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Background

I’m currently blogging about the first chapter of Part 2 of The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona.

This chapter is numbered as Chapter 3, is titled “A Quintet of Facts (4+1)”, and is subtitled The First Two.

As a refresher, “minimal facts” are facts that:

• Are agreed on by nearly all scholars
• Are strongly supported by the evidence
• Collectively build a strong case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus

You are here

We covered the first minimal fact (“Jesus died by crucifixion”) previously…see post #10 in hyperlinked series outline above.

There is a quite a bit of material regarding the 2nd minimal fact (“Jesus’s disciples believed that He rose and appeared to them“), and this is our fifth post about it. The authors break this fact into two sub-facts:

1. They claimed it
2. They believed it

We haven’t even made it to the 2nd sub-fact yet! The authors present so much interesting information about the Scriptures and the scholarly consensus thereon. God willing, I’m going to continue talking about the first sub-fact today: They claimed it.

Like I’ve been doing throughout this series, I’m generally using Wikipedia to verify the authors’ assertions (though the authors cite plenty of sources). When I see the Christian scholars and Wikipedia agreeing on something, it seems difficult to refute, because Wikipedia is a mainstream, secular source.

Polycarp

We presented evidence last time, via Clement of Rome, that the apostles really did claim the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today, I’d like to present similar evidence via Polycarp.

Let’s allow Britannica to introduce this noble man:

“Greek bishop of Smyrna and Apostolic Father who was the leading 2nd-century Christian figure in Roman Asia by virtue of his work during the initial appearance of the fundamental theological literature of Christianity” (1)

(Side note: the whole idea of the “minimal facts” approach, as I mentioned earlier, is that they enjoy wide support among scholars. Therefore, when I want to present support for these facts, I can go on wikipedia, or Britannica, or various other sources. It’s not hard; and that’s the point :-))

I watched Polycarp’s eponymous 2015 biopic and thought it was pretty good. In any case, we will consult Tertullian (via Habermas and Licona, page 53) to get some credentials on Polycarp (emphasis mine):

“For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter.”

TerWHOlian?

But wait, who was Tertullian and why should we care about his testimony regarding Polycarp? From Wikipedia:

“He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism” (2).

This is Wikipedia’s comment about Prescription Against Heretics, from which Habermas and Licona retrieved Tertullian’s comment on Polycarp:

“Tertullian was a defender of the necessity of apostolicity. In his Prescription Against Heretics, he explicitly challenges heretics to produce evidence of the apostolic succession of their communities” (2).

If Tertullian’s comment is not enough evidence, the authors also cite Irenaeus’s comments about Polycarp’s close association with the apostles (page 54, but keep in mind that Kindle page numbers can change somewhat based on your font size, margin size, etc.). I don’t want to go too long here, but if you leave a comment asking for the scoop on Irenaeus, I’ll be very happy to provide it.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for

So what did Polycarp, this guy who personally knew the apostles, say about them (emphasis mine)?

“For they did not love the present age, but him who died for our benefit and for our sake was raised by God.”

That is from his letter to the Philippians, which is described thusly by Wikipedia and Britannica:

“Scholars generally agree that Pol. Phil. is an authentic epistle of Polycarp.” (3)

“By his major writing, The Letter to the Philippians, and by his widespread moral authority, Polycarp combated various heretical sects, including certain gnostic groups that claimed religious salvation exclusively through their arcane spiritual knowledge” (1)

So, we have further evidence that the apostles themselves, Jesus’s closest inner circle, really did claim to see Him in His resurrected form.

And with that, I’m done discussing the first sub-fact (They claimed it) pertaining to the 2nd minimal fact (Jesus’s disciples believed that He rose and appeared to them)!

If God blesses me, I would like to start discussing the second sub-fact next time (They believed it). This is the sub-fact where things will start to…heat up.

God bless, and thanks for reading!

Links:

1. Polycarp on Britannica
2. Tertullian on Wikipedia 
3. Polycarp on Wikipedia