The Sean McDowell Show - 50 Years Studying the Resurrection: Magnum Opus by Gary Habermas

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

What is the latest case for the resurrection? After 32,000+ hours studying the resurrection of Jesus, what does Habermas consider the strongest evidence? What is the backstory to his latest 1,100-page volume? And how has Resurrection scholarship shifted in the past 50 years? READ: On the Resurrection: Evidences, by Gary Habermas (https://amzn.to/4aVn1gd) WATCH: The State of Resurrection Research with Mike Licona and Gary Habermas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OImf99ta89M&t=2s) Make sure to subscribe and check out some of my other videos for more on Christianity, Theology and other aspects of culture! *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Our guest today has studied the historical case for the resurrection, arguably more than anybody else alive. In 1976, he published his doctoral dissertation at Michigan State University with the title, The Resurrection of Jesus, A Rational Inquiry. After nearly five decades of studying the resurrection, he is just releasing the first of four volumes titled on the resurrection the evidences in this in-depth video we're going to look at how the debate about Jesus has shifted over the decades what persuaded Dr Gary Habermas to spend his life studying the resurrection what it considers the strongest evidence for the resurrection and what to expect in this volume and the next three

gary i've been looking forward to this for years since i heard you were working on this thanks for joining me let's jump in yeah thanks sean i've been looking forward to it for years too well you should be excited you've poured thousands of hours into this and we're going to get into what you cover in the volume but before we get to the historical case you that you lay out in this newest book which will involve looking at your 12 minimal facts one by one what first motivated you to rationally examine the evidence for the resurrection and did you expect it to become a life's work? No, although, I mean, no, I would not have expected it. But there's something that might have hinted it. And it was this.

In my teen years, I started going through some serious doubts about Christianity. And it lasted for a long time. It lasted for 20 years, straight for 10 and off and on for 10 more, for a total of 20. And it went on past my PhD. So it went on for a long time. And friends started coming up to me, Christian friends, and saying, so what do you need? And I said, evidence evidence i thought at that time i needed evidence i wish somebody had told me that there are different kinds of doubt but evidence all right well have you studied creation no all right you better start studying that what what we call today intelligent design oh well you better you better study that okay well that's okay not, but doesn't tell me

Christianity is true. Okay. Archaeology. Well, that's nice, but doesn't prove Christianity is true. The New Testament's reliable or almost reliable. I was reading critical material, so I didn't know who to believe. Anyway, they sent me to a bunch of things, and I thought some of them are lousy arguments. Some of them are good arguments, but none of them show Christianity's true. It just shows there's some exciting things about Christianity I didn't know. Then one day in my reading, and I was reading incessantly, I read in a book, if God raised Jesus from the dead, Jesus' teachings must be true because why else would God do it? And I thought, it's like one sentence.

And I thought, wow, that makes sense. And so when archaeology, ID, F.F. Bruce and old arguments for reliability, et cetera, et cetera, it's a prophecy, which I rejected pretty quickly. When they didn't work, enter into my life the topic of the resurrection. Now, I couldn't have guessed. No, I couldn't have guessed it would take me forever. But if you'd asked me, I'd say, well, what else am I going to study? It's the best topic out there so resurrection answered

my factual questions after an incredibly long search and knowing more about myself because i found out about emotional doubt and volitional doubt which i wrote about later but it's but it's been a lifelong search just for me to master this topic. So that's a short preview. If it weren't for the doubt that you described experiencing for 20 years, do you think you would have studied and researched the resurrection as much as you have? No. That is an interesting question. No.

My pastor, a German Baptist pastor, came over to my house. He read fluently in German, and his first name was Adolf, and he sat in my living room. Today, we would call him a fideist of sorts, and he begged me, because my mom said I'm really worried about him with his doubts, and he begged me to put away my books and just trust in the Lord. And my mom said the same thing, just trust in the Lord. My mom said, if you can practice faith for maybe two weeks, every time a question comes up, say, no, I believe, no, I believe. After two weeks, you'll have a habit. Well, say, no, I believe, no, I believe. After two weeks, you'll have a habit. Well, actually, that's pretty sophisticated. You can do that kind of method in psychology for issues. But I said, mom, I'm not going to get over my doubts by saying, I believe, I believe,

I believe. That doesn't make it true. Oh, well. And she didn't know what else to say. So I developed my bad habits. I played a lot of sports especially hockey and football and I would play all afternoon and I would come in at night turn the light on didn't care about any homework I had I was too worried about my doubts and I started studying and it's where I learned my bad habits of not turning the light out at 11 or 12. And I'd stay up till 1, 1.30 and have to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning for college. And I kept studying. And Sean, there were a hundred times when I thought to myself, I'm one hour away.

I'm almost there. Wow, this is exciting. I never was. And the next day, a hundred questions addressed and I was back to it again. Wow. Now we could have a whole conversation just about doubt and you've written some really helpful books on this,

but it's amazing because I've gone through seasons of doubt and oftentimes I've wished I didn't have it, but that's what motivated me to help my dad update evidence that demands a verdict. That's in part what motivated me to study the apostles and I can see a similar thing in your life. Nobody's ever suggested this, but I probably

would have had no reason to go to the resurrection, because in the early years, I didn't care if anybody knew what I was reading or not. It was totally for my doubts, totally for me. I didn't care. I didn't go out and tell my friends what I found out. I just kept studying to answer my own questions. And if I didn't have those questions, wow, up in the air on whether I would have got to it. So this goes way back. Were you keeping note cards? This is probably before personal computers.

Like, how were you doing? Were you arranging this stuff or is it just in your mind? I keep a lot of things in my mind the lords blessed me with uh good memory but but yes no cards i some of your audience is gonna go what's that but i had about 2 000 note cards and i had them numbered in the upper right hand corner so i could keep track of them. I mean, otherwise, how do you find one note card out of 2000? So I numbered them and I always kept track of the number so I could find it. And I had them in those old trays that you put three by five cards in. And I owned four or five of those in order to hold 2000 of them. And they must have been kind of sophisticated because later, not only did I use

that research in college courses, but I used a lot of those notes for my PhD dissertation years later, and the sources were still relevant. They were a little bit old, so I had to get some newer ones to augment them. But the things I wrote down, my professors had no problem with. So, and the funny thing was, when I was 14, I decided to stop and say, what have I learned so far? And I wrote an essay just for me. Obviously, it wasn't going to be good in high school. I wrote just for me to remember what I'd learned so far. And the essay was 25 pages long at age 14. And later it grew to 49 pages. When later in upper level college, I needed to get an essay real fast. I wasn't good about doing my homework. I had too much research to do on my doubts. I just dropped that essay on the teacher's desk and he gave me an A. What I wrote years ago ago i got an a.m but that was written just for me amazing i i love that so we're going to get to your book here and by the way i think it's

probably showing up today i don't have a physical copy in hand i understand it's 1100 pages five pounds i printed it out in two massive documents front and back i hope is okay i've read all of it do you have a copy hold it up and show us because this is holy cow this is like the first commercials on the whopper it takes two hands to handle a whopper it takes two hands to handle this whopper turn it sideways so we can see uh a little bit towards the middle amazing that's how huge it is this is a lifetime of study on the resurrection which is which is incredible i hope folks will pick it up now we're going to get into some of the details of it gary but maybe give us a sense of how scholarship as a whole kind of 30 000 foot

view on jesus and the resurrection has changed since the 70s. Let me go back a little before the 70s, because a scary thing was going on. For evangelical doubters, a scary thing was going on in the 60s, and it continued into the 70s. But I don't want to get too heavy here, but when German liberalism, that's the time period when all the naturalistic theories of the resurrection came up, from 1799 to about 1920. During the period from 1920 to about 1950 or 60, there was an age when many scholars rebelled against the historical Jesus movement of the German movement, and they didn't want evidences. History was out. You could study history, but not as an evidence to back up the Christian faith. And the two biggest names were Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. They were worlds apart. Barth, probably for sure a believer. Bultmann, to the left of Barth Ehrman today. But here's the thing. Late in that century, Bart Ehrman

was the most popular name in theology, both German scholars. Bultmann was a New Testament scholar, and he was a bit of a fideist, a lot of a fideist, and he never gave evidence for anything he said because he didn't believe in historical backup. He would give reasons for things, but not what we would call evidence. And when I went to school, everything was in Bultmann's shadow, and he would say, empty tomb? Are you kidding me? That's mythology. Appearances? Well, I know it's in the New Testament, but what difference does that make? The New Testament came from ancient Hellenistic mythology, and that's the stuff that was going on in the 60s. Hellenistic mythology was big, and Bultmann was very influential. He died in 1976, and things started changing a little bit. And the first group of scholars after that didn't want to get too... Here's how you get really conservative in those days. Say Jesus

rose from the dead. Now you're an outsider. Say he was raised from the dead bodily, and you're a fighting fundamentalist, because nobody said that. A few people dared to say Jesus rose from the dead, but he rose from the dead as sort of a glorified spirit. But don't get me wrong. He was really there, sort of like what some Christians believe Paul saw on the way to Damascus. An ethereal, shining Jesus. Strangely enough, no light is associated with Jesus' appearance in the Gospels. Light's never there.

But as time went on, the third quest for the historical Jesus came in about this time. And now, conservatism, because of a lot of findings, conservatism is back in, and the resurrection is a hot subject from about 1980 on. I don't mean everybody believes in it, but you're not stupid to talk about it because everybody's talking about it. So I fit right into that group. But unfortunately, Sean, when that was going on and everybody was open to resurrection, my doubts at that time, post-PhD, I say this because I wasn't 14 or 16 or 20, Post-PhD, I almost, maybe that's too strong, but I don't think so, almost converted to Buddhism. Wow. My doubts were still going on.

Wow. So I was still torn up about all these questions and things. Yep. So if you had to guess, and maybe this is not even a fair question, I emailed you and I said, how much time do you think you've put into this project, volume one? I think you said about 32,000 hours into this. I actually had a pretty good figure on that. Oh, tell us. I've worked 70 hours a week.

I'm not all on this, so I had to cut a percentage off, maybe 50%. I've worked 70 hours a week for about four. This is my 14th year on this project. And I've been working 70 hours a week as my wife or my research assistant can tell you. So I simply divided 70 times the number of weeks and took about 50% of it off because I do other things like email and everything else. But I worked 70 hours a week of work so that that figure is probably fairly accurate and that's on top of decades before that you've studied it on and off in different ways so who knows how much time you've put but minimally 32 000 hours yeah don't forget the the dissertation was in the earlier period so okay so maybe give us just a quick sense of what's in each of these four volumes and then

we'll start getting honed down into this first volume that's actually out soon okay okay you want me to give the themes of the four volumes? Yeah, just the kind of broad general themes of what you cover in each one. Well, if I hold this up again, you can see the theme of number one, if I can get it over here. It's evidences. Does that do it? Yep. There you go, evidences. On the resurrection, volume one is evidences.

