.

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 seventh post about it. The authors break this fact into two sub-facts:

1. They claimed it
2. They believed it

Last time, we began discussing the 2nd sub-fact; it was pretty gruesome, but that was the point. With God’s help, I would like to continue today in the same vein.

It’s the thought that counts

So, we saw last time that Peter proved via martyrdom that he was sincere in his resurrection claims, but what about the beloved Paul, that noble apostle that wrote 14 (if you count Hebrews) of the 27 books of the New Testament? Though I cannot point to a scholarly consensus that he was martyred, I can say that once you read his Britannica and Wikipedia entries, it’s pretty obvious that he was willing to be martyred.

It’s the willingness to be martyred, not the actual application of flame, sword, boiling oil or jaws, that I’m ultimately interested in anyway.

Where oh where can we learn about Paul?

So, is Paul some shadowy figure lost to antiquity? After all, 2000 years is a long time, especially since options for information storage were pretty meager back then.

Do we have reliable info about him? Read this quote from Britannica (note, it will paywall you sometimes but not others…if you can’t get in, cough up the money or just try again tomorrow) and judge for yourself:

“The seven undoubted letters constitute the best source of information on Paul’s life and especially his thought; in the order in which they appear in the New Testament, they are Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon.” (1)

It’s not an endorsement of any miracle/theology claims in his writing; but it is a confirmation that Paul was a real historical figure, and that we can actually read his writings today.

As another example, consider the approximate dating of his house arrest provided in the Wikipedia entry:

“Paul finally arrived in Rome around 60, where he spent another two years under house arrest.” (2)

Again, this is not a discussion of a mythical figure; it’s a discussion of a real person in a real place in a real moment in history.

Once was I stoned

Zooming in, the Britannica article cites 2 Corinthians 11, where Paul presents a long list of his sufferings experienced during ministry:

“Disobedient members of synagogues were punished by some form of ostracism or by light flogging, which Paul himself later suffered at least five times (2 Corinthians 11:24), though he does not say when or where.” (1)

So he was willing to be flogged (repeatedly!), but it gets worse. I won’t quote the entire passage, but since we’re curious if he believed his resurrection claims sincerely enough to die for them, check out verse 25 where he says “…once was I stoned…”. Stoning in the Bible was a form of execution; he survived it, but he wasn’t supposed to (and I would submit Acts 14:19 for a fuller account of this). So yes, Paul was willing to die for his faith.

If that’s not enough for you, consider this excerpt from the Wikipedia entry:

“The date of Paul’s death is believed to have occurred after the Great Fire of Rome in July 64, but before the last year of Nero’s reign, in 68.”

Now, I already discussed in the previous post the unspeakable barbarism inflicted on Christians in Rome between the Great Fire and the death of Nero. So, if Paul, this outspoken Christian, died around that time as suggested by the Wikipedia article, I don’t have to know how he died to say he was willing to die for his faith.

Given everything I just presented, it’s a massive stretch to claim Paul didn’t realize what he was signing up for until it was too late. I’d prefer to keep my mental hamstrings intact!

Again, this post is not, in and of itself, trying to prove anything supernatural. I’m only trying to say that the apostles were sincere in their resurrection claims.

Are you with me so far?

God bless, and thanks for reading!

Links:

1. Britannica on Paul
2. Wikipedia on Paul