Pints With Aquinas - 93: What really happened to the 12 apostles? With Sean McDowell

Episode Date: February 13, 2018

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Hey, real quick before we get into today's episode, tomorrow is Lent. How crazy is that? Did you know that? I hope you knew that. What are you doing for Lent? Well, you might not know this, but Thomas Aquinas actually wrote daily meditations for Lent. That's right, 40 different meditations or just over 40 meditations for Lent. How cool would it be to meditate upon his meditations? Well, I've actually recorded them all professionally. There's Gregorian chant under them. They sound beautiful. If you want access to those meditations, so you can actually take 10 minutes a day throughout Lent to listen to what Thomas Aquinas had to say, and it's amazing, by the way, here's what you do. Become a supporter of Pints with Aquinas on Patreon for $10 or more

a month, and you'll get access to that as well as a bunch of other audio stuff, free stuff, videos, all sorts of things, and you'd be supporting this show. So go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support, and give 10 bucks or more a month, and you'll have access to that, and that'll be super sweet. That'd be great. Big thanks to all of you who are supporting Pints with Aquinas and who will after today's episode. All right, enjoy today's show. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I'm Matt Fradd. This is the show where you and I would usually pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Today, however, we're joined around the bar table by evangelical apologist Sean McDowell to discuss

the death of the apostles. Were they actually martyred for their belief in Christ? And if so, what does that say about their belief in the resurrection and just the truth of the resurrection in general? Here we go. Oh, it's so good to have you with us here at Pints with Aquinas. And I'm really glad to have Dr. Sean McDowell on the show. I have appreciated his work from afar, and I thought recently I should get in touch with him and have him on the show, because he wrote his dissertation on the apostles and their martyrdoms, what we can actually know about that, what's been perhaps shrouded in folklore, and what it might have to say about the genuineness

of the Christian claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. A bit about Sean, even though he'll tell us in a moment, but he's the Assistant Professor of Apologetics at Biola University. He graduated summa cum laude from the Talbot Theological Seminary with a doubles master's degree in philosophy and theology. He earned his PhD in apologetics and worldview studies from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He's the author, co-author, or editor of over 15 books, including Ethics, Being Bold in a Whatever World, Understanding Intelligent Design, The Apologetic Study Bible for Students, Same-Sex Marriage, A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage, and is God just a human

invention? He's got a lot of great things to say, and I think if you've never heard of Sean, after today's episode, you'll be glad that you now have heard of him, and you'll probably want to go out and get some of his books. He's a really good bloke, and we had a great discussion, so I hope you enjoy the show. G'day, g'day, Sean. Good to have you on Pints with Aquinas. Hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah, this is awesome. You know, it's good Pints with Aquinas. Hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah, this is awesome. You know, it's good Pints with Aquinas, so obviously most of our listeners are Catholic, but we have a lot of evangelicals who listen as well, so they'll be pumped that you're on. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I mean, this is the first time you and I have actually spoken, so I'm really happy to be chatting with you. Yeah, I'm happy to do this, too, and I really appreciate you reaching out. I heard you on Unbelievable a year or so ago talking about your book, The Porn Myth. I thought it was so good. I got it. I recommend it to some other people. And when I got the email from you, I thought, oh, this is fantastic. I'd love to connect.

Oh, that's cool. First time I ever heard of you was on Unbelievable as well. Look at Justin bringing people together. That's awesome. I teach at Biola University, which is a private Christian school in Southern California, and I'm in Talbot Theological Seminary focused on apologetics, is the department that I teach in. I grew up in a Christian home in Southern California, and my parents were on Camps Crusade for Christ, now known as Crew Staff

my whole life. Some of your readers might be familiar with my father. Josh McDowell wrote a book, Mourner Carpenter, Evidence Demands a Verdict. He's just been an influential apologist for 50 years. What's that like growing up in, not his shadow, I don't mean it that way, but growing up with a very popular Christian father that many people look up to and revere. Yeah, I don't first look at him through that lens. I always share that with people because it gives them some context of my story and who I am and my interests. But, you know, he was first dad.

Did he spend time with me? Did he love my mom? Was he around? Was he available? Those are the bigger questions. Right. Was he around? Was he available?

