On a more serious note, there are many hurting people out there who are currently ignoring God’s answers to their problems, driven by the false hope of human autonomy. Hopefully, this series will lead them to consider their relationship to their Creator and help them to find the abundant life that is available to all who believe (John 10:10).

How do I propose accomplishing this? Having laid the foundation in the prologue as noted above, I have then moved on to establish the historicity and reliability apart from any supernatural content, first of the Old Testament (Part 1) and then of the New Testament (Part 2) documents, including the accuracy of the transmission to present day.  In short, if you are to reject the Bible’s claims simply because it records supernatural events, you do so based on false a priori assumptions and not on the basis if facts. Oh, and furthermore, to be consistent, you must also reject all of recorded history, because the Biblical documents are, in fact, better attested to than any other extant literature of antiquity. Historical revisionists might not have a problem with this since they wish to engage in Doublethink anyway, but anyone interested in the truth should find this level of irrationality abhorrent.

Continuing the chain of logic, I then turned to the content of these reliable documents to ask the question, what is there here that suggests that the source of these manuscripts goes beyond the naturalistic explanation of human authorship (thus the series title, More than men’s writings)?

The first line of evidence examined was that of prescience (Part 3), particularly in the areas of astronomy and medicine. There we saw that the Bible contains statements of scientific fact that were made long before the technology existed to discover them. How does one account for this? How does this fit into a godless world view? Were the Biblical authors just really good at guessing? (And yes, we covered extraterrestrials as a source for this information there despite the total absence of any evidence for such despite what your atheist friends might have told you.) Well, we begin to see coincidence stretching to the breaking point with the facts presented in the post under that topic.

Ordinarily, I would now turn to a different line of evidence than the one to which I will turn, but the timing of this post being so close to Easter, I will skip ahead to a consideration of the events surrounding that which so many celebrate this weekend (and which so many despise), especially since it goes directly to the heart of Christianity.

On a technical note, I will be referencing many passages of Scripture in what follows without putting the text in this post. The reader is strongly encouraged to look them up in the version of his or her choice to ensure I am not taking anything out of context.

JESUS CLAIMS TO BE GOD

The first thing we must consider is that Jesus Himself claimed to be God in several ways:

He made Himself equal to God (John 5:15-18): to call God “my Father” was in the Jewish mindset a clear claim to being equal to God. That’s why they responded the way they did; they understood Him even if modern man has a problem doing so.

He claimed to be one with the Father (John 10:28-33): the word “one” in verse 30 is in the neuter, meaning one in essence and nature, not one in purpose, meaning, or goals. Again, note the response of the audience (vs. 31) and their own reason for doing so (vs. 33).

He claimed to be the Son of God, a title which expresses equality with God in that time and culture, not the limp “we are all children of God” expression modern liberals would have you believe (Matthew 16:15-17). Even His enemies confirm his assertions (Matthew 27:41-43).

He forgave sins, exercising a prerogative of God alone (Mark 2:5-12): note that verse 7 clearly shows that they understood what Jesus was claiming.

He claimed to be YHWH God, the Great I Am (John 8:56-59, compared to Exodus 3:14; John 8:24, 28): were He not doing so, then it would seem that when your audience is picking up stones to throw at you would be a fine time to correct their misunderstanding!

Lastly, he was, in fact, tried and sentenced for claiming to be God (Matthew 26:59-66;  Mark 14:60-64; John 19:5-7).

Rationally, this brings us to a trilemma: there are only three alternatives to explain these claims. First, His claims were either true or they were false. If they were false, then either He knew His claims were false and He was a consummate liar, or He did not know His claims were false, in which case He was a raving maniac. If they were true, then He was and is God and needs to be worshipped as such. It really is as simple as that.

C. S. Lewis points this out eloquently:

“I’m trying, here, to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him. ‘I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sorts of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher; he would either be a lunatic on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”[1]

For those who think they have no problem assuming Jesus was either a liar or a lunatic, Lewis more pointedly explains:

“The historical difficulty of giving for the life, sayings and influence of Jesus any explanation that is not harder than the Christian explanation is very great. The discrepancy between the depth and sanity and (let me add) shrewdness of His moral teaching and the rampant megalomania which must lie behind his theological teaching unless He is indeed God has never been satisfactorily got over. Hence the non-Christian hypotheses succeed one another with the restless fertility of bewilderment.”[2]

