Our Certainty of Jesus' Resurrection
Response
to Michael Martin, "Why the Resurrection is Initially
Improbable," Philo, 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1998): 63-73.
This
article responds to Michael Martin's article on the initial improbability of
the resurrection. Mr. Martin makes some
valid points -- such as the fact that resurrections are certainly not common
events. This alone is enough to cover
the issue of "probability" for any given person, in general, being
resurrected. But it is also a known fact
that many improbable things happen in this world; improbability is not itself
an argument against the reality of an event.
This leads us to discuss Mr. Martin's arguments, during the course of
which I will review various reasons why Christians hold to the certainty of
Jesus' resurrection from the dead.
Mr.
Martin begins in his abstract by claiming that there is no plausible theory as
to why the resurrection should have occurred, and that
even with a plausible theory it still would be unlikely for the resurrection to
have happened at the particular time and place of Jesus' resurrection. In the course of this response, I will
discuss a number of the reasons for Jesus’ resurrection, and that the time and
place of the resurrection depended on the time of Jesus’ death and the place of
Jesus’ burial – in other words, for the unique place of Jesus in the purposes
of the resurrection.
Assessing the probability of any
given miracle claim
In his
introduction Mr. Martin outlines a five-point argument which begins plausibly
enough: that a miracle claim is initially improbable, and in light of this,
miracle claims should be disbelieved unless the evidence is strong. I agree that miracles of that kind are not events
we see every day and that miracle claims should be met with skepticism at first. But are all miracles equally unlikely? For instance, as for probability, who would
believe that I could perform a miracle myself?
Mr. Martin has agreed that it is right to evaluate the claim of a
miracle against our background knowledge.
In my case, some important background knowledge is that I have never
done a miracle, never claimed to have done a miracle, and have never had anyone
say that anything I did was something supernatural. It is right to conclude that the probability
that I would do a miracle is very, very small; negligible, really. But what about another example, such as a
leader at any of the various touring ministries that claim to do miracles? That depends – who can say they actually saw a
miracle? Where is their account of what
happened, and are they willing to swear to its truthfulness? If people were healed, then who knew the
people involved beforehand, and whether they were really sick or disabled in
the first place? Where are they now, and
have they really recovered? What are
their names and where do they live? Were
there any hostile witnesses, and what do they say? Were any of the miracles investigated? If past miracles done by a person could be
solidly supported, this would increase the plausibility of the claim of a
future miracle associated with the same person.
In the
case of Jesus, some of his healings are recorded as taking place in crowd
settings or while traveling, so that the people recording the miracles may not
have known the exact identities of the people who were healed. But other miracles involved people who were
known. One person raised from the dead was
the twelve-year old daughter of Jairus the synagogue ruler. One blind man who received his sight was Bartimaeus from
Some skeptics
try to brush off the issue of Jesus’ miracles by saying that the people
belonged to such an unenlightened time and such a superstitious age that their
reports simply cannot be believed. Yet
no matter what their state of advancement, they still knew the difference
between blind and sighted, crippled and whole, dead and alive. If someone blind from birth received sight
without medical intervention, even in our modern age we would likely consider the
possibility of a miracle; the state of advancement of society has not changed
our evaluation of that. It is also
important to remember that there were people present in that day who were
hostile to Jesus and who were motivated to dismiss any evidence which made
Jesus appear unique. The opponents of
Jesus who were his contemporaries did not manage to refute the miracle claims
and ended by conceding that supernatural things had happened, reinterpreting
the miracles as evil acts of sorcery; Jesus’ modern opponents lack comparative
credibility in trying to maintain that such things never happened when their
predecessors who lived in Jesus’ day could not do the same. One factor that causes miracles in general to
be considered improbable is that solid claims are in fact so rare; while a
history of solid claims changes the probability. In light of the strength of evidence for Jesus’
earlier miracle claims, which is part of our background knowledge for assessing
the probability of the resurrection, further miracle claims associated with
Jesus of Nazareth are not initially improbable.
The previous miracle claims had such strength that when people came to
see Jesus, they often came expecting a miracle.