And it's my research assistant and Mike Lacona, my research assistant has a PhD and did his MA and PhDs, thesis and dissertation on the resurrection. So he and Mike Lacona, they said, when are you going to bring out your evidences? I said, oh, probably volume three. They go, oh, no. And my assistant and Mike agreed.

It's got to be volume one. Start with it. And I begrudgingly said, all right. And now I'm glad I did. So number one is the evidences. Number two are alternative theories. And I say alternative because not everything is a naturalistic theory. Like I said just a few moments ago, some believers accepted a view in the 60s and 70s that Jesus was truly, truly raised,

but he appeared about like what a lot of people think Paul saw on the way to Damascus, kind of ethereal, non-bodily, but really there, really there, not a hallucination. That's not a naturalistic theory, but I had to have a chapter on that. Gotcha. So volume two is on natural evidences, natural objections, and other objections. Volume three is, I'm moving away from apologetics now with volume three. Okay. Volume three started out as 1,500 pages, and we've honed it down to about 800

and it is a who's who of liberal all the way to very liberal atheist new testament scholars all the way to very conservative new testament writers with credentials very conservative but you know phd and uh what we did was try to survey about 140 my research assistant said it's more like 200 he said he's the one that typed it up uh about 140 questions minimum from good friday to the ascension so you got about 40 days here and think of all the questions you could ask why the third day um how did jesus appear what's our earliest evidence every question you can think of and all we do in volume three is not argue for anything we give a landscape view from really liberal to really conservative so everybody can speak i hope guys who read it said that volume three will be a basis for people doing MA theses and PhD dissertations because it links the field.

Okay. I've written two little books on the resurrection of theology and resurrection of practice, but nobody knows about it. They didn't saw a lot. So I'm criticized sometimes. All this guy does is talk about evidence, evidence, evidence. Does he do anything else on the resurrection? Well, volume three is the overview and volume four says since jesus has been raised from the dead what does this say about the christian worldview christology and theology in general and pastoral theology and if you want

to get really practical what does the resurrection say to those who've lost loved ones? And since the mother of my four children died of stomach cancer in 1995, and I wrote a book on it, on grief, I feel like I've got some things to apply the resurrection to grief. So the last volume, volume four, is very practical. I got to tell you, of the four, I'm probably most excited about volumes two and four because you cover some of the practical side in your book, Risen Indeed, the kingdom of God and dealing with doubt. And I thought, I'd love to see more on this. So expanding that is going to be such a contribution. We'll have you back and we'll talk about that. Now, in this one, we're going to focus on the evidences. is there anything you've changed your mind on since you wrote your dissertation in 1976 arguments you thought you know what i thought this was strong i'm backtracking arguments thought you were bad that you now buy or is your basic argument roughly the same where it was

um all right let me start by saying yeah there are some things and i can i can outline those but uh the the idea of the minimal facts argument and you mentioned 12 of them earlier actually i use six facts and a second fact six which aren't minimal facts but they're very close for a total of 12. That started while I was doing my dissertation. And let me tell you how the minimal facts thing started. Yeah. Started because my professors at Michigan State, I had a couple of professors who believed in the resurrection,

but I had a couple of very, very, you know, left-wing professors. And they would tolerate whatever I was doing, if I could defend something, but they didn't believe what I was saying. So I had to be very careful what I said. When my dissertation committee accepted my subject on the resurrection, as we were leaving, one of the more liberal members of the committee said to me, as we walked out the door, he said, we're liberal at Michigan State, but we're good liberal. And I'm thinking, what does good liberal mean? He said, good liberal is we will give you a PhD if you define, if you defend well what you do. We do not have to agree with you. You defend it well, you got your PhD. And I always remembered

that. So I sat down and I was trying to make my arguments. Like I said, that was Bultmann's heyday. He died that same year I graduated, and I had to answer, let's just pick one out. The legend theory. Does it all come from Greek myth? I sat there. I remember the chair I was in. I remember where the light was positioned, i sat there and i said if i am writing this for guys who do not believe the bible is even re the new testament is even reliable how can i make get my point across and i made a list of facts that could be backed up without citing ff ruse's little book the new testament documents are they reliable which is the go-to reliability book of those days and if i don cite reliability, because they're not going to give

it to me no matter what. They don't think the New Testament's reliable. They still don't. But what facts can I do according to their ways of arguing? So I learned the liberal way of arguing. I can think much easier as a liberal than I can as a conservative, because that's what I did for my whole life, my doubts and my schooling. And I came up with this list that even Bultmann would accept. And if Bultmann accepts them, everybody accepts them. So that was the beginning of the minimal facts argument. And it just evolved from there. My whole dissertation is, if we only know these data.

Now, how have I changed? When I was writing in the 70s, I could not mention bodily appearances. Not because I didn't believe them, but because everybody thought they were stupid. You could, except for the real conservative New Testament guys, you could teach Jesus was really raised from the dead that's fine but say he was resurrected like paul on damascus he was a glorified person who was there in the room with you and we couldn't stare at him with our eyes when we disappeared so i did kind of work with that paul was the hero in the New Testament. They don't like the Gospels. They still don't. Paul was in. Paul's still in. So today, if you're going to make an argument, you use Paul. All the most sophisticated arguments use Paul. And then you bring the Gospels in when

and where you can, but you bring them in according to their criteria because it's their university and it's the way they do theology and stuff. So I would say the biggest thing I have added starting in the 80s and 90s was filling out my Jesus really appeared with one word. He really appeared bodily. And I started emphasizing that after I got out of Michigan State and I was free to make up my own theory. Then Tom Wright's book comes along in 2003, and he argues what I call, I made Bill Craig laugh his head off when I said this one time. I said, Tom Wright has written the longest word study in history, because his word study on An nest on gnosticism and he garros the two greek word is over 500 pages long and if you don't know what those two words mean after 500

pages and here's tom tom says it's bodily bodily bodily um he calls it he calls it uh he has different words for immortality but he calls calls it physical, physicality, resurrected physicality, he calls it. And so Jesus is raised bodily, and all of a sudden, here's a hero, Tom Wright, who dares to sack, to give you other ones, Gundry, not Stan Gundry, but his brother, Bob Gundry, Mike Lacona. They're arguing for body. That's a big change for me. Forgetting about Buddhism, because at that time I was fighting Buddhism. I went past that. I think maybe today the biggest positive change is if you ask me what are the best evidences for the resurrection,

in my mind, people in evangelicalism, by and large, would not understand my three top choices. They're not the normal ones we give. But they're ones that will stand the strongest critical objections. So that's changed. What I would say the best evidence, they're all New Testament and they're from Paul. But no argument there. It's just they would go, what what you think that's the strongest yeah well what are you going to use the gospel of john yeah well you'll be laughed out of court if you do that so i did i did okay you have to do

your own path when you're going down people who don't like the material okay so don't lay out those three arguments right now we're going to come to your 12 facts soon. But I have to ask, what would you just consider those three strongest facts? I know everybody's wondering that at this point. What would those arguments be without laying them out? All right, say them, but don't explain them. Yeah. Okay. I think there's a tie between one and two, but there's a little edge on one. By far the strongest argument in my mind

is an argument that virtually every critical scholar accepts, even atheist New Testament scholars. And that's in Galatians chapter one and in Galatians chapter two. Notice it's not Matthew, Mark, Luke or Job. After Paul is converted, which everybody dates to two to three years after the crucifixion, so it's 32 to 33, if you think of 30 AD crucifixion, 32 to 33, Paul's converted.

And he specifically says in Galatians 1, three years later, I went up to Jerusalem, and I spent two weeks, 15 days, with Peter, and I didn't see any other apostles except James. So Peter and James. Now, you know, what's the first thing you're going to ask Peter and James if you're Paul? I'll just give you my first question for them if I'm Paul. Hey, I've heard you guys saw the risen Jesus, and you probably heard I have. I don't want to hear rumors anymore. I want you guys to tell me what the risen Jesus looked like to you, and then I'll tell you what the risen Jesus looked like to me. That would be my first question. How can you get around the gospel? So, and in chapter 2, where Paul goes

back to Jerusalem, Galatians 2, first 10 verses, it specifically says we discussed the definition of the gospel. And Paul defines that as burial and resurrection of Jesus. But later in the New Testament, the gospel is the deity, death and resurrection. Burial is not always there. Deity, death, resurrection. So now I know they discussed it in this two trips to Jerusalem. And critics like to say we have Paul's account and Paul's an eyewitness, but we have no other eyewitnesses of the other appearances. And I go, except that Paul interviewed Peter and James, and they were eyewitnesses, and they discussed the gospel.

And even Bart Ehrman says, he says, where do we get closer to the eyewitnesses than right here so i'm going to say jerusalem number one close second is an argument that when i gave it to my phd students just a few years ago they said i'm halfway through my program how come i've never even heard this argument before because it's so hot and being it's been around for a long time but didn't make its way through the numbers of scholars the creedal argument there's early creeds in the new testament dozens of them most of them are in paul but they're in the epistles very rarely in the gospels very rarely but they're usually in the epistles the best known one is first corinthians 15 three some say three to five and some say three to, but that list of appearances is the most famous one, and virtually every

scholar today is going to admit that some are most likely, well, most, and maybe even all, were, they date in the 30s AD. The creeds date in the 30s. So when someone says, how can you believe John john and they'll pick the latest one right just to make a bad point john is plus 65 at 95 a.d he's 65 years later um how good a source is that well i'll answer that better than any other religion has 65 better than the other one but i'll creeds from the 30s that's number two number three a little bit of a lag between two and three but three still good the so-called criteria for the new testament and believers know these we use them all the time and probably don't even know we use them

criteria be things like this do you have eyewitnesses do you have early sources? Do you have enemy attestation? Do you have multiple attestation? You know, multiple attestation is a biggie because that's two heads are better than one. And Bar-Urban, just to give you an example, allows 15 independent sources for the crucifixion of Jesus within 100 years. That's a period he uses for fair history. 100 years, 15 sources for Jesus for the crucifixion of Jesus within 100 years. That's a period he uses for fair history. 100 years, 15 sources for the crucifixion. Well, that's a lot of evidence for the crucifixion. So that's how you use the criteria. It's the things that historians use, Testament scholars use to verify texts. So when you verify a text in the Gospels, how do you know it's true?