THE PRE-RESURRECTION FACTORS

The core of Christianity lies in the historicity of the resurrection. It is one of the primary evidences God Himself uses to testify to the deity of His Son (Romans 1:4), another reason we spent time on showing that He claimed to be God. If it did not happen as an event in history, it is of no consequence theologically. Paul points this out in 1 Corinthians 15:13-19 when he explicitly says:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

This core historical issue is related to the previous one in that Jesus claimed on multiple occasions recorded in all four Gospels that He would be raised from the dead (e.g., Matthew 12:38-40; Mark 10:32-34; Luke 9:22-27; and John 12:34). Wilbur Smith makes the connection thus:

“If you or I should say to any group of friends that we expected to die, either by violence or naturally, at a certain time, but that, three days after death, we would rise again, we would be quietly taken away by friends, and confined to an institution, until our minds became clear and sound again. This would be right, for only a foolish man would go around talking about rising from the dead on the third day, only a foolish man, unless he knew that this was going to take place, and no one in the world has ever know that about himself except One Christ, the Son of God.”[3]

Now let us give serious consideration to the circumstances, the historical realities/facts, at the scene in Jerusalem. The first point is that prior to the resurrection, Jesus was most assuredly dead. The Romans, rather experienced in administering death, and certainly familiar with its appearance, were convinced (Mark 15:43-45; John 19:33-34). The Jews were convinced (Matthew 27:62-64). Those who buried him were convinced (Matthew 27:59-60; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:52-56; John 19:38-42). And these were all eyewitnesses who, in many cases, handled the dead body, in sharp contrast to modern day critics who weren’t there by definition! The Jewish preparation of a body for burial was rather extensive. We will get to that in a moment. The point is, only an idiot would assert that Jesus had only fainted from pain on the cross (yet that is a theory that has been put forward to allegedly explain the miracle away…seriously!).

Next there is the tomb. It was a real tomb and He was buried by friends in it. And the Jews knew there was a tomb and knew where it was; otherwise, how would they have placed a guard at it? (Matthew 27:62-66)

We now come to the burial process. Michael Green tells us:

“The body was placed on a stone ledge, wound tightly in strips of cloth, and covered with spices. St. John’s gospel tells us that some seventy pounds were used, and that is likely enough. Joseph was a rich man, and no doubt wanted to make up for his cowardliness during the lifetime of Jesus by giving him a splendid funeral. The amount, though great, has plenty of parallels. Rabbi Gamaliel, a contemporary of Jesus, was buried with eighty pounds of spices when he died.”[4]

Next we must examine the evidence of the stone used to seal the tomb. These were typically 1.5-2 tons. There were minimally large enough for a group of women to believe they could not roll it away (Mark 16:3). Frank Morison (a lawyer who set out to disprove the resurrection and ended up being convinced by the evidence and becoming a Christian) discusses the situation:

“Let us begin by considering first its size and probably character…no doubt…the stone was large and consequently very heavy. This fact is asserted or implied by all the writers who refer to it. St. Mark says it was ‘exceedingly great.’ St. Matthew speaks of it as ‘a great stone.’ Peter says, ‘for the stone was great.’ Additional testimony on this point is furnished by the reported anxiety of the women as to how they should move it. If the stone had not been of considerable weight the combined strength of three women should have been capable of moving it. We receive, therefore, a very definite impression that it was at least too weighty for the women to remove unaided. All this has a very definite bearing upon the case….”[5]

In addition to the stone, it has a seal affixed thereon. A. T. Robertson tells us the method of sealing the stone was:

“…probably by a cord stretched across the stone and sealed at each end as in Daniel 6:17. The sealing was done in the presence of the Roman guards who were left in charge to protect this stamp of Roman authority and power. They did their best to prevent theft and the resurrection, but they overreached themselves and provided additional witness to the fact of the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus.”[6]

This brings up the Roman guard (Matthew 27:62-66). Linguistic and internal (Matthew 28:14) evidence indicates this to be a Roman guard and not the Temple guard. This is significant because we know a considerable amount about the nature and character of the Roman soldier.[7] The military discipline of the Roman army was exceedingly strict; 18 offenses were punishable by death, including desertion, losing one’s weapons, leaving the night watch, or falling asleep on the night watch! In a 16 man security unit, each man was trained to protect six square feet of ground. Thus, sixteen men in a square of four to a side were supposed to be able to protect 36 square yards against an entire battalion and hold it. We are obviously not talking about a bunch of pansies in miniskirts holding wooden spears, as you might sometimes see in modern artwork. It thus becomes exceedingly unlikely that a group of timid untrained fishermen could overcome such opponents to steal away the body, another preposterous theory put forward to explain the empty tomb.

