Craig-Ehrman Debate on the Resurrection of Christ
Craig shows that a majority of NT scholars accept these as historical:
- After his crucifixion Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb.
- On the Sunday after the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.
- On different occasions and under various circumstances different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead. [Not all of these scholars accept these as experiences of an embodied and glorified Christ, in accord with Biblical theology; some would view them as hallucination or as spiritual visions.]
- The original disciples suddenly and sincerely came to believe that Jesus was risen from the dead despite their having every predisposition to the contrary.
These are accepted by scholars for basically the same two reasons in each case: they are multiply attested by independent sources; and they are unexpected, even embarrassing facts for the early church, unlikely to have been made up as part of a Christ story. (For more detail, please see the transcript. I’m not intending to re-argue the whole position here.)
It is not just Christian scholars who accept these as historical. Ehrman himself, as documented in the transcript, says we can conclude “with some certainty” that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea and that three days later the tomb was found empty. He recognizes (to a lesser degree of confidence) that, as quoted by Craig, “we have ’solid traditions’ . . . for the women’s discovery of the empty tomb.”
Most of Ehrman’s response revolves around Craig’s inference to the resurrection as the best explanation of these four facts. That’s the more interesting part of the debate. Strangely, though, he also disputes the historicity of these four events. He never acknowledges that he has himself agreed with at least two of Craig’s four facts in print. (He seems to be arguing against his own position much of the time.) He argues backward. He begins with the assumption that Christ could not have risen from the dead, and from there he concludes there must be problems with the history of these four facts.
Technorati Tags: Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus
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