A Historian Explains the Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Dr. Gary Habermas)

[Music] [Music] well dr. Gary Habermas it's great to have you on capturing Christianity thank you so glad that you could be here with us today so we're actually here in part because the evangelical philosophical society has been so gracious to give us this room basically to do these interviews in so we're very thankful to them and we really appreciate the work that they do especially having a the opportunity to network and have people here and do these interviews with so many different people all at once so it's great to be in partnership with them but in addition we're also in partnership with defender's media who they provide social media and not just social media but media solutions more broadly to apologetic ministries so we're very happy to be a partnership with them well let's go ahead and get right into the interview sure so you're working on a book currently on the resurrection and you're slated to have how many pages cuz I okay I posted about this on my Facebook page and I said yeah I'm doing this interview with dr. Gary Habermas and he's writing a book that's about to be 5,000 pages long and people thought that was a typo so let's let's talk about that actually learn it would be long enough for that yeah yeah and you know what's crazy is of my 40 something books exactly half of them are on the resurrection so people might think oh well I get it he's taking those 20 some books on the resurrection putting them together removing the duplication and that's all the pages but actually so far at 4,300 pages only about 10% of the material is repeat of anything I've done before so it's mostly new material yeah and it's would you say that's a lot that's the thing that sort of separates this book from all your others and any other book in the resurrection this is all a new material oh yeah and I'm answering some questions and treating some subjects as far as I know are not treated anywhere pretty book do you have an example of one of those yeah so here's some examples um I spent 150 pages on 19th century and liberalism which is the heyday of naturalistic theories against the resurrection so I spend 150 pages on what they taught what theories were favored which ones were not the Casa liberals okay now what about when liberals went against other liberals because strangely enough they didn't just say well he takes that I take hallucination they'll say well he's a loser because this theory is wrong - elucidation of course I'm right next guy comes along says I'm wrong so I'd make three moves here's the guys and the theories they take here's the liberal response calling these guys losers everyone but there's and then I have a response of major conservative scholars at that time and these guys taught that conservatives are not like the kind we might think of today these guys are from Oxford Cambridge Edinboro Aberdeen Harvard Yale and they're writing and saying you're all wrong naturalistic theories are wrong so 150 pages on the birth of naturalistic theories and how critics go after each one now that's different than me taking the individual theories and giving critiques of each one I'm a doing hallucinations per se I'm just doing kind of a history of those theories for those years that's one example 150 pages on David Hume in the argument against miracles 80 pages of defense of the crucifixion alone how do we know Jesus died why did why do almost no scholars specialists dispute the crucifixion you know why does John Dominic Ross and Marcus Borg say it's the basically the strongest most readily defensible fact in the ancient world what's some of the data so those are some of the separate things so here's another one some people who give evidences for the empty tomb if you get an article in I'm a can name them but the articles I know one article that gives eight evidences for the empty tomb according to critical methodology or another one gives about 10 I've got 22 evidences for the empty tomb all critically derived not like well this verse says this verse says all critically derived verses so there's a lot of surprises I'll give you one more I do a minimum facts argument and I use basically six minimum facts well the two criteria I use is I won't use the fact that's not multiplied evidenced from a bunch of different sources and secondly because of that the vast majority of scholars and then 90 something percent I'll allow its historicity well everybody grabs onto this one everybody concedes it and I'm almost never asked how do you know these facts are true so I put a list together and if you count all the individual pieces of data that accredit these six it's over a hundred over 100 here's the key critically ascertain facts that the critics would agree to that's why the critics don't disallow the facts we're playing their game so lose some of the surprises in the book and some of the things I'm looking forward to to their coming out so about six years ago I learned that my brother became an atheist and that really sent me on this journey my original journey into apologetics now when he first talked to me about this and he started to raise his objections I was I had no idea if there were any evidence for Jesus even Jesus's existence let alone the resurrection and I imagine that probably the majority of Christians are in that same position whether you just have no idea that there's this wealth of information and as you say data that supports a historically grounded resurrection event in history so what is like your your five minute spiel on the evidence and support of the resurrection these are facts these are historical facts then and this is what you specialize in so