When
discussing the probability of miracles, Hume’s argument against miracles is
often mentioned. Martin himself does not
subscribe to Hume’s argument, but he does cover it in passing; I will do the
same here. Martin mentions different
ways of understanding Hume’s argument against miracles, and considers the right
understanding of it to be this: that for any possibly-miraculous event, some
other explanation is always more likely than a miracle; so that while a miracle
is not impossible, belief in a miracle is always irrational. Looking at that view of miracles, is that view
itself rational? To classify belief in
something as irrational when the thing itself is not impossible is a
misclassification. Such a view would
necessarily result in the non-recognition of the possible when it occurs. It necessarily results in a willful denial of
evidence or distortion of facts when what is possible – a miracle – does in
fact happen. Someone who cannot see this
inconsistency does not have much credibility trying to instruct others on what
is rational. Please note that I am not
here referring to Mr. Martin, who mentions that he does not subscribe to that
view himself and goes on to contrast his own view with Hume’s. I am referring only to this interpretation of
Hume’s argument, and those who do not see how affirming a thing’s possibility
but denying the rationality of believing it, is itself
irrational. I would also disagree with
Hume on whether some other explanation is always more likely than a
miracle. An exception would occur when
no other explanation of the events is possible without resorting to the
distortion of facts which, as noted above, is an inherent risk in this somewhat
irrational anti-miracle view. If a
proposed alternative explanation distorts the facts, it lacks full validity as
an alternative explanation of those facts and cannot be given the same
consideration as a view which accounts for the facts without distortion. The view that a miracle occurred is more
reasonable than a distortion of the established facts; or, from the other side,
when any alternative explanation requires distortion of established facts, that
is the point at which it becomes increasingly rational to believe a miracle and
increasingly irrational to disbelieve it.
Martin
begins his detailed discussion on the improbability of miracles with the
assertion that a miracle is “traditionally” defined as a violation of a law of
nature. This is possibly traditional in
skeptical circles, but not in Christian ones; a fair review of the subject of
miracles – especially in an article about Jesus’ resurrection – calls for a
look at Christian views as well. The
great majority of the recorded miracles of Jesus are better classified not as a
violation of nature but as a restoration of nature. When we consider blindness, deafness,
lameness, or being crippled, these are not in fact the normal state of nature;
when Jesus is recorded to have healed and made whole, the result was a return
to the normal and healthy state of nature.
Christian writers from Athanasius to C.S.
Lewis have noted this.
Martin
also mentions that there may be non-interventionist miracles in that God may
have set up the world from the beginning in such a way as to produce a certain effect
at a certain time; Martin uses the example of the wind that parted the
Mr.
Martin claims that God has good reasons never to perform miracles to achieve
his purposes, asserting that miracles are “an impediment to a scientific
understanding of the world.” This seems
an unlikely argument. Given how rarely
miracles occur, they are not likely to interfere with
understanding the world. In actual fact
many of the great scientists of the world have believed in miracles, including
Jesus’ resurrection. Also consider that
miracles could not be recognized as miracles unless people already had realized
the regularity of nature’s workings. If
nobody had ever noticed the natural order, they could not possibly recognize anything
as a variation from that order. So on
the contrary, recognizing a miracle presumes an understanding of the normal
workings of nature. Martin also asserts
that the “difficulties and controversies” in recognizing miracles constitute an
argument that God should not perform miracles.
By that argument, God should not do a miracle because it affords
argumentative people a chance to argue. But
“difficulties” are such a normal part of human experience, and “controversies”
such a normal part of human behavior that there does not seem to be a reason
why God should exclude miracles in particular of all the things which can be
the subject of argument. The
difficulties and controversies surrounding miracles show that people are
interested in being careful and thorough in evaluating miracle claims. Martin asserts that miracles “impede,
mislead, and confuse”, but this seems to be the opposite of the case. If a miracle has value as a sign, that means
that it communicates a message and gives understanding. It does not impede, mislead, or confuse, but
instead leads and clarifies; otherwise it would have no value as a sign. When Mr. Martin acknowledges that a “sign” is
a valid view of a miracle, and when he argues that the reason or purpose of the
resurrection is a factor in deciding whether to believe it occurred, he
unintentionally acknowledges that miracles do not necessarily impede, mislead,
and confuse but may in fact be significant and purposeful. In contrast to Mr. Martin’s views that God
has good reasons never to perform miracles to achieve his purposes, it is worth
noting this: if God’s purposes include letting people know that there is
something beyond the natural law, then he has near-compelling reasons to
perform miracles that demonstrate something beyond the natural law. It is difficult to imagine how God would cause
us to recognize the reality of something beyond natural law without showing us
an example; this would be seen as a miracle by definition.
Mr.
Martin continues to couple “signs” with only non-interventionist miracles. He returns to the topic of non-interventionist
miracles to mention that, on the non-interventionist interpretation, it can be
claimed that miracles are probable if it were also claimed that most natural
events are signs from God. On that view,
miracle claims would be initially probable.
