Resurrection The Good News

1
ResurrectionThe Good News

• Rudolph Bultman
• The father of demythologizing
• If the bones of a dead Jesus were found tomorrow
  in a Palestinian tomb,
• all the essentials of Christianity would remain
  unchanged.
• Christian Modernism

2
ResurrectionThe Good News

• Paul
• If Christ has not been raised
• our proclamation has been in vain
• our faith has been in vain
• we have misrepresented God
• our faith is futile
• we are still in our sins
• those who have died in Christ have perished
• We are people most to be pitied

3
ResurrectionThe Good News

• Who is most likely to be correct
• the apostle or the skeptic
• first century founder
• or
• twentieth century critic
• Jew who new Christ or German Scholar?

4
Resurrection Completes Our Salvation

• Concrete, factual, empirical truth that
• life has hope and meaning
• love is stronger than death
• goodness and power are ultimately allies
• life wins in the end
• God has touched us right here where we are
• The Apostles Give Empirical Witness

5
Resurrection Completes Our Salvation

• The Greatest Importance is not in the Past
• CHRIST ROSE
• but in the present
• CHRIST IS RISEN
• And we will do the same!

6
ResurrectionTen Confusions
7
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• Christ is not a Ghost
• He eats and has substance

8
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• It is not a resuscitation
• Unlike Lazarus, it is permanent

9
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• It is not reincarnation
• Christ does not receive another mortal body

10
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• It is not simple immortality
• the freeing of the soul from the body
• He is the first Fruits,
• the pioneer of life

11
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• It is distinct from Enlightenment, or Nirvana, or
  satori, or moksha
• It is not a re-absorption into the One
• as in Hindu or Buddhist hopes at death
• Jesus is a distinct individual

12
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• It is distinct from translation or assumption
  into heaven
• Jesus is brought from the dead back to the living
  

13
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• It is not a vision
• Visions are spiritual and subjective
• Jesus is seen in public

14
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• It is not a legend
• Fictions devised by mortal minds

15
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• It is not a myth
• Christ is pinned down to a specific time and
  place in history

Osuary of Caiaphas
Pilate
Herod
16
ResurrectionTen Confusions

• Easter Faith without a real Easter is
• a self-contradiction or a self deception
• Modernists would have us believe in
• A resurrection of Easter Faith
• Faith in faith is perverse and unnatural
• Faith needs an object other than itself in much
  the same way masturbation is related to copulation

17
The Argument for ResurrectionFive Possible
Theories

• Jesus Died Jesus Rose 1.) Christianity
• Jesus Didnt rise the apostles were
  deceived 2.) Hallucination
• the apostles were myth makers 3.) Myth
• the apostles were deceivers 4.) Conspiracy
• Jesus didnt die 5.) Swoon

18
Refute Swoon

• Jesus could not have survived crucifixion.
• Romans were very thorough.
• Roman law laid the death penalty for any soldiers
  who even let a prisoner escape much less bungle a
  crucifixion

19
Refute Swoon

• Jesus could not have survived crucifixion.
• The Roman soldiers did not break Jesus legs.
• They were certain he was dead
• Eye witness reports of blood and water from
  Jesus lungs.
• The lungs had collapsed. He died of asphyxiation.

20
Refute Swoon

• The body was totally encased in winding sheets
  and entombed.
• The post-resurrection appearances were of a
  vibrant living man not a staggering, half dead,
  sick man in dire need of a doctor.

21
Refute Swoon

• How could a swooning half dead man move the great
  stone?
• It was not in the interest of Jews or Romans to
  move the stone
• Where is the body?
• The swoon theory really turns into the conspiracy
  theory

22
Refute Conspiracy

• No one
• weak, strong,
• saint or sinner, Christian or heretic ever
  confessed under any circumstance that the
  resurrection was a fake.

23
Refute Conspiracy

• If the story were made up
• the apostles are the greatest tellers of fish
  tails
• of all time
• Their sincerity is proved by their words and
  deeds.
• They preached resurrection and they lived
  resurrection

24
Refute Conspiracy

• There is no motive for the lie
• If it were a lie the Jews would have produced a
  corpse
• The disciples could never have gotten away with
  the lie in Jerusalem surrounded by thousands of
  eyewitnesses
• A conspiracy surely would have been unearthed by
  now.

25
Refute Hallucination

• There were too many witnesses.
• Hallucinations are private, individual,
  subjective.
• (1 Cor 153-8)
• The witnesses were qualified. They were simple,
  honest, moral people who had firsthand knowledge
  of the facts.
• Five hundred saw Christ together at the same
  place at the same time.
• Hallucinations usually last seconds or minutes
  rarely hours this one lasted forty days.
• Hallucinations usually happen once unless
  insanity is involved this one both repeated and
  changed over a prolonged period of time.

