It’s just a bright light, Paul.
I recently came across the blog of a Christian apologist who has posted ten very extensive articles on the “wealth” of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Is his claim correct? Is there a wealth of evidence for Christianity’s core claim? I am going to respond to his most provocative statements here, addressing his evidence post by post.
Here we go, part 6:
There are several historical facts about Paul which, if you ask me, only make sense if Paul actually had a postmortem appearance experience. …Paul obviously became a Christian himself sometime after persecuting Christians. Like with the disciples, we know that Paul actually believed the message he was preaching because he endured terrible suffering throughout his life for the sake of the gospel, and was eventually killed for his Christian faith. Seven Independent sources attest to Paul’s suffering and martyrdom. …In all, we have 7 independent sources that testify that Paul suffered and died for preaching the gospel. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we, therefore, have good grounds for affirming that Paul actually did suffer and die for the gospel.
Now, how do we account for Paul’s radical, sudden change from Christian destroyer to Christian leader? From someone who caused martyrs deaths to someone who died a martyr’s death himself? I can think of no other explanation than the one Paul himself gave, “Then he appeared to me also, as to one untimely born.” (1 Corinthians 15:8). I think this is the only logical way to explain why Paul would go from terrorizing Christians to trying to persuade people to become Christians (even to the point of horrid suffering). Again, you can try to explain away Paul’s postmortem appearance experience if you want to, but you have no grounds to deny it altogether.
I don’t question the historicity of Paul or that he suffered for his beliefs. But to assume that the only possible reason why someone would convert from one religion to another is that he saw a revivified corpse is just silly. People convert from one religion to another all the time. Clergymen and clergywomen convert from one religion to another all the time. Human beings change their minds. Sometimes human beings who are normally very rational, upstanding people make real odd decisions, completely upending their lives and the lives of their family. Some people choose to suffer. This is not evidence that the supernatural operates in our world, folks. It is only evidence that human beings can be very odd, unpredictable creatures. Now, our apologist will probably respond, but you are an atheist. Of course you would say that. If you allowed for the supernatural then you would see that an actual resurrected body sighting is the most probable explanation for Paul’s conversion.
Well, there are 14.7 million Jews in the world who don’t agree with you, Apologist! The world’s Jews do not believe that Paul or anyone else saw the body of Jesus after his public execution. What is the cause of their faulty logic? Jews believe that the early Jewish Christians experienced illusions, delusions, and hallucinations, just like we atheists believe. So to say that we (atheists, Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christian theists) have have no grounds to deny it altogether is nonsense. You just don’t agree with or like our reasoning.
We now come to our fifth and final minimal fact: the conversion of the skeptic James. The Gospels tell us that Jesus had several siblings. Jesus’ siblings included James, Jude, Simon, plus some sisters whose names were never given. Most skeptics I’ve conversed with love to go after this minimal fact because they say it has the least amount of evidence for it. After all, it’s not mentioned anywhere except in one line, and that line is in the creed cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
Nevertheless, I still think we have good grounds for affirming that this appearance occurred. First of all, as I said in the previous blog post, we have good reason to believe Paul got the creed from James himself. Secondly, the creed is extremely early (just 5 years after the death of Jesus), so had James not really experienced a postmortem appearance, he could have publically rebuked Paul for lying. The severe earliness of the creedal tradition and the probability that Paul got the creed from James has to count for something, right?
No. You have no good evidence that Paul received this evidence from James, the brother of Jesus. You have an assumption. That is it.
You assume the Creed was written within five years of Jesus’ death but most non-Christian critical NT scholars reject this claim. (Ask Bart Ehrman on his blog if you don’t believe me.) So the dating of the Early Creed is disputed. Question: How do you know that when the Creed says that the resurrected Jesus appeared to “James” that it is talking about James, the brother of Jesus? James was a fairly common name. Two of the Twelve were (allegedly) named James. For all we know the Creed is talking about one of the Twelve, named James, receiving an appearance.
Another Christian assumption! The glue that holds together this tall tale.
Not only does Mark mention it (chapter 3), but John mentions it as well (chapter 7). Mark and John are independent sources and therefore, James’ skepticism is multiply attested. So, we’ve established that James was a skeptic.