Those are the bigger questions. And my dad's an amazing apologist, and I just love that he was the same kind of on stage and off. I mean, he's not perfect, but just the way he would live his life with consistency spoke volumes to me. So growing up in that home, seeing my dad write and speak and just really make an influence on the world. I can't go anywhere without someone mentioning they read his book or heard him speak. And, you know, hearing that narrative was like, wow, I can make a difference. And people have questions about truth and God's given me this family. You know, how can I use this first kingdom? And I did go through a period of questioning that I was probably 19 years old and I got on, This is like mid-90s. And really, the atheist secular

web began responding to evidence that demands a verdict. And I get on there, and I'm reading this stuff by really smart people. Now I look back at their objection, and I think, man, I can't believe I was taken in by that. But at the time, it was unsettling. I remember just telling my dad, man, I want to know what's true, but I don't know if i really buy this and matt will never forget what he said he looked at me didn't even hesitate to go son i think that's great and i remember thinking dad did you honestly i just said like i don't know if i buy this stuff you've committed your life to and he goes you know i sent you want to know truth if you seek after truth with all your heart and mind i'm confident you'll be a Jesus and then he just said your mom and I love you no matter what. You don't have to worry about

that. Wow. What was that like? You know, in some ways, I should have known he would respond that way. My parents really raised me to seek after truth. My dad would always watch different news channels. He'd always read both sides. He'd even play the skeptic in conversations with me, just say, son, now what do you think about this? And just learn, even though he's an apologist proclaiming Jesus, I would say one of the things he really impressed upon me was just seek after truth and don't be afraid to go against the flow, so to speak. And also, I mean, my parents, I mean, they loved each other, never doubted that, loved me and my three sisters. That acceptance and love really can just free a kid up to not

be afraid to ask questions and have that acceptance that I know a lot of kids don't. So I'm great. The older I get, the more I'm grateful that the way my parents raised me like that. That's cool. And so then you started getting into apologetics yourself? the way my parents raised me like that. That's cool. And so then you started getting into apologetics yourself? You know, I was moderately interested in apologetics before that. But to be honest, my naivete, I really thought somebody wasn't a Christian because they just hadn't read my dad's book.

Like, how hard is it? Yeah. I got tons of free copies in the basement. I will give you one. Oh, exactly. And then, you know, as you get older, a little more sophisticated, more thoughtful, you have deeper questions. And I think that's really what motivated me to say, all right, I got to know for myself what I think about this. I'm not going to live on my parents' conviction secondhand.

And at this point, I was planning on coaching basketball and teaching. I wasn't even going to do apologetics. It was sometime after that that I really started getting interested in it, mainly actually from a class by J.P. Moreland, a colleague of mine now at Biola, interestingly enough. Yeah. Yeah. I got great things to say about that guy. So, let's talk a little bit about Evidence That Demands a Verdict. That's a book you've mentioned. And as you say, I'm sure some of our listeners are familiar with it. Apparently, World Magazine named it one of the top 40 books of the 20th century. So, I'm really embarrassed that I haven't heard of it up until now, but I'm definitely going to get my hands on the updated version. But tell us a bit about it.

Well, my father grew up in a small town in Michigan, and he had an alcoholic father. His older sister committed suicide. My dad was actually sexually abused for seven years. Oh, good. I'm sorry to hear that. Well, thanks for saying that. I heard the narrative of this growing up and always knew my dad had it rough. Probably, I don't know, three or four years ago, I was sitting around with our family, and my mom's sharing funny stories growing up in Boston.

My dad goes—I'm sorry, my sister goes, Hey, Dad, share a funny story, a good memory you have when you were a kid. And Matt, it was like awkward silence. My dad goes, kids, I don't have one. Man. I sat there and I just I wept. I thought, oh, my goodness, I get it. Well, to make a long story shorter, you know, my dad is just he's an entrepreneur.

He's a go getter. It's in his genes, and he had made a lot of money even in college in a painting business. And some Christians whose lives were a little different challenged him to consider the claims of Christ. And he thought it was a joke. So he thought, I'm going to go around the world, and I'm going to disprove this. Now, at this time, people are like, disprove Christianity. What's the big deal? This is pre-Internet, pre-Google.

Like to find these kind of books and manuscripts, you physically... Well, hang on, I'm a little... How did he get so passionate about this? He's had a few friends that were Christians. I mean, why did he react with such passion to it? Well, I mean, I skipped some of the steps, but this is a group of students on campus. He described them as just being really different. They had a peace about life. They had a passion, a love for other people, and he wanted that. But so when he befriended them and asked them, a girl said to him, you know, Jesus Christ. And my dad partly got angry because he thought a dead guy 2,000 years ago would be irrelevant today.

