Investigating Christianity Part 2: Verifying The Minimal Facts

Do claims widely accepted by historians support Jesus's resurrection?

1 What are the facts?

In part 1 of the series investigating Christianity, I investigated an argument for Christianity based on the liar, lunatic, lord, legend quadrilemma. I concluded that, while it might be some evidence for Christianity, it’s nowhere near decisive. Now, in part two, I’ll investigate the much more popular minimal facts argument for Christianity. A helpful summary of the argument comes from philosopher Dustin Crummett:

But my impression is that the historical grounds for believing that something like the following happened are extremely strong: Jesus was executed; very shortly afterwards, Jesus’ disciples began claiming that he had appeared to them after death, and, in fact, that he had appeared to them when they were in groups (a fact which would tell against the possibility of hallucinations); James, Jesus’ brother, who had not been a follower of Jesus and so had no reason to expect this, similarly saw Jesus and converted; so did Paul, who was not only vehemently opposed to Christianity, but who had everything to lose by converting; none of these people ever recanted, but instead, they, being in a position to know whether the Christian message was true, continued preaching it even in the face of persecution. Though the historical grounds for establishing this are not quite as decisive, it also seems to me that there is a very good case for thinking that Jesus was buried in a tomb, and that the tomb turned up empty.

These facts are all naturally explained by Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. So therefore, one has pretty good reason to think that Jesus rose, for it would explain these otherwise bizarre series of coincidences. So what are the minimal facts? In The Case For The Resurrection of Jesus, Licona and Habermas describe the following facts:

1. Jesus died by crucifiction. This is well evidenced, being reported in all the gospels, Tacitus, Josephus, and Lucian of Samosata, all non-Christian sources.

2. Jesus's disciples claimed that he rose and appeared to them. Licona and Habermas suggest “(1) the disciples themselves claimed that the risen Jesus had appeared to them, and (2) subsequent to Jesus' death by crucifixion, his disciples were radically transformed from fearful, cowering individuals who denied and abandoned him at his arrest and execution into bold proclaimers of the gospel of the risen Lord.” Not only is this reported by Paul, who claims “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep,” (1 Corinthians 15:6), but it’s also reported in all of the gospels, and supported by evidence from the early oral tradition including various creeds. This thus provides quite conclusive evidence for appearances of the risen Jesus, and strong but not totally conclusive evidence for group appearances.

3. The disciples believed that Jesus had risen. Licona and Habermas say:

After Jesus' death, the lives of the disciples were transformed to the point that they endured persecution and even martyrdom. Such strength of conviction indicates that they were not just claiming that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them in order to receive some personal benefit. They really believed it. Compare this courage to their character at Jesus' arrest and execution. They denied and abandoned him, then they hid in fear. Afterward, they willingly endangered themselves by publicly proclaiming the risen Christ." These facts are validated by multiple accounts, both from early sources in the New Testament as well as outside of it.

The martyrdom of various apostles is reported in many places: in the book of Acts, by Clement of Rome (who discusses the suffering and martyrdom of Peter and Paul), by Polycarp, and by Tertullian, who claims it’s a matter of public record. Eusebius, the first Church historian cites, for the claim that Peter and Paul were martyred, “Dionysius of Corinth (writing about 170), Tertullian (writing about 200), and Origen (writing about 230-250)." As for the claim that James the brother of Jesus was martyred, he cites “Josephus (writing about 95), Hegesippus (writing about 165-175), and Clement of Alexandria (writing about 200).”

Now you might worry that perhaps the disciples didn’t realize that they’d get crufied. Joseph Smith died, and his beliefs were causally responsible for that maybe, but he didn’t have a chance to recant. But, as Habermas and Licona argue, from the early Martyrdom of Stephen and James the brother of John “as well as the imprisonments and sufferings of Peter, Paul, and others,” the later disciples faced severe persecution.

Here I worry, however, that this doesn’t establish conclusively that the early apostles were willing to die for their faith. Stephen wasn’t one of the twelve apostles. So it could be that the religion spread, people who hadn’t seen the appearance of Jesus were willing to die for it, but people who had (with the exception of James brother of John) weren’t willing to die or face persecution for it.

So I think early Christians were willing to suffer and die. But it’s not historically certain that those who were willing to suffer and die were people who had seen the appearances of the risen Jesus. Of course, they might have been, and they likely were, but I don’t think that has the same level of support as the earlier facts.

Still, however, it’s pretty surprising that early Christians were willing to give up their lives. The resurrection of Jesus provides a good explanation of that fact.

Habermas and Licona combine facts two and three into one fact, which is that the disciples believed in the resurrection. But I think it’s helpful to differentiate them as two different facts.

