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Background

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

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

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 two minimal facts (“Jesus died by crucifixion” and “Jesus’s disciples believed that He rose and appeared to them“) previously…see posts #10-#18 in hyperlinked series outline above.

Today, we discuss fact #3: The church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed

It was right under my nose

It’s so easy to read Galatians, I Corinthians, and other Pauline epistles without seeing the dynamite evidence for resurrection they contain.

I always thought that I Corinthians (like the rest of the Bible) should be off limits when trying to establish the historicity of the gospel to an unbeliever, but I was wrong; today’s passage has the total package!

History 101

The authors previously discussed (see post #9) some ways to “grade” historical testimony. Some attributes to look for were:

1. Provided by someone neutral or even hostile to the benefiting parties
2. Embarrassing to the person providing it
3. Eyewitness rather than secondhand

Keep those in mind as we continue…

Lo and behold!

As mentioned in post #17, seven of the Pauline epistles are widely considered by scholars to be genuine; one of those seven is I Corinthians.

In the following passage from I Corinthians…

[1Co 15:8-9 KJV] 8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

…Paul lets us know that He saw the risen Jesus, and that previously he had been a persecutor of the church.

So, in a letter that almost all scholars regard as a genuine Pauline epistle, we see pro-resurrection testimony that is:

1. Provided by someone (Paul) who at the time of the event in question was hostile to the benefiting parties (Christians)
2. Embarrassing to the person (Paul) providing it
3. Eyewitness rather than secondhand.

And as one final nail in the coffin of the Paul-was-lying theory (we’ll deal with hallucinations later), we have the intense suffering and almost certain martyrdom that he experienced as a result of preaching Jesus, which I discussed in post #17.

I.E.: We have in I Corinthians 15 grade A historical testimony in favor of the resurrection.

BOOM!

God bless, and thanks for reading.

TFOTF