Ok, let’s assume James was a skeptic. The earliest Gospel seems to suggest that. I’ll buy it. But are you claiming that the only way a family member of Jesus would convert to Christianity is by seeing his revivified corpse?? Isn’t it possible that James the brother of Jesus converted to Christianity for other reasons? Church tradition says that all Jesus’ brothers and sisters converted. Are you claiming they all saw their brother’s revivified corpse? As I said above, people convert to new religions all the time and sometimes for very bizarre reasons. The truth is we have no idea why James converted and we have no idea if the “James” in the Early Creed refers to the brother of Jesus. So you can take this “fact” off of your list of “Five Minimal Facts”.
The Most Likely Explanation For Why James Went From Being A Skeptic To Being A Believer Virtually Overnight Is That The Risen Jesus Appeared To Him As 1 Corinthians 5:7 says.
Assumptions! You assume the “James” in the Early Creed is James the brother of Jesus, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, but you have no solid evidence to support this assumption. Secondly, you are assuming James’ conversion was due to a corpse sighting but do not make the same assumption for the conversion of Jesus’ other brothers and his sisters. You are not thinking logically or critically. Bottom line: We don’t know why James converted. Period.
New Testament critic Reginald H. Fuller says “Even if there were not an appearance to James mentioned by Paul, we should have to invent one to explain the transformation that occurred in James between the time of his unbelieving days when Jesus was alive and his time of leadership in the early church”
Are you willing to invent similar stories for the conversions of Jesus’ other brothers and sisters, Mr. Fuller?? Why did they convert? Not all dramatic conversions are due to seeing a walking/talking corpse. Watch this very compelling video regarding religious conversions:
Conclusion:
We have come to the end of the first step. We have historically established 5 facts which will undergird our inference to Jesus’ resurrection.
The 5 minimal facts that undergird the inference to the resurrection are:
1: Jesus died by crucifixion.
2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.
3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.
4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.
5: The skeptic James converted on the basis of what he perceived as a postmortem appearance.
In the next blog post, we’ll see what is the best explanation of these 5 facts. At face value, it seems like The Resurrection Hypothesis is how we should explain them. However, perhaps we should examine other alternatives before we appeal to the supernatural.
No. You only have expert consensus on “facts” one, three, and four. For “facts” two and five you are unable to produce an expert consensus and your arguments for their historicity are poor.
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End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
”Seven Independent sources attest to Paul’s suffering and martyrdom. ”
What? Seven? Does he list what or who those sources are?
Gary Habermas admitted in a book I read about 20 years that it sure would nice if we had a letter or something from a synagogue or Jewish leader saying that they had given Paul permission to persecute Christians, because all we have are Paul’s assertions of it.
Funny how it’s supposed to be minimal facts but then the assumptions come streaming in. Imagine trying to do that which the Book of Mormon- “Well Joseph Smith said he did something, and a later unknown Mormon also said Smith did it, but with some variation of time and place and order of events and people, and Mormons altering their stories and manuscripts and Voila! Mormon minimal fact. No Protestant or Catholic would ever buy that.
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Very true.
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Did I miss where he lists the 7 sources for Paul’s suffering and martyrdom- are they in the original that you’ve copied from?
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Here is the entire segment:
Paul obviously became a Christian himself sometime after persecuting Christians. Like with the disciples, we know that Paul actually believed the message he was preaching because he endured terrible suffering throughout his life for the sake of the gospel, and was eventually killed for his Christian faith. Seven Independent sources attest to Paul’s suffering and martyrdom.
Paul himself recounts instances of his suffering. “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” – 2 Corinthians 11:24-28
Some of the specific sufferings mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians are also reported by Luke. One of the shipwrecks was recorded in Acts 27:14-44, Paul was stoned in Acts 14:19, and Acts 16:22-24 records an instance of Paul being scourged. The book of Acts records several other hardships Paul endured for being a Christian, but I won’t mention them here.
Clement of Rome1, Tertullian2, and Dionysius of Corinth3 (cited by Eusebius) mention his martyrdom. Polycarp4 and Origen5 record it as well. Paul was beheaded during the harsh persecution of Emperor Nero in the A.D 60s.
In all, we have 7 independent sources that testify that Paul suffered and died for preaching the gospel. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we, therefore, have good grounds for affirming that Paul actually did suffer and die for the gospel.
*The Best Explanation: Paul Actually Saw Jesus
Now, how do we account for Paul’s radical, sudden change from Christian destroyer to Christian leader? From someone who caused martyrs deaths to someone who died a martyr’s death himself? I can think of no other explanation than the one Paul himself gave, “Then he appeared to me also, as to one untimely born.” (1 Corinthians 15:8). I think this is the only logical way to explain why Paul would go from terrorizing Christians to trying to persuade people to become Christians (even to the point of horrid suffering). Again, you can try to explain away Paul’s postmortem appearance experience if you want to, but you have no grounds to deny it altogether.