do less than five minutes I start with what I call a minimal facts argument it's a species of reliability one of the reliability arguments but where most reliability arguments are top-down arguments if the book is reliable it's not an umbrella everything under it gets cut you know from the rain if the book is is generally true whatever is reported under it is accurate mine's a bottom-up and a set of our umbrella I would suggest an example of a brick wall with individual facts being bricks that we put together to build a case from the bottom up and I used anywhere from three to seven over the years lately I've been doing six and I would say Jesus died by crucifixion his disciples had experiences that they believed were appearances of the Risen Jesus because of their belief that he was raised it is the event that has turned the world upside down religiously in fact a recent book on non believing Jews in the resurrection they even acknowledged not being Christians that Christianity is a resurrection religion it was the resurrection that powered the religion had to power the teachings even to the point of being willing to die and we do a first century sources for the arguably the three largest names in Christianity for very important it was proclaimed very early and today critics the the consensus position is that you can track the resurrection preaching back to immediately after the cross in fact the way it's often stated by saying Bart Ehrman is that when Paul said yes to Jesus on the way to Damascus there was already a body of data called the early Creed's that are later written in the New Testament but they were already being noised abroad when Paul said yes there were these heavy Creed's about 80% of which are in the divi death resurrection of Jesus that's a major message they were already in existence so in Paul Paul didn't invent Christianity the main reason when he came to Christ the message he hated most we already have data from that that two-year period before Paul and then the last two would be individuals James the brother of Jesus and Paul both of whom become Christians because they believed they had experiences which were appearances the Risen Jesus those are the six I would use and to my knowledge I've had dialogues with atheists agnostics scholars specialists and they don't dispute any of those so how do they respond to this that you have these facts and you establish them historically and you say the best explanation these facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead right and there are these existing naturalistic attempts of explaining away these these facts what is the best to your knowledge and then why do you think that it fails somebody just asked me that yesterday and I made the point I don't you would expect me to say this but years ago I would have told you the one that I thought was hardest answered today I would say not only are there no good ones there are no good theories that you could really take and ride to the bank so to speak of your naturalist you can really take care of the Resurrection with this but the critics have generally given up coming expounding these theories I did an article some years ago where I argued that less than 25 percent of the critics in the last 25 years about less than 25 percent use the naturalistic theories anymore though they will usually say something like this yeah facts are good I don't agree it's your your idea is there anywhere to go but you know you've got an evidence case and and if you push them a little bit and said well what keeps you from believing this stuff yourself at the end I guess good but - well Hume but I think generally they'll say I just don't wanna I just want to believe really and they will say miracles don't happen and that they say that they know you're ready they don't often want to take you on another common a comet is yeah but you've got a problem with your theory what's that well you've got some data for your theory and I'm not exactly sure where I would go to refute it but you're asking me implicit in your argument is you're asking me to believe in Middle Earth Narnia or if you want a second or example eyes you're asking me to believe that and there's no world like that how do you know well there's no you know look Oh everything we know from empirical science there's not an alternate universe and when I'm talking to a person like that I always go timeout let's talk about near-death experiences and because the evidence has been coming in so well in a recent book up to 30 million people in North America England and Europe have claimed to have near-death experiences so I could say a sum let's just say the numbers blown up too much there's only 20 million in a way 20 million people who've been dinar Nia if you want to look at that way so don't tell me there's no empirical evidence for this they'll say yeah those are just experiences you don't have data oh you don't say that to me I you know I just gave him a paper yesterday I I know 300 evidence in de accounts or what's reported is empirically verified so if you can't refute it and it's almost impossible to refute them than Indies if you can't refute them and you have this alternate reality in what category and the category of afterlife also there may be an afterlife well I didn't think so until today but yeah I guess maybe there is okay now can we talk about resurrection because I'm opened the door to talk about this alternate reality which may last forever and you can't say anymore Epicure asked me to believe in Oz as I would I would say I sure AM and I've got data for us so this is probably the most common objection I hear from atheist and I do a lot of stuff online Facebook and everything and the one thing