Responding to a Resurrection

Recently I was asked how I would respond to the lack of evidence of the Resurrection of Christ? I was directed to a video where the host named Matt made this statement, “We have nothing, what we have is hand full of copies of copies of translations of copies of oral tradition stories about people who say he rose from the dead.” - Matt. 

The discussion continued for about 20 minutes, however, it all revolved around this particular statement affirming there is no evidence for the Resurrection, none, zippo! Before we address the subject of the Resurrection we need to address the statement presented by Matt. His assertion that the Gospels were written by people who only heard people say Jesus rose from the dead is an assertion made purely through his bias and speculation. The construction of his statement is framed intentionally to sway the audience in his favor. This is not to fault him, for this is a practice commonly used in rhetoric to sway opinions.   

Rhetoric (noun) rhet·​o·​ric ˈre-tə-rik 1: the art of speaking or writing effectively: such as a: the study of principles and rules of composition formulated by critics of ancient times. b: the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion. 2 a: skill in the effective use of speech. b: a type or mode of language or speech also: insincere or grandiloquent language.

A more true construction would sound something like, "None of the Gospels make a claim to authorship, or to be written by actual eyewitnesses, they are truly anonymous. However, the authorship as we know them was assigned by the early church around the 2nd century." Now that is the simple facts and both sides can work from there. I certainly can't prove the assigned authors wrote the text, and Matt can't prove the names assigned for the past 2,000 years are incorrect. His statement can no more be proven than the assigned authors can. So his assertion as he has framed it is meaningless.

Matt's assertion that we have (quote), a "hand full of copies of copies of translations of copies of oral traditions stories . . ." is simply a false statement. It is now commonly reported that there are about 5,800 manuscripts of the NT in Greek. In addition, there are 10,000 ancient Latin manuscripts (translations of the early Greek manuscripts) and 9,300 ancient manuscripts in other languages (e.g., Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic). The church fathers quoted nearly every verse in the NT in their writings from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The time between the writing of the original manuscripts of the NT and their earliest copies is between 100 and 200 years. As far as ancient manuscripts go, that is an astounding volume of ancient material. All of which assign no other author than the assigned authors. Matt knows this so why he made that statement can only be understood as a dishonest use of rhetoric.

Besides the ancient manuscripts, we have records from a few ancient historians of the time that reference the event of the crucifixion of a man named Jesus. The great Roman Historian Tacitus records concerning the burning of Rome, "Therefore, to stop the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue." - Tacitus (55-120)

Some have suggested that his statement "pernicious superstition" is a reference to the resurrection. However, there is no indication in the text that this is the case, and even if it was it would only affirm it to be a superstitious belief, and that a pernicious horrible, diseased one. We need to step back and think about what people like Matt are asking. They are asking for verifiable proof of an event that occurred over 2,000 years ago, and to do so without referencing any of the actual ancient writing that tells of the account because we don't know who wrote the ancient manuscript. Then when we can't provide it, they suggest that is proof it didn't happen. When someone references an outside source such as Tacitus or Josephus, they simply ignore it because either those sources can't be trusted or some Christian later in history edited it in. It is simply a waste of time to try and address such inquiries under such restrictions. World history is full of whole cities that existed and disappeared without a record being left in writing, yet we are supposed to present a verifiable written record concerning one man and one event without using the ancient manuscripts that exist to explain the events. I don't know of such evidence for any human event 2000 years old.  

In the state of Mississippi the ancient city Cahokia, of which the name is even in doubt, had a population possibly up to 40,000 citizens around 1,000 years ago. It no longer exists and there is no written record of what happened to it or why. If we hadn't uncovered its ruins we wouldn't even know it existed. That is just the nature of ancient history, to demand such evidence for a religion of such antiquity is knowingly to ask what cannot be produced, especially if the ancient documents themselves are not admissible. It is foolish to engage in such debates, people like Matt will win it every time and they know it. My answer to how I would respond to Matt under the circumstances he presents is I have no argument, you are exactly right.    

Now let's turn our attention to the Resurrection. In an article in Live Science, it is stated, "Ancient accounts tell of an important figure whose birth would be heralded by a star in the heavens, a god who would later judge the dead. He would be murdered in a betrayal by one close to him, his body hidden away though not for long, as he would return in a miraculous resurrection to begin an eternal reign in heaven. To his legions of followers, he (and his resurrection) came to symbolize the promise of eternal life. The figure, Osiris, was the supreme god in ancient Egypt, only one of many pagan gods worshipped thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. Indeed, though Jesus is currently the best-known example of a resurrected figure, he is far from the only one." - https://www.livescience.com/3479-resurrection-history-myths.html

There are many resurrection accounts recorded in ancient history, many of them indeed existing long before the Gospel account. One of the best-known accounts that is compared to the Gospels is that of Osiris mentioned above. It is an attempt to suggest the resurrection of Christ was nothing but a copy or continuation of these myths. It is interesting how rhetoric is used above to present a more compelling account. What is stated by live science is not untrue, but the actual account of the myth goes like this.

When Osiris was born, he came into the world wearing his distinctive atef crown. The crown was a symbol of Ra’s decision to have Osiris succeed his father as king. After becoming King and civilizing Egypt, Osiris embarked on an expedition to introduce the world to wheat, barley, and agriculture. Before leaving, he appointed his sister/wife Isis to rule in his absence.

Osiris’s younger brother Set was jealous of his brother’s achievements and sought to assassinate him. Working in secret, Set took precise measurements of Osiris’s body and devised an incredibly ornate box to match them. Set presented the box at a party, telling partygoers that whoever fit in the box could keep it. Each guest tried the box in turn, only to find it did not quite fit. Finally, Osiris laid down in it and found he fit perfectly.

