The Case for Christ explained in 16 minutes

I'd like to summarize the evidence using four Wars that begin with the letter e and I'll go through it quickly but if you have any follow-ups or questions I can elaborate on any of them the first e stands for execution um it was Jesus dead after being crucified and the answer is absolutely yes uh as this was said in the film uh there is no record anywhere of anybody ever surviving a full Roman crucifixion even the Journal of the American Medical Association which is a secular peer-reviewed scientific medical journal carried an investigation into the medical

and historical evidence for for the death of Jesus and said clear there's a quote clearly the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead even before the wound to his side was inflicted um we've got you could you could go to an atheist New Testament scholar like Garrett ludeman formerly of Vanderbilt and he'll tell you uh that Jesus death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable indisputable and one of the reasons I found that it's so universally agreed by historians that he was dead after being crucified is that when you study

ancient history we're lucky if we have one or two sources to confirm a fact but for the death of Jesus we not only have multiple early first century accounts in the documents of the New Testament we've also got five interest sources outside the Bible confirming and corroborating that he died Josephus first century Jewish historian to work for the Romans tacitus another early historian mirabar sarapian Lucian even the Jewish Talent admit she was dead so the first year is execution Jesus was right second he's the most interesting stands for early we have early accounts or early

reports that Jesus rose from the dead in other words reports that go right back to the beginning why is that important so I used to think like a lot of Skeptics that the resurrection was a legend right and I knew it took time for legend to develop in the ancient world so I figured you know 150 years after the death of Jesus Legends developed mythologies were spun stories were invented and that's where the idea of the Resurrection came from but what I learned and Contin I've continued this investigation to the present day I mean I

continue to look into this what I've learned I think decimates the claim that the resurrection is a legend and here's why we have preserved for us a Creed of the earliest Christians a Creed a a statement of conviction based on eyewitness accounts that the earliest Christians right there in the first century would rally around based on facts that they knew to be true so this Creed contains the essence of Christianity says Jesus died why for our sins he was buried and the third day he rose from the dead and then it mentions the specific names

of eyewitnesses and groups of eyewitnesses to whom he appeared including 500 people at once and and then it says parenthetically by the way a lot of those folks are still around so if you don't believe me go go off go ahead and talk to yourself yeah they're around you can question them now this Creed has been dated back by Scholars to within months of the death of Jesus how do we know well the Apostle Paul preserved it for us he wrote a letter to the church in Corinth about 21 to 25 years after the death

of Jesus he reports he recounts this Creed and he indicates past tense I already gave you this Creed earlier so let's say within 20 years he had given this Creed to the church in Corinth we could stop there and that would be very impressive when you consider the first two biographies of Alexander the Great by Aryan and plutoc written 400 years after his life and they're generally considered reliable So within 20 years is really good but we can go back earlier because we know that Paul used to be Saul of Tarsus a persecutor a hater

of Christians one to three years after the death of Jesus he's on the road to Damascus boom he has this encounter with the Risen Christ he becomes the Apostle Paul immediately he goes into Damascus and he meets with some Apostles now many scholars believe this is when he was given the Creed that he later writes in the letter but others say wait it may have been three years later three years later Paul goes to Jerusalem and he meets for 15 days with two eyewitnesses to the resurrection who were specifically named in the Creed Peter and

James and the Greek word that Paul uses in Galatians to describe this meeting suggests that this was an investigative inquiry they were checking each other out what do you know what did you see what do you experience and and some scholars believe this is when he was given the Creed by two people specifically named in the Creed but either way this means within one to six years after the death of Jesus this Creed is already in existence and therefore the beliefs that make up that Creed go back earlier virtually to the Cross itself in fact

probably the greatest scholar in this area Dr James D G Dunn says this is a quote he says this tradition by that he means this Creed we can be entirely confident was formulated as a Creed as tradition within months of the death of Jesus within months that is far too quick to write it off as a legend in fact one of the greatest classical historians who ever lived was a in Sherwin white of Oxford he understood the rate at which Legend developed in the ancient world and he said the passage of two generations of time