That was written way later. Well, let me tell you why. As John Meyer might say, I can find four criteria that back up that fact. If that's true, that's a fact. So I'd say criteria number three. That's super interesting and helpful. Now, I have two broad questions before we jump into your 12 minimal facts, and you can just kind of lay out the case here. But you had an extensive section on the historical Jesus, that Jesus existed. Two-part question. Why don't you include the existence of Jesus as a minimal fact, and what would you say is the state of mythicism as a reputable position, at least as it's viewed within the academy? Okay, if I take the second one first,

you mean by mythicism or the mythicists, this would be people who say Jesus didn't or probably didn't ever exist. Yes. Well, let me, let me cite Bart Ehrman and a number of other people, um, uh, Morris Casey who have written books on this, totally out to lunch is the theory that the New Testament copied off ancient Greek mythology. What Bultmann said was gospel truth in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and died in 76. Today, almost nobody believes it. In fact, one recent scholar who does believe it says, I'm one of three in the whole world. So almost nobody believes it's an ancient myth. They're going to rely on Paul and do something like what I said, the creeds, the criteria, that's how they're going to make historical Jesus. Historical Jesus is in today,

but the Jesus never lived view, which is they copied off Greek mythology and so on. Bart Ehrman goes off on it for 20 pages in his book on Did Jesus Exist? And he says some really tough things. He says, y'all who believe Jesus didn't live, there isn't a scholar among you. And then he says, well, there's a couple. He says, you have a couple with good credentials, but very, very few. Most of you don't have any good reasoning. And he said, some of you, your laughers for Jesus never, your arguments for Jesus never lived. He calls them laughers.

He calls them jokes. And he said, y'all who self-publish your own books and have never been to school and don't have degrees, and you call yourself experts, he says, you wonder why we don't quote you. He says, you're surprised you haven't made inroads into us. And Barth says, you haven't got a foothold in our group. You don't even have a toehold nobody cares what you say so those who think jesus never lived they talk to themselves and they're very influential today but there's almost not a scholar there are a couple there are a few very well good scholars but not very many okay um. So. Fair enough.

Why is it not a minimal fact? Just kind of quick answer. It seems like an obvious fact that meets your criteria. That what is? That Jesus existed. Oh, because the minimal facts apply only to death and resurrection of Jesus. Oh, that's the focus of them. Okay, got it.

Yeah, if I wanted, a lot of guys, a lot of major guys have done what I call minimal facts, but they've done them for Jesus' whole life. And that's how the guys in the third quest do an historical Jesus book, is by applying this kind of thing to all 33, whatever, however many years. Okay, that's great. Obvious point.

Not sure how I missed it. Let's keep going. One more question for you, though, is this is jumping ahead somewhat to your second volume, where you're going to talk about naturalistic hypotheses. But you kind of point forward to that, describing how there's not a lot of scholars today who just take one hypothesis, the swoon theory, the wrong tomb theory, hallucinations. Rather, it's more of a worldview resistance in terms of naturalism. So Bart Ehrman has made this argument that philosophically historians cannot even investigate the miraculous. It's outside of the discipline of history.

Seems to me you have one of two options either to say no historians can investigate it or we can't do it strictly by history but we can still know it by other means which route do you take or a third route and why okay i take a little bit of both i actually agree with bart ehrman in part now my research assistant by contrast ben, who's got a PhD, did his dissertation on the resurrection. He did his dissertation on this question. Can a historian qua historian conclude that the resurrection happened? Wow. Mike Lacone and I are on his committee. We're like Michigan State. Ben, you can get away with whatever you can defend, even if we disagree with you. Ben disagrees a bit with both of us. He thinks an historian can say Jesus was raised from the dead.

I say, he should be able to, kind of on the fence. I'm a little bit close to Ehrman here. But you're right. The other view is still true. A lot of historians will say, I can't do it. I'm an historian. Talk to my theologian or philosopher buddy. See, they give you the path to go to. And I don't care if historians can't find the answer, but philosophers and theologians can. We're still going to get the effects of the resurrection. So I'd say both. I'm a little bit skeptical of what an historian could tell you according to his or her training, but the fact that there's other scholars. My PhD is in history and philosophy of religion. People know me as fitting into philosophy departments. I could just as easily have been a member of the history department because it's

history of religion, philosophy of religion is what I did my PhD on, and my dissertation was in history. And I had to satisfy all three departments at Michigan State, history, on, and my dissertation was in history. And I had to satisfy all three departments at Michigan State, history, philosophy, and religion. So I kind of agree with that. But as long as you can get there, I don't care what your area is. If you can get to the resurrection, I'm happy with you. Good stuff. Well, let's jump into the 12 facts. And let's start with the first one that is one of the minimal facts. And you say, Jesus died due to the effects of Roman crucifixion. Now, you walk through the historical and the medical and the enemy attestation, multiple attestation. We don't have to walk through some of that that's been laid out.

But what struck me as most interesting is you had this in-depth, I don't remember how many pages it is, where you were studying the different medical doctors opinions about how jesus died i had always leaned towards asphyxiation but never done the deep dive and always wanted to when i saw this i was like awesome gary has done this so maybe catch us up to speed a little bit about what how most doctors view jesus dying by crucifixion and why why they take that view yeah yeah a couple years ago ben shaw again my research assistant and i teamed up with a fellow named jonathan koppel jonathan is an md ph from Texas Tech, I believe. And he's a neurologist.

So we got a good guy there, good medical doctor. And the three of us did an article that was published by the Baylor University Medical Journal. And we're not trying to prove what Jesus died of. All we're doing is doing a landscape of medical doctors who answer this. And there are more medical doctors or medical specialists who, see, you can be a PhD in medical school. You don't have to be an MD. You could be a chemist and be teaching medical school. So people who do medicine with earned doctorates, there are more, about the same number of doctors in our study who think that the death by crucifixion is death by asphyxiation than all the other half dozen possibilities

put together. In fact, there's more who believe asphyxiation than double the rest of the half dozen put together. That doesn't make it right. It allows us to say the majority of the views in the published medical literature is that Jesus died by death by asphyxiation. That's the most common medical view. And not every doctor feels that they can just start out and write a paper on they got to be a historian then to do something the crucifixion so how much you think that how much you think that medical case adds to our confidence that jesus died by crucifixion how much depends on the fact that he would die by asphyxiation? No, how much does the medical case that's put forward by these doctors

add to the historical case of him dying by crucifixion? Because for me, I've typically laid out, there's non-Christian sources, there's multiple attestation. I've said the medical evidence is interesting and adds to it. It's like another layer, but not the core of it. Is that how you see it? Yeah, it's very good, Sean. Just citing Bart Ehrman, why would an atheist New Testament scholar give us 15 independent writers from 100 years after the cross? 100. By the way,

they're inside the New Testament, they're outside the New Testament. 15 independent sources say Jesus died by crucifixion. That's pretty good historical evidence to go along with it. But in that medical article with the Baylor Medical Journal, we argue at the end, we're not saying asphyxiation has to be the route. And by the way, it's asphyxiation, not suffocation. There's a distinction between the words, and even medical doctors flip the words around. But asphyxiation, what I'm told is asphyxiation is when you die by something, something's not working internally. You've got a bad case of asthma. You've got pneumonia. But the other view is when someone puts a pillow over your face or a plastic

bag over your head interesting it's a juice but asphyxiation is in you and that's a but that's a predominant view now in jesus case they did things to him right they hung him and they stabbed him but he could still breathe so until he couldn't breathe, and then it's asphyxiation. So that's the most common view. But we in the article, we say, we are not saying that this has to be a death by asphyxiation. It looks like it is from the majority. We can't go majority, but a lot of doctors have a lot of reasons. We think it's probably asphyxiation, but our theory does not rely on that. It relies on two other bits of evidence. One is a series of Roman arguments. For example, a Roman writer says that when the family wanted to get their family member down off the cross,

the centurion who thinks he's dead, he says, this guy's dead. Family says, can we take the body and bury it? He goes, just a minute. They take the body off the cross. They stabbed the body with the spear to make sure the body is doubly dead. And now family members take it away and they take it.

So this Roman source and there's other ones, they break ankles. By the way, that's a good reason. Why do you break ankles if it's not asphyxiation? You go, oh, just to be mean. No. Why is it I always break an ankle? You can throw a rock at his head. I mean, why break ankles?

Because when a person is down and can't pull up, you can't. If your life depends on pull-ups,'re not living very long nobody is if they break your ankles that tells me something's happening with your breathing but it doesn't have to be that one is the roman sources we have historical sources 15 independent sources the roman source stab them with the spear the second reason is the most powerful one of all it beats medicine and. And it was raised by David Strauss in the mid-19th century. It's called Strauss's Critique. But this guy was, I don't know, a fundamentalist pastor of Comer Reprobate. He was the liberal in the 19th century. He was famous for introducing what became Bultmann's views in the 20th century mythology. He did not believe anything

about Jesus, and he died a disillusioned man who rejected the orthodox view of God and the afterlife, which were the marks of liberals. He rejected them both, and yet he said this. He says, there are some jokers in our time who think Jesus didn't die on the cross. It was the most popular view when he started writing. He said, that view is a joke. He said, think about it. If you crucify this guy and you put him in the grave for a few days, I don't care. Make it a week. Make it two weeks. I don't know.

What's he going to look like when he comes out? Now, because I have a very, for a lot of people, a very nasty hobby, All my life, I've gone snake hunting. I've caught hundreds of snakes, and I've been bitten hundreds of times by harmless snakes. I did get bit once by a rattlesnake, but it doesn't matter. So because I'm snake hunting, I stepped on a lot of nails out in the woods when you're turning things over. And I'm going to tell you, when you step on a nail, number one, you don't keep your foot on that nail very long, like less than a second. And you can't walk for two or three days. Now, if Jesus is on a big spike for a long time, and you expect him to walk, and you beat him up first, and if you stab him with a spear, what's he going to look like when he appears? This is David Strauss.

What does he look like when he appears to the disciples? We used to have a phrase in the 60s. I don't know if anybody uses it today, but we used to call it death warmed over. You look like death warmed over this morning. Jesus would have looked like death warmed over. What's he look like? He's struggling. He can't stand up. He leans against the doorpost. He's sweating. He's bleeding. He's soaked. He's soaked his clothes with sweat and with blood, and he knocks on the door, and he tells the disciples, guys, I told you I would rise again from the dead. I think they'd look at each other and go, who did this joke? And I think Peter would go, Andrew, get a bowl. Mary, get some water.