that they say or that I see a lot is any naturalistic explanation you can think of right is going to be more probable than Sparta I mean that's a lot of guys is that is that is that is this objection because what they're saying is disciples stole the body is a lousy objection but it's better than yours because stolen bodies happen in this world resurrections don't what he's saying is there's no nother world there's not another world from which Jesus was a strange visitor to this planet you know to begin his missionary efforts on earth from his father's right hand there's no other world so when they say you know any other theory is more logical it's not because they're not saying what a lot of Christians think they're they're not saying all of my theories have better evidence of yours they're not they're saying you got some data there but you asked me to believe in a crazy place and people can rise from the dead I'm gonna have any other examples so chances are you're wrong and I'd say all right 30 million people playing Devon DS 300 of them were avid N'Diaye just to just make sure the audience is understanding in de means near Experion correct right okay and if I have three other cases if I start telling you the examples right here the most incredible ones people go oh my gosh that's really happened yeah it's recorded it I didn't already tell people are wondering well why do I give me a give me a taste I'm getting one in him you wanted to but before I do that me tell you one thing how people are dismission the whole realm a fellow just retired for you to receive Virginia Medical School he's probably the leading NDE expert his name is Bruce Grayson as far as I know not a Christian okay that Bruce told me one time he'd gone to the east from these studies so maybe Buddhism or something I don't know I can't speak for him but Bruce himself has published 100 peer-reviewed near-death articles in medical and psychological journals so people go you're talking about cartoons man it's like spongebob you know he lives in a pineapple under the sea yeah right that's why it was written up in a hundred you know that's why a hundred articles written up in medical journals yeah that's right yeah yeah and so we'd have to go to the the evidence cases okay a couple like here a couple examples fast ones some of them take a while to develop but a couple fast ones and you're writing a book on this right so people can go to know I've got a book with chapters in it and I just debated a guy on this subject he doesn't believe in him I do was published by blackwell and he and I just debated and I have probably thirty of these cases huh evidence of cases divided into five evidence or categories and then he gave me these two yeah here's a couple this woman has a she's being operated on she has a near-death experience she's up above her body she's looking down she's watching herself and sometimes they don't know it's them because they identify with who's up by the ceiling but supporting consciousness and on the top of this medical device that was in the room you know hospitals often rivet numbers like offices do to keep track of typewriters and to keep track of things she looked down and there was a 12-digit number riveted to the top of this medical thing and she said I'm OCD and so I memorized the 12 digit number and Sue she comes to she says to the nurse write this down now I'm gonna say this is a number but it's like write this down six seven five two one six zero zero twelve numbers and the nurse wrote down and they were later moving the apparatus out of the room and the nurse jumps in and says whoa whoa whoa wait a minute let me get my sheet out Wow the numbers exactly right now she sees that mistake and many of these people when you have a cardiac arrest with room tricular fibrillation this particular species of cardiac arrest you have no measurable heart waves and within an average of 15 seconds you have no brain waves so if she was out of her body for as long as five minutes she theoretically has no heart or brain waves how does she know how does she know to repeat that data how does she know what's up there so that's one well evidence one boy people ask me they'll say well you know I'll say what kind of evidence do you want I'll give you another one is a real fast what a guy had surgery he was up above his body watching the doctors do this but he got maybe a little bored I don't know he started drifting a little bit looking around he went through a wall into the next surgical ward and he watched a guy having his leg amputated so he gives an explanation of what happens in the room with the leg amputation because I saw it but you're on that bed yep I'm telling you I saw it how'd he know here's some explanation I'm making up what he might have said but he could have said well although all the nurses in the room had white uniforms on except for this one she had pale green uniform on I mean something like that or these are actual natural cases and one a person dropped a beaker on the floor and a broke and the person watched it or another one a woman's pin fell off her dress and a doctor stepped on it and then they and the nerd the near-death person said I know who lost the pen and I can name the doctor who stepped on it because I saw it so these are data and many times in the absence of heart and brain you know any kind of activity measurable and so it seems like we're talking about here's the point we're talking about consciousness beyond the initial death of heart and brain now it's near death because the person comes back from it but during those minutes while they're out it's highly evidential I find this fascinating first of all ok so can I put this in terms of like I'm gonna