Hi all!
Last Saturday was RiSE. You guys couldn't go but I spent some time figuring it out the talk William Lane Craig gave and thought that it would help you too! I'll try to keep it a little short, but trying to cover what he said AND explaining it will take a while. Get ready for a looooooonnnnggg email. This is just the first part.
So first:
He said that there are 2 ways through which people can know Jesus:
1) through historical evidence
2) through their own experiences
The Historical Evidence
Going over the first way, he talks about 2 points about how you can prove that the resurrection is historically true:
I) through the 4 widely accepted facts
II) by looking at the problems of the other explanations that try to explain those 4 facts (which the skit was about)
I'll just cover the 4 facts in this email and cover the other stuff later. This is going to be long. oi.
I) The 4 Facts
1) Jesus died.
2) Jesus was buried.
3) Jesus' tomb was later empty.
4) Jesus was seen by the disciples and many others.
Then he goes over the evidence for each of these 4 facts.
1) Jesus died.
It doesn't make sense to say that Jesus didn't actually die. During this time, the Roman Empire was really big and really strong. These Roman soldiers would have not messed up. They were highly trained to carry out these punishments and to kill.
Also, Jesus was beaten to the very inch of His life and then nailed on a cross. Then the soldiers pierced His side. Why this was proof of Jesus death is that we all have water and blood cells in our system, but it's all mixed up so when we bleed it's red. But when we die, the water separates from the blood. So they pierced Jesus to see whether or not the water and blood separated and it says in the Bible, water and blood flowed out.
Dr. Craig also talks about the 5 early, independent sources that talk about Jesus death. And he mentions, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and letters of Paul.
Why is it important that these sources are early?
When the document or source is written earlier, closer to the time of the event, it is more reliable.
Like if I wrote a diary entry about my 7th birthday one week after and then I wrote another diary entry about it 3 years after, than the entry I wrote closer to the date of my 7th birthday is more reliable. Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul's letters were written really, really close to the time of Jesus' death and resurrection. The earliest copies of documents of Plato or the Odyssey we have were written like centuries apart from the time of Plato's life and the actually time the Odyssey was written, and we consider those accounts to be completely accurate. So, the New Testament is then so much more accurate.
What does it mean that these books were independent?
We don't realize it because all the books of the Bible are together, but when they were first written, these books were written separately. This means that when the Book of Mark was written, it wasn't written at the same place or exactly the same time as when Luke was written. Paul didn't talk to John when we wrote his letters and John didn't work together with Matthew over Facebook. They were independent (they didn't help each other write them) and they all talked about Jesus death.
He says we can know they are independent because the stories are different. I'm sure you've seen when you read the books that the stories in Matthew aren't quite the same as the stories in John. Some stories are the same, but they are also a lot of differences. If they all worked together to write them, it wouldnt make sense to make them different. Why would they? And why would they have 4 different ones anyway? If they really worked together, it'd be easier to just have one.
He also gives a specific example in Matthew, where Matthew uses different words to describe an event (what he was saying about Matthean words). This is because Matthew didnt know how to describe certain things in his words, in the language he was used to. And because he wrote the book years after Jesus life and death, he used other sources to help him.
It's sort of like this: In Korean the word for my mom's sister is different from the word my dad's sister which is different from my mom's brother's wife which is different from my dad's brother's wife. In english it's all, "Aunt." But in Korean, all four are different. But say I wanted to really describe that I'm talking about my dad's older brother's sister (keun omma) and not my mom's sister (Eemo), so I borrowed the word for it from Korean and used it in English, using "Keun Omma" instead of "Aunt."
So Matthew used different words, words he wouldn't have used normally or words he wouldn't have known, showing that he borrowed words from a different source.
And this is different from how the other Gospels described the event. They all used different sources to write their books. So we can know that they wrote them separately.
Tired yet? There's still more to go!
2) Jesus was buried.
Dr. Craig talks about Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, you know, the people who went out, got Jesus captured and killed? But yet in the Gospels, it says that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus' body. If Christians were just making the story up, then it would be a better story to say that Mary buried the body, or that one of the disciples came and buried the body, or even the angels of the heavens came down and lift the body into a holy tomb, or something. But even though, the Bible says this man - one of the very people who condemned Jesus - buried Jesus' body. Why? Most likely because it actually happened.