And, you know, and also when they said to him, they said, look, you have a heavenly father who loves you. My dad said, he goes, son, my thought was fathers are abusive. Why would I want a heavenly father? Like this can't be true. This is crazy. And the entrepreneur in him is like, wait a minute, I could disprove this and make some money. So I'm going to go set out and disprove it. He's just wired that way. He's a person who's all in whatever he does and they challenged him. So he's like, fine, I'm all in. I'm going to disprove this. And as you say, this is pre-internet, so this wasn't when you could just quickly look up the, you know, arguments for and objections to different Christian claims. This reminds me of

Lee Strobel a little bit. It was, yeah, and in many ways, you know, this was in the 50s, so this was a couple decades before Lee Strobel interviewed these guys. So to get some of these books, you had to go to libraries in Europe. You couldn't get them any other way. So in his journey, I mean, I can't remember how long it was, maybe a year, year and a half into this, he ends up believing it's true in his mind. And then when he really understood the love of God, became a Christian. So he joined Camps Crusade, started speaking on this. And when he'd speak, people would say, gosh, can I get that evidence? So he thought, you know what, I'm going to photocopy it, like, you know, 15 pages front and back, sell it for a dollar at my event. And they sold out like crazy. And he thought, oh, my goodness, I got to put this into the book. They all turned it down because they thought, well, it's not going to sell. This isn't going to work. And then, I don't know, 4 million copies later, 40 languages.

It's gone through at least four updates. It's kind of been a book a generation before Lee Strobel when nobody in the Christian world, really, Catholic or Protestant, were making these kind of resources available to people. Yeah, I imagine there wasn't a lot of apologetics books back in the 50s coming out. I guess I could, well, not having lived during that time, I guess I can't speak to it, but I imagine a lot of publishers, you know, how many people were kind of arguing against the truth claims of Christianity in a public way that a book seemed like a good idea to respond to those sort of objections, you know? Well, you kind of had the writings of, say, C.S. Lewis. You had Francis Schaeffer.

And then there were some more academics like, say, Norm Geisler starting out, John Warwick Montgomery, but really not any popular level apologetics books, because evidence, it's not a scholarly book. We're taking the research of the experts and trying to just bring it down, so to speak, for pastors, students, parents, to have that evidence available to them, a lot like what Lee Strobel did in his own way, in that sense. Yeah. So, tell us about this updated version. The book at the front cover looks fantastic, by the way. Yeah. So tell us about this updated version. The book at the front cover looks fantastic, by the way. Oh, thanks. Yeah. I mean, this has been my dad's just legacy, his influence. So he came to me maybe four years ago and we started talking saying the last update was 99. He said to me, now you're teaching a professor, got your PhD, like you've done your training. What if we

kind of rejuvenate this evidence brand, so to speak, by the two of us, and you head up with kind of my help and involvement, at Biola, 12 leading scholars in the world, people like Mike Lacona on the resurrection, Craig Blomberg, a number of scholars like that. And we just went through this book and just started saying, all right, what new information do we need to include? What's been dated? What do we need to add and tweak just to make this? What objections do we need to respond to? So we scoured the internet and found all the common objections that were out there and just said, all right, it's been two decades. How do we come up with one volume that includes the most accessible but also powerful evidence primarily on the reliability of scriptures,

the deity of Christ, and the resurrection? Those are the big questions that we really look at. And I'll tell you, man, I think next to my dissertation, this is as much work as I've done on any project in my life. It takes a long time to do something like this right. And I felt the weight to do it right because a lot of people really trust this as a resource. Well, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I hope that our listeners

will go out and get a copy. I'm certainly going to go get a copy right after this interview. But speaking of your dissertation, because that'll lead us into today's topic, what was it on? Yeah, I studied the fate of the apostles, what really happened to the 12 apostles, as well as James and Paul, and asking what significance is this, if any, for an apologetic for Christianity as a whole and resurrection in particular. So, what did you expect to find and maybe what are some things that shocked you? Yeah, I heard an argument growing up, you've probably heard and many of your listeners, something to this effect. All the apostles except maybe john died as martyrs for their faith they wouldn't do this for a lie they really believe jesus was risen therefore jesus rose from the grave and christianity is true

this is the kind of argument that i've heard and it always had some plausibility for me but what motivated me to think about i was actually on a trip up in berkeley with uh i take i. I teach grad school, but I also teach high school part-time, and we brought some high school students to Berkeley and brought in some atheists to speak to our students. And I teach my students how to kind of defend their faith and have conversations with people of different belief systems. And we had this guy in who's a mythicist who argues that Jesus didn't even exist. And we had this guy in who's a mythicist who argues that Jesus didn't even exist. And one of my students says, well, why would all the apostles die if it wasn't true? And he looks at us. He goes, give me any evidence any of them died as martyrs. And they turned and looked at me like I'm supposed to have the answer, and I'm sitting there going, you know what?

How do we really know this? What are the sources? How good are the sources? How early are the sources? How do we really know this? What are the sources? How good are the sources? How early are the sources?

