In his post, Brian doesn’t really say much about where or when the lecture was recorded. But I can tell you! This lecture has a special meaning for me because when I was just learning about apologetics, this was one of the first lectures I ordered. The lecture was delivered in 1996 at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary as part of the distinguished Carver-Barnes Lecture Series. The title was “Re-Discovering the Historical Jesus”. Hearing this again (I lent mine away and never got it back) was a real treat for me.
And here is a summary I made so you can follow along as you listen.
Lecture 1: the pre-suppositions of the Jesus Seminar
– the origins of the radically skeptical “Jesus Seminar” group
– what does the Jesus Seminar believe about Jesus?
– what is a pre-supposition?
– how do pre-suppositions affect the study of history?
– the Jesus Seminar’s pre-supposition of naturalism (atheism)
– the Jesus Seminar’s pre-supposition that the NT gospels are late
– the Jesus Seminar’s pre-supposition of political correctness
– does the Jesus Seminar represent the consensus of NT scholars?
Lecture 2A: are the NT gospels historically reliable?
– should the gospels be assumed to be reliable or unreliable
– argument #1: insufficient time from events to written record
– argument #2: gospels contain very little legendary material
– argument #3: Jewish culture was good at oral transmission
– argument #4: eyewitness correction and apostolic supervision
– argument #5: the gospels are reliable where they can be tested
– #1: legendary elements only appear 1-2 generations after events
– but gospels were written within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses
– sources for the gospels are even earlier, e.g. – 1 Cor 15:3-8
– on the other hand, the apocryphal gospels do contain legends
– #5: gospels are confirmed by history and archaeology were possible
– Luke includes details showing that he traveled with eyewitness Paul
Lecture 2B: the self-understanding of Jesus
– how early and reliable is believe in Jesus’ divinity
– it would be hard to get monotheistic Jews to think Jesus was divine
– the only way this belief could have emerged is if Jesus taught it
– parable of the wicked tennants and vineyard – Jesus’ self-understanding
– passage about no one knowing the father except the son, etc.
– passage about not knowing the date of his second coming
– the healings and exorcisms are well-attested and skeptics grant them
Lecture 2C: the trial and crucifixion of Jesus
– crucifixion is well-attested inside and outside the New Testament
– even the Jesus Seminar considers this an indisputable fact about Jesus
– Jesus was crucified for blasphemy – i.e. claiming to be divine
Lecture 2D: the minimal facts case for the resurrection
– minimal fact #1: the burial in a known location
– minimal fact #2: the empty tomb
– minimal fact #3: the appearances to individuals and groups
– minimal fact #4: the early belief that Jesus was resurrected
– the majority of scholars, including skeptics, accept the minimal facts
– naturalistic explanations are not able to account for these facts
There is a very noisy weird person in the audience who keeps shouting his approval. This lecture is almost identical to a lecture that Craig gave for Stand to Reason’s Masters Series, on the pre-suppositions of the Jesus Seminar. There is no Q&A in this lecture, but there is Q&A in the STR version.
James Crossley is my favorite atheist ancient historian, such a straight shooter. He’s on the skeptical left, but he has a no-baloney way of talking that I really like. I was so excited to summarize this, and there’s not a speck of snark in this summary. Crossley dates the gospel of Mark 37-43 A.D., far earlier than most scholars. Justin Brierley does a great job as moderator. Gary Habermas is OK, but he is not familiar with any useful arguments for God’s existence, (kalam, fine-tuning, origin of life, Cambrian explosion, etc.), and that is a problem in this debate.
Christian philosopher and historian Gary Habermas has been at the forefront of the ‘minimal facts’ approach as evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.
He debates the commonly agreed facts with agnostic New Testament scholar James Crossley and they discuss whether the miracle of the resurrection can be a historically valid explanation of the evidence.
Note: this is the first of two shows they are doing together!!