Also the process of burying is detailed. Dr. Craig mentioned briefly that there would have been a lot of heavy bandages wrapping Jesus' body.
The tomb was covered by a heavyyyy boulder and it was guarded by Roman guards who were placed there because they were afraid that people would desecrate or do something to the tomb because Jesus was such a controversial person, even back then.
And again, 5 early independent sources (like I wrote about earlier) all say that Jesus was buried.
3) Jesus' tomb was found empty.
This observation was reported by women. Back in those days, women were seen as unreliable. They couldn't even testify in a court of law. Again it goes back to the question, why would they have written that women found the tomb? If this story was all made up, it would be easier to believe for the people at that time to hear that men saw the tomb empty first. To say that women found the empty tomb first would not help their case but rather hurt it. It's almost the same thing as saying that a color-blind person told us about how pretty the rainbow in the sky was yesterday. So why did they say the two Marys found the tomb? Again, most likely because it actually happened that way.
5 early, independent sources talk about it too.
And if the tomb really wasn't empty, why didn't the Jewish Sanhedrin bring the body of Jesus out when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead? They tried so hard to stop the Christians, stoning them, presecuting them, killing them, but they could have easily gone to the tomb, brought out the body and say, "You crazy people, the body is right here! Rose form the dead? Crazy!" But they didn't. Why? Because they body wasn't there!
4) Jesus was seen by his disciples.
Not only the 11 disciples but also by his other followers that He had claimed they saw Jesus alive on the third day after His death. There wasn't anything in the Jewish tradition, no stories or past knowledge or ideas in their culture to imagine that the Messiah would rise from the dead. They believed that everyone at the end of the world would come back but not just one man on a certain day. Once Jesus died, they would have considered it to be the end.
So to say that they made up the story or it was hallucinations wouldn't make sense because no one in that time would have ever had the idea that something like that would ever happen. Hallucinations come from thoughts you have in your head. How can you hallucinate something about dogs if you don't know what a dog is or looks like in the first place?
And if they made up the story, why would the disciples willing die and suffer for a lie they made up? So few times people die for the truth. How many people would die for lies?
and that's that part. oi.
Last Saturday was RiSE. You guys couldn't go but I spent some time figuring it out the talk William Lane Craig gave and thought that it would help you too! I'll try to keep it a little short, but trying to cover what he said AND explaining it will take a while. Get ready for a looooooonnnnggg email. This is just the first part.
So first:
He said that there are 2 ways through which people can know Jesus:
1) through historical evidence
2) through their own experiences
The Historical Evidence
Going over the first way, he talks about 2 points about how you can prove that the resurrection is historically true:
I) through the 4 widely accepted facts
II) by looking at the problems of the other explanations that try to explain those 4 facts (which the skit was about)
I'll just cover the 4 facts in this email and cover the other stuff later. This is going to be long. oi.
I) The 4 Facts
1) Jesus died.
2) Jesus was buried.
3) Jesus' tomb was later empty.
4) Jesus was seen by the disciples and many others.
Then he goes over the evidence for each of these 4 facts.
1) Jesus died.
It doesn't make sense to say that Jesus didn't actually die. During this time, the Roman Empire was really big and really strong. These Roman soldiers would have not messed up. They were highly trained to carry out these punishments and to kill.
Also, Jesus was beaten to the very inch of His life and then nailed on a cross. Then the soldiers pierced His side. Why this was proof of Jesus death is that we all have water and blood cells in our system, but it's all mixed up so when we bleed it's red. But when we die, the water separates from the blood. So they pierced Jesus to see whether or not the water and blood separated and it says in the Bible, water and blood flowed out.
Dr. Craig also talks about the 5 early, independent sources that talk about Jesus death. And he mentions, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and letters of Paul.
Why is it important that these sources are early?
When the document or source is written earlier, closer to the time of the event, it is more reliable.
Like if I wrote a diary entry about my 7th birthday one week after and then I wrote another diary entry about it 3 years after, than the entry I wrote closer to the date of my 7th birthday is more reliable. Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul's letters were written really, really close to the time of Jesus' death and resurrection. The earliest copies of documents of Plato or the Odyssey we have were written like centuries apart from the time of Plato's life and the actually time the Odyssey was written, and we consider those accounts to be completely accurate. So, the New Testament is then so much more accurate.
