Scholars are more specific better trained they argue better just listen to the debates listen to anybody's debates you want yeah we lose ones in a while we lose a debate here and

a debate there but it's few and far between and when our best Debaters are debating we almost never lose and that's that just because we all happen to be good Debaters or is that because we have better material than other people have I think if it was the best Debaters we wouldn't be winning the dialogue so many times and people wouldn't be so angry at us and why are 20% of a atheists angry at God I I you know that that's that's a good point I think it comes back to to some of that so

I don't know maybe it's a good position to be in that we've had to I can tell you this 50 years ago when I started studying apologetics we didn't have any apologists that are as specific and specialized as any of the hundred that we have in this country today the stuff that's being produced today is better than anything that's ever been produced since Paul in my opinion okay was that you who's that ah yeah she's the boss you guys all right yes sir so uh um tonight's speech seem to you seem to I guess give

a reasonable case of how we can show that Jesus's uh presence after his Resurrection to his disciple is is actually legitimate through minimal fact methodology right and I'm just thinking to myself um with the evidence that even the atheistic scholar the evidence that you use that the atheistic scholar uh I guess approves as I wonder what they would respond to what you have argued tonight cuz it seems like in one sense somebody could uh be psychologically uh stubborn I guess you could say sure but seems like that to yeah it seem but it seems like

there could be a Reasonable Doubt with you know with uh I guess okay this minimal fact the most common response you get is something really happened to Jesus but I don't know what it was I'm not saying that to make fun of it but they'll go with you on the data and they can get you to these guys saw something or these guys thought they saw something was but they'll often just say say I don't know what it was well if I'm a skeptic and the data are this strong I'm probably going to say something

like that I'm either going to say yeah something happened I don't know what it is because I don't want to deal with it or I'm going to make up a naturalistic theory and some of them do that the only thing is when they make up naturalistic theories here's a naturalistic theory Jesus wasn't raised from the dead what really happened was fill in the blank you got to fill in the blank this is not an naturalistic Theory no way Miracles don't happen no way I don't believe it cuz that counts no more than a Christian saying

well I believe it okay so we're even you know that's not naturalistic Theory but if they fill in the blank and say Here's what really happened the same data that we're using here go against that theory and I've had guys say to me in debates they'll say I've heard your stuff before and I know the way you argue and if I pick a naturalistic theory you're going to kind of get me in a corner with this and I don't want that I say well okay wait a minute you're a naturalist yes you don't believe the

resurrection right you think something natural happened yes then why don't you tell me what it was cuz that's where you're coming from I'm a supernaturalist I'll tell you what I think God raised you years from the dead so why don't you tell me what you think happened no you're just trying to get me in the corner okay here's my here's my point if our data can get them in the corner so much the worse for what data they don't have so but those are the two ways they might do it something happened I don't know

what and pick a naturalistic theory but very few people do that anymore it was way more popular 100 years ago okay Pard okay Abigail has spoken I think we're done Biola University offers a variety of biblically centered degree programs ranging from business to Ministry to the Arts and Sciences visit biola.edu to find find out how Biola could make a difference in your life