Martin notes that this view trivializes the idea of miracles; he also
asserts that this view is not held by most noninterventionists. While I would not want to over-labor the
topic of which views are more typical of non-interventionists, I’d like to
mention that Mr. Martin does not address the topic of providence. It is common for Christians to have an
understanding of God’s providence, in which nature and certain human events are
arranged for our benefit and are signs of God’s good will towards humanity. The question becomes how to distinguish miracles
from simple providence, or whether there is a need to distinguish. The possibility remains, for
non-interventionists, that “providence” simply gets called by the different
name of “miracle” when the event in question is rare. Mr. Martin also does not address the topic of
natural knowledge of God, a common Christian doctrine about how nature and the
laws of nature are themselves a sign of God’s existence and goodness. The common Christian views on providence and
natural knowledge stand in contrast to Mr. Martin’s assertion that most
non-interventionists do not understand most events to be arranged by God. It also seems odd, given Mr. Martin’s
persistent coupling of “signs” with non-interventionist miracles, that his
assessment as to whether an event is a miracle does not include any assessment
of the event’s value as a sign. On both
the interventionist and non-interventionist senses of miracles, both rareness
and sign-value have a place in evaluating miracles. The concept of providence – that God arranges
certain things for our benefit – will be useful to recall when we discuss some
of the reasons for the resurrection.
At the
end of discussion of miracles in general, I am in agreement with Mr. Martin on
one point: that miracles in general are initially improbable. But in assessing his arguments, there are instances
in which Mr. Martin has left aside important aspects of miracles, such as the theme
of restoring nature and the sign value of miracles that involve God actively;
these omissions of Martin’s greatly affect the upcoming discussion of Jesus’
resurrection in particular. I have also
included background knowledge relative to the unique strength of Jesus’ miracle
claims that is required to make an accurate assessment of probability relative
to that background knowledge. Even
though Martin acknowledges that our background knowledge is essential in a
correct evaluation of the probability of miracle claims, he does not address
the unique strength of Jesus’ prior miracle claims at any point in discussing
background knowledge. These points of
difference cause us to come to completely different assessments of Jesus’
resurrection.
The resurrection and God’s purpose
When
discussing the resurrection and God’s purpose, Mr. Martin limits the discussion
to theories of atonement. While I will respond
to Mr. Martin on the atonement, the discussion of God’s purpose will not be
limited to atonement alone. I will
discuss the resurrection in light of the sign view of miracles, as well as atonement.
In
preparation for this, we will recall some more known facts in our background
knowledge for the assessment of Jesus’ resurrection. The first thing to recall is that Jesus is
among a very rare group of people in the history of the world: people who
founded a major religion. While this is
undisputed and very likely to be relevant, Mr. Martin does not consider it in
his assessment. From a simple standpoint
of logic, it can easily have a bearing on whether God has any purpose in
resurrecting Jesus from the dead. Another
thing to recall is that, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day, previous teaching on
resurrection was not especially strong, with no explicit support for it in the
Torah and no other officially-recognized scriptures besides the Torah. In that day, it was an acceptable Jewish
belief that there was no resurrection from the dead, with the party of
Sadducees holding that belief. If the
teaching of a future resurrection of all people from the dead is true, it is
among the most relevant and important teachings in the history of
religion. To be sure, some people had
taught as if a resurrection would come. But
these had not gained full acceptance as of the time of Jesus.
Jesus’
resurrection is a sign that clarifies the answers to many questions:
The sign
value of the resurrection alone is enough reason for the resurrection to have
occurred. But the matter of our atonement
still needs to be discussed because of the resurrection’s role in it. Martin, oddly enough, discusses in detail
only Origen’s primitive ransom theory in which Jesus
supposedly paid a ransom due to the devil, which is not fully Scriptural. Martin passes over other theories of
atonement just by listing a number of them and stating that he finds “all the
historically important theories” do not explain some aspect of the atonement to
his satisfaction, referencing his book The
Case Against Christianity. This present article will not review every
theory of atonement or respond to an entire book. For the moment, let us give him the benefit
of the doubt and suppose that with every given theory of atonement, he has
found some major point that is not addressed.
But by refuting theories of atonement singly, it seems likely that Mr.
Martin does not appreciate that various theories of atonement are complementary;
many of them do not preclude each other but instead work together to explain
different aspects of our atonement. On a
Christian view, the whole of atonement requires a number of things. It covers satisfying both justice and mercy, causing
us to despise evil, humbling us, leading us to trust in God, cleansing us from
the stain of past sin, cleansing us from corruption and the desire to sin,
establishing a covenant (binding agreement) between us and God, planting the
beginnings of eternal life inside us and making us children of God. The atonement involves Jesus’ incarnation,
life, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit. It is no legitimate complaint to take one
theory that explains one part of it and mention that it does not explain all of
it; it was probably never intended to.
For example, Martin mentions the Christus
Victor theory – that Jesus has won victory over the adversaries of mankind (for
example, death). Given the sign value of
the resurrection, it is clear that Jesus has won the victory over death; this
is most certainly true. That one theory
does not address a number of other points that need to be discussed, but that
does not make it untrue. It complements
other theories, it does not compete with them. Athanasius, writing
in On the Incarnation of the Word of God,
refers to a number of different theories of atonement and different aspects of
atonement and does not confine himself to an either-or view of atonement
theories.