What does it mean that these books were independent?
We don't realize it because all the books of the Bible are together, but when they were first written, these books were written separately. This means that when the Book of Mark was written, it wasn't written at the same place or exactly the same time as when Luke was written. Paul didn't talk to John when we wrote his letters and John didn't work together with Matthew over Facebook. They were independent (they didn't help each other write them) and they all talked about Jesus death.
He says we can know they are independent because the stories are different. I'm sure you've seen when you read the books that the stories in Matthew aren't quite the same as the stories in John. Some stories are the same, but they are also a lot of differences. If they all worked together to write them, it wouldnt make sense to make them different. Why would they? And why would they have 4 different ones anyway? If they really worked together, it'd be easier to just have one.
He also gives a specific example in Matthew, where Matthew uses different words to describe an event (what he was saying about Matthean words). This is because Matthew didnt know how to describe certain things in his words, in the language he was used to. And because he wrote the book years after Jesus life and death, he used other sources to help him.
It's sort of like this: In Korean the word for my mom's sister is different from the word my dad's sister which is different from my mom's brother's wife which is different from my dad's brother's wife. In english it's all, "Aunt." But in Korean, all four are different. But say I wanted to really describe that I'm talking about my dad's older brother's sister (keun omma) and not my mom's sister (Eemo), so I borrowed the word for it from Korean and used it in English, using "Keun Omma" instead of "Aunt."
So Matthew used different words, words he wouldn't have used normally or words he wouldn't have known, showing that he borrowed words from a different source.
And this is different from how the other Gospels described the event. They all used different sources to write their books. So we can know that they wrote them separately.
Tired yet? There's still more to go!
2) Jesus was buried.
Dr. Craig talks about Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, you know, the people who went out, got Jesus captured and killed? But yet in the Gospels, it says that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus' body. If Christians were just making the story up, then it would be a better story to say that Mary buried the body, or that one of the disciples came and buried the body, or even the angels of the heavens came down and lift the body into a holy tomb, or something. But even though, the Bible says this man - one of the very people who condemned Jesus - buried Jesus' body. Why? Most likely because it actually happened.
Also the process of burying is detailed. Dr. Craig mentioned briefly that there would have been a lot of heavy bandages wrapping Jesus' body.
The tomb was covered by a heavyyyy boulder and it was guarded by Roman guards who were placed there because they were afraid that people would desecrate or do something to the tomb because Jesus was such a controversial person, even back then.
And again, 5 early independent sources (like I wrote about earlier) all say that Jesus was buried.
3) Jesus' tomb was found empty.
This observation was reported by women. Back in those days, women were seen as unreliable. They couldn't even testify in a court of law. Again it goes back to the question, why would they have written that women found the tomb? If this story was all made up, it would be easier to believe for the people at that time to hear that men saw the tomb empty first. To say that women found the empty tomb first would not help their case but rather hurt it. It's almost the same thing as saying that a color-blind person told us about how pretty the rainbow in the sky was yesterday. So why did they say the two Marys found the tomb? Again, most likely because it actually happened that way.
5 early, independent sources talk about it too.
And if the tomb really wasn't empty, why didn't the Jewish Sanhedrin bring the body of Jesus out when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead? They tried so hard to stop the Christians, stoning them, presecuting them, killing them, but they could have easily gone to the tomb, brought out the body and say, "You crazy people, the body is right here! Rose form the dead? Crazy!" But they didn't. Why? Because they body wasn't there!
4) Jesus was seen by his disciples.
Not only the 11 disciples but also by his other followers that He had claimed they saw Jesus alive on the third day after His death. There wasn't anything in the Jewish tradition, no stories or past knowledge or ideas in their culture to imagine that the Messiah would rise from the dead. They believed that everyone at the end of the world would come back but not just one man on a certain day. Once Jesus died, they would have considered it to be the end.
So to say that they made up the story or it was hallucinations wouldn't make sense because no one in that time would have ever had the idea that something like that would ever happen. Hallucinations come from thoughts you have in your head. How can you hallucinate something about dogs if you don't know what a dog is or looks like in the first place?
And if they made up the story, why would the disciples willing die and suffer for a lie they made up? So few times people die for the truth. How many people would die for lies?
and that's that part. oi.
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