use a technical term here Bayesian probability okay so we're talking later on about like what the evidence suggests that's the second part of the equation the first part is what the prior probability of the hypothesis is sure and it seems like that's what you're trying to raise when Richard Swinburne does this argument he he puts God's existence he's written the whole technical great book on God's existence but he still puts that probability low for those who think it's low and he still gets writing 97% for the resurrection well if you have some things up front let's just give to God's existence and an afterlife why do you know afterlife I didn't say eternal life I just said this person was still functioning three hours after there indeed because some of the cases are kind of long if you start with God and an afterlife which atheists are often say those are the two planks they have to get rid of to be an atheist not in an afterlife if you start with those yeah you're gonna raise the prior probability that the likelihood that a resurrection actually happened so I've been wanting to ask a historian this question for a long time now and what is it's another common objection that I see is that probably most probably Jesus's body would have been thrown into a mass grave so my question is what is the earliest historical evidence we have of Jews being thrown criminals being thrown into a mass grave does it come at the time of Nero around 70 AD or does it come before then because it seems to me like that's the earliest evidence that we have of these mass graves okay first of all you're gonna be hard put to nail exact historical references when it was done but I would concede in many would that that's what happened to most people not necessarily mass graves but little classier would be a rectangular square in the ground like today only without a casket and you put the body on top of him cover it up that would be kind of a classy when a mass grave would be you know garbage you know in a garbage heap or something but it's a totally moot point it's a totally moot point because like I say to people let's take your theory give me your best shot what do you want to say they put it in a garbage dump and by Sunday it was already both burned up from the smoldering ashes that were always burning or dogs may have eaten the dogs may have eaten it I'll just go that's cool so what's wrong well I don't know the Gospel story of Joseph is incorrect or part of it is he may have been the one that put him in the common grave but for the most part the Gospel story be wrong and I'd say Joseph Joseph of Arimathea yeah okay and I'd say okay so what do you have here you've got a you got a moot point you picked a horrible example because Jesus could have died on Friday and thrown in a trash heap had his body eaten and or burned or both and guess what's gonna happen Sunday what if he hears anyway what if the parts of that body were transformed I mean to give an example what about a Christian who's fishing falls into the ocean gets eaten by shark will he have nothing to be raised at the last day no God give him a new body okay well it's irrelevant whether Jesus was in the tomb where they took the body and put in somebody's living room whether it was in a trash heap if Jesus is gonna rise he could rise in your living room what if all the disciples come running to your house because he's there you have tea time you know with Jesus a little different story but in your home so it doesn't do anything the resurrection message okay I'm thinking about a Star Trek example of when they beam someone up right or they beam someone from the ship to plan it and all of the molecules or whatever are reorganized back on the planet so you're saying that something like that could let me possibly have him well there's a lot of there's a lot of stories as to what Jesus's body was made of I think that the Orthodox view is that it was his body a change and of course the evidence of the the wounds most probably in the wrists and elsewhere the the wounds may be still in the head from from crown of thorns or lashing it's still there so it's his body but it's changed and changed how how much well there's all kinds of arguments about that but the Jewish view the predominant Jewish view at that time is that the body is what's raised the body has changed physical body yeah let me give you example if somebody has a bowl right here well they have a bowl right here on the resurrection body oh and silly it's like it's irrelevant I just want to know that I'm there and I would like my body back you know according to biology the body you have in 20 years and not the body you have no anyway maybe this is a perfect time to talk a little about the Shroud of Turin are you convinced that that's authentic I'm fairly convinced I would say okay mid to low probability I just told somebody over lunch today that I would put probability for the Shroud at sixty to eighty eighty-five percent dependent what kind of mood I'm in okay and I'm just saying that to accept the fact that we all have interpretations of data so a brief overview of what the Shroud is and it's a a linen cloth three to one we've a little over 14 feet long a little over three feet wide and it buries a body if the body's inside like I've say a a pen right here the cloth is a 14 foot cloth that wraps around the head in a loops because it's not exactly on the top of the head so loops a little bit and open ends are at the feet but the most interesting about the shroud is there's will blood on it there's a body image or hundreds of burial garments in existence none have body images like this there's a body image on it and according to a recent scientific let's say reference in