Get us some rags. This man needs help. Get over here and lay on the couch. Okay. What the swoon theory that Jesus never died or the apparent death theory, what it proves is that Jesus was alive, but he was not raised. That's what comes from, if you want to say he faked death, the argument is congratulations you got a living jesus now where does that get you because he's not they they're not dumb they know enough to know this guy isn't ready to go to heaven and sing with the angels he's a bad shape and then where does he of course that's the number one reason asphyxiation is helpful the roman sources are great the multiple sources are great but Strauss's critique historically since about 1864 it has been the end of the swoon Theory scholars

still today say Strauss killed the apparent death Theory that's the reason that's the reason to be sure Jesus was dead he couldn't pull it off otherwise Strauss killed the theory pun intended of course and I agree with you that's a strong a strong critique now your minimal facts pun intended I like that your minimal facts have two criteria number one about 90 a scholarly uh support and belief plus very good evidential support and you emphasize it's more about the evidential support. It's not just a majority type of argument. Now, Jesus died by crucifixion. If we added presumably Muslim scholars, that would drop this way below 90%, right? Because of surah 4, which says he was crucified, not only appeared to do so.

Now, some will adopt like certain sects islam will take the swoon theory some will say they made somebody appear to but wouldn't that completely change the first fact no now first of all to make clear i never say anywhere people cite me but i never say anywhere that you have to have 90 percentile of scholars it just turns out that it's more like 95, but I don't require that. It's just that everybody allows this. Okay. Secondly, no, the Muslim theory does not change this one iota. And here's what you go, what do you mean? Look how many scholars they have and look how many scholars and they have degrees too. Okay. Here's the problem. What is their source? And why do they hold this? It's the Quran. When was the Quran written?

Well, if we can believe the conservative Muslim view, 630 A.D. it was left. And when was Jesus crucified? 30 A.D. So real simple math, the Quran comes 600 years later. Nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody else thinks that a source 600 years later can tell you what happened 600 years earlier. It's the source. Listen, over here on my shelf, I've got a book by a Muslim scholar. And he says, the critics, the Christians are going to say, that comes from your book and your book is 600 years later. You can't do is 600 years later. You can't do history

600 years later. And the author actually says, they're right. And then he says, but when they say that to me, let me tell you my response. The Gospels have so many errors in it. Okay, okay, let's put these two against each other. You guys are right. The Quran is not a history book. You can't, I mean, and not in the sense that you can refute the crucifixion with it. It's too late. But you guys have a lot of errors in the Gospels. Here's what they don't understand. If they don't allow a source from 600 years later, they've got nothing.

But what about that you guys have errors? That's why I did the minimal facts. Everybody at Michigan State and most scholars today believe the New Testament's full of errors. Minimal facts works around the errors. Let me give you just a goofy illustration. I saw a magician one time up on a stage, and this woman crawls into a box, and he puts a lot of swords through the box, and then she stands up and walks out. Then he let us all come up and look at what happened she's in the box but because she's really limber she twisted her body along this preformed line and the swords went into other categories my point is

she missed the path of the i don't care how many errors you think there are in the Bible. I'm going to use facts that everybody allows, even atheist New Testament scholars. So obviously, the reason, discrepancies don't touch these facts. I'm using the ones for which there are no discrepancies. And if I can still get a resurrection, the worst thing I could have, this is the worst. This is not me. You've got to remember I teach at Liberty University. The worst thing you would have is a Swiss cheese New Testament where Jesus still is the word this is not me you gotta remember i teach at liberty university the worst thing you would have is a swiss cheese new testament where jesus still is the son of god who died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead it's a little swiss cheese because they

find critics problems we still have the gospel and we're still going to heaven and the gospel's still true so that guy's saying the the quran can't can't refute 30 AD. He's totally right. But when he does errors, everybody does errors. It does not refute these key facts. I mean, does anybody think Bart Ehrman thinks there's no errors in Scripture? Bart Ehrman says it's not even reliable. Well, why does he admit all my facts? Because they're facts.

That's why. All right, good response. No, that's great. You've been doing this for decades. You learn your kind of, just like that woman in the box, you learn your way around these things. No, no, I love it. That's great.

Well, let's shift to the next one. You said Jesus was buried most likely in a private tomb. So what's kind of the basic case for the burial and the consensus on this? And it seems like this has changed, hasn't it, over the years? Yeah, but remember, burial is not one of my minimal facts. Burial is one of the second six. Maybe we should name them real fast so that people know, because my minimal facts start with Jesus died by crucifixion. And the very next one is the disciples had experiences that they believed to be appearances of the risen Jesus. I don't even count the empty tomb, because the empty tomb,

there's as many evidence for the empty tomb as there is for any fact, but scholars don't like it, so I put it in my second six. A burial is way in the second six. I think it's good. The evidence for the burial is good, but it's not one of my six facts. So I go from Jesus died by crucifixion to the disciples thought they saw him again. That's number two. And that, by the way, is not only the most important fact for us, that they saw him walking and talking after he died on the cross.

It's not that's the most central, but it's also the strongest. Along with the crucifixion and that he was seen afterwards are the two strongest i'll tell you this of all the appearances in the uh in the uh well mostly all gospels you got paul but and you got james but of the appearances to christ keep these two things in mind most of them them are to groups. That's really important. Most of them are to groups. And secondly, the strongest appearance is the appearance to the 12. It's multiply attested over and over. And even the Jesus Seminar, critics that they are, even Bart Ehrman, even Dom Crosson, who I just got an email from while I'm sitting here talking to you, even Dom Crosson, all these guys will say that they're not questioning the crucifixion at all.

They allow it. And they allow that there were multiple reports of group appearances. By the way, here's a citation. Talk about Don Crossan. This is pretty close to a quote. Crossan says, I take it absolutely for granted that Jesus died by Roman crucifixion. I take it absolutely for granted. That's awesome

another one from the jesus center marcus board says almost the exact same thing quote bart ehrman 15 sources so that and the appearances are a one-two punch okay so let's walk through there's a list in the book where you list the 12 together but not necessarily in the order of the six minimal facts and then the six uh attested facts it's more like you list them kind of step by step chronologically in the life of jesus even though they're all uh well more telling the story of jesus so to speak well they're not mixed in my table of contents i'll do it this way if you you probably have it right there in the table of contents i have the six minimal facts if i can turn the page let me get my glasses the table of contents i have the minimal historical facts as part three. Okay.

And then halfway down, I mean, you see the other facts. The next one is the other six known historical facts. So six plus six equals 12. Notice burial is in the second list. Gotcha. The first six. If you just want me to say them. Yeah, say the first six. We've done two.

He just died. They thought he appeared. The disciples' lives were totally transformed. And you always say, man, you've written the best book on this. We always say, don't ever say you can prove the disciples died for their faith. That's bogus. I mean, you can go a long way, but you have to use sources that are not as late as the Muslim source to the New Testament, but they're late on the New Testament. So always say the disciples are willing to die for their faith. That means the disciples are transformed. And as you

say in your book, there's no evidence that anybody recanted. So that's great, the transformations. It was proclaimed, I skipped one, the resurrection was proclaimed very early. Early in transformations happen at the same time. That's the cradle evident right and then the last two are james and paul burial's not there now when you turn the page and you see the other six empty tomb was one burial is one etc okay so folks so they can hear this your minimal facts are jesus died by crucifixion no No debate about that. The disciples reported experiences they thought were appearances of the risen Jesus. Number two. That the disciples thought they thought appearances is not disputed.

Good. Third one is they proclaim the resurrection early, right after their experiences. So like you're saying, we'll come back to this there's no early non-resurrection gospel that was proclaimed fourth james i'm sorry fourth is the transformation in their lives to the willingness to die and then james and paul those are the six okay let me come back to the second one here you said the disciples report experiences they thought were actually appearances of the risen jesus now here's where some debate they thought they were appearances they thought they were now here's where some debate comes in that we have the testimony of paul in first corinthians 15 one of the accepted letters three accounts and acts strong historical case can be made for this few people question paul. Few people question Peter. We have

multiple accounts of Peter singled and named out. But when it comes to the other 12, now they're just mentioned as a group, not mentioned as individuals. So how much confidence can we have in, say, James, the son of Zebedee, or Matthew, or Thaddeus, who's not specifically mentioned, and we don't have his direct eyewitness claim that he saw the risen Jesus? I say two things. nuance that claim of disciples' transformations, I will say as far as we know and all the literature we have, it's positive. But here's the more important one. There's four big names in the early research. You've named everybody but one in our talking here, Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, Paul, and John. They're the foremost influential Christians probably of all time. And when Paul goes to Jerusalem to talk to the eyewitnesses, this is my number one reason, remember, he sees Peter and

James and Paul. Three of the four are there. And when he comes back in Galatians 2, John is there. And in Galatians 2-2, which basically all scholars except critics, 2-2, Paul laid on the table the gospel he preached. And he says right after that, they added nothing to me. They added nothing. The gospel is the same. I mean, the gospel teaching is the same. And a few verses later, verses 9 and 10, they gave Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship. So, okay, now, who did? At least Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, and John. We have them. Okay, if they're the big four, Peter, Paul, Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, and John,

they're the most influential ones. We have first century martyrdom reports on three of the four, and I know you reject the second century one for John, but a lot of people think John's the only one that, you know, nothing ever happened to him, but we have a second century report. You can do what you want with that. But we have Peter, James, Jamesames the brother of jesus and paul we have first century witnesses and later but we have them as early as the first century to their martyrdoms

so i say at least those guys you go what about the rest of them i say it's irrelevant to me there's four here we can track them three of them died and the rest of them are willing to and now they go how do you know they're willing? Do you read their minds? I love this when they say that. I think they walk into a trap. Can you read their minds? How do you know they're willing to die?

I'll say, I don't read their minds. I read their feet. When you go back into a city over and over and over again, or you go in the same geographic area where you're beat up and left for dead just a walking distance away? Guess what? You're more interested in proclaiming your truth than you are about your life. So they're willing to die.

But I make a big deal of Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, and Paul. If you want to use John, if you don't want to use John, they're the're the four that are in uh galatians one and two only the first three are in galatians one and not notice why that's why those guys are in the minimal facts that makes sense now and that's why i think it's the best evidence for the resurrection those two trips to jerusalem so what what's interesting when it comes to the other apostles another potential angle here is when you look at the beginning of Acts uh they lay out the name specifically in Acts chapter one it says Peter and John James and Andrew Philip and Thomas Bartholomew Matthew James Simon Judas the son of James they're specifically mentioned by name and then Peter stands up and he's going to lead and speak on behalf of the apostles.

