How
to Know God Exists Series
The Resurrection - Part Two
Our study of the existence of God
(see previous articles at http://www.comereason.org/newsletters
) we began to look at the resurrection and its trustworthiness.
Is it a real, historical event? The evidence overwhelmingly
supports this view. Last time we studied how the resurrection
accounts read like history. But another reason to believe in the
resurrection of Christ is how close the records we have were to
the actual events they record.
In the game of telephone, a
message is told from person to person until it eventually
becomes unrecognizable to its initiator. There is less chance
the message has been corrupted the closer a person is to the
originator. This is one of the ways scholars studying ancient
historical events judge a record's accuracy.
Most conservative scholars date
the Gospel accounts of Jesus' death and resurrection from
between A.D. 50 to A.D. 80. If we are to assume Jesus died
somewhere near 33 A.D., then these historical records would be
between 20 to 50 years after the events they record. Not only
are these dates very close to the actual events by historical
standards, but that also implies that the Gospels were
circulated when the apostles were still alive to be questioned
by skeptics and detractors.
Now there are other scholars who
would prefer a late dating of the Gospels, from the middle of
the first century to perhaps as late as the beginning of the
second. But late-dating the Gospels doesn't put the historicity
of the resurrection in doubt, because a record exists that is
older still than any of the Gospel accounts.
In 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3-8
the Apostle Paul writes "For I delivered unto you as of
first importance that which I also received, that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared
to Cephas then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more
than five hundred brethren at one time… then He appeared to
James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as one
untimely born, He appeared to me also."
Nearly all scholars, those both
sympathetic to Christianity and skeptical of it, believe that
First Corinthians was written by Paul and was written about 55
or 56. However, scholarship also shows that the above passage is
considered an ancient tradition that Paul received from others
in the early church when he first became a convert to
Christianity. This means that the passage in 1 Corinthians 15
dates from somewhere between *two to eight years after Jesus'
death!*
That early dating means that it
is virtually impossible for the resurrection account to be a
myth that gradually grew into the church tradition. It had to be
accounts from eyewitnesses who saw the events themselves,
otherwise too many people would be around to contradict the
events in question.
Because this evidence is so
convincing, there are those doubters who feel that the
resurrection account was a deliberate fraud made up by the
apostles to continue their movement. Next month, we'll look at
those claims and show why this couldn't be so. (If you'd like a
preview of some of the things we'll discuss then, you can read
our article "Is Eyewitness Testimony Reliable?" at http://www.comereason.org/cmp_rlgn/cmp050.htm
)
For a modern day example to this,
think of someone telling you that John F. Kennedy didn't die in
November of 1963. He is still alive and in hiding because the
CIA wanted to remove him from office. The government made the
whole assassination up for their benefit. The problem with such
a story is that there are too many people still alive who
remember the event and can contradict your assertion.
The more we study the documents
testifying to the resurrection of Jesus, the more we can
understand why it is called "the most well-attested fact of
ancient history." I hope these discussions bolster your
faith in Christ and Him being raised from the dead. Write us and
let us know what you think. Until next month, God bless.
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