And that night in conversation with a friend, I decided if someone hadn't done it, and it turns out nobody did, I wanted to study the apostles. Now my— That is awesome. What I expected to find, there were a few things that surprised me. I thought the argument would work, but I guess a couple things stand out. Number one, I was telling a pastor about my findings. He said to me, he goes, man, you're going to make a liar out of all of us. And I said, well, that's not my goal. My goodness, I'm not trying to make anybody look like a liar. But why did he say that?

I think he said that because we have overstated a lot of the evidence and the legends, which are very late on some of them, and just not been careful in the way that we frame this argument and its significance. But you'd rather be, at the end of the day, rather be intellectually consistent and actually teaching things that we have good reason to believe than to teach things we don't have good reason to believe and be called up short, like this atheist did with your student. Yeah, no question about it. For a number of reasons, I think that's right. I'm thinking of Eusebius, the fourth century historian. I mean, that's the first thing I think of, the first person who kind of made this argument, which I'm sure you know tons more about than I do. But does it go earlier than that? Like this idea that, well,

why would they die for a Messiah who didn't rise from the dead? So, Eusebius is the first person who wrote a systematic church history in the fourth century. So before that time, people aren't really asking the question for historical or apologetic purposes, what happened to the apostles? So we have to use these different sources and kind of piece them together when they're talking about something else. Do they make a reference that's helpful for this investigation? And I think it starts much earlier than Eusebius. In fact, for me, there's a historian in England, his name is Marcus Bachmule, he's a New Testament historian. And he's argued of something called living memory, which would be the end of the second century,

that there's still kind of stories and experiences passed down to somebody who knew somebody else. It's not just a history book. There's kind of a personal connection to these events. It takes us to the end of the second century. And within that period, there's arguably a greater kind of historical warrant than writings that come later. So I started by saying, what do we have within the first and second century? And then later writings might help, but probably not as significant as those within the 1st and 2nd century. Right, because that's what Eusebius is probably drawing from. Yeah, I think that's right. That's probably what he relies on.

Okay. So, now, let's take a step back here, because I imagine there's many of our listeners who just took it as gospel, essentially, that 11 out of the 12 apostles, well, I guess, not including Judas, of course, were killed. You know, we see all these depictions of them being flayed alive and nailed to different crosses and beheaded and so forth. So, maybe that took people back. So, let's just back up a little bit. Are you saying that we don't have good evidence to think that, well, that most of the apostles were martyred? So, here's what I'm saying. I set up a nine-point historical grid, because historical criticism deals with probability, not certainty. And from least probable to neutral to most probable, I tried to rate each of the apostles according to the available evidence that we have.

So I concluded if you take the 12 apostles, Matthias instead of Judas, and you add James and Paul, I concluded that roughly four of them, we have solid, good, convincing historical evidence that they actually died as martyrs. I think two of them are at least arguably more probable than not, although with a lot less confidence. Would that be Peter and Paul? I would put Peter and Paul and both James in the highest level of historical confidence that we have. And why is that? I think it's because of the available evidence that we have. So, like, take Peter, for example. We have two first century sources referencing the fate of Peter.

One being in John chapter 21 at the end of the gospel. One being in John chapter 21 at the end of the gospel, Jesus distinctly says to Peter in his appearance, when Peter is asking him what's going to happen to this other apostle who may not die in this fashion. And Jesus has just told him, you know, go feed my sheep three times. He's restored him. He says, you'll be taken where you do not want to go. Your hands will be spread out. And then the author says, this was indicating to him how he would die. Now, it doesn't say he's crucified. That's a separate issue. But the implication is clear. And even the agnostic Bart Ehrman, one of the great skeptics of our day, says this is a clear evidence that the author is saying Peter would die as a martyr.

And John has written at the end of the first century, probably in the 90s, when there still would have been living witnesses who would have known this story, would have known Peter. So that is in Scripture, but that's a first century reference that, as far as I can tell, is pretty uncontroversial. And that Peter would die as a martyr. Now, the second reference in the first century would be from a book called First Clement, which was written in the 90s, actually from Rome, interestingly enough. So Peter did make it to Rome. This person would have a source about it. it to Rome, this person would have a source about it. And there's a reference in chapter 5 and 6,

only to Peter and Paul, about how they would struggle to the death, struggle to the end, although it doesn't use the word martyr, probably because the exact word martyr didn't necessarily mean the way we take martyr today in that culture at that time. I don't think that emerged for about the middle of the second century, but the clear implication is that Peter would be taken where he doesn't want to go, fall in the footsteps of Jesus, and die as a martyr. So there's two first century sources that cite that for Peter, and I think there's eight more in the second century. There's no other contradictory claim. So historically speaking, I think we're on pretty solid ground that Peter actually died as a martyr. Have you looked into the evidence that suggests that Peter's body was found under

the main altar of the Vatican, the St. Peter's? You know what? I have looked at that, and I think it's interesting. It didn't help me specifically in my quest, because I'm not sure sure even if we found his body, if that would give a clue, number one, how would we really know it was Peter's affair question? And second, obviously, everybody... Sorry to cut you off. I mean, there's the inscription, but I suppose that doesn't, that's not much evidence. True. And of course, we have to look at the date of that inscription and tie the body to the inscription. So, I didn't find that that was as compelling historically speaking. But also, regardless, nobody doubts that Peter died. I mean, obviously he died. The question is, how did he die? Was he actually a martyr?