I would
also like to quickly review the two complaints Mr. Martin specifically
mentioned about various views of atonement: “that they either fail to explain
why God sacrificed His Son for the salvation of sinners or else make the
sacrifice seem arbitrary.” When we look
at our own guilt for various things we have done, we know that our simple
regret – as genuine and miserable as it may be – neither works to destroy the
evil that is in us nor satisfies those we have wronged. While on the surface the idea seems
attractive that God might forgive us without any punishment, if that had been
the case then we would have concluded that wrongdoing was not really that
serious. And we would have concluded
that wrongdoing was not very serious based on what (in that case) would have
been fact – that God simply shrugged and forgave. Now, shrugging and forgiving may be fine for
a small and accidental thing. But there
is a lot worse going on in this world than small and accidental things, and a
notable percentage of people are involved at least occasionally in these larger
and more deliberate wrongs. Given that
God has the power to heal all the harm done and restore peace and cleanness to
all the souls (both the wrongdoer and the wronged), it would be arbitrary if
God chose a line of badness and said “beyond this, I will not forgive.” But what if God opens his power for all
people who turn to him, not just those who were not that bad in the first
place? (I expect that many who read this
may not suspect that there is much wrong within their own souls, so I write as
to those who consider “the worst of sinners” to be someone else. Those of us who follow the example of Paul
should hesitate to think that the worst of sinners is anyone but ourselves, as
Paul said of himself.) If God only
forgave those who were not so bad in the first place, then how could we escape
the view that he saved those who were good enough and that they owed their
forgiveness to their own goodness – or worse, to their superiority over those
who were lost – as much as to God’s mercy?
But if God was willing to redeem anyone, no matter how serious the
offense, then how would justice be satisfied? What is the worst punishment that justice can
ask? There is no crime for which justice
may ask a worse punishment than death, especially the slow and painful death of
the cross. Jesus’ punishment – the
extreme punishment of death, reserved for the worst of crimes – is sufficient
to satisfy justice for the most serious of offenses. In this way our atonement has left no doubt
that the wrongs being atoned are not a slight matter but are in fact
dreadful. In this way our fear is
quieted as to whether our particular sin is beyond the price that was
paid. In this way our atonement
increases the disgust for wrongdoing, rather than decreasing it, in those who
understand their forgiveness. The
question implied at one point of Martin’s article is, “Why Jesus? Why the Son of God?” First, it would need to be someone sinless;
otherwise we could never be certain that this person did not simply pay for his
own crimes. Notice also that the
atonement would leave us in the unique debt of the one who atoned for us, as
much to that one as to God. It is
fitting that the payment should be taken on by God himself. If our debt had not been taken by God himself,
then we would have had cause to honor another as much as God, and cause to doubt
God’s love of us, if he had created us but left it to someone else to atone for
us. In providing for all wrongdoers, our
atonement makes plain that we are indebted to God’s goodness rather than our
own. It demolishes boasting about our
own goodness and restores us to humility; all alike are in need of mercy. And in God’s providing atonement himself, our
atonement restores our trust in God rather than sending us to look elsewhere
for our redemption.
Martin
continues to argue that, even if it were given that the atonement is likely,
that it is still unlikely that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection should have
occurred at the particular time and place that they did. Granted that a being with the power of God
could probably cause the incarnation at a number of times and places that suit
his purposes, that is not an argument against it actually occurring at a given
time and place. The most that argument
actually means is this: it is possible that God’s purposes in the atonement did
not dictate the time and place of the incarnation; but this is not an argument
against it ever happening, or against it having happened at a particular time
and place. On the other hand, if it is
probable that at some point there will be a resurrection that will have special
significance in the world and in God’s purposes; and if at a particular time
and place such a thing is recorded to have happened, that argues for the unique
significance of the person raised from the dead in God’s purposes for the
world. If the person involved was
already noted for the unique strength of miracle claims and for unique strength
of his teachings about God and God’s purposes, both of these would lend
additional weight to the probability of the person having a unique place in
God’s purposes.
The probability of Jesus’ resurrection
While
discussing the probability of Jesus’ resurrection, Martin responds at length to
the particular views of Christian apologist Stephen Davis, which I will leave
in Mr. Davis’ uniquely-qualified hands to answer. I will respond here to arguments specifically
concerning Jesus’ resurrection, not arguments concerning
Martin
assesses the probability of the resurrection according to Bayes’
theorem, which some find useful in assessing the probability of one
interpretation compared to other interpretations, with consideration of
background knowledge and historical evidence.
The final results depend on earlier estimates of other related
probabilities. I will not detain us much
with the probability estimates, other than to make a few observations. First, the earlier probability estimates
which go into the final calculation are themselves open to disagreement. We have not yet gotten to the point of
finding objective criteria for setting those probabilities, so that people are
free to insert all kinds of different likelihoods into the equation, get
different results, and still maintain the appearance of having used a
scientific approach because the preselected
probabilities were later run through a formula.
