You’ll have to read this again, and yes the resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact.
The Minimal Facts of the Resurrection
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Fact 1: Jesus died by crucifixion. Habermas points to the gospels, which are first-century writings that all report a crucifixion. From outside the Bible, he gives Lucian, Mara Bar Serapion, and the Talmud, but these all appear to be second-century writings and don’t add a lot. An earlier non-Christian source is Josephus, but Josephus’s two references to Jesus appear to have been added or modified by later scribes (more
here).
Habermas concludes, prematurely, “Clearly, Jesus’ death by crucifixion is a historical fact supported by considerable evidence.” The story does gradually became widespread, though this was long after the time of Jesus. That doesn’t make it “historical fact.”
Fact 2: The disciples believed that Jesus rose and appeared to them. The disciples went from cowards hiding from the authorities to bold proclaimers of the gospels, even to the point of martyrdom.
Yes, that’s what the
story says, but let’s be skeptical about stories. We don’t take at face value the story about Merlin being a shape-shifting wizard. We don’t even unskeptically take the very un-supernatural claim that Arthur was king of England. Why then take elements of the supernatural Jesus story as history, even the natural ones?
In the second place, the “Who would die for a lie?” argument (that the disciples’ deaths is strong evidence) also fails. In brief, the historical evidence for apostles’ martyrdom is weak (more
here).
Finally, the claim that the gospels document eyewitness history is also suspect when we don’t even know who wrote them (more
here).
The gospel mentions emboldened disciples, but until we have good evidence otherwise, this is a story rather than history. Both “But they were eyewitnesses!” and “But they died for their faith!” are poorly evidenced claims.
Fact 3: The church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed: Paul was an enemy of the church but became a persuasive theologian and prolific church builder. His belief came from first-hand experience, and his martyrdom was documented by six sources.
But what of this could only be explained by an actual resurrection? So Paul gets religion and spreads the word—this isn’t surprising and happens in our own day. The sources we have are Paul’s own writings, Acts, and the writings of church fathers many decades later, all of which we must be skeptical of.
Was Paul knocked to the ground with a vision of Jesus? Maybe it was a complete fabrication. Maybe he just imagined it. Maybe the story grew in his mind until he wrote it down years later. The natural explanations are much more plausible than the supernatural one.
Fact 4: James the brother of Jesus was changed. Habermas takes us on a scavenger hunt through the Bible to pick up various pieces to create a life story for James that supports his preconception.
- James and the rest of Jesus’s family weren’t believers. In fact, they thought he was crazy (Mark 3:21).
- Next, James saw Jesus after his resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:7).
- Then James became a leader in the Jerusalem church (Acts 15—a vague reference).
- Finally, James died as a martyr. Habermas must go outside the Bible to Josephus and Eusebius for this factoid. Their stories being contradictory points to the martyrdom of James as legend.
The James story varies depending on what pieces you pick up. Mark makes clear that the family of Jesus didn’t believe and never says that they changed their minds. We see this in John as well, where Jesus commanded “the disciple whom he loved” to take care of his mother after he died (John 19:26–7). Why would Jesus do this if his brother James was available? Both of these gospels were written long after the death of James. They never mentioned James as part of the inner circle, and perhaps that was because he wasn’t.
And what does “James, the Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:19) mean? That James was the biological brother of Jesus or simply that James was one of the Christian brethren, as in “brothers and sisters loved by God” (1 Thessalonians 1:4)?
The basic facts of James’s life are tentative enough. The story can’t support the additional claim that he saw the risen Jesus.
Fact 5: The tomb was empty.
Debunked in a recent thread. Habermas lied about the 75%. But the other thing is -
- Paul actually says Jesus rose in a different body than he died in. So producing the corpse that Jesus left behind would not have impacted Christian preaching at all.