Sure. Okay. Well, what about maybe just one more? Because I know you say that there's four that we've got high evidence for, but I'm really interested to hear about Paul, the general understanding. My understanding is that Paul was beheaded. What good reason do we have to think that? Well, the references to Paul in the only scripture reference is in 2 Timothy. Now, in 2 Timothy, he talks about saying, I'm about to be poured out like a libation. Now, what's interesting is critics would say that 2 Timothy is not genuinely Pauline. Well, if that's the case, and Paul didn't write it, I believe that he did,

then whoever wrote it felt the need to put on Paul's lips that he was suffering, he was about the point of dying for the proclamation that he was making. Or Paul actually writes it knowing that his martyrdom and a death as a result of the message he proclaimed is imminent. Now that doesn't prove it, but that's an interesting scriptural hint. The first century reference for Paul, again, would be in 1 Clement 5, as we have for Peter. And your listeners can find online reading and context, but it's pretty clear that Paul is being held up in the same way Jesus was as somebody dying as the perfect example for their faith as a martyr. And then with Paul, you get into the second century, there's eight sources, not six, that to greater and lesser degree indicate that Paul actually died as a martyr. Now,

whether he was beheaded or not is a separate question. That doesn't show up explicitly until the end of the second century in a writing called The Acts of Paul. And the problem with this writing is it maintains a historical core, but it's flowered with some stories that are clearly exaggeration. So whether or not he was actually beheaded isn't the most important thing for my particular investigation, but given that he was a citizen, given that John the Baptist was beheaded, James' son Zebedee was beheaded, given the way they would kill at that time somebody who's a citizen, it's certainly more reasonable than not to think that that was historical core. And I'll tell you something interesting, Matt, in that first writing that

describes him being beheaded, it describes a milk substance coming out. So in my dissertation, I said, well, this is clearly, you know, fictional, trying to make the point that his death is kind of a sustenance for our life. And I had a doctor write me. He goes, I don't know if you're right about this. There are medical cases where people secrete a milk-type fluid from the neck. So that doesn't prove it happened. That's interesting. So many of these stories people just assume are mythical. I found myself doing that.

And the more I've looked into it, at least a good number of these, I thought, you know what? That's interesting. There may be something to it. Okay. So, you think we got good historical evidence to think that, you know, four out of the 12 were martyred. That doesn't mean they all weren't other than John, right? They all may have been martyred. But just to say that as far as looking at the probability, we've got strong evidence to think that four of those were martyred. Here's another question. Do we have good evidence to think that the apostles were risking their lives in proclaiming Christ, even if they weren't martyred? This is a great question. I'm glad you asked this, because when it's all said and done,

I don't, to make this case, I don't really have to show that they were martyred. Right, that's what I'm getting at. Their martyrdom doesn't prove that it's true. All that it shows is they really believed it and they were sincere. Yeah, can we just pause here a moment? Because this is a common objection that's given to people like yourself, and that is to say, you know, you've got all these suicide bombers who are blowing themselves up for something that in no way proves

the truth of Islam. Therefore, the deaths of these apostles don't prove that Christ rose from the dead. So, just with that as a background, now make your point, because I think it's a really good one. Yep, I'm glad you asked it. So, those suicide bombers really believed that Islam was true. There you go, yeah. really believed that Islam was true. And so did the apostles. So what's the difference? Well, here's the difference. The deaths of people centuries removed who experienced their beliefs, you know, third, fourth, fifth hand from somebody else only shows they believed it. But I don't know what evidential value that offers for the Islamic faith,

any more than if somebody walks in here and shoots me during this interview, and you go, oh, there goes Sean, he took one for the team, that guy really believed it. But that wouldn't prove anything for the truth of Christianity. Now, the apostles lived with Jesus somewhere between one and a half and three years. They heard his teaching. They claim to have seen him risen from the grave and have taken and proclaimed this as the first generation from the time of Jesus. So, their sincerity means something very different than somebody who receives this third, fourth, fifth hand from another. So it tells us they weren't making up the story to get themselves to suffer. They weren't inventing this for any of the reasons, and we could talk about this if you

wanted to, any of the reasons people typically invent stories or commit crimes. None of those are present. So this is not a conspiracy. They're not lying. They actually believe Jesus rose from the grave. So their willingness to die as martyrs, we have no record that any of them recanted. And the fact that we have confidence that at least some of them did tells us these guys were willing to go to whatever lengths they could to proclaim and show that they had seen the risen Jesus. So, qualitatively, I think their experience and testimony is different than people centuries removed who don't see these kind of claims firsthand. Right. So, to sum up, martyrdom doesn't prove that one's beliefs are true, but being willing to die for one's beliefs proves that those beliefs are sincere. Let me just read Eusebius, who we mentioned earlier. He says,