is not even enough for legend to grow up and wipe out a solid core of historical truth we don't have two generations of time passing here we got a news flash and news flash it goes right back to the beginning so we have early and we've got other early accounts right from the first century in Matthew Mark Luke John the book of Acts and so forth so Jesus was dead execution uh early accounts which I believe discounts the possibility there's a legend third e is for uh empty tomb and there's lots of reasons why we

believe the tomb is empty but I think the most convincing reason is that even the opponents of Jesus implicitly admitted that it was empty how do we know well because when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus had risen what the opponents of Jesus said we know there's some sources inside and outside the New Testament that what the opponent said was so disciples Jesus is risen opponents oh well um the disciples stole the body yeah now think about that what it's a cover story they're implicitly admitting the tomb is empty they're trying to explain how it

got empty right right it's like if you're a student I mean a teacher and a student comes up to you and says a dog ate my homework um that student's admitting look I don't have my homework but I can explain what happened to it the dog ate it it's the same thing so everybody's admitting the tomb is empty that's not the issue the issue is how did it get empty and then the fourth e stands for eyewitnesses Not only was Jesus tomb discovered empty but over a period of time he appears alive in a dozen

different instances to more than 515 people to Skeptics and doubters to men to women to groups to individuals indoors Outdoors Daytime Nighttime the the disciples talk to them they ate with them they they uh they touched him but here's what's interesting about the eyewitnesses remember I said earlier in ancient history we're lucky if we have one or two sources to confirm a fact well for the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus we have no fewer than nine ancient sources inside and outside the New Testament confirming and corroborating the conviction of the

disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus that is an avalanche of historical data um and uh it's a it's it's convincing because as you as you mentioned in the book I mean he talks about how the disciples later um later gave their lives for these claims and and the pushback you got of course was well people die for lies all the time and which is true yeah um but people don't die for things they know to be lies exactly and I've repeated that right I've repeated that so many times I got it from him all

right and my congregation's sick of hearing about it probably but that is the one of the um linchpins of your argument absolutely when we talk about the tomb being empty yeah uh well the disciples stole the body what's the problem with that claim is that they wouldn't have then given their lives for alive if they stole the body they would have known and they would have given up at some point and just gone on about their lives and Rome and the Jews would have been happy to let them do that but they didn't and they

pressed on and we have seven ancient sources six of them outside the Bible that tell us that the disciples live lives of deprivation and suffering as a result of their Proclamation that Jesus had risen what actually happened to a few of the disciples gets a little bit blurry in history but that's not the point the point is their willingness to die for it right and that is established Beyond any doubt by by the ancient record and you're absolutely right that was one of the final blocks that went into the case yeah I mean because I

thought well golly there are all kinds of religious Fanatics who who will die for what they believe is true kamikaze pilots in World War II would crash their planes because they believed spiritually if they die this way they'd go to heaven terrorists will will die why why are they willing to die in the process of of these crimes that they commit because they believe and they've been taught and they believe it to the core of their being if they die this way they'll go to heaven but they can't know that for a fact they just

believe it they were taught it and they believe it the contrast is the disciples were in a unique position to know for a fact whether this is true or whether it's a lie they talk the resurrected Jesus they touched them they ate with them they knew the truth and they had the empty tomb and they had the empty tomb which backs it up as well so um yeah I think it's I think I think it's a very strong now some people say and this is one of my our counter arguments that I came up with

couple things one was uh well wait a minute um they didn't bury crucifixion victims um they didn't bury execution victims back in the Roman times they would they would throw their bodies in a in a pit to be eaten by the dogs or they'd leave them on the cross be eaten by the birds so of course Jesus tomb was empty he wasn't in the first place um I thought yeah what about that and then I looked into it what did I find the Roman digesta which is a summary of Law and procedure from the Roman