What this actually proves is that our different assumptions (seen in the
different starting estimates) lead to different conclusions; this was probably
plain enough without Bayes’ theorem. On Martin’s own assessment of the probability
of Jesus’ resurrection, Martin never mentions considering the strong support
for Jesus’ earlier miracles or that Jesus is already in a very, very rare group
in the history of humanity: founders of major religions. In other words, Martin never deals with the
uniqueness of Jesus and does not assess the probability of his resurrection any
differently than the probability for any other person on the planet. This is one thing that opponents of the
resurrection typically have in common: those who deny the resurrection are not always
atheists (there are theists who deny the resurrection), but are those who deny
that Jesus could have a unique place in God’s purposes, namely, the place of
redeemer.
Martin
continues to set the stage for discussing the records of Jesus’ resurrection by
looking at other historical statements, some of which are uncontested (for
example, Abraham Lincoln’s assassination) and some of which are disputed (for
example, that William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet;
there is some debate whether Shakespeare might have had help writing his plays). I would like to point out that, between the
“undisputed” examples and the “disputed” examples – Martin lists more than one
of each – the type of historical statement has changed. In the “undisputed” section, all of the
historical statements which Martin offers are matters of status or whether an
event took place: for example, whether
General comments on the evidence for
the resurrection
Martin
lists five arguments against the evidence for the resurrection. Some of Martin’s claims are related, and so I
will discuss the related claims regarding the New Testament documents as a
group after discussing the remainder of the claims.
In Martin’s
first argument, he states that there were no eyewitnesses to the
Resurrection. This claim is common enough
among skeptics, but it is misleading. Is
he discussing the event of the
resurrection (the precise moment when Jesus became alive again inside the tomb),
or is he discussing the fact of the
resurrection (that Jesus was alive again)?
No one else was in the tomb with Jesus when he rose from the dead, but
many people saw him alive afterwards. The
fact that they were not in the tomb at the moment when Jesus rose to life again
does not invalidate their testimony that Jesus had risen from the dead. They remain eyewitnesses to the fact of the resurrection, not the event of the resurrection. To take the example from the other side, if
nobody had seen
The next
argument which stands separately is one Martin makes nearly as an aside: the
assertion that the resurrection accounts are inconsistent. The claim is made by Martin without any
support, but the general frequency of the claim of “resurrection
inconsistencies” deserves closer attention.
A few years back I saw a certain “Dan Barker’s Easter Challenge” on the
internet, with a claim that “not one person, theologian or otherwise, has been
able to” answer the challenge. What was
the challenge? To take all the Biblical
texts that recount the resurrection and post-resurrection appearances of Jesus
(Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20-21, Acts 1:3-12, I Corinthians 15:3-8)
and write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the
resurrection and ascension, leaving out nothing. The writer then goes on to list things that
he has trouble reconciling himself, and claims that a number of worthy
adversaries had failed to answer the challenge.
Whether this is so, I cannot say, but I can say that it only took me a
few hours to put together the answer. I
simply took all the Biblical texts listed and placed them in order based on
comments about when events had happened relative to each other. While it did take some thought – some authors
give far more detail than others – it was not all that difficult. The answer is available here. One supposed “discrepancy” (as per the Easter
Challenge) is with various authors saying the women went to visit the tomb “early
… while it was yet dark”, “as it began to dawn”, “very early in the morning …
at the rising of the sun”, “very early in the morning”/”at early dawn”. It takes an active bias to consider those
four accounts to disagree on the subject of when the women visited the tomb; on
the surface, it would seem the four accounts agree closely. It leaves open the suspicion that the
person’s opposition to the resurrection has made differences seem larger than
they actually are. As mentioned earlier,
there are historically well-attested events where there are disputes and
debates about peripheral issues. Whether
Shakespeare alone wrote all of Hamlet
may be a legitimate subject of debate, but it does not rightly cause a debate
about whether Hamlet was ever
written. There are legitimate debates
about the accounts of the empty tomb and the post-resurrection appearances of
Jesus: for example, why do some accounts mention two angels,
and others only one? Or again, Luke
mentions that on the day of the resurrection, two of the people who had seen
Jesus alive again came and told “the Eleven” about it, that time Simon Peter
had also seen Jesus alive again, then Jesus himself came, talking to them,
staying awhile and eating; but since Thomas was not present at the time, should
Luke have said “the Ten” instead of “the Eleven”? Simply noting an “inconsistency” is too vague
to be useful; we have to know if an inconsistency reasonably calls into
question the account as a whole. As for
the resurrection, the ease of answering the supposedly-unanswerable Easter
Challenge speaks to just how small and irrelevant these inconsistencies
actually are.
The next
claim that Martin makes is that “New Testament scholars differ on when the
stories of the empty tomb entered the Christian tradition.” There is some debate about when the accounts
of the empty tomb were first written down.