And he says, we are witnesses of these things. So we don't have a strong of a case for the appearance to say Thomas as we do to say Peter. But his name is mentioned there. Like, I'm not willing to just completely give up with it and say we don't have an adequate historical case. It's a good historical case, just not as strong as Paul and Peter. How about a couple other hints to get there? In that same list that you give, that the apostles are there, it says Mary and the boys were there and it says Mary and James were there so someone says when did James become a Christian I'll go I don't think anybody knows but here's a couple parameters for you at the cross if you can believe John

John gives Jesus gives John says Jesus told his mother to go home with John. Now, and they go, why not James? Well, I don't think James was present at the cross. I think that can be kind of clear. I'm thinking chances are James isn't a Christian yet, but he's there shortly after the ascension. So I think James's conversion happens a little bit between the cross and that upper room that you just mentioned, because James is there. And we have an account. It's not trustworthy, but we have an account from about 125 A.D. where Jesus appears to James. That is recorded in the Gospel of the Hebrews. Jesus appears to his brother.

So I think James comes in there, and he's there too. And also notice in that first chapter in Acts, we have to pick a 12th disciple because Judas died. So we have to pick a witness who's been with us from the beginning, and he has to be a witness of the resurrection. Then Peter winds up and he preaches the first Christian sermon post-Jesus, and in Acts 2.22, he uses the argument that nailed me way back with my German pastor when Peter says in Acts 2.22, Jesus is a man approved among you. How do you know he was approved? Next two verses. The miracles he did, including he was raised from the dead. So Peter preaches in his first sermon that the resurrection of Jesus indicates that Jesus' teachings are true, and that's why God raised him. So we have everything right there. And if you say to me, well, we don't have an appearance to Thaddeus. Okay, I have a

second reason for you. You're right on the first one. We have that list in Acts 1. Here's the second one. I've already said it, but I'll repeat it. The best evidence of the appearance is the appearances to the 12. All the apostles are there in the beginning. What if somebody fell away later? What if they didn't? Well, what if they did? What if they didn't? See, this argument's going nowhere, but we don't have any data.

As you say, I'll quote Sean McDowell. As you say, we have no evidence of recanting, neither in the New Testament or in the early reliable sources, nothing. But I still, I concentrate on Paul, Peter, and James, for which we have outstanding data. Hey, one thing we should mention, Sean, in Acts, there are a lot of creeds. And in Acts, though, they're called sermon summaries. And they're primarily found in Acts 1 through 5, 10, 13, and 17.

If you go back and look at those, in every one, the gospel is given, the resurrection is present in every one. It's a deity, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Acts 1 through 5. So I would tell my PhD students this. If you ask a conservative, how do you know what happened in the earliest church after the gospels? Oh, easy. Read the book of Acts. You ask a liberal. How do you know what happened in the earliest church after the gospels oh easy read the book of acts you ask a liberal how do you know what happened read the book of acts what you guys don't agree do you no way what's the evangelical say i take the whole book of acts what's the liberals say i use the sermon summaries i use the creeds but just still get the

data the value of the creeds that's really a great point from acts one when they're replacing uh an apostle for judas to criteria been with jesus since the beginning of his ministry and a witness to his resurrection that assumes the very names listed there at the beginning of acts were a part of 12, and were also witnesses to the resurrection. So not as strong as Peter giving his own account, but that's a strong historical record we can't simply dismiss. All right, so let's... We have Peter giving his own account in Galatians 1 and 2, as told by Paul, and the critics think Paul is reliable. By the way, along with Galatians 1 and 2, you've got maybe the strongest verse, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 11. He's talking about all the

people who saw Jesus, and he's got two groups. He's got, well, he's got three groups, but the 12, a group called all the apostles, and a group of 500. And after he talks about the apostles seeing Jesus in verse 11, extremely important verse, he says, whether it is them, he just got done talking about the apostles, whether it's them or whether it's me, so we preach and so you believe. We have Paul saying, I don't know if he means all 12. He didn't say all 12. I'm not going to die for that. But he did say the disciples, more than just three, were running around preaching the resurrection. And here's the important point, that they were preaching the same thing. Paul and the disciples are eyewitnesses, and that's why Galatians 1 and 2 are so powerful. The argument goes like this, boom. It all just fits right in together like this.

That you've got the creeds and the Acts, Sermons, Summaries, everything. So Jesus died by crucifixion, minimal fact. Second, the apostles had experiences they believed were of the risen Jesus. The third minimal fact is the proclamation of the resurrection appearances took place very soon after the very early after the experiences now i had to spend a lot of time on this in my dissertation because if the apostles were willing to suffer and die i had to show that that belief was tied to the resurrection so you laid out in your chapter even more detail than i laid out in my own study but what are just some of the basic facts why we know there is no early Christian faith apart from the resurrection, and the resurrection isn't some

kind of late mythical add-on to this movement that was already taking place? Right, two ways. That last part first, scholars don't believe there were add-ons. They don't believe they brought in, well, Christians could have made one up, but they don't believe they brought in well christians could have made one up but they didn't get one from any other foreign religion or hellenistic stuff because there's dying rising gods in the ancient world too they don't think christians copied the the three guys the the main guy who's talking and says i'm one of three guys who believe these theories i understand from one of his students, he's a Christian. Number two, he believes it doesn't touch the resurrection. So they just think there's stories out there.

They don't relate them. That's one. But what was your first question here just before? Oh, how do we know the resurrection is central? Because whenever the gospel is defined in the New Testament, it's not death, burial, resurrection, which we say oftentimes, but burial is not there probably more than half the time. It's deity of Christ, death, and resurrection. You go, whoa, whoa, time out. How do you get deity of Christ? Because of

the names they use. And Lord, just to take one, Lord in the New Testament, a lot of books being written on this. Lord in the New Testament is the, well, there's several words for Lord. But the major word for Lord is the Old Testament equivalent of Jehovah. Guess who Lord is? Well, he could be Lord of the Manor. Yeah, well, Jehovah wasn't Lord of the manor. So if you're going to use the name of Jehovah, here's a great example. Creed. This is Creed. We cite Paul, but it's Creed. Romans 10, 9. If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and

believe in your heart that God's raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. Now notice, deity, resurrection, death. That's the way it happens in that verse. Just right after that, Paul tells you what he means by Lord, and he quotes Joel. Whoever calls upon the Lord will be saved. Whoever calls upon the Lord is Paul's verse for what Lord means, and Lord there is Jehovah. So deity, death, and resurrection are all there. Someone says, oh, it's a tack-on. It is? Well, then how come every time the gospel is repeated, it's always deity, death, resurrection? You get the point after a while? Deity, death, resurrection. Don't leave resurrection out.

What's 1 Corinthians 15 say? You leave the resurrection out, we have nothing. By the way, center, I think the fact that in my dissertation, I have empty tomb and burial are part of the original six, and I have four more. One of them is centrality, and I could move it up in the middle of that. Center could be up there. Virtually nobody says that the resurrection wasn't a central doctrine. But my question would be, if someone says it's not, how come it's in the gospel every single time the gospel is preached in the book of acts and in the epistles of paul in particular it's there i think your section is as powerful and extensive

as i've seen from their creeds that predate the new testament the writings of paul the gospels the preaching in the book of acts the early church fathers i mean there's no layer i could find that's absent of the resurrection exactly i think that's it makes sense that that's minimal fact now we talked about the evidence of james you hinted at one of the objections is that we have james who we don't really know it was the appearance of jesus that converted him now you cited earlier that we have the account in first corinthians chapter 15 and then we have kind of what's called the gospel of hebrews i think is the title mid-second century that has kind of an appearance to james now which is awesome it's only a fragment but the appearance of james is there yes so it's

multiply a test i know crossing goes for a third source and maybe the gospel of thomas 12 but i'm not convinced by that i don't think you are either i know the gospel of thomas 12 makes no sense to me at all as that is back in the if it backs it up it backs it up but i don't see i don't care if thomas backs it up it's fine with me but i don't see it in saying 12. I agree. I'd like to be convinced by that, but I just didn't see that it was there. How do we know it was the resurrection appearance that converted James? Or if it's not what converted him, does that really ultimately matter for the strength of his conversion? No. And what I would say is we learn of james's unbelief in three places minimum mark three mark six john seven in mark six he seems to side he and the other brothers seem to

side with the townspeople who think jesus is mentally ill that's the greek word there the mentally the the word for there could mean schizophrenia or out of their mind in some sense. And they're embarrassed. I assume the brothers are embarrassed because Jesus is bringing their good name down. For all we know, maybe they're carpenters and it's hurting their business. So they pulled Jesus aside. They didn't believe. Mark 6 again, they didn't believe. John 7 makes it real plain for as not they believed they for as yet they did not believe in jesus then later again he's not at the cross i think that's a fair the fact that he's not at the cross if he's a believer and even a good brother

why isn't he there and but he's in the up he's right after the upper room so it's a i don't know that the appearance did. We do have the Gospel of the Hebrews. But it looks like by far the best argument. However, I really don't care. The pain point is, is James one of those who sees the risen Jesus? Is his life changed? We have Josephus saying he was basically the pastor in Jerusalem.

He dies martyrdom in 62 AD, and a non-biblical, non-Christian writer tells us this source. And we have many other sources we could use, but I think Josephus is the one we will go to. Josephus writes, by the way, just about 25 years later. And he's not a Christian. So we know James is part of that transformation group because he wasn't. Mark 3, Mark 6, John 2, critics don't question that as a rule. You have two, Painter and Bauckham, both say that probably doesn't mean that, but that's a small minority of everybody.

And then all of a sudden he's in the church, and they're in the upper room after the Ascension, and he and Peter are co-pastors in Jerusalem when Paul comes there for a visit. So I think James is not an issue. And Paul is so well known, you are not going to find even hardly a single scholar who's going to question Paul's conversion because he thought. Remember all of them. The disciples saw, James saw, Paul saw, the rest of it's the same. They all saw what they thought was an appearance of the risen Jesus. That's not disputed. And Paul's our best witness. So we won't go through all six of the other, not minimal facts, but well-supported facts.

But let me just come back to the one about the burial of Jesus. Because there's been some prominent scholars like Prossen who have denied this. And I think more recently, Bart Ehrman has kind of backtracked and said he doesn't accept the burial. Where is scholarship as a whole on this? And maybe what are just a few of the key historical points you think are so convincing that we can trust this account? Okay, a lot of things to say here. First of all, yeah, you're right. Bart Ehrman has changed. He used to hold the private burial. How about the fact that we don't have any sources that tell us that Jesus is buried in what's called a trench, a rectangle in the

ground, and he was put there, and yeah, the dogs ate him, or he was thrown in the trash heap, Gehenna, in Jerusalem, and they burned him. No sources. Well, the comeback is, what would often happen with crucifixion victims? Yes and no. We have a source in Josephus that tells us that Jews were so particular about the resurrection of the body, as far as the trash heap is concerned, that they even buried people who were capital punishment people. They buried them. Okay, well, that could be in the ground. Okay, I was only answering the Gehenna thing, the trash heap. But there is more evidence for the tomb easily. Bill Craig has probably done the most on this, certainly one of them, who does an argument for Joseph of Arimathea had to be this, most likely, this tomb.

