Going for the Jugular (Habermas & Licona post #11: Part 2)


 

Open series outline: Going for the jugular
 

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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.

I discussed the first minimal fact (Jesus was crucified) last time, so today I want to look at the second minimal fact (refresher: “minimal facts” refer to facts that nearly all scholars agree on, and which are strongly supported by the evidence, and which collectively build a strong case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus):

Minimal Fact #2: Jesus’s disciples believed that He rose and appeared to them

They actually break this fact into two parts:

  1. They claimed it
  2. They believed it

So, today, we will only address the first “sub-fact”. So, what is the evidence that the disciples really claimed Jesus rose again and appeared to them?

I was surprised at the authors’ first source of evidence: The apostle Paul!

Using the Bible to prove the Bible….with a twist

Surely the authors would realize that nothing in the Bible (copied, translated, slowly corrupted across the centuries) could be considered supporting evidence, even indirectly, for the Bible’s resurrection story.

Except that it can…because most scholars consider Paul’s letters to the Galatians, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Romans, Philippians and Philemon to be genuine (1)!

So, when Paul discusses the gospel message of the resurrection in I Corinthians 15, and then mentions how the other apostles outrank him, and then makes this statement…

[1Co 15:11 KJV] 11 Therefore whether [it were] I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.

…we have good evidence that the other apostles, Jesus’s inner circle, really did claim that He rose again!

But the authors have additional evidence for the contention that the disciples claimed that Jesus rose again and appeared to them. Thanks for reading, God bless you and come back soon!

Links:

  1. Paul the Apostle on Wikipedia
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