Christians hold to the events as recorded, affirming that the empty tomb
was first told by word of mouth on the third day after Jesus’ burial. Only those people who believe the report must
be false consider a later date than that for the first word-of-mouth report of
the empty tomb. Still the debate about
when the first person mentioned Jesus’ empty tomb is not entirely down party
lines because many skeptics also acknowledge, on the strength of the evidence,
that the account of the empty tomb was first told by word of mouth on the Sunday
immediately following Jesus’ burial, regardless of the separate debate over
when it was first put in writing. In
fact, when an opponent of Jesus’ resurrection argues that Jesus’ body was
stolen or reburied, Christians know that opponents are forced to make arguments
which can explain an empty tomb because of the strength of the testimony that
the tomb was in fact empty. Those who
argue for a later date for the first spoken report of Jesus’ empty tomb do so
without any evidence to support it. Here
we find the first signs of some skeptics succumbing to the temptation to reject
even something which is well-attested when the possibility of a miracle is
involved. In the case of a miracle
claim, double-checking and even triple-checking the facts is called for;
rejecting them even after they have passed such scrutiny opens that question
again: have we reached the point at which a bias against a miracle would, as
predicted, cause people not to recognize it even if it happened?
Before
continuing to the interrelated arguments about the New Testament documents, I
will address some other comments which Martin makes apart from his main points:
first, that there is a need for “independent confirmation” of the resurrection
from Jewish or pagan sources. Martin
does not acknowledge that every known eyewitness of Jesus’ resurrection was
Jewish. Many people do not acknowledge
the Jewishness of Jesus and his followers. At that time, the divisions between Judaism
and Christianity had not yet been formalized.
It is too easy to see things from the viewpoint of today, when the
different groups within Judaism have gone their separate ways. These days, “Jewish” often refers to those
who define their Judaism in opposition to Jesus. But putting that modern view back onto Jesus’
days is an anachronism. The people who
saw Jesus raised from the dead all came to believe
their eyes; they considered themselves faithful Jews, and it is history that
calls them Christians. So when Martin
asks for confirmation from Jewish sources, he already has it.
Next, he
uses the example of John Dominic Crossan to argue
that there are people “within the
Christian tradition” (emphasis Martin’s) who deny that the resurrection
occurred. The Christian tradition, in
probably its oldest sense, is affirming that Jesus’ resurrection occurred. The comment that someone can deny the
resurrection and speak from “within” the Christian tradition is not going to be
taken seriously by those who believe in the resurrection, which is to say by those
who in fact are within the Christian tradition.
That argument carries no more weight than if Martin himself were to
claim to be a Christian, therefore speaking from within the Christian
tradition, so long as we understood that he did not believe in the resurrection
or in the existence of God.
Martin
also notices that all theists do not agree on the resurrection of Jesus, and concludes
that simple atheism cannot be the reason for rejection of Jesus’
resurrection. While I discuss the role
of naturalistic assumptions elsewhere, I will here mention that, when (non-Christian)
theists dispute against Jesus’ resurrection, they do so largely with a purpose
of denying that Jesus has a unique place in God’s purposes, whether as redeemer
or as the most important messenger God has ever sent. If they acknowledge that one and only one
religion’s most important figure has been raised from the dead, and if they acknowledge
that miracles have value as a sign, that would amount to acknowledging Jesus’
unique place in relationship to God.
The New Testament Records of Jesus’
Resurrection
Martin
makes a series of interrelated claims about the New Testament written records
of Jesus’ resurrection. First, he claims
that there were no contemporary eyewitness reports of seeing Jesus after the
resurrection other than Paul; next, that the empty-tomb accounts are second-hand
or third-hand reports recorded several decades later; that the “alleged”
eyewitnesses who saw Jesus after the resurrection may not have been reliable
and trustworthy. From there he continues
to multiply layers, that those who heard the eyewitnesses and passed on their
reports may not have been reliable and trustworthy, and that those who recorded
the accounts (supposedly third-hand) may not have been reliable and
trustworthy.
To begin
with, there are not so many layers between the resurrection and our most direct
account of it. No matter your view of
which person is “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, the main author of the Gospel
According to John, this person still claims to have seen the risen Jesus in
person on more than one occasion, each time with a number of Jesus’ other
disciples also present. The author
claims that he himself had eaten with Jesus and spoken with Jesus on a number
of occasions after Jesus was raised from the dead. There is an interesting claim that certain people
make about the Gospel of John, which is that John cannot have written it
because there is a separate part at the end, apparently an appendix of sorts,
and it includes the comment “we know that his (the author’s) testimony is
true.” From this, the speculation begins
about revisions and late dates. But there
is an equally interesting history about the Gospel According to John and how it
was written. According to an ancient
list of authoritative Christian writings (the Muratorian
canon), a number of Jesus’ surviving disciples – including John, but also
Andrew and some others implied but not named – wrote this gospel, with John in
the lead and others reviewing it, ensuring its accuracy, and adding if anything
important had been omitted. So the
“mystery appendix” to the Gospel of John is actually part of the known history
of the document and not an unknown addition; and we have from the Muratorian canon a separate confirmation of what the
document itself tells us, that it was reviewed by other people. In this light, the book’s comment “we know
that his testimony is true” (John 21:24) has support for what it claims to be: the
confirmation of other eyewitnesses that it happened just as recorded. Here is a first-hand witness of the empty
tomb and of Jesus’ resurrection, with other witnesses vouching in writing for
the truth of what the written account.
