Day 50: THE RESURRECTION (XIII) EVIDENCES FOR THE RESURRECTION, cont. II. THE EYEWITNESSES Today we will begin to look at popular arguments made against the reliability of these witnesses testimony regarding the risen Jesus of Nazareth and see whether or not we should seriously consider them and discount the testimony of these witnesses. ARE THE WITNESSES RELIABLE? First, lets remember who the witnesses are. We have at least 5 women (Mark 16:1; Lk 24:10); the two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13ff); the 11 apostles (Mark 16:14); Matthias and Joseph called Barsabbas (Acts 1:21-23); James (1 Corinthians 15:7); and 500 others (1 Corinthians 15:6); and finally, Paul (Acts chapters 9,22,26). We have witnesses of both genders, various backgrounds, apostles and non-apostles, individuals and large crowds, etc, and yet they have all testified that they saw the same risen Jesus of Nazareth. Again, as this study is a study of extremism, we must realize that either ALL of these people conspired together to impose a false belief on the world (which would account for the clear parallel nature of their written and spoken testimony), or they are all telling the truth about what they have seen. Having that background information, lets look at 5 of the most common attacks on the credibility of these witnesses. 1. There are elements of Matthews (a writer of this document and an apostle, jb) account of the Roman guard at the tomb that seem too incredible to believe. First, so that you can again read the texts dealing with this: [Matthew 27:62-66 NASB] 62 Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, 63 and said, Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, After three days I am to rise again. 64 Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, He has risen from the dead, and the last deception will be worse than the first. 65 Pilate said to them, You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how. 66 And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone. [Matthew 28:11-15 NASB] 11 Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. 12 And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 and said, You are to say, His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep. 14 And if this should come to the governors ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble. 15 And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day. Some things that people find difficult to believe regarding this part of the story: a. The priests remembered and acted upon the claim of Jesus to rise from the dead, but the disciples of Jesus did not. b. That Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, at the Jewish priests’ request, would grant a guard. c. That the Roman soldiers would report to the priests rather than to Pilate. d. That the guard would tell a story that would risk their lives for the sake of money (the story includes the detail that they were asleep on duty and thus missed the disciples taking the body away). Lets analyze these arguments. A-D will correspond to A-D above, the four questions at hand: a. The disciples did not understand Jesus’ claims to be raised, as is clear in the fact that they did not anticipate His dying when He did. They, therefore, did not anticipate a resurrection, as a resurrection can only happen after one has died. However, while his enemies did not believe he would rise, they remembered his claims and knew that securing the body would grant them victory in the big picture. As a result, they wished to take certain measures to protect it from being stolen. b. Pilate would not want a report circulated Jesus had arisen from the dead either in view of his participation in his sentencing, so he would be interested in preventing it also. Moreover, political considerations in his dealings with Jews would move him to appease the priests in this request if history had already indicated that he would placate them by granting an innocent man to be crucified in the first place! c. The Roman guard had been given to the Jewish priests, and therefore it is not unnatural finding it reporting to the priests. (Matt 27:65) d. The risk of punishment was removed by the Jews assurance that if this came to the ears of Pilate they would intervene, (Matt 27:14). Could they convince the guard they had such influence? They had just persuaded the governor Pilate, against his will, to condemn a man he declared innocent! Certainly there is a precedent for believing that they had such authority. Furthermore: e. There is no record that Matthew’s story was ever denied in the subsequent controversies between the chief priests and the apostles, as recorded in the historical document called Acts, found after the gospels. f. Matthews gospel is for Jewish readers. If his written testimony was untrue, they would have been the worst people to tell it to, and they of all would have denied it, seeing as it implicated their religious and civil leaders. But, there is no record of such a denial from the Jewish populace or leaders. If they didn’t deny it then when the events were fresh and people knew about what had been happening, how can anyone today be in better position to do so? 2. If Jesus was really resurrected, Mary Magdalene would have immediately recognized Him. a. If this story is a fabrication on the part of Mary Magdalene as the witness or John as the writer, it would have made much more sense to say that Mary Magdalene IMMEDIATELY recognized the man as Jesus. This would grant more credibility to their conspiracy. b. Mary Magdalene thought Jesus to be dead right then (and was weeping because of this understanding, John 20:11), so seeing Him alive wouldnt have been a possibility in her mind. For example, have you ever been thinking so intently on something that a person you know very well is right in front of you but you dont see them, or recognize them? Is it possible this is what happened with Mary? c. If Mary was weeping, is it possible that the tears slightly obstructed her normal vision? Or, is it possible, like with the account of the two men on the road to Emmaus not recognizing Jesus (Luke 24:16), that Mary was in the same situation? 3. The actions these writers said Jesus performed are impossible for a human body. If Jesus was bodily raised, how could he vanish (Luke 24:31), and enter rooms through closed doors (John 20:19,26)? a. Obviously these are miracles. If the resurrection is true, then these supernatural appearances and disappearances are certainly not problem for Jesus. If you are open to the possibility of an omnipotent God in the mix of all of this, all things are possible. b. The testimony includes evidences of a flesh and bone body, i.e., they handled him, including verification it was the same body put into the tomb, (John 20:27), and seeing Him eat their food (Luke 24:36-43). 4. There is not one witness of the actual resurrection, only of the following events. a. True, and remarkable. But instead of weighing against the testimony, this favors the idea this story was not fabricated. If it was, at least some of the witnesses would have been given the role of testifying they saw him come from the tomb, as seeing Him actually leave the tomb would give more reliability to the conspiracy! b. What this proves is, there was not one witness of the actual resurrection. So...? Must God (if you allow for God) do things as we think they ought to be done? We would say that we would not have had him crucified in the first place! We can only deal with the witnesses’ testimony who saw him after he was raised. Unless there is a reasonable argument to not take their word for it, then I have to fairly deal with and analyze the eyewitnesses testimony, as I was not present to add to the conversation. 5. The testimony of the eyewitnesses contradict each other in certain places. This is perhaps the most crucial argument against the resurrection and appearance testimony. Because of this, I will stop here for today and pick up with examples that skeptics have pointed to within the gospels that give us cause for further examination. It is not faithless to question these things and look well into the matter. This part of the study will probably take 2-3 days. After that we will move into the final parts of the section on the resurrection talking about final collateral proofs and some concluding thoughts with regard to rejecting the story of Jesus resurrection. PREVIEW: see commentary on point 5. Tomorrow we will look at section of the gospels some skeptics label as discrepancies or contradictions.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 22:28:39 +0000
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