Empire specifically does allow for bodies of execution victims to be turned over for burial number two uh several years ago um well probably back in the early 90s they discovered the body of a buried crucifixion victim he still had the spike through his heel bone and a piece of the olive wood attached and so he had been buried so certainly some were buried and then just recently within the last year they uncovered another crucifixion victim who had been buried again with the the evidence of the of the crucifixion um reflected in the bones so um

some indeed were buried um so that kind of shoots that down the other argument that I bought for a while was um uh that these these were Visions or hallucinations that the disciples had really encountered Jesus they hallucinated okay and um it's interesting that one of the most famous atheist New Testament Scholars Garrett ludeman uh said um that it is certain historically it is a virtually a quote he said it is historically certain that Peter and the other disciples had experiences uh after Jesus death in which Jesus appeared to them as the Risen Christ wow

that's the atheist talking well why is he still an atheist Because he believes these were Visions these were hallucinations so I'm a journalist I check things out so I went to an expert on the human mind PhD in Psychology professor of psychology for 20 years in a major Midwestern University written over 20 or 30 books on psychology he was a president of a National Association of psychologists and I laid out all the historical data and I said now Dr Collins wouldn't you admit to me these disciples didn't encounter the resurrected Jesus they just had hallucinations

and he looked at me and said that's not possible he said well you seem pretty sure yourself he said I am and he said you got to understand about something about the nature of hallucinations hallucinations are like dreams they happen in individual minds they don't spread like the common cold um it's not like you can wake your wife up in the middle of the night and say honey honey I'm having a dream about a vacation in Maui let's both go back to sleep I have the same dream we'll save all the airfare we'll save all

the hotel costs I may be great if we could do that but why can't we do that because dreams happen in individual minds and that's the same with the hallucination in fact he looked at me and he said Lee your earliest account your most reliable historically the earliest account says that 500 people encountered the resurrected Jesus at one time he said leave 500 people having the same hallucination at the same time would be a bigger Miracle than the resurrection and then he said and by the way if these were just hallucinations then I assume the

body's still in the Tomb whoops oops everybody's gone and then I said well what if it's something more subtle what if it's uh and I think this is what Dr eluderman The Atheist would say um that these were um visions that and this is a known psychological phenomenon that people want something so much if they're primed for it they can actually see things that aren't there uh you know they miss Jesus so much he was their leader he loved him oh John can't you see him he's back I I see him over there in the

shadows well there's a problem with that James the half-brother of Jesus was a skeptic about Jesus during Jesus lifetime he wasn't psychologically prom primed to have a vision of his brother returning from the dead and yet First Corinthians 15 says Jesus appeared to him what happened to him he became a leader of the church proclaiming that his brother had risen and he be and he was martyred for his faith and then the Apostle Paul hated Christians he wasn't psychologically primed for a resurrection which by the way was totally against the teachings of Judaism of the

day that there would be one Resurrection in the end not anything in the interim and Paul wasn't psychologically primed for vision and yet he had this encounter with Christ so yeah um it's another little piece that we don't talk about a lot of evidence against the legend theory that the resurrection of Jesus was a legend because Legends must fulfill some preconceived expectation yeah and uh the resurrection of Jesus as it happened was not not expected or anticipated by anyone not even the most fundamentalist of Orthodox of Jewish Folks at the time expected there to be

one man who would be resurrected first before all the rest of us are later and so even the disciples they didn't expect it they didn't even know what was happening right after right he resurrected like he's there in front of him like a whole new body like hey guys and they're like doubting him yeah as he it says they worshiped him and some doubt it yeah at the same time and Jesus is like what else do I have to do yeah to prove this to you guys and that's another reason why we value doubting here

it's because you know it's it's the a tradition as old as Christianity itself but it has to be doubts directed toward Jesus instead of in isolation away from him