c.Paul also taught the deity of Jesus,9 so there is no conflict with the Gospels.
d.Neither Jesus nor Paul taught that Christianity was a new religion. Both held that Christianity was a fulfillment of Judaism.10
e.Jesus’ central teaching of the Kingdom of God and its entrance requirements of faith in his person and teachings is found in all four Gospels11 and in Paul’s epistles.12
f.Paul was known as the apostle to the Gentiles.13 Not only did Jesus command his disciples to take the gospel to the Gentiles,14 but this was actually a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, not a new doctrine.15
g.The fact that Paul’s message was checked and approved by the original apostles (Gal. 2:1-10) reveals that he was not teaching a message contrary to Jesus’. Such official apostolic recognition was not only given to Paul’s original message but also to his epistles, which were written later and immediately recognized as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16; see Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp in A, 10 above).
h.Such an approach to the New Testament usually involves picking and choosing certain texts while ignoring others.
i.Since Jesus literally rose from the dead, any verification of the truthfulness of his teachings would even extend to Paul’s message and writings, since they are in agreement with the Gospels at these points.
12.Jesus was not an international traveler during his “silent years” or after his death (pp. 89-98).
a.There is no viable historical evidence for such international ventures.
b.The swoon theory fails and is rejected by critical scholars (see B, 8 above).
c.These endeavors almost always involve a long trail of illogic and incredibly mysterious connections.
d.The trustworthiness of the Gospels refute these theses.
C. Miracle-claims
1.No event can be rejected a priori unless one assumes an omniscient viewpoint. Since this is impossible, the facts must be examined (pp. 58-59).
2.The laws of nature do not disallow any events, but are simply descriptions of how things usually occur. Hume was incorrect in endeavoring to utilize man’s experience of these laws against the existence of miracles (p. 58).
3.Twentieth century science has changed, and while it certainly does not prove miracles, neither does it disallow them (p. 59).
4.There are several reasons why those who deny or question the objectivity of historical knowledge are mistaken (Appendix One).
5.Correct inductive research methodology demands a systematic investigation of all relevant data before a decision is made. Such a process is observed in fields as diverse as science, medicine, law, and journalism, as well as history. In a similar way, miracle claims must also be checked out before a philosophical or historical judgment is made (pp. 60-61).
6.Although many would place miracle-claims completely in the realm of faith, such is to ignore their possibly objective theistic and historical nature (p. 61).
a.If it is taught that miraculous events have occurred in history, as is the case with New Testament miracle-claims, then at least the objective, historical side of such a claim can be investigated. In other words, if it actually happened, at least the portion of the event that touched the space-time world can potentially be examined.
b.In the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus is not only the central tenet of Christianity, but it is asserted that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then faith is actually in vain (1 Cor. 15:1-20, especially vv. 14, 17). Paul even supports his point that Jesus was raised by citing eyewitnesses, historical testimony to this fact (vv. 5-8). Under these circumstances, one could hardly claim that objective, factual interests in the resurrection are foreign to the New Testament.16
c.This objection also commits errors that are associated with the “leap of faith.” If carried to its logical conclusion, it provides no objective basis for faith, including any reasons why faith should be exercised in any certain beliefs, or even that faith should be exercised at all. As such, it is difficult to distinguish between belief and credulity.
7.Alternative theories that have been proposed to account for Jesus’ resurrection on naturalistic grounds have failed to account for the known historical facts (pp. 62-63).
8.There are many strong historical reasons to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead (p. 160).
Conclusion
We will not belabor the chief conclusion in this appendix, namely, that attempts to debunk the historicity of Jesus in whole or in part have failed for numerous reasons, such as those outlined above. Usually such attempts ignore a myriad of evidence that serve to disprove these alternate hypotheses. Perhaps this is why most critical scholars also shun such theses.
Evidence such as that pointed out in this chapter does reveal the negative conclusion concerning the failure of these misconceptions about Christianity. It also establishes some of the positive evidence in favor of the trustworthiness of Scripture, the historicity of Jesus, and the nature of miracle-claims. Such evidence is quite formidable.
1It needs to be carefully noticed that we are distinguishing here between those documents that compose the canonical New Testament writings, rather than answering questions about whether there are other books (such as certain Pauline letters, for example) that we no longer have. In other words, in this volume we are speaking about having a complete set of those writings that have been judged to be canonical, not speculating concerning whether others should have (or would have) been included.
2See Archibald M. Hunter, Bible and Gospel, pp. 32-37.
3Although the case cannot rest on self-claims alone, it is helpful to note the numerous times the New Testament insists that it is reporting eyewitness data. For a few examples, see Luke 1:1-4; John 1:14; Acts 2:22-38; 17:30-31; 1 Cor. 15:1-20; Heb. 2:3-4; 2 Pet. 1:16-18; 1 John 1:1-3.
4See A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society, pp. 186-193; Grant, Jesus: An Historian’s Review, pp. 179-184, 199-201.
5For the references in 9:b-f, and item 10 below, see J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers.
6Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, pp. 408-412.
7Examples include Mark 2:10-11; 10:45; 13:32; 14:36; 14:61-63; Matt. 11:27.
8See Mark 2:1-12; Matt. 5:20-48; cf. Isa. 9:6-7; 53; Dan. 9:24-27.
9For instance, see Rom. 1:3-4; 9:5; 10:9-10; Phil. 2:6-11; Col. 1:19; 2:9; Titus 2:13.
10Matt. 5:18; Luke 16:16-17; Rom. 10:4, 9-11; Col. 2:16-17, for examples.
11Cf. Mark 1:14-15; Matt. 18:3-6; 25:31-46; Luke 18:28-30; 24:45-48; John 1:10-13; 6:47; 20:30-31.
12Cf. Rom. 6:23; 10:9-10; 1 Cor. 15:1-4.
13Acts 9:15-16; 22:21; Rom. 11:13-14; Gal. 2:9.
14Matt. 28:19-20; Luke 24:47; John 10:16; Acts 1:8.
15See Gen. 12:3; Isa. 19:18-25 for two examples.
16As we saw, even Bultmann asserts that Paul was attempting to produce objective evidence for the resurrection in this passage, even though Bultmann disapproved of such a procedure (Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, vol. I, pp. 82, 295).
Appendix 3:
A Selected Scholarly Bibliography for Non-Christian Sources
(Each source, including primary documents, is listed in alphabetical order.)
A. Tacitus
Barnes, Timothy D. “Legislation Against the Christians.” Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968), 32-50.