The
Gospel of Mark is often lightly dismissed because Mark himself was not a
disciple of Jesus. But Mark was a
disciple of Simon Peter, the leader among Jesus’ followers and privileged to be
with Jesus on certain special occasions when only a few of the disciples were
present. Mark was known to have traveled
with Simon Peter – see 1 Peter 5:13, where Simon Peter writes a greeting to his
readers from Mark. He also here refers
to Mark as “son” – it was common to call someone as “son” if there was a close
relationship such as a spiritual mentorship, and this is the usual
understanding of the relationship between Peter and Mark. It is against this background, that Peter and
Mark were close, and that Mark traveled with Peter, that we can see the
implications of our histories of how the Gospel of Mark came to be written. Here the early writer Papias
quotes what he learned from another one of Jesus disciples, also named John
(John the Elder or Presbyter): “The presbyter used to say, ‘Mark, who had been
Peter’s interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he
remembered of the Lord’s sayings and doings.
For he [Mark] had not heard the Lord or been on of His
followers, but later, as I said, one of Peter’s. Peter used to adapt his teachings to the
occasion without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord’s sayings, so that
Mark was quite justified in writing down some things just as he remembered
them. For he had one
purpose only – to leave out nothing that he had heard and to make no
misstatement about it.’” Many
people consider that Mark may have been the first to write about the empty
tomb, and one of Jesus’ own followers is recorded (see above) to have expressed
his appreciation for Mark’s efforts to record what he had learned from
Peter. This is not some case of the
person who writes the accounts being far-removed from true knowledge, but a
matter of someone who wants to leave an accurate record of what he heard from his
mentor, who in this case was Peter, among the best sources of information
available regarding Jesus.
Of other
early Christian records, much is made of the possibility of Luke borrowing from
Mark. We have good reason to believe
that they met and knew each other (see v 24 of Philemon, in which Paul mentions
both Luke and Mark among his fellow-workers, probably part of the Christian
community in early
Probably
the most controversial authorship for the records of Jesus’ life is the
authorship of the Gospel of Matthew. The
early church records are unanimous that it was written by Matthew (also known
as Levi), one of Jesus’ twelve closest disciples, and that it was written in
“the Hebrew tongue” for the benefit of Jewish Christians. At some point early in church history, the
book underwent at least a translation; the traditional text we follow now is in
Greek. The authorship question arises
because of textual comparisons: certain sections of Mark’s account and certain
sections of Matthew’s are nearly identical.
The different sides of the dispute have made claims ranging from that
Matthew had never seen any of the material in Mark (which seems unlikely) to
that Matthew “slavishly followed” Mark, which is at least a serious overstatement
based on the documents we have before us.
Whatever relationship there may be between certain accounts, the
majority of material in Matthew is not found in Mark, roughly a quarter of the
material in Mark is not found in Matthew either, and a number of the accounts
found in both documents are in different order or vary in certain details. There are a number of instances where the
account preserved in Matthew appears to be older than the account in Mark, and
some vice versa, so there is plenty of material to occupy the textual scholars
for some time. (One plausible theory is
that Matthew and Mark both owe to a previous earlier source. For further discussion and substantiation of
the figures quoted, read here.) While the debate is far from over about the
exact relationship between the material in Matthew and Mark, the amount of
independent material in Matthew is enough to make it a worthwhile source in its
own right regardless of the outcome of that discussion. It seems premature to rule out Matthew’s
involvement solely on the basis of shared sections between Matthew and Mark,
though of course any particular piece of information would not count as coming
from two separate sources in cases where those accounts are shown to share a
common source. If it turns out, as seems
likely, that Matthew incorporated material from a pre-Markan
document instead of from Mark itself, then it will also become likely that
Matthew was written at an earlier date than would be supposed if he had the
full text of Mark; the earlier date would be consistent with direct involvement
of Jesus’ disciple Matthew (Levi) who is referenced in every historical record
of how the document was written.
What is
left of Martin’s general claims about the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection? Not much.