What a wonder it is that such a number were able to keep to their agreement about their fabrication, this fabrication having to do with Christ, of course, even in the face of death, and that no coward among them ever retired from the association and made a premature repudiation of the things agreed upon, nor did they ever announce anything in contradiction to the others, bringing to light what had been put together among themselves. So, what we can ascertain from knowing either that the apostles died or were being persecuted and risking their lives is that their belief that Christ was who he claimed to be,

that he rose from the dead, was sincere. I think that's right. Yeah, it doesn't prove that it's true. This is one of the corrections you asked at the beginning that we need to make, is if somebody says, oh no, they're really sincere, but they were hallucinations, their willingness to die wouldn't overturn that. Now, I have other significant problems with the claim that it was hallucination, but I'm bringing it back saying their willingness to die just shows the depths of their sincerity. And if I might add one more thing here, Matt, that's important. In that quote by Eusebius, it assumes that there's no accounts of them kind of abandoning their faith, so to speak. Well, that's an argument from silence, but to me it's an argument of silence with teeth.

Why? You know some of the early church debates in the second century and beyond. Number one, there were critics trying to disprove Christianity. So if there was any story of one of the apostles bailing on their faith, you better believe a critic would have included this. Second, there were debates in the early church about what do you do with Christians who falter on their confession of the faith at the point of death? Well, if there was any story of Matthias or Matthew or James, the son of Alphaeus, doing this, you better believe one of the Christians would have said, wait a minute, happened to the apostle, but nobody does. So, I think that silence that's

hinted at in Eusebius has some teeth to it, so to speak. I like that. I like that distinction between the arguing from silence, arguing from silence with teeth. I agree. Let's talk about some of the reasons these apostles may have been wrong. So, they're sincere. Okay, let's say we agree, for the sake of argument, that they were all sincere. Why might it still be the case that Christ did not rise from the dead? So, you already mentioned hallucination. Maybe we can talk about that and some other reasons. So, you mean some of the other, like, objections people will raise? Right, so obviously you and I don't believe them, but this idea that, okay, well, maybe they were hallucinating, and sure, they were sincere, but they were crazy,

so we can say hallucination, or they were all mad, or what are some objections people raise? Well, there's a number. I'll personalize this. For me, kind of what put me into a tailspin of doubt that I shared earlier in college was when I read this pagan mythology theory where they argued that Christianity, you know, some might even argue that disciples didn't exist. I guess they take it to that length. But that Christianity is patterned after these mythical deities, Osiris and Adonis. And Christianity, there's nothing unique or fresh about this. It's just another recycled pagan deity.

Now, scholarly circles rarely even take this with any seriousness. Even Bart Ehrman is like, this is nuts. But in popular levels and in my own personal life at that season when I was 19, that one really hit me pretty hard. And how did you end up resolving that? Well, I found a few things. Number one is that a lot of so-called similarities between these pagan mythical deities and Christianity are totally overstated. So people use the same word. are totally overstated. So people use the same word. Last I checked Wikipedia on this,

which has been a while, this Egyptian god Osiris is described as being murdered, resurrected, and becoming a god, and that Christianity was patterned after this. Well, there's a big difference between resurrection back to this life in a physical eternal body that Jesus has, and Osiris being murdered, thrown into the bottom of the ocean, all of his parts but one being put into a chest. Tell us what that part was, Sean. Tell us the part that they found. Yes, I think you know where this is going. I will leave it out. A sensitive male part was not included, that's what it was, and becomes god of the underworld. Like that in no way parallels in any significant fashion unless you're looking for it, the Christian story. So that's one problem.

The second problem is that the dating is all wrong. A lot of these mythical deities had stories before the Christian story. But any of the real close parallels virtually all scholars agree come afterwards you could actually make a case that they borrowed from christianity rather than the other way around so there's we list i wrote a whole chapter on this in evidence it's actually my favorite chapter because that topic rocked me so much i was like we're gonna write the definitive chapter refuting this but those two are enough to me to just say, wait a minute, this is not credible to explain the resurrection accounts and the stories from the apostles.