4. Paul dramatically converted: Both the epistles and the Book of Acts confirm that Paul was an early persecutor of the Church. However, he had a dramatic experience that changed into a passionate Christian rather than a persecutor. Jesus rising from the dead and appearing to him naturally explains this. This is especially surprising because, as Licona and Habermas note, “Paul's conversion was based on what he perceived to be a personal appearance of the risen Jesus.”

5. James dramatically converted. Hegesippus and the epistles both attest to James having been a pious Jew. Licona and Habermas summarize the evidence for James conversion:

1. The Gospels report that Jesus' brothers, including James, were unbelievers during his ministry (Mark 3:21, 31; 6:3-4; John 7:52').

2. The ancient creedal material in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 that we discussed earlier lists an appearance of the risen Jesus to James: "then He appeared to James ."

3. Subsequent to the alleged event of Jesus' resurrection, James is identified as a leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:12-21; Gal. 1:19).

4. Not only did James convert to Christianity, his beliefs in Jesus and his resurrection were so strong that he died as a martyr because of them. James's martyrdom is attested by Josephus, Hegesippus, and Clement of Alexandria. We no longer have any of the works of Hegesippus or the writings of Clement where the event is mentioned. However, sections have been preserved by Eusebius. Therefore, his martyrdom is attested by both Christian and non-Christian sources.

The creedal material that they mention in 1 Corinthians is that the statement in 1 Corinthians originated from an earlier oral tradition. So it was the type of thing that Christians repeated, just as Christians today have certain mantras that they repeat. I think this evidence for James’s conversion is quite persuasive.

These are the best-attested of the facts. The next section will be about one of the better pieces of evidence, yet a bit less well-attested—the empty tomb.

2 The empty tomb

One of these claimed minimal facts is that Jesus’s tomb was found empty. This one isn’t as well-attested as the other facts, but there’s some strong evidence for it. Habermas says that about 75% of papers on the topic have been supportive of arguments favoring the empty tomb. This, however, is less convincing when one considers that many new testament historians are themselves Christians. So rather than taking it on higher-order evidence, we must examine their arguments.

The first argument that Habermas and Licona give for the empty tomb is that if the tomb were not empty, then the critics of Christianity would have found his body in the tomb and used that to discredit Christianity. In response, one might argue that, because it took around 50 days for Jesus’s apostles to start preaching his resurrection, by this time his corpse would have been unrecognizable. Licona and Habermas in response argue:

1. “First, in the arid climate of Jerusalem, a corpse's hair, stature, and distinctive wounds would have been identifiable, even after fifty days." For this they said they asked a coroner. This one is a bit hard to evaluate. But even if it were true, it’s a bit hard to believe that they’d be carting around a decaying body trying to show that it had hair like Jesus—when many of the early Christians might not have known Jesus.

2. Even if it hadn’t been identifiable, it would have been beneficial to produce the corpse. This is because having a corpse to trot around would be helpful in downplaying the Christian claims, even if it were hard to identify. If they’d done that, you’d have expected later Christian sources to mention that.

It’s hard to know much about the psychology of early enemies of Christianity or how much power they had. Thus, I think this argument, while a bit of evidence, is nowhere near decisive.

The second argument for the empty tomb comes from enemy attestation. It would be weird, if the tomb were not empty, for later people opposing Christian claims to try to explain away the empty tomb. However, early critics of Christianity said that the disciples stole the body, which would be inexplicable unless the tomb was empty. Allison in response argues:

The chief problem with this oft-repeated proof is that we do not know the age of the refutation in Mt. 28:11-15. Some have, to be sure, surmised that the verses, which may rely on pre-Matthean tradition, bear “the mark of fairly protracted controversy.” Yet this is hardly self-evident, and the passage, which cannot be history as it stands, is a lone witness. Nowhere else in the early sources do we hear of hostile opponents accusing Jesus’ disciples of stealing his body. So we do not know when this polemic was first formulated, or where it was first formulated—it need not have been Jerusalem—or who first formulated it, or how serious or informed its originators were. How can one safely move from Mt. 28:11-15 to the first days in Jerusalem? Who can say what Caiaphas thought about Jesus’ empty tomb, if he ever thought about it at all? Maybe the view combated in Mt. 28:11-15 did indeed arise in the days, weeks, months, or first few years after the crucifixion. But maybe it appeared for the first time between the composition of Mark and Matthew.

The sources Licona and Habermas cite include “Matt. 28:12- 13; Justin Martyr, Trypho 108; Tertullian, De Spectaculis 30.” All of these are later sources—it’s not clear that the attestation came very early. But it’s strange that none of the early critics that we have records of denied the empty tomb or had theories inconsistent with it. However, Allison later notes that no non-Christians were reported to have found the tomb empty which is similarly odd. This evidence is thus hard to evaluate—probably slightly favors the empty tomb, but is mostly a wash.