We have eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection; for most documents
we have a reasonably clear picture of who wrote them and how the authors got
their information; we have reason to believe that the authors were careful and
earnest in what they recorded; we have reason to believe that the documents
were written early enough that a number of eyewitnesses were still on the scene
commenting, giving information, or even (in the case of the Gospel of John)
adding notes vouching for the reliability of the reports. Beyond that, there are even more basic
reasons why many people, reading the gospels, believe them: people who are
basically honest do not make up things like that. People who are basically sane are not wrong on
that level for that length of time about what they see. The gospels come across as having been
written by people who are, like most people, basically sane and honest. It becomes increasingly difficult to believe
that all of these authors were entirely wrong about everything important in
their writings.
Other explanations for the
resurrection
Martin
argues that it is not necessary for him to provide an alternative explanation
for the historical evidence of the resurrection. But in his calculations he placed a precise
mathematical figure on the probability of alternative explanations, assessing
them to be far more probable than the resurrection. How is it possible to calculate a probability
value without any given alternative theory in mind? How can anyone else assess whether that
probability figure is valid?
It is
also necessary that those who reject the resurrection at least look at
alternative theories for this very simple reason: if someone claims that some alternative
explanation for the facts is more likely than the resurrection, that claim
depends entirely on there being an alternative explanation for the facts in the
first place. In the case of Jesus’
resurrection, the facts include that first he was dead – having been executed
in public – and buried, then three days later he was alive again. For some miracles, naturalistic explanations
may be imagined; but at the point of death, nature no longer works to restore
health. There is no natural process that
restores the dead to life; that’s why naturalists’ insistence on opposing the
resurrection is so strong. There is only
one explanation of the facts that he was dead before, then alive after: he was
raised from the dead. All the
alternative explanations of the facts are not actually alternative explanations
of the facts, but selective denial of the facts. Some alternative explanations deny that Jesus
died in the first place (swoon theory).
Some alternative explanations deny that he rose afterwards (stolen body,
mass hallucinations by disciples). Note that
the evidence that Jesus was seen alive again is strong enough to prompt opponents
to create theories in which Jesus never died, just as the evidence that the
tomb was empty is strong enough to prompt opponents to create a theory of a
stolen body to explain it, and evidence that many people did in fact see Jesus
is strong enough to prompt opponents to create a theory of extended, shared
hallucinations to explain it. All of
these alternative theories have something in common: they resort to altering
the facts which they are supposed to explain.
As such, they do not fully count as alternative explanations of the
facts, besides being very unlikely themselves.
The swoon theory denies Jesus’ death; the stolen body theory denies the
post-resurrection appearances; the mass-hallucination theory to explain Jesus
post-resurrection appearances denies the reality of the empty tomb. They are examples of the risk discussed earlier, the risk of assuming it is always irrational to
believe in a miracle, even if it is granted that miracles are possible. Is it really possible that everyone who claimed
Jesus to be dead was mistaken about it, from those who watched him breathe his
last to the guard who pierced his side to make sure of his death to those who
pried him off the cross, wrapped him in a cloth and laid him in the tomb? No, it is not; we can be certain of his death
when he was buried. Is it really
possible that everyone who claimed Jesus to be alive on the third day and after
was mistaken about it, from the women outside the tomb to the close friends who
gave him dinner the first night and then saw him come back again to show his
wounds as proof to Thomas, from those same close friends who cooked broiled
fish with him by the lake to Jesus’ brother who had been skeptical before but afterwards
became a leader in the church? No, it is
not; we can be certain of his life. There
is only one explanation that explains the facts rather than denies them: Jesus
rose from the dead.
Conclusion
I
appreciate the job that Mr. Martin has done in setting out a number of
different lines of thought that bear on peoples’ perceptions of the reality of
Jesus’ resurrection. He added much to
the conversation with his acknowledgment of the importance of God’s purpose and
his recognition that miracles can have value as a sign. The omissions of Mr. Martin’s article are not
unique to him, and I would not wish to fault specifically him for them. It is typical that unbelievers, assessing the
probability of the resurrection, do not take into account the solidness of
evidence for earlier miracles claims associated with Jesus and allow any
consideration of that. It is also
typical that unbelievers do not take into account the unlikelihood of any given
person being the founder of a major religion when considering the probability
of Jesus’ resurrection; it is typically assessed no differently than the
probability of my next-door-neighbor’s resurrection. Again, it is typical that unbelievers’ grasp
of atonement is incomplete; it is a large subject with many aspects, and any
one given explanation is almost sure to be incomplete by itself as well.
However,
the historical evidence is solid, and God has clear reasons to raise Jesus from
the dead, as outlined above. This puts
the resurrection of Jesus on solidly trustworthy ground. While disputes will no doubt continue, it is
largely a dispute waged against the evidence, fueled on the one hand by those
who oppose the idea of Jesus’ uniqueness in God’s purposes, and on the other
hand by those who have not yet ventured to hope that God would truly do what so
many have asked all along: give a clear sign that this world is not all there
is, that he has not abandoned us to the grave, and that he will raise us up at
the last day.