All the data we have link it to a man, Joseph, from the Sanhedrin, his tomb. There's many of them in Jerusalem, many. You go, well, that's only three or four facts. How many do you have for he was thrown to the ground? Well, just that usually occurred. Now, you can't even use that because Josephus says they didn't treat them that way. But here's my biggest comeback on this. I think we're pretty solid because we have a lot of facts for the burial, but I'm so used to arguing what I'm going to say next. If I'm in a little dialogue, I'm going to say, I don't give a rip. All right.

And you go, why would you say that? It's gospel. I'm arguing for deity death resurrection of jesus now let me just make a point to show you i would tell the critic let me make a point to show you that i right now i don't for all intent purposes for right now if i'm talking about this at university i don't care where he was buried let me make a point if this if the disciples stole the body and moved him to Peter's living room and didn't know what to do with him, and he's wrapped up in a linen cloth on Peter's couch, he's not buried in

any of the above things we've answered. Well, he took him out of the tomb. But what happens on Easter Sunday? Darn it, Jesus rises in Peter's living room. What I mean is, if they put him in a trench, if they put him in a tomb, if he's in a tomb but we don't know where it is, the most important point is, was he dead on the cross? Yes. And what happened afterwards? He was seen. What's the best appearance? The 12. And most of the appearance accounts are group accounts. You know what? And I would say, again, if I have a short time and i'm speaking in university i got the crucifixion easy i got the appearances easy the best one is the 12. and you're going to try to slow me down and ask me what happened on the burial let's talk about the appearances and that's why the minimal facts work so well i think the evidence is very strong that

he's buried in a private tomb jose, because there's no facts to the contrary. I mean, nothing substantial, but, you know, beyond that, I don't use it. I care that Jesus died and he was raised and seen, I mean. The two facts in the burial that are interesting to me, of course, is that it's multiply attested and that it would be embarrassing potentially to have somebody from the very group that condemned Jesus to death to give him this honorable burial, of course. That's an interesting factor. Joseph never corrects it. He doesn't come out and say, no, there's no contrary. There's just a list of data for the burial, and I give some of it there in the book. There's a list of data for the burial, but like I said, if he would rise from Peter's living room, he can certainly arise from a dirt trench in the ground. Fair enough. Nothing in my faith depends on where he was

buried, although I think it's good. I think you're right. Joseph is good. But I do want to know that he died and that he was seen by multiple people. That makes sense. I do think it's remarkable, and we'll move on, that we have the name Joseph. We have where he's from, Arimathea. We have his financial status, obviously, that a rich man's tomb, and his position that he held. I mean, these are not insignificant facts in Jerusalem that was smaller than people think. It'd be hard to make up something like this that's not true and get away with it. How about the fact that we have four gospels? Now, somebody's going to say, oh, the gospels are late sources. Well, yeah, they're later than the creeds and they're later

than Paul. But you tell me who the earliest sources are for krishna 4200 years later for the uh for the bhagavad-gita 1800 years later for the upanishads uh these other religions buddha i got a buddhist book on my shelf over here where the guy starts the book out and say we don't have any evidence like christianity our earliest word statements of buddhists are six to eight hundred years later, and then he makes this outstanding. He's a PhD professor in England. He says, we don't know what Buddha taught. The sources are too late. By the way, they're still earlier than the Koran on the New Testament. But he says, we don't know what he taught. So even the Gospels are early. And here's my point. Those guys did not

write those four Gospels in four bedrooms in the same house. They wrote them differently around the whole Mediterranean, and they all tell the same story of Josephus without looking over each other's shoulder. You said multiple attestation. You're exactly right. That's a very strong evidence that that's the story they all... And the women go to the tomb how embarrassing not the men they were scared but the women went that's embarrassing testimony which is a criteria so this is again we're we're doing this stuff you took me exactly where i was hoping to go next on the empty tomb which again is not part of your minimal facts but it seems like you said your best estimate was about 80% of scholars agreed with this, if I read that right. So has there been a shift in acceptance of the empty

tomb since like the 70s or even earlier? Yeah, you know, you opened it. I have been criticized probably by critics more than anything else. I've been criticized for saying 75% of scholars believe in the empty tomb, which I said probably 20 years ago, 18. And I've said it since. That's because I did a survey. That's just my survey. I don't claim it's authoritative or anything.

But in my surveys, 75%, well, sometimes I'll say, oh, two-thirds to three-quarters believed in it. But I did a new one for this book. I did a new survey of over 250 critical scholars, 250. And they have to have a terminal degree and a relevant field and have spoken on this subject. And now my figure this time, as you noted, it's moved from 67 to 75. It's gone up now to 80. It was like 80.2%. And I didn't doctor to get that last percentage point. The first time I did it, it was 80.2%. We're now up to 80% for the empty tomb. We're getting close to making the scholarly acceptance put it up in the empty tomb, but I put up with the minimal facts. But if you're looking about arguments, there's over 20 arguments

for the empty tomb according to critics' standards, which make it as well defended. If you get rid of that critical point, the second point of my minimal facts, first one is what the facts say, empty tombs up there with the other five. That's why I call it, notice as I go further on in the book, I call it six plus one. I call it six plus one. The empty tomb is plus one because it doesn't pass my critical scholars test, but it more than passes the more important test of evidences. The empty tomb now probably maybe my favorite part of your book uh one of the top three is that i remember you referencing years ago maybe it was in risen jesus future hope he said there's about close to half a dozen arguments for the empty tomb and i always thought what are these arguments where are they i'm not aware of them and i get to the chapter here and

i was like yes you laid out 21 of these arguments. Now, we're not going to walk through all 21 of them. People are going to have to go through your book. That would be an entire talk just within itself. But I'm curious what you think. Two-part question. We'll start with the first one. What do you think is maybe the two or couple best arguments for the empty tomb and then i've got

a follow-up question about some of the lesser known ones that that you now reference now in the in the material on the empty tomb in this in the big book because i've done this and i've got 22 other books in the resurrection but what i'm saying is people then people go oh and you put all 22 of them together to get this big one actually there's no new material I mean there's no old material in this book um a very small apartment where I took some paragraphs here and there but this is all new material the big book but in my earlier works I do give I could tell you who the guys are but somebody will give eight arguments for the empty tomb somebody else gives 12 and the list keeps going and and I've got 20 in there arguments for the empty tomb somebody else gives 12 and the list keeps going and and i've got

20 in there arguments for the tomb but i differentiate the first six to eight are the best the rest of them from eight on are subsidiary arguments they're helpers not the original ones so i think the bigger the best arguments for the empty tomb i don't know how many you want me to give but i'll give you two right off the bat. You can push for more if you want. That's great. The two arguments right off the bat, the one critics think is number one. And man, this is like unanimous that women were the ones that went to the earliest tomb.

Okay, time out. Our earlier question. If the women went to the tomb, what didn't they do? They didn't take shovels and go over in the dirt and dig up the rectangular grave. So if you think the women went to the tomb, we're already past the burial. So the women go to the tomb, and all the sources say the women did this, all four Gospels. Now, contrary to popular opinion, Jews aren't the only one that put women down. As different authors have said, it was the major view around the entire Mediterranean. Women were second-class citizens. Guys were the boss. So if you're back again, you're these four gospel writers.

You're not writing in four bedrooms in the same house. I mean, like historically, Mark's from Rome. John's from Ephesus. These are long distances away. Why do they all tell the women? Huh. Maybe it happened that way. And if the women are the first ones to the tomb and they find the

tomb empty, that is by far the most critical argument, that they use it, women, which is horrible because, again, criteria, it's embarrassment. Don't, okay, I want all the critics, I want all you Romans to believe me. The tomb was empty because the women found it. They start walking away from you at that point. If you can put your best foot forward, here's what I would say. The men went to the tomb. And I'm not lying because of both Luke and John, men go to the empty tomb after they hear the women's reports.

But I could start with the men if I wanted to be respectable. They don't care about respectable. They want to be factual. So the first one is that the women went to the tomb and saw jesus in a group second reason is what mike lakota and i in our co-author book case for the resurrection we call it the jerusalem factor if jesus was buried in ininople, somewhere in Egypt, if Jesus died somewhere else, and the preaching starts in Jerusalem, like what early chapters in Acts say, and the creeds in Jerusalem, nobody would go to Egypt, Alexandria, to check this thing out. Nobody would

go to Constantinople. But these guys have the guts to preach the message when the tomb is minutes away. If Peter goes, he's raised. Not like David. David's body decayed, Acts 2. David's body decayed. Jesus did not decay. His body did not decay. What happened? Because he was gone. He appeared. Oh, yeah? Well, I just made a trip to your tomb, and that tomb is full, buddy. Okay, now critics like to say this. What if a critic went to the tomb, and they found a body there, but the body, the face was rubbed off, it's decomposed, and they don't know who it is, then the disciples would be wrong. Because they didn't just say Jesus walked out of the tomb. They said nobody was in the tomb.

The tomb was empty. Nobody. If you find a body in the tomb, you've disproven it. So you could go there as much as you want. The stones, you can walk in. You can take a half a day. You can take an afternoon walk. He's not there.

Jerusalem is the last place they can preach if the tomb's not empty. The last place. So I think the fact that they chose this, man, Peter, go to Alexandria and preach. I can't check it out. But if you're going to preach with the body right there, that's silly, unless the tomb is empty. That was an interesting response, because oftentimes critics will push back and say, well, even if the body was there,

it wouldn't be recognizable after, say, 50 days, a couple months, roughly. But your point, if I'm understanding you correctly, is saying it's not like they found some body and couldn't recognize it. You're saying there was no body at all recognizable or not. That's what the apostles found. Yes, there's two problems. That's one, if there's any body, you lose. Here's the second one. Michael Cohen and I have each talked to medical doctors who medical examiners who examine bodies that are taken out of rivers and people who are dead in

the woods for a long time before they're found and everything and we both asked medical examiners without even knowing what we were asking they didn. We said, could you recognize a body after a week, two weeks, a month? And what if you, you know, and how far can you go? They said, there's two answers. They said, yeah, you can still recognize the body. But here's the second point. Let's say the face is kind of wiped off a little bit. How about this? We found a body in the tomb, and there's nail holes in the wrists and nail holes in the feet. I think we got you guys. No body in the tomb, and you'd still be able to tell by the nail holes it was probably Jesus. They had nothing like that. And why did thousands of people come to the Lord? According to Acts, on the first two sermons, 5,000 people come to the Lord.

