Tag Archives: Historical Methods

Videos

Friday night fun: Mike Licona videos about the resurrection of Jesus

1 Comment

Well, *I* think it’s fun, and this is how I am spending my Friday night!

The 5 videos are here on the NAMB 4Truth.net web site. (H/T Mike Licona)

You can download the videos from that page, and there is even a PDF.

There are 5 videos.

  • The first video is an introduction that highlights the importance of the resurrection in Christian belief.
  • The second video talks about how historians piece together what happened in the past using evidence.
  • The third video talks about “historical bedrock” – the parts of a historical document are accepted by most scholars.
  • The fourth video talks about how to answer objections from Internet web sites.
  • The fifth video talks about how to answer objections from scholars.

(I think they switched the order of the fourth and fifth debates, but I am going off of the PDF summary)

Mike has debated Richard Carrier and Bart Ehrman, so what you are getting here is a Christian historian’s perspective on how to debate the resurrection. If you want to see something you can really use in a hostile encounter, then you need to prepare yourself with Mike Licona’s material.

Here is the video of the debate between Mike Licona and Bart Ehrman.

Mike Licona also reviewed Bart Ehrman’s latest book “Forged”.

Podcasts

Jay Smith debates Mohammed Bahmanpour on the crucifixion of Jesus

5 Comments

This is from Justin Brierley’s Unbelievable radio show.

Details:

The Koran claims that Jesus did not die on the cross.

Mohammed Bahmanpour of the Islamic College in London defends the Koranic view that although “it was made to appear to them” that he died, in fact he was substituted by another.

Jay Smith is a Christian evangelist to Muslims in London and brings to bear Biblical and other historical witnesses to the crucifixion.  They debate the issue and whether the Koran or the New Testament is to be trusted as a revelation of God.

Includes listener interactions with the guests.

The MP3 file is here.

Here are the opening speeches:

Mohammed:
– in Surah 4 (Quran), it says that Jesus didn’t die on a cross
– it only appeared to onlookers as though Jesus died on the cross
– muslims believe that the crucifixion really happened
– but Jesus wasn’t the one who died, it was actually Judas
– most Muslims think that Judas betrayed Jesus
– some Shiites believe that Judas died voluntarily in Jesus’ place
– the gospel of Judas seems to make Judas out to be a hero

Jay:
– the 4 gospels agree that Jesus died on a cross
– John is an eyewitness and it’s in his gospel
– Paul’s writings also echo the gospels (Romans and epistles)
– the gospel of Judas is a fourth century document
– it reflects gnostic theology, which denies that Jesus had a body
– even Surah 19 says that Jesus actually did die and rise after
– so Surah 4 and Surah 19 are internally contradictory

They take calls from callers and debate issues with each other. It’s interesting to hear the role that history and historical methods plays in each religion.

Speaking of Unbelievable, Justin has an Unbelievable conference coming up on May 14th in the UK. Details are here.

Podcasts

German historian Jurgen Speiss outlines a case for the resurrection of Jesus

2 Comments

A prominent German scholar defends the resurrection. (H/T Apologetics 315)

The MP3 file is here.

Speaker info:

Dr Jürgen Spiess is the founder and director of the “Institute of Science and Faith” (www.iguw.de) in Marburg/Germany. He studied at the University of Munich, where he  took a  PhD in Ancient History (with the subsidiary subjects “Egyptology” and “Philosophy of History”).

For fifteen years, he acted as General Secretary of SMD (IFES-Germany).  He is author and editor of books and articles including the subjects; F.M. Dostoevsky, C.S. Lewis, Medical Ethics, Science and Faith, The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and Christian Apologetics. He lectured at many European universities in Russia (St. Petersburg, Novosobirsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk) Ukraine and Georgia. He is a member of the “German Dostoevsky Society” and the “Inklings Society.” He lost his first family (wife and child) by a car accident. He is married again and has one daughter.

Topics:

  • How did Jurgen become a Christian?
  • What is Jurgen’s academic background?
  • Can science detect historical miracles?
  • How history is more like legal work
  • the difference between what is plausible and what happened
  • what are the earliest and best sources for the life of Jesus?
  • are the authors of the New Testament trying to write history?
  • how Luke and Acts is based on eyewitnesses and Luke’s experiences
  • when were the gospels written?
  • how the destruction of Jerusalem helps us to date the sources
  • how early are the earliest extant manuscript fragments?
  • how early are the earliest extant complete manuscripts?
  • how good is the evidence for the empty tomb?
  • the significance of women discovering the empty tomb
  • did Jews expect that one person alone would rise before all?
  • if the tomb was not empty, why didn’t anyone produce the body?
  • the appearances are in the gospels, Acts and 1 Cor 15:3-7
  • 1 Cor 15:3-7 was received by Paul 1-6 years after Jesus’ death
  • 1 Cor was written in 55 A.D. by Paul
  • the disciples had to have an experience to change their lives
  • what does the resurrection mean to Christians today?

There is a period of (hostile) Q&A at the end of the lecture.

You can also read more about the European Leadership Forum.

Further study

The top 10 links to help you along with your learning.

  1. How every Christian can learn to explain the resurrection of Jesus to others
  2. The earliest source for the minimal facts about the resurrection
  3. The earliest sources for the empty tomb narrative
  4. Who were the first witnesses to the empty tomb?
  5. Did the divinity of Jesus emerge slowly after many years of embellishments?
  6. What about all those other books that the Church left out the Bible?
  7. Assessing Bart Ehrman’s case against the resurrection of Jesus
  8. William Lane Craig debates radical skeptics on the resurrection of Jesus
  9. Did Christianity copy from Buddhism, Mithraism or the myth of Osiris?
  10. Quick overview of N.T. Wright’s case for the resurrection

Debates are a fun way to learn

Two debates where you can see this play out:

Or you can listen to my favorite debate on the resurrection.

Extra stuff

Stand to Reason has a post featuring Mike Licona discussing Ehrman.