What cracks me up, for those listening, we have a whole episode we did on this. I think it's called, was Jesus a spinoff of pagan gods? But what cracks me up, remember that Zeitgeist movie that was making the rounds a while back? They claimed that Osiris i believe it was died crucified but then when you get their study guide it makes a really important concession it says we're not saying that he was literally laid on a cross and nailed to it we're just saying that there are many images of him with with himself standing cruciform and i'm thinking oh my goodness well that would that would be like barney the dinosaur also does that sometimes you, like this is ridiculous when you take these arguments one at a time, you see how vacuous they really are. But okay, so that's one of them.

So someone might say, well, Sean, your whole PhD work is nonsense because these apostles that you're trying to say may have died for their faith didn't even exist. The other was hallucination. How do you deal with that? for their faith didn't even exist. The other was hallucination. How do you deal with that? Because I do hear, not being an expert in any sense of the word, that there are group hallucinations that can take place. So, maybe they all group hallucinated Jesus, and that's why they were sincere. This is probably, as best I can tell, the most common objection to the resurrection, and the reason is because scholars now almost unanimously agree that the apostles had experiences that they interpreted as the risen Jesus. Now, they don't

all say, all scholars don't agree that Jesus rose from the grave, but they all agree that the apostles had these kind of experiences. Well, hallucinations now has become the explanation, like grief experiences. Well, there's a few problems with this. One of them is that the apostles were not expecting Jesus to rise from the grave. It didn't fit the expectation that they had about a risen Messiah. So their expectation was that the resurrection was corporate and at the end of time, but the story of Jesus was individualistic in the middle of time. So based on what we know about them in Judaism, if they were going to have hallucinations, this doesn't fit what they would likely have hallucinated. Now, on top of that, actually, the evidence for group hallucinations scientifically is really,

really weak. There's a difference between group-like visions when people are expecting something and they pass it off and go, oh, yeah, I guess I kind of see that too, versus the appearances. We have multiple appearances of different groups in different settings, different times of day, different places over a a period of time doesn't fit. And as far as I'm aware, there's no good corroboration of those kinds of group hallucinations. And in fact, you can really no more share an external, I'm sorry, a hallucination that's not external, entirely internal with somebody, than you can actually share a dream with somebody. You can't do it because it's an internal, subjective experience. And I guess the last thing I would say is even when people have hallucinations, so often what happens is they'll think something, and then they'll come out of that mode, and reality kind of shakes them out of it.

Well, we have no record of that happening to the apostles. They all believe. Paul believes. James the skeptic believes, like maybe one or two of them had a hallucination, but all of them just goes against the grain of evidence. So, what else would someone throw then? Okay, so let's say it's not a myth, okay, so Jesus existed, the 12 apostles existed, many of them were, or some of them were at least martyred. All of them were being persecuted just to different extents. Okay, so let's say we rule out hallucination. What else do we have?

Oh, gosh, there's a number of different events. Well, we don't have to go through them all, I suppose. Maybe one more that you wrestled with, or were those the main two? Personally, I mean, gosh, I kind of felt like I had to wrestle through all of them. I mean, did the women go to the wrong tomb? Did Jesus actually not die on the cross? But see, these wouldn't discount the appearances of Jesus after his death, right? I mean, let's say they did go to the wrong grave,

and they mistakenly thought that Jesus rose from the dead. It's still the case that the apostles believed themselves to have experiences of Christ after his death. That's well stated. So any hypothesis has to account for the facts that we know, that Jesus lived, that he died, that he was buried, the tomb was empty, and there's claims about his appearances. So people go to the wrong tomb. At best, it explains an apparent empty tomb, but it doesn't explain his appearances. So you're exactly right to qualify it that way. You know, if we're going to specifically grant that the apostles believe they saw the risen Jesus, are willing to suffer and die for it. Hallucinations is a possibility. I think other people would just say, look, they were so invested in this movement. By the time it came

along, they didn't want the embarrassment of saying that they were wrong. So they just kind of bucked it up and for the sake of telling the truth, went ahead with this, even though they knew it was false. That kind of narrative is another one that I've heard people push and say. Yeah. Suppose you became an atheist tomorrow, God forbid, Sean. I suppose all of the research that you've done on this would probably keep you up at night, right? Because suppose you did become an atheist, you tried to convince yourself that Jesus was just whoever. I suppose all the research you've done, as I say, it'd be a pebble in your shoe, I suppose, or at least it would keep you up at night. Like how on earth do you explain this? You know, one of the interesting things for Christians to keep in mind that you're hinting

at is oftentimes atheists have doubts. They do. I have a neighbor of mine who's an atheist and he became a Christian maybe two or three years ago now. And he said, in the back of my mind was this thought like, one percent chance maybe I'm wrong, and that kept me up at night. Wow. What an open-minded guy. He's more open-minded than many atheists I meet. You know, he is. I'll tell you what happened. When he hit a period in his life where things went south and he was broken, he was loved by Christians and there was a renewed interest that he really, I don't think, was open to at that time. I think it was looking back where he said, you know what, that doubt was there. I suppressed it, didn't even want to acknowledge it, but it was there if I'm being honest with myself.