If they can walk to the tomb and see Peter's a liar. Because, you know, Peter's one of the men who we're told went to the empty tomb after the women were there. And they walked away scratching their head. And we're told that John believed, but Peter still didn't know what to think. That's interesting. The disciples didn't believe because they found the tomb empty they believed they saw him appearing that's always the key so women discovering the empty tomb even dale allison his recent book in the resurrection says this is a good argument and he's obviously

takes a very skeptical approach to this uh preaching in Jerusalem others will cite things like multiple attestation of the empty tomb uh the sighting of Paul in first Corinthians 15. uh I would almost say I would make multiple attestation number three number three you would okay okay and now we got three and go ahead. You were talking about Paul now. Well, I was mentioning a couple of the other kind of common arguments that are made, such as the body being stolen, presumes that the tomb is empty. Are there any from kind of the lower, like 15 that don't get a lot of press that you think is a good argument for the empty tomb that apologists should make more commonly or do you think the

common ones that are made typically are the stronger ones okay we said women jerusalem and multiple attestation this one could be the best one and it's one of the top six or eight depending on how you caught them tom wright's argument that is also present in Gundry, Robert Gundry's book, Soma, also in Mike Lacona's big dissertation, and also in, if you've ever read John Cook, he's got two 500 page, one on crucifixion, hundreds of pages long, published by a German publisher. And John Cook, who's really critical, probably more critical as far as what he accepts than any of us, he starts out the beginning, he tells you on page one, I want you to know my conclusion up close.

He said, I'm going to argue that the preaching that Paul did about the resurrection body is significantly the same as what the Gospels preached about resurrection by okay, and here's what look here's what cook country Lacona and especially Tom Wright 550 pages Here's what they all have in common. They use words Anastasis and a guru the Greek words are not for raised and those words Always and only now Tom's a little strict. Sometimes, I mean, he says there's no exceptions. Now, people have found one or two, but in all of history, if you're in Greece and you believe there are ghosts, good for you. You believe somebody came back as a wispy spirit,

good for you, but you don't use the words anastasis and egeru. Those are Greek words. You could use them. You don't. Why not? Because anastasis and egeru those are greek words you could use them you don't why not because the nasa sinegaru mean bodily in fact the word anastasis means to get up again you know years ago i was preaching in in stockholm and the the preacher was preaching in um swedish and my interpreter was right next to me and he got up for eas Sunday. I was the speaker, but he gave a little introduction. And he said, upstandelsa, Easter morning. And everybody goes real, kind of like, dad, upstandelsa. No, upstandelsa.

He says it three times, upstandelsa. I asked my translator, what does that mean? The Swedish word means to stand up again and that is what anastasis means it means to stand up so greeks and egyptians don't use anastasis in the gear it always means bodily so if all i know is that anastasis and ageru mean bodily when they use that word over and over and over again it can only mean one thing bodily that's that's a really interesting argument because a common objection has been in first corinthians 15 paul means a spiritual body taken as immaterial but if nt right and lacona are right and i think they are spiritual is orientation

not composition and if that lines up with theels, you have an early support and belief in the same kind of bodily transformation. That makes sense to include that in the empty tomb. All right. By the way, that's a field, that's an area where the field has really changed. We mentioned one from Bokman to a wispy resurrection to a bodily resurrection. Here's another one. At present, the majority New Testament view, all the way from evangelical scholars with PhDs in New Testament or relevant field, all the way to atheist New Testament scholars or Jewish non-Christian scholars with PhDs in a relevant field. And

the majority view today by far is that if anybody saw anything, let's put it this way, let's not talk about what they saw or didn't see. What they meant when they said Jesus appeared is bodily. Bart Ehrman believes that Paul's view was of bodily appearances. That's an old argument that at 1 Corinthians 15, it's the wispy Jesus and the way to acts. And by the way, when critics use that in debates with me they'll go oh pardon ma uh paul uh says he saw okay first baloney you're citing acts 9 22 and 26 you're doing what you tell me not to do you're citing a secondary source dom cross and says this you're citing a secondary source let Let's cite Paul. Well, Paul

says spiritual body. Yeah, I know. I think you missed the word soma, which is the second word, spiritual body. Paul teaches body. And Ehrman says bodily resurrection is Paul's view. And if Paul teaches body, what about the gospels? It's i love it i love it that argument alone could be the best one you could like that one more than the women more multiple attestation more than jerusalem and i wouldn't argue because the word they use over and over again and only the jews only the jewish view is that greeks didn't use that for their heroes they use wispy ghost and spirit. They use pneuma. Oh, here's a good one for you. Philippians 3.21. He will raise our vile soma body to be like unto his glorious what? Pneuma? Oh, this could be dangerous. No, he will raise our vile soma to be like unto his glorious soma there's a narcissist you don't make a move

like that how easily could paul have said he will change our vile soma to be like his glorious pneuma his beautiful pneuma like i saw on the way to Jerusalem. No, he goes, body. Philippians 3, another one is Romans 8, 11. He will transform our bodies to be like unto his soma. There's a bunch of verses like that. But Philippians 3, 21 is a great one. Because Paul could easily have said glorious pneuma. He doesn't. So we've walked through the six minimal facts.

A couple of the additional facts, the burial and the empty tomb. We also talked about the center of faith, which is one of them. Good. So three of the other facts, folks can go to the book and read in some depth. I want to ask you two kind of big objections that I've seen come up in these conversations. And I was really grateful that you had an extensive response to this in your book so obviously i don't have to walk through all of the points but two towards the end of the evidence maybe just give us one or two reasons why you don't find this compelling is that sometimes critics will claim that there has been legendary development in the gospels

from mark to john so we allegedly see, or we see it in development in number in terms of appearances of Jesus, the angels at the tomb. What are your thoughts on the legendary development objection? All right, let me give you two. You want two? All right.

You want us to think, if you're the critic, you want us to think there's a whole lot of difference. Let's take a look at the difference. Matthew and Mark, there's one angel at the tomb. Luke and John, what are there, 20? No, there's two.

And of the old saying, if there's two, there's one. So there could have been two with Mark. There could have been 10. And Mark chooses to talk about one of the 10., there's one. So there could have been two with Mark. There could have been 10. And Mark chooses to talk about one of the 10. Matthew talks about one. The difference is between one and two. That's how much change there is.

Women, okay? There's a Mary in all four accounts. But in John, it says Mary and others. We don't know. Luke doesn't even name the women till you get away from the tomb and they get back to the disciples and they tell you the names. So he's not trying to die for this, but Mary's in all four accounts. We have another Mary in three of the four accounts and only two women are only in Mark and Luke. So Salome and Joanna, they're the only two.

Is that a whole lot of liberality? For 40 years, you went from one angel to two angels, and golly, you got two more women? Woo! This is just mythology abound. No, it's nothing like that. But here's the better argument. I gave it earlier when the Muslim scholar said, I always flip to that. But here's the better argument. I gave it earlier when the Muslim scholar said, I always flip to the discrepancies in the gospels.

I will give those responses. And then I'll say, let me give you a more direct response. I don't give a rip. That's not my view, but we're doing an argument here. Not my view. I teach, I always say that I teach at Liberty. You know what my view is, but if you want to say there's, there's problems there, I think you're wrong, but I'm not going to debate that. I'm here tonight to talk about the appearances, and what critics say is, oh yeah, there's some development there. What about the appearances? Yeah, they happened. Well, what's wrong with your differences objection? It amounts to nothing. In other words, there are a lot of critics who believe the Gospels are full of errors, and they affirm the resurrection appearances of Jesus.

That really blows it away right there. That objection, and by the way, they usually get them in the burial and resurrection accounts. That's where they come from most of the conflicts but it's the most common objection that critics have raised since english deism prior to uh friedrich schleiermacher in 1799 the birth of christian liberalism the biggest objection up until the present from about 18 for about 1725 up to the present is discrepancies. Number one. Yeah, now, what does discrepancy show? Well, you idiots believe in inerrancy.

Okay, what if we don't assume that and we play your game? Oh, well, then you get a resurrection. Thank you, that's all I'm talking about. And if you're going to get the deity, death, and resurrection of Jesus from just the data, here's the worst the argument could go for me. You've shown a couple of discrepancies, women and angels. There's almost no difference there. Women and angels, and I've shown the deity, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I'll take my view over your view. Thank you. Heaven results from mine. What do you get from yours? By the way, Sean, in a recent survey, I do argue from NDEs to the resurrection, as Dale Allison notes in the recommendation. If NDEs prove that life after

death, and you can't use the word prove, but use the word proof like probability. If there is an afterlife, why should critics argue about the resurrection? If you've already opened the door to afterlife, then listen to me when I talk about resurrection. So I already have an in to resurrection, but here's another one. In a recent survey of atheists

and agnostics only, 32% of them said they believe in an afterlife 32 why it doesn't follow from your view why do you it's because i like it which means you're not very logical number two maybe you find good evidence good i'll agree with you oh maybe you read an article on these cool maybe you're accepting the resurrection. That's how I got to know Jordan Peterson. He found a three-page article I did on minimal facts argument.

He tweeted it or retweeted it or something. We got to be friends because he cited my argument. He goes, I got to think about this. And I don't think he means my argument. I think he means the topic. He said, this could be the most important subject I've ever entertained but it was a minimum of facts he brought out because that spoke to him he thought there were errors in the he wasn't a wasn't a believer in god but he said if you're going to use these facts that everybody else gives you i i better pay attention to this

so my bottom line is let me table the objections for now i'll handle that somewhere else with by the way my my, my research assistant, Ben Shaw, who's finished his PhD, he's got a book coming out with InterVarsity Academic, 13 Arguments for Reliability in the New Testament, just to show you that minimal facts people can do the other argument. Well, look at this. I've got 600 pages, at least in my manuscript, 600 pages on the 12 facts, six minimal, six others. 600 pages. But I have 200 pages on the resurrection chapters in the Gospels and Acts 1 through 11. 1, 1 through 11.

So I do use the reliability argument. Here's another one. Michael Coney uses minimal facts. Mike's doing a second book on reliability right now. Yeah, he is. That's right. Ben likes the minimal facts. He's doing a second book on reliability right now. Yeah, he is. That's right. Ben likes the minimal facts. He's got a book coming out with, it's a myth that we think it's the only way to argue. I have 200 pages on reliability. Mike's got his second book on reliability. Ben's got his first one coming out. We're the main guys that do minimal facts.

Well, I noticed that you brought that in. And you've done it in the past. You had that chapter in the book, Why I Believe. That's probably a book 15, 20 years ago that Geisler compiled. I remember you've done this in the past. It was good to see that brought in and explained here.