As soon as the king had laid down, Set and his conspirators nailed the lid shut and sealed the box with molten lead. As Osiris suffocated to death, the conspirators tossed the chest into the Nile and watched it float out to sea. When Osiris washed ashore at Byblos, a great tree grew around his chest. They cut the tree down and unwittingly took a section containing Osiris back to the palace. Isis obtained access to Osiris’s entombed body, once Isis received Osiris’s body, the wave of grief she experienced was so powerful that it killed one of the monarchs’ children. 

Isis returned home with Osiris’s body and was able to revive him (resurrection) long enough to impregnate herself with the god Horus. Set discovered his body while on a moonlit boar hunt, tore it into 14 pieces, and scattered its parts about Egypt himself. Isis once again set out to find her wayward husband and managed to collect 13 of the pieces. His penis, the 14th part, had been eaten by an alligator and because of this, he was never able to live in the land of the living again.  Osiris instead arrived in Duat, the Egyptian underworld. There he served as lord of the dead, judging those who sought to follow him into the afterlife. Wow! It would certainly take a skilled use of rhetoric to turn that into the Gospel account! (Sarcasm)

I can't give Matt his answers, nor does that concern me. The Gospel account is not about proving the facts of an event that happened 2,000 years ago. It's about my own conscience and what I know about myself. I don't have a need for an afterlife, I am perfectly content to pass into nothingness when this one is over. Mark Twain is quoted saying, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” - Mark Twain.

However, in the conscience of the majority of the human race that is not the case. For about 90% of the planet's population, something in them seems to convince them there is something after death whether they want to believe it or not. This is true for the educated as well as the most isolated savage among us. Ph.D. Philosopher Jens Amberts argues that life after death is "empirically certain." She suggests a scenario where "one enters a room completely sealed off from the outside world. This room is so carefully sealed and shielded that no instruments or signals of any kind can penetrate its walls to obtain information about what’s inside. Every so often, some lucky individual gets randomly selected to enter this room. They’re given time to investigate the room’s contents to their satisfaction, but when they leave, the only information they can take with them is their memory of what they witnessed. They can’t carry any sort of physical evidence at all.

Most of us would agree that, if enough people went into this room and enough of them came out of it agreeing about what was inside, their joint testimony would justify the rest of us in believing that the room contained what they said it did, even in the absence of physical evidence." 

She is of course referring to near-death experiences and the similar experiences that are reported. I'm not sure I buy her reasoning, many scientists remain skeptical of these reports and attribute them to everything from lucid dreaming to a lack of oxygen in the brain. The similarities I suppose could even be from suggestions they had heard over time about what to expect. 

Her education may even aid in her understanding of the afterlife, yet the Korowai tribe which practiced cannibalism prior to 2006, isolated from all outside sources has an expectation of an afterlife. They worship Saip and offer sacrifices to try and appease him, somehow they are aware they have offended a diety and some payment must be made. Of course, none of this proves anything except that most of the human race for all human history has this strange inclination there is something after death. That is the source of all religions, they are simply schemes and ritual methods of getting there. Some schemes are more difficult than others, but all offer a path by which you can arrive or be accepted and appease the deity. Some omit the ideal of a diety and you simply become absorbed into some kind of energy, but nevertheless, you live on.  

In Christianity, the resurrection is vital, not yours, but Christ. Unlike all other religions, Christianity leaves you no path by which you can enter in, it is simply by grace through faith. You don't achieve it because you were good enough or appeased a deity, God himself took the initiative and removed all the guilt that seems to prevail over most human existence. Other religions offer you momentary relief from this guilt until you fail again, then you are back where you started and the guilt never really goes away. You have to keep coming back to your religion to get things right again. That is not the case with Christianity, since you never obtained it in the first place, you can't lose it and have to get it again. The one supreme sacrifice has already been made and the resurrection validates it.  

Hebrews 9:12 ERV

(12)  Christ entered the Most Holy Place only one time, enough for all time. He entered the Most Holy Place by using his own blood, not the blood of goats or young bulls. He entered there and made us free from sin forever.

   

A Christian does not hold to a resurrection because there is a miraculous preservation of some evidence for 2,000 years that Christ rose from the dead. He holds to a resurrection because his guilt is gone, his conscience is free, and when he fails the guilt does not return. This produces a great love for Christ in his life, and though because he loves Christ, his sin may grieve him but the guilt is gone. 

Matt may say his conscience is clear, he has no guilt, if so I can only take him at his word. That would place him in a very small minority of the human race. But if that is the case, I certainly can't persuade him. Even if there were sufficient evidence to prove a resurrection, if Matt's conscience holds no guilt, the facts in and of themselves would not cause him to love Christ. 

Ephesians 3:17-19 ERV

(17)  I pray that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. I pray that your life will be strong in love and be built on love.

(18)  And I pray that you and all God's holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ's love—how wide, how long, how high, and how deep that love is.

(19)  Christ's love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with everything God has for you.

I can share the Gospel with Matt, but if his conscience is not moved there is nothing more I can do. He is correct, I can't prove to him a resurrection. If his conscience has no guilt he does not need a resurrection anyway. The proof would mean little to him and be of little consequence. It may be that disbelief in God also gives some relief to the guilt the human race seems to be plagued with. The religious mind would see it only as a temporary relief, however, there does seem to be a minority of the race obscure to a religious mind. All broken moral behavior that they may have witnessed or committed will be paid for here or, if escaped, it simply goes unpunished without consequence. In such cases no need for a method of relief is seen nor do they see a necessity of or desire for salvation. 

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 ESV

(1)  Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,

(2)  and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

(3)  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

(4)  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

(5)  and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

(6)  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

(7)  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

(8)  Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

(9)  For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

(10)  But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

(11)  Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

David