And that brings us to those disciples. Simply put, they were scared out of their ever livin’ lovin’ gourds and running any which way out of there (Matthew 26:56; Mark 14:50)! Peter and John were notable exceptions, but of course, Peter soon denied he knew Jesus as vehemently as possible. Only John seems to have been immune, being at both the trial and the cross at the end with Jesus’ mother, Mary. Again, these are not a likely band of grave robbers three days later.

THE POST-RESURRECTION FACTORS

The post-resurrection factors are most formidable. The primary one is, of course, the tomb deprived of its occupant: no body! Professor E. H. Day explains:

“If it be asserted that the tomb was in fact not found to be empty, several difficulties confront the critic. He has to meet, for example, the problem of the rapid rise of the very definite tradition, never seriously questioned, the problem of the circumstantial nature of the accounts in which the tradition is embodied, the problem of the failure of the Jews to prove that the Resurrection had not taken place by producing the body of Christ, or by an official examination of the sepulcher, a proof which it was to their greatest interest to exhibit.”[8]

Asking the right questions is a key to thinking critically here. So let’s consider some of the hypotheses offered up to provide a nonsupernatural explanation for what happened. How do you explain the empty tomb?

Did they go to the wrong tomb? If so, why wasn’t the correction made by Jesus’ foes?

The Roman guard fell asleep and the disciples tip toed to the stone and so quietly broke the seal and rolled the heavy stone (without even grunting once!) that they never woke the guards? If you know for certain that if you fell asleep on duty, you would be stripped of your clothes and burned alive in a fire at a stake started with your own garments, would you fall asleep? And if they were asleep, how did they know it was the disciples who committed the theft? (Matthew 28:11-15, note verse 14 relative to the question of the penalty for falling asleep on guard duty)

Did the disciples actually attack and overpower the guards? Right! A band of untrained and badly frightened rabbits overcame disciplined and trained soldiers who had overcome the best armies known to man at that time? Then where did the graveclothes left behind come from, and why were they left?

Did the authorities move the body? Um…if they did, why didn’t they just produce it later to nip this thing in the bud instead of the lame excuse they fabricated (remember Matthew 28:11-15)?

Another interesting fact to be explained: the tomb was actually not entirely empty – there were the aforementioned graveclothes. The careful language of John (John 20:3-9) in describing the discarded graveclothes indicates eyewitness testimony to something of such great impact that it convinced him of a miracle. The clothes were not strewn helter-skelter around the tomb, but like a collapsed cocoon missing its occupant.

Our penultimate difficulty in this enumeration revolves (pun somewhat intended) around the stone to which we have already referred. Let the record note that the stone was not just barely moved to let a body slip by, but moved a “great” distance. Matthew 27:60 says, “a large stone was rolled [Greek kulio = to roll] against the entrance of the tomb.” Then Mark 16:4 says, “The stone was rolled away” [Greek anakulio = to roll up an incline or slope, away from] from the entire sepulcher! Note in Mark 16:3, the women, who did not know about the Roman guard, discussing how to remove the stone just from the door. And then John 20:1 uses an interesting word: “the stone taken away from [Greek airo = to pick up something and carry it away] the sepulcher”!! Ladies and gentlemen, we are talking Richter scale movement with this terminology. How?

Finally, how does one explain multiple appearances of Christ between the resurrection and the ascension? 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 enumerates many, including one in which 500 people simultaneously saw Him. Hallucinations? 500 people don’t hallucinate in unison! Furthermore, the record clearly shows that the disciples did not believe at first either (e.g., Luke 24:36-43 where Jesus has to eat a piece of fish to convince them…since when to hallucinations clean off your table?). Thus, the appearances go against all known psychological data concerning spurious visions and hallucinations.

And still, if it were only hallucinations, where was the body?!

The only rational conclusion is aptly summed up by Simon Greenleaf, the famous Harvard professor of law:

“All that Christianity asks of men…is, that they would be consistent with themselves; that they would treat its evidences as they treat the evidence of other things; and that they would try and judge its actors and witnesses, as they deal with their fellow men, when testifying to human affairs and actions, in human tribunals. Let the witnesses by compared with themselves, with each other, and with surrounding facts and circumstances; and let their testimony be sifted, as if it were given in a court of justice, on the side of the adverse party, the witness being subjected to rigorous cross-examination. The result, it is confidently believed, will be an undoubting conviction of their integrity, ability, and truth.”[9]

Here is the complete record:

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