Third, the gospels report that women were the ones who saw the early tomb. But because Jewish society at the time was quite sexist, believing women’s testimony to be mostly irrelevant, one who was making up the story wouldn’t have women tell it. In fact, later non-canonical gospels often do this. Luke even reports the disciples not believing the claims of Jesus’ resurrection because they came from women.

A fourth argument is described in Dale Allison’s book The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Criticism, History. Some, like N.T. Wright, have argued that Christianity would have been unable to take off it there hadn’t been an empty tomb, for if there had just been hallucinations then they wouldn’t have been convinced. I don’t know why one should think that! People hallucinating can develop strong convictions.

A fifth argument is that the disciples would have checked the tomb if there had been such a tomb and found it non-empty. Thus, early Christianity would have been crushed. This depends crucially on whether they knew whether Jesus was buried and where—in other words, on the veracity of the burial narrative, which I accept and might discuss in a later article. Yet if so, it would have been hard for Christianity to take off if Jesus’s tomb wasn’t empty.

Yet another retort takes this form: granted that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus, it is conceivable that, by the time interested individuals got around to caring and so investigating the spot, it was too late. A corpse would have undergone significant decomposition between Passover and Pentecost, or whenever Christians first began publicly proclaiming the resurrection. If, then, Peter and like-minded believers, as Luke has it, did not actively missionize until several weeks after the crucifixion, maybe empirical inquiry would by then have been unprofitable. According to y. Yeb. 15d (16:3), “evidence [of the identity of a corpse] may be given only during the first three days [after death].” This must be because after that decay will have altered the features beyond indubitable identification. Lake opined: “the emptiness of the grave only became a matter of controversy at a period when investigation could not have been decisive.”

This riposte gives one pause, although its force is hard to calibrate. If Jesus was, as the gospels have it, buried alone, then perhaps all that would have mattered was the place. One could, in theory at least, have checked the cave for its single body no matter what the condition. If, however, Jesus was buried with others, m. Sanh. 6:5-6 is evidence that his corpse might still have been identifiable. The rabbinic text presupposes that, even in the case of a criminal buried dishonorably, relatives could claim the skeleton after some time had passed: “When the flesh had wasted away they gathered together the bones and buried them in their own place.” If relatives could collect the bones of an executed criminal after the flesh had fallen off, then those bones were not in a jumbled pile but must have been deposited in such a way as to allow for later identification; and because burial customs tend to be conserved over long stretches of time, it may be that, already in Jesus’ day, corpses receiving a Jewish burial were somehow identifiable. Even were it sometimes otherwise, in the case of Jesus probably “all that would have been necessary would have been for Joseph [of Arimathea] or his assistant to say, ‘We put the body there, and a body is still there.’”

I agree with Allison here—this has some force but is not decisive.

Allison also helpfully lists the arguments against an empty tomb.

One argument claims that Mark made up the empty tomb and is the only source—the other later gospels depend on Mark. However, Allison argues this isn’t persuasive. First, it’s not clear that Luke and John rely on Mark—that’s an open historical question. Second, it’s quite hard to believe that Mark would fabricate a story from whole cloth with no prior discussion. Third, Allison argues that Mark was giving a commentary on an earlier story that had been circulating. Fourth, Allison argues that Mark didn’t invent the burial narrative. But if Jesus was buried in a tomb, it’s hard to believe that no one would look in the tomb that he was buried in. Fifth, Allison claims that the fact that Jesus incorrectly predicts, in Mark, when he’ll rise is strange if Mark was making up the story. Sixth, Allison says:

One final observation on the issue of a pre-Markan story. Glen Bowersock has argued that the proliferation of fictional writings in the Roman world, which began during the reign of Nero (CE 54–68), was in part a response to Christian stories. More particularly, he has urged that the recurrent, conspicuous theme of an empty tomb and resurrection in multiple novels is a “reflection” of the Christian story. He thinks this so already in Chariton, who wrote in the middle of the first century, probably before 62 CE.18 If he is right—I am unable to judge the matter—and if the Second Gospel appeared ca. 70, Mk 16:1-8 cannot account for what Bowersock envisages. His thesis requires that something like Mark’s story was known abroad before Mark.19

This, I think, pretty decisively lays that argument to rest. Probably the story originated before Mark.

A second argument that Allison discusses is that the end of Mark, after discussing the women fleeing the tomb, says “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Intuitively, that seems all too convenient—like how one would explain away women not, in fact, having attested to an empty tomb. One might think that this was an attempt for Mark to make a point about the unreliability of women.