Well, as we begin to wrap up today, you know, you've helped write this book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. And my understanding is, as you already pointed out earlier in the episode, there's a whole lot of new material in this book. It's not just a new front cover on this book, is it? You've done a lot of extra work on it. Our best estimate is about 70% new material. Wow. So, since you're an expert in this, you speak on the topic of apologetics. What would be some of your advice to our listeners as how to do apologetics well, maybe some cautions or something like that? I'd be interested in learning from you. So I'd say a few things.

I'd say, number one, you don't have to have all the answers. Most people in our culture are not that thoughtful about religious issues. We tend to think it's just a matter of feeling. So you're willing to get evidence or Lee Strobel's books and just do a little homework. Number one, it's going to start giving you confidence in your faith that it's true. But also, if you really pray, as I do oftentimes, God, help me see the people around me willing to have conversations that I can share with. It's amazing. Once I have this knowledge, my confidence starts to increase. And it's like, I don't even know if God brings new people in,

or he just opens my eyes up to see the people that have always been there. I'm able to have these kinds of spiritual conversations with people. And I guess my advice would be just go for it. Just jump in on top of, I know life is busy and there's other spiritual disciplines, but Jesus said, love God with your mind. Get a good apologetic book or two, listen to a podcast. As you start to grow to help your conversation with non-believers, your conversations with your kids or your grandkids, it'll help your confidence. I'm really convinced that apologetics is one of the most important ministries of the church today in our growing secular culture. But I definitely say if you do this, make sure you're motivated by loving people, not winning arguments, not sounding smart.

I've made this mistake in my life and have repented from it, Matt, that it's not about that. about that. Apologetics is just a ministry of removing potholes, so to speak, of objections and questions that people have on the way to the cross. And there are great Catholic and there are great Protestant apologists. You want a good Catholic apologist? Read Peter Kreft. He is fantastic and insightful on the historical Jesus and on philosophy. His work is just wonderful. So this is something you and I might. His work is just wonderful. So, this is something you and I might differ on some of those theological particulars, but this is something there's a rich history in both Catholic and Protestant circles, and I would argue is as important, if not more today, than it's ever been.

Yeah, God bless you for your humility, because we've all been engaged with a person at some point or other who we perceived as being arrogant and nothing about that person was attractive after we decided they were arrogant. And I think it would be arrogant to think that we've never been that person. I know I have. And as you say, it's much more impressive, I think, when someone's humble, when they say, I don't know. That's a really good question. And none of us want to do that and maybe and maybe realizing that about ourselves like i really want to be the answer man like i really want people to realize that i'm brilliant i want to be able to quote greek to people in latin and look really smart like to just acknowledge that there's that fallen part of ourself that's perhaps the first step to

then growing in humility as opposed to just denying that that you want to be seen as brilliant and the man with all the answers and so forth so i think that's really cool that just denying that you want to be seen as brilliant and the man with all the answers and so forth. So, I think that's really cool that you said that you've fallen into that in the past and have had to repent of it. That's really good. That's one thing I'm really impressed about you, Sean, is every time I've heard you on Unbelievable or some other episode, you've been super humble, and it's always very disarming and easy to listen to. So, thank you very much for your ministry. Well, I'm not sure how to respond when somebody says I'm humble, because... Oh, yes, I am, but let me just say...

I should write a book about that, yeah. I know. Thanks for saying that. That's what we're all in for together. And if we can speak truth, definitely in our culture, you don't have to have all the answers. Sometimes just saying, I don't know, but I'm willing to look into it speaks volumes to people. And I hope by God's grace that I can do that. Glory to God. Well, thank you so much, Sean. I hope everybody will go out and get a copy of Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell.

Thank you very much, Sean. Thanks, Matt. Well, that was a great discussion, I think. Thank you so much to everybody who is tuning in to Pinesines with Aquinas. And I want to just say a big thank you to everyone out there. You know who you are. If you support Pines with Aquinas on Patreon, you rock, you literally make this show possible. So thank you for being so awesome. If you want to start supporting the show, because you get a lot out of it, and maybe you haven't supported up until now, go to pineswithaquinas.com, click support, and then you can learn how to give 10

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Chat with you next week.