We don't have to go into that. That's another conversation. There's no way I would deny reliability arguments. Of course. Of course. And I also love that you have the near-death experiences

section at the end. Maybe we'll have you back sometime to talk about that. I've covered that a number of times here. And in my course on the resurrection, I talk about that because you open up the door to the afterlife, to there being more than the material world. It doesn't get you to resurrection, but it's a part of a larger case. I love that you include that. Let me raise one more objection to you that you do within the end of your book. This is one of the more common ones that I hear, and it's that Jesus

was mistaken on the imminent coming of his kingdom. So in Mark 13, 32, for example, Jesus seems to strongly imply that the present generation would see his return. Now you deal with this all the way in almost page 900 in your book towards the end, but tell us your thoughts on that. Why don't you find that a compelling objection? First of all, years ago when I was going through my doubt, I stopped everything for two weeks, went to the library, pulled out a hundred books and studied that and that one of 1332 is not a very good objection because in the same text same context jesus says by the way i don't know when i'm returning 1332 is the one he says that one knows no man nor the angels nor the sun but wait a minute you said it's this generation only

ah i can pull Gingrich down from my shelf, the Greek commentator, Artin Gingrich, the best known Greek lexicon. You look it up on the shorter lexicon by Gingrich, and you look up genea, the word for generation, you get the first definition. The only definition, race. This race will not pass. What was Jesus' point? Well, the Philistines are gone. Most of the other tribes are gone. The Assyrians are gone. The Assyrians, the Syrians, the Babylonians, they're all gone.

But Jews are still here. That's a meaningful point. There's a bunch of other ones, too. I have an article where you already related some of the arguments. But I think Mark 13, I think is a really bad argument because Jesus says in the context, I guess you didn't hear me. I said, I don't know when I'm returning. But you said in this generation, the word can also mean race. It could mean people. It usually means generation, but it doesn't have to. Here's another argument.

This is the better. You know, I like these other arguments, too, where I can say I really don't care. Now, I'm not going to say that about this one because Jesus would be mistaken. But here's what I would say. Jesus' number one lecture point, according to almost everybody in the New Testament, it's not part of my minimal fact, because it's not during the... Well, it does happen in Resurrection, but his number one teaching is

the kingdom of God and how to get there. In Mark, he came out preaching the kingdom of God. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. It's his number one teaching. And interestingly enough, after he rises from the dead in Acts 1, he's still talking about the kingdom, and when Paul goes on the dead in Acts 1, he's still talking about

the kingdom. And when Paul goes on the way to Damascus, he's still talking about the kingdom. It's his number one teaching. All right, here's my argument. If his number one teaching was the kingdom, and he specifically says, I don't know when I'm returning, if perchance he guessed and was wrong, it's not his big point. His main point is the kingdom is coming. The resurrection says it's coming. And if he were a false prophet by any definition, why did God raise him from the dead? I think that's a good comeback is if he was wrong about the time of his coming, he's a pretty bad false prophet. Number one, he's off his subject. The subject is the kingdom, not the timing of the kingdom.

Just like we know the second coming, but we know the timing of the second coming. Jesus said, I don't know the timing. But the second one is, if he were a heretic, why did God raise him and only him in the history of religion? We have no other evidence that a founder of a major world religion was raised from the dead, even by his Orthodox followers. None. So I've got to take a stand for the argument that God raised him because his teaching was true. And what was his teaching? If you want to get to the kingdom, believe in me, follow me, and what you do with me,

this even Bultmann says this, if you want to boil down Jesus's argument, it's like this, what do you do with me? Because what you do with me determines where you spend eternity. That's what Jesus preached, and eternity is the kingdom. Yeah, but he's wrong about the coming. Well, if it's that bad, first of all, I don't think he was. I give all kinds of those arguments, and I've done it elsewhere. But the main thing is he couldn't have been a heretic because his father raised him. That would be pretty bad. And I mean, the slight goes on the father then. Gary, in many ways, we just kind of hit the surface, scratched the surface on your book. I have many more questions for you, but let me ask you kind of a few, just to somewhat wrap up personal questions about this. You publish with Broadman and Holman Academic Press. I've done

some books with B&H. Love the folks there. Why publish with a Christian press as opposed to a secular press? First of all, I didn't try any press. I didn't send out a synopsis. I didn't send a thing out to any press. But Baker called me. Zondervan talked to me,

and the other publishers, and I don't spite them at all. I know they're not secular, but, well, Zondervan has a secular arm, but, or the other way around, the secular arm has Zondervan. Right, right. But they said to me, and I'm not putting them down at all. They're my friends. Stan Gundry called me from Zondervan, good friend for a long time. They said, if you were to come to us, here's the problem. We're going to want you to raise $400,000 before we can even take this project, because that's how much it's going to cost us to get this thing off the ground before we earn our first dollar. And to cite Stan Gundry, to cite i don't i don't judge him one bit he said virtually no publisher in this country has that deep of pockets that was his comment

and please for you people listening stan gundry's a saint to me he's a really good friend i'm not putting him down he's just giving facts we're gonna get that money because we don't have the money all right so bnh called me out of nowhere because the editor of bnh used to be a editor at zondervan he was there okay he calls me and he's got a phd by the way in historical theology that senior editor at uh bnh called me and said hey what do i what's the status of your your four volume thing right now i, I haven't found a publisher. I haven't really been looking. He goes, why not?

I said, well, first of all, I just haven't looked. But secondly, these guys want me to raise $400,000. Lexham was a little lower, but they were still very high. He goes, you come with us, and you don't have to raise a penny. Wow. That seals it. I won't say that was it, but that did make me look. I didn't feel like going out and reading $400,000.

Yeah, I don't blame you. They've got inns with the whole denomination. They've got inns. Their books can go over to, what's Lexham's? Logos and Faithlife. I've got books on Logos. You probably do. They can take this over on Logos. It can still go over there.

But they said, we're not going to charge you a penny. That's amazing. And now we found out today that someone sent it to me. I'm trying to remember what it's called. I don't want to misrepresent them. Amazon's list of hot new books in some area of religion. And they have a list of 76 i didn't see it but yesterday i was told this book this book was number one well it should be they didn't well they didn't send it to

me when it was number one the guy sent it to me today and we'd fallen all the way to number two so well it's called an amazon hot new release. Here's the problem, the issue. The book doesn't come out till Monday. It's already the top new release and it's not out. What I'm saying is I hope Robin and Holman, they're going to get their money back pretty quickly. It's already a real hot deal. I hope so too. And I hope folks will pick it up for sure and read it. It's worth the, it's not a cheap book, but it is worth it and some for sure. Let me say something about that. I was asked to mentionway, which is the parent company of B&H, for just a few more weeks, they're selling the book for $58 or $59.

Oh, great, great. So you can get it a lot more cheaply there. And I want to make sure everybody understands, I was not dogged Baker or Zondervan one little bit, and Stan Gundry in particular, a great friend. If it costs $400,000, it costs $400,000. They're right. I don't object.

I just said when someone told me you don't have to raise it. That's why I love being an agent. I want to get you out of here because of time, but let me ask you this final question. And here's the final question for you. You started studying the resurrection like five decades ago. What does it mean to you personally to see this massive volume come out and hold it in your hands? Sean, I am so thrilled for this reason. One of the guys who wrote a blurb for this book, I'll tell you who it was.

It was Craig Hazen at your school. Craig wrote and he said, I hope I don't misquote him, but he says something like, I should get the book and read it, but he said, this is going to be the go-to book on the resurrection for a couple generations, and I'm only talking about volume one. Okay, that's what I'm thinking about it. Other guys said things like that, but if it's the go-to book for a long time to come, I've done my job, long after I'm gone. I wanted to be out there and be a witness. I wanted to touch people's lives. And here's the most touching thing I could say. I'm remarried, thankfully. I've got a wonderful, beautiful wife. But the mother of my four children died in 1995 of stomach cancer.

And a famous thing that I've published, I sat on the front porch of my house. I imagined this. Well, I did sit on the front porch of my house with a child monitor next to me. She was upstairs and she was sleeping from the drugs and she eventually died. And I make believe I'm asking God. I actually did ask him this, but make believe I'm saying to God, Debbie's only 43 years old. Why is she dying? And her only wish is to see her grandkids, and she's not going to see a single one. What's going on here?

And I picture God saying to me, here's what God would say in my mind. I picture God saying to me, Gary, I know you're hurting, but what kind of a world is this? And I said, Lord, I don't know. Deb's up there in bed dying. Why are you asking me what kind of world is it? Gary, please, what kind of a world is this? And I said, Lord, I don't know. Deb's up there in bed dying. Why are you asking me what kind of world is it? Gary, please, what kind of a world is this? Well, I don't know. Given my background, it's a world where Jesus Christ died on the cross

and was raised from the dead. That's the main thing I can say. And God said, good start. So if you know Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, what does that tell you about Debbie? She's probably going to go to be with Jesus. Okay, pretty good. What's going to happen when you die? I hope I'm going to go there and be with Debbie. And he said to me, and then God says to me, my son, one day you will be with her and you will walk hand in hand and down the streets of heaven i wasn't

remarried at that time but in fact she wasn't even dead but he said you'll walk hands and hand hand in hand with her down the streets of heaven but lord yes i know gary there's some pain and suffering here i can't explain that to you right now but there is an answer if there's a death and resurrection trust me that there's an answer to a lesser problem which is the problem of pain and suffering the resurrection to me is the ultimate answer to the question why this and when will it be rectified and if it's eternal life and it's rectified there it makes all the difference in the universe i love it amen well i want everybody watching this believe it or not pick up volume chapter one, read it. It'll take you a week to read it. It took me a long time and I'm familiar with these arguments. Gary, I can't wait for volume two. Volume three is going to be able to finish and work through this project Just what you've been through in your life is such a gift to the kingdom at Biola. We appreciate your friendship

We appreciate all that you're doing and we're going to continue to partner for a long time in due time when I fully update my course I'm gonna be working your book into it for sure and making it one of the texts that we use It was gratifying to see you cite my work a couple times i told my wife i was like wow it's it's valuable was really awesome and just so encouraging that that was a piece of it the chapter on transformation you're the man well i don't know about that but that was just yeah i was encouraging uh i know you gotta run but folks before you leave make sure you hit subscribe as well. We got other shows coming up.

We cover the resurrection regularly. We'll have Gary back to continue to talk about this, maybe probe into near-death experiences. And if you thought about studying the resurrection, I would love to have you in class, do a full semester class called In Defense of the Resurrection, where we look at these issues in even more depth. Gary, you've got family time coming up, so God will let you know, but appreciate your work.

Appreciate you, my friend. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Sean.