Washington state of Washington every scientist over doesn't who responded to the comet of what is the image on the shroud made of they all I understand all came to the conclusion that the image on the shroud is because of radiation from the dead crucified body underneath so the man is crucified has virtually all the marks associated with death by crucifixion of Jesus in the New Testament but there's a cloth with an image on it and the radiation appears to have come out from the body onto the cloth and are only affected the surface fibers personally nothing we know only affects surface like if you couldn't burn the image in there well picture picture a thread having 200 fibrils that's how small the fibrils aren't a single thread the image area is like on one or two five rolls deep on top of a thread so whatever made the mark is very very shallow so it's not paint dyed powder foreign substance on the shroud there's nothing on powder I guess would have gone deeper into them even powder would but there's no substance that you can put on let's put this way you can't fake the crowd today a guy said to me in sitting with all of our technologies right a fella said to me just talk to him to see other day he's a PhD physicist who deals with dating and he said he said and don't give me the argument he's Christian but he said don't give me the argument that we can't explain the shroud because that's just nothing there's a lot of things we can't explain so we can't explain the pyramids and I said yeah but a little bit of a difference here you can make a pyramid today cannot make the Shroud of Turin so let's go to two two last questions before we have to end this out two questions on mythos ISM okay the first one the first one has to do with first Corinthians 15 where Paul is talking about the resurrection some Memphis to say that Paul was really talking not about a bodily physical resurrection about a spiritual resurrection in heaven somewhere what what's your take on that and first couple general responses these would unpack these two would unpack two six or eight if I develop them but the two you have this in your book which one the big one is an almost everything I do in the resident okay so two big responses number one but there's the most important point let's just say for the sake of the argument that Paul said Jesus really appeared as a glorified disembodied spirit let's just say that was Paul's view okay the point is there's still a resurrection and if the Bible taught a platonic view that at death we share we shed our bodies we flee off to the heavens disembodied and able to live in bliss because throughout eternity we can live together and continue to acquire knowledge that platonic kind of view which dominated the church up until the late Middle Ages if that was Paul's view you would still have a glorious resurrection view for both Jesus and us so my point is if that's what the New Testament taught that's what all of us would believe and nobody would be upset with it we'd all say it's the glory this is a really cool view so you get nowhere by doing that kind of theory because you still have a resurrection second response for a for a variety of reasons it's very clear that Paul believed in the resurrection of the body he's not teaching resurrection the spirit at first Corinthians 15 he's teaching them for example whenever Paul talks about the resurrection of the dead it's always in the plural because Jewish eschatology is that the righteous dead would be raised together well it doesn't quite work with Corp no I can't say corporate it doesn't quite work with a bunch of spirits to be raised together it's more of a bodily event to be raised together Paul says Philippians 3 God will change our vile soma body to be like unto his glorious soma he could very easily by changing one simple word say he's gonna change our vile soma to be like unto his glorious Numa doesn't he says body so those are just a couple reasons over and over Paul's anthropology is a bodily anthropologist I think the Orthodox view of Jesus being raised in the body even on Paul it's certainly clearing the Gospels but even Paul held to bodily resurrection but we're not getting anywhere it's like the body and the grave thing it sounds funny and they think they're gonna get to first base by trying to trap you in something but it doesn't disprove resurrection so why waste your time so what is in your mind the fastest way to disarm a myth assist someone who thinks that there is no historical figure that was Jesus Dennis differs ago because I would use I've got a book called historical Jesus where I list a dozen and a half texts many of them outside New Testament in the ancient world for the existence of Jesus but one probably a better example I would use so say you have a you're a Christian okay Bart Ehrman an atheist through Testament scholar Bart Ehrman gives 15 independent sources for the crucifixion of Jesus within a hundred years now a hundred years that is actually kind of strict but it's a nice narrow parameter for saint jesus lived a hundred and here's an atheist one hundred years time fifteen different sources evidencing Jesus's death if he died he had to have lived so Bart Ehrman calls that one of the two best evidences we have for the that Jesus lived in history the other one is that Paul is the best New Testament reference we have a pretty extract button half a policy pistol seven out of thirteen being accredited and you can use them in in arguing because they're great sources well the best thing Paul gives us is that he was an eyewitness to the eyewitnesses Paul in Galatians 1 and again in Galatians 2 he went to Jerusalem and got to know Peter James the brother of Jesus then the Galatians 2 