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Thank you. To state the obvious, those “ sources” are writing decades or even hundreds of years later, and just repeating gossip. Hardly independent sources.
It reminds me of a blog post I’ve had bookmarked for many years, about how instead of saying there is just not enough good verifiable evidence to decide, apologists come at the issue saying we have to make do with what we have, because we must make the evidence fit our adopted in childhood belief that Jesus lives in our hearts.
https://youcallthisculture.blogspot.com/search/label/LukeTimothy%20Johnson
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Ehrman make the point once that because life expectancy was low in the ancient world, Paul and Peter most likely would have been dead around a.d. 65 anyway even if they were not martyrs. Right around the time of Nero’s Christians in Rome persecution. If they died from old age in that period that would be nothing unusual. Maybe Paul died on the way to evangelize Spain. And there is no evidence Peter was ever in Rome. But it makes a nice comfortable story.
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Protestants reject Catholic Church tradition…until they need it for their feeble arguments.
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Adrian Warnock, Christian apologist: “We have examined the Gospel accounts of the resurrection, and have considered all possible explanations, and conclude that the only realistic interpretation of the first Easter is that Jesus did rise from the dead. Habermas reports that, even by critical scholars who are not Christians, it is now largely accepted that no other explanation really makes sense.”
Christians repeat this claim frequently but I’ve never seen quotes by non-Christian critical scholars stating that there is no other plausible explanation for the Resurrection Belief. Bart Ehrman doesn’t believe that. Gerd Luedemann doesn’t believe that. John Dominic Crossan doesn’t believe that. The most popular naturalistic hypothesis for the cause of the Resurrection Belief among non-Christian scholars and counter-apologists is this:
-One disciple experienced a vivid dream, trance, illusion, delusion, or hallucination and believed that Jesus had appeared to him from the grave; telling him not to despair; that he had gone to heaven but was soon to return to establish the New Kingdom.
-This disciple was so convinced of the reality of his experience that he convinced his fellow disciples of the reality of the appearance. Soon other disciples were “seeing” Jesus in their own vivid dreams, trances, illusions, delusions, or hallucinations. The religious hysteria became so intense, that groups of early Christians would see a bright light or other phenomenon of nature and believe it was an appearance of Jesus. We see this phenomenon today among Catholic Christians who believe groups of them have received appearances of the Virgin Mary.
-The disciples believed that if Jesus was soon to return to establish the New Kingdom, the resurrection of the dead was soon to occur. Someone came up with the idea that Jesus had not just risen from the dead, but God had resurrected him from the dead, the first fruits of the general resurrection of the righteous dead.
And that is how the Resurrection Belief began. All the other “evidence” Christians use for the Resurrection can also be easily explained with naturalistic hypotheses. And this isn’t just the view of atheists and agnostics. Jewish counter-apologists hold to the same hypothesis. You can read the views of Jews on the Resurrection in books by Michael Alter.
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IMO, in every age there are gullible people — those who want to believe certain stories/events/happenings actually occurred. And it is these people who have made the Christian religion what it is today.
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Hi Epicurus,
It’s nice to know that some of my blog posts are still being read.
I used to site low life expectancy as a reason to question whether there would have still been eyewitnesses around at the time the gospels were being written, but I don’t have much confidence in that argument any more. I think the life expectancy numbers are skewed by high infant mortality rates. Average life expectancy was in the thirties (I think) because so many people died before reaching adulthood. Once people made it to adulthood, I don’t think it was particularly uncommon for them to reach ages that we would consider old.
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Yes that’s a good point, child mortality rates are often factored into the whole, maybe because it makes it sound more dramatic to say things like people in a certain era like the early Middle Ages or antiquity only lived into their mid thirties or whatever, for example. However, would age 60 or so be considered a normal age to die in 1st Century Rome? Because Peter and Paul would probably have been in that ball park when church tradition says they died. Even 150 years ago I don’t think men were expected to live past their 60’s, especially if they did manual labour. Yet there were exceptions of course.
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https://www.spotfund.com/story/eb83c5c8-3199-4123-8343-62f5701c36e0?source=s&share_location=c&SFID=vc4cvsc&referral_id=bfb203a1-237a-4f66-a875-5a1f4031e83e
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