26
Refute Hallucination

• Hallucinations come from within, from what we
  know, our own subconscious, this one said and did
  the unexpected.
• Even the disciples did not expect this or believe
  it at first
• He had to eat to prove he wasnt a Spirit.
• The disciples touched him
• They spoke with him and he spoke back
• The corpse was missing from the tomb.
• The Jewish and Romans had every reason to produce
  the body and could not.
• It took awhile for even Jesus close friends to
  recognize who he was. It was unbelievable to
  them as well.

27
Refute HallucinationTodays Counterattacks

• Modernists
• dismiss the resurrection simply because it is
  miracle and they do not recognize miracles as
  possible
• Liberal Theology
• interprets the Gospels as myth
• neither literally true nor literally false,
• but spiritually or symbolically true.

28
Refute Myth

• The literary style of the gospels is drastically
  different from the style of all the myths.
• No overblown, spectacular, childishly exaggerated
  events
• Nothing is arbitrary
• Everything fits in
• Everything is meaningful
• Psychological depth is at a maximum
• Character depth and development of everyone in
  the Gospel is remarkable
• It is written with an incredible economy of words
• Telltale marks of eyewitness description

29
Refute Myth

• There was literally no time for the myth to
  develop.
• Archeology has continually pushed back the date
  of origin for the Gospels
• Pauls letters even earlier denote an established
  theology within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses
  less than thirty years.

30
Refute Myth

• All myth theories are two layered
• First the historical Christ did not claim to be
  God at all, perform miracles or rise
• Second The Gospels supply the second mythological
  layer with a Jesus who did all these things.
• There exists no evidence of the first layer

31
Refute Myth

• The first witnesses of the resurrection were
  women
• Low social status
• No legal right to serve as witnesses
• If your going to create a myth why not pick
  viable witnesses
• Perhaps they just told the truth

32
Refute Myth

• 2 Peter 116
• The New Testament can not be myth misinterpreted
  and confused with fact because it specifically
  distinguishes the two and repudiates the mythic
  interpretation.
• Since it specifically says it is not myth it is
  either truth or lie

33
The GospelsTraditional Textual ArgumentsProof
that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses
34

• Internal evidence from the Gospels
• The style of the writing is simple and alive
• Luke was written before Acts, Acts was written
  prior to the death of Paul, Luke must have an
  early date which vouches for authenticity
• The Gospels show intimate knowledge of Jerusalem
  prior to its destruction in 70 A.D.
• Jesus prophecy of Jerusalems destruction must
  have been written prior to its fall otherwise the
  church would have edited out the apocalyptic
  element of the prophecy which makes it appear to
  concern the end of the world

35

• Internal evidence from the Gospels
• The stories of Jesus human weaknesses and of the
  disciples faults bespeaks accuracy
• The narratives are consistent and yet show no
  signs of attempts to harmonize them, apparent
  discrepancies are not suppressed which indicates
  their originality
• They contain nothing out of sync chronologically
  with first-century Jews
• THERE IS NO REASON TO DOUBT THAT THE GOSPELS COME
  FROM TRADITIONAL AUTHORS EXCEPT THAT THE GOSPELS
  CONTAIN SUPERNATURAL EVENTS

36

• External Evidence
• The disciples must have left written evidence
  considering the distance over which they were
  communicating
• Accurate narratives of Jesus history were
  necessary to refute attempts to discredit the
  genuine Gospel
• There were many eyewitnesses still alive when the
  books were written

37

• External Evidence
• The extra-biblical testimony unanimously
  attributes the Gospels to their traditional
  authors
• No evidence of even inauthentic versions of the
  Gospels existed for the first century after
  Christs death
• With a single exception (The Gospel of Thomas) no
  apocryphal gospel is ever quoted by any known
  author during the first 300 years after Christ

38
The GospelsTraditional Textual ArgumentsProof
that the Gospels we have today are originals

• The need for instruction and personal devotion
  gave rise to these documents being copied many
  times.
• No other ancient work has this many copies
  available and all copies agree in content
• The text has been transmitted over large
  geographical distance with no apparent heretical
  additions or content discrepancies
• Quotations of the New Testament by early church
  fathers all coincide

39
The GospelsTraditional Textual ArgumentsProof
that the Gospels we have today are originals

• Corruption of the Gospel would have caused
  tremendous outcry from all orthodox Christians
• No one could have corrupted all the manuscripts
• The books are quoted continuously as early as the
  first century on. No time for falsification is
  available
• New Testament text is every bit as good as every
  other accepted work of antiquity

40
Todays Objections

• History is not an exact science
• You cant trust ancient documents
• Because the resurrection is a miracle
• Religion should be more spiritual, inward and
  ethical than having dead guys walking around
• Why cant Christians see the profound symbolism
  in the idea of resurrection?

41
RESURRECTION

• By analogy with any other historical event, the
  resurrection has eminently credible evidence
  behind it.
• To disbelieve it you must deliberately make an
  exception to the rules you use every place else
  in history.