John they're all together and the topic they're discussing is Paul tells us is the nature of the gospel to make sure they're on the same page and Paul concludes jesters to author on the same page but here that's too great set of data for the existence of Jesus 15 independent sources for the crucifixion of Jesus and Paul knowing himself of course Peter James and John the big four he knows all of them and he can ask whatever questions he wants to what would Jesus look like when he's walking and talking in Galilee so we have a really like asking George Washington are asking Thomas Jefferson what was George like asking Adams and John Quincy Adams and Monroe and and so on how what do you know about George and then it'd be really cool if you could talk to Martha and that's neat because we had the woman's testimony for going to the tomb and so on so you make a multi-faceted case for George Washington being the first president Estate's we can do the same thing but Jesus actually haven't existed and as Bart Ehrman says he knows of nobody no accredited specialist in the field of religion no matter how liberal how atheist or whatever none of them in a will have university college or seminary positions none of them teach that Jesus never lived the guys who teach it and claim to be scholars are people who don't have a credit degree she said with two exceptions is Bart's count the rest do not have accredited degrees and none of them have university positions why are they making such a big splash do you think probably because they infiltrate almost every website there is and have a bunch of they have a they have a loud presence whatever side you're on recently there was a choice for Supreme Court justice in this country how come the voices that made it on their on the new shows were the little chattering voices that ran next to the Senators and got up in their ear and chirped out up and chirped at him and we'll let him sit down to the tables and because that kind of thing makes the news and people that well and when they say oh no and they pretend like they're scholars and then don't but don't have any training they haven't been in the field and all the other scholars atheists even like part of them and say they're wrong so to me adds to the world test it's not just Christians saying the wrong it's non-christians scholars say they don't have a chance so carry what in your mind is the value in apologetics ministry is like capturing Christianity are they important do you think that we need more of them what's your what's your well I think there's probably I'd have to say they're very important I would have to say the more informed they are the more factual they are they're bored they are Pinet we don't want Christians who are chirping like the Sherpas on the other side who are not scholars whoever but the better they know their field and they better know what they're doing I think apologetic groups do a tremendous pre evangelistic kind of work where sometimes you have to sow the seed out in the field before it sprouts up and to use Paul's phrase and when it sprouts is not exactly the same form as when it was put in the ground I think we have to critique other views sometimes slowly and you build layers on the the data and you work at it like that and sometimes it takes people as you know years to finally think it's the the true message but I think there's a value even if people never come to Christ from those sorts of exercises I think it's very important to strengthen Christians who have doubts to strengthen Christians who want to be bold in their witness so I think I think apologetic organizations the better ones in the better they are the and they paid a path in our culture that is really really important because of how quickly our culture is moving away from the Christian preaching do you have any tips for aspiring Christian apologists I'd say no your field very very well do a lot of reading be able to interact with both sides that means know what the other side is saying to and know what the Christians are saying be ready with the quick answer not to be afraid to speak up and always try to to draw to our to make a bridge between the message and what it should make of people's lives for example when someone dies Paul says we grieve you think about Jesus weeping at Lazarus grave Paul says we grieve but not as those without hope so a hopeful grieving is a lot different than a grieving without hope so those are times to come alongside people so we have to be opportunistic and look for opportunities to share and counsel and always be humble and use all the characteristics we use for people that we usually say would be a you know he's a good guy you know where's an atheist or not atheist would say he said you know that's a that's a is a super person so I think to be knowledgeable to be willing to talk to willing to engage and break down barriers I think is incredibly important well thank you so much Gary for coming on to caption Christianity this have been such a fun interview I wish we had more time but it's it's been such a pleasure thank you [Music]

Channel: Capturing Christianity

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Keywords: capturing christianity, cameron bertuzzi, gary habermas, gary habermas resurrection, gary habermas interview, gary habermas minimal facts, minimal facts argument resurrection, evidence for christianity, historical evidence for christianity, historical evidence for the resurrection, evidence for the resurrection, did jesus rise from the dead?, did jesus rise?, history, ancient history, christianity, jesus, habermas resurrection

Id: kWSG5okmUr8

Length: 36min 34sec (2194 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 22 2019