However, Allison argues that this couldn’t have been a negative commentary on women, for if it were, they would have disobeyed Jesus or someone else, rather than following Jesus’s instruction. Additionally, Allison argues that because Mark cited the women as witnesses for the burial and crucifixion, Mark didn’t intend to make a point about the unreliability of women. This is, I think, right, though the claim still may have been an apologetic motif to explain why the women didn’t tell anyone about the empty tomb—why there were no eyewitnesses of the empty tomb. Mark thus says:

Mark’s observation that the women “said nothing to anyone” does not stand alone. An explanation immediately follows: “for they were afraid.” It was, then, precisely because of their fear that the women, according to Mark, said nothing. The implication, on the view that Mark here explains the silence of three or four decades, is curious. If the women kept quiet for decades, and if the reason was fear, then they must have been afraid for decades. One could paraphrase: they said nothing to anyone for years because for years they were afraid. The thought is close to absurd. If Mark’s purpose had been to characterize 16:1-8 as a decades-long secret, he would have concocted something more credible than “they were afraid.” He could instead have written, “and they said nothing to anyone until many years later,” or “until after Peter died,” or some such. As the text stands, however, readers instinctively think of a short-lived fear begetting a short-lived silence, akin to 1 Sam. 3:15-18: Samuel “was afraid to tell the vision to Eli… And Eli said, ‘What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.’ So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him.” It is understandable that the old commentaries uniformly take Mk 16:8 to say, in effect: they said nothing to anybody until they spoke with the disciples.62 While this interpretation is partly the result of harmonization with Mt. 28:8 and Lk. 24:9, it is also a natural reading of Mark. I agree, then, with R. H. Fuller:

“the silence of the women can hardly be explained as the Evangelist’s device to account for the recent origin of the story [of the empty tomb]; that is altogether too modern and rationalistic an explanation, and assumes that the early Jesus movement was concerned, like the modern historical critics, with conflicting historical evidence. The early church expounded its traditions anew in new situations: it did not investigate them historically in order to discover their origins and Sitz im Leben.”

This is all plausible, but not, I think, overwhelmingly decisive. It’s pretty suspicious that Jesus said the women shouldn’t tell anyone and that they didn’t. Allison’s arguments are plausible, but I think there is still some force to this argument against the historicity of the empty tomb. It’s suspicious that Mark said that the women followed instructions to tell no one about them.

A third argument is that the empty tomb is miraculous, involving an angel allegedly being at the tomb. But this could be embellishment. Just as we see grander claims in John than in the other earlier gospels, it could be that the angel was a legendary embellishment. Furthermore, if the resurrection happened, there might have been an angel, so while this may provide evidence against views according to which the empty tomb happened but Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, it doesn’t provide evidence against the claim that Jesus did rise from the dead.

Fourth, Paul was silent on the empty tomb. 1 Corinthians 15:4-5 says “that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” But it’s not at all obvious that if there had been an empty tomb then Paul would have mentioned it in that very compressed statement. Allison notes:

One could equally construct the following very different argument from silence. Had those Corinthians whom Paul sought to correct known or imagined Jesus’ corpse to be yet in his grave, then surely, given their rejection of a physical resurrection, they would have brought this forward as a point in their favor, and Paul would have felt compelled to answer them in some way. He did not do so.

This, I think, is enough to substantially take the bite out of this objection but not totally eliminate it. If Jesus’s tomb were empty, there’s a pretty good chance that Paul would have mentioned it. Therefore, the fact that he didn’t is pretty solid evidence.

Fifth, one might think that early Christians believed in the empty tomb on the basis of an inference from the appearances. Allison thinks this argument has lots of force; I’m inclined to agree.

Sixth, Allison notes that a missing tomb is a literary trope that existed prior to this. Gregory the Great tells of such a story that’s quite similar, and there are various earlier—though somewhat different tales—that have missing tombs. Allison is right that this is again, some evidence, a bit weaker than the fifth point.

Conclusion of this section: I don’t think the empty tomb is anywhere near certain. It’s hard to know with any confidence if the tomb was, in fact empty. But there’s enough evidence for the empty tomb, that either a theory will have to explain the presence of an empty tomb or introduce some improbable events, including Jews saying that Jesus first appeared to women. This is not a slam dunk, but it’s some evidence. So I’ll include as one of the facts I’m confident about “either there’s an empty tomb or something weird happened.”

3 Conclusion

Evidence suggested Jesus existed, was crucified, was buried in a tomb, his disciples reported seeing him after his death, his sceptical brother converted, Paul, a persecutor of the Church, converted dramatically, the disciples were willing to face severe persecution (though not necessarily the same disciples as the original 12), and Jesus’s tomb was likely found empty, though that’s not certain.

These facts are relatively well-attested. Yet is Christianity a better explanation of them than some natural explanations? That will be explored in the next section.