Habermas: the minimal facts are the facts that even the majority of skeptical scholars will accept
Habermas list of minimal facts: (near universal acceptance)
Jesus died by Roman crucifixion
After his death, his disciples had experiences that they believed were appearances of the risen Jesus
The disciples were transformed by their experiences and proclaimed his resurrection and were willing to die for their belief in the resurrection
The proclamation of his resurrection was early
James was converted by a post-mortem experience
Paul was converted by a post-mortem experience
Habermas list of widely-accepted facts:
Burial for Jesus in a private tomb
The private tomb found empty
The disciples despaired after Jesus was crucified
The proclamation of the resurrection started in Jerusalem
Changing the worship day from Saturday to Sunday
Crossley’s views on the minimal and widely-accepted facts:
Crossley: I am in broad agreement with what Gary said
Crossley: “the resurrection appearances are some of the hardest, best evidence we have” because it’s in early 1 Cor 15:3-8 creed
Crossley: people were convinced that they had seen the risen Christ
The burial in a private tomb:
Crossley: I have my doubts about the private tomb burial and the empty tomb
Crossley: Mark’s gospel has the burial in a private tomb by Joseph of Arimethea, and Mark is the earliest gospel
Crossley: I don’t have a doubt, it’s just that there are other possible alternatives, and then the tradition was invented later – but that’s just a possibility
Crossley: there is not enough evidence to make a decision either way on the burial
The empty tomb:
Habermas: there are multiple lines of evidence for the empty tomb
Habermas: the reason it’s not one of my minimal facts is because a quarter to a third of skeptical scholars reject it
The transformation of the followers of Jesus:
Crossley: “yes, clearly, I don’t think you can argue with that, it’s fairly obvious”
The conversions of James and Paul:
Crossley: “yes, because it’s based on 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, that report, that was handed on to him”
Where Habermas and Crossley agree:
Habermas: you agree with the 6 facts in the minimal facts list, and you have problems with 2 of 5 facts from the widely accepted list
Crossley: Yes
The empty tomb:
Crossley: Two problems: first, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 doesn’t mention it, but it “probably assumes the idea that Jesus left behind an empty tomb when resurrected, I am convinced by some of the conservative arguments on that one, but it’s not hard evidence for there actually being an empty tomb”
Crossley: Second, “the other early source we have ends with no resurrection appearances”, it makes him a bit skeptical of the empty tomb
Habermas: the empty tomb is not a minimal fact, I want 90% agreement by skeptical scholars for it to be a minimal fact
Habermas: I have never included the empty tomb in my list of minimal facts
Brierley: William Lane Craig puts it in his list of minimal facts
Habermas: It is very well attested, so if that’s what you mean, then it’s a minimal fact, but it doesn’t have the 90% agreement like the other minimal facts
Habermas: I have 21 arguments for the empty tomb, and none of them require early dating of sources or traditional authorship of the gospels, e.g. – the women discovered the empty tomb, the pre-Markan source, the implications of 1 Cor 15 has some force, the sermons summary in Acts 13 which Bart Ehrman dates to 31 or 32 A.D. has putting a body down and a body coming up without being corrupted
Why is 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 more respected as a source than the gospels?
Habermas: There is a unanimous New Testament conclusion, across the board, from conservative to liberal, that in 1 Cor 15:3-8 Paul is presenting creedal data, Richard Bauckham says that this goes back to the early 30s A.D., Paul got this from the eyewitnesses he mentions in Galatians 1 and 2
Crossley: [reads 1 Corinthians:3-8 out loud], now that’s a tradition that’s handed on, this is Paul, we know this is Paul, writing mid-50s, this is kind of gold, this is the evidence I wish we had across the board
Why doesn’t James accept the resurrection:
Crossley: Historians should not conclude that the supernatural is real, concluding the supernatural is outside of history
Crossley: I am more interested in what people believed at that time
Brierley: as a historian, are you required to give an explanation of the commonly-accepted facts
Crossley: yes, historians must give their explanation for the facts
Crossley: we know people have visions, and how the cultural context determines the content of visions, e.g. – the background of martyrdom
Brierley: so you would go for the hallucination hypothesis?
Crossley: yes, but I prefer not to use that word
Should historians rule out the supernatural?
Habermas: let’s not ask what caused the event, let’s just see if the disciples thought they saw him before he died, that he died on the cross, and then believed they saw him after he died, like you might see someone in the supermarket
Habermas: I’m not asking whether a miracle occurred, I just want to know whether Jesus was seen after he died on the cross
Crossley: that sounds like the angle I’m coming at this from
Crossley: the problem is that there is a supernatural element to some of the appearances, so it’s not a supermarket appearances
Brierley: it’s not angels and hallelujah in the sky
Habermas: nothing like that, no light in the early accounts, fairly mundane
Does James agree that people believed they saw Jesus after his death?
Crossley: yes, I think that’s fairly clear that we do
Crossley: but historians cannot prove claims that what happened to Jesus was supernatural
Brierley: your view is so far from what I see on Internet atheists sites, where they say it’s all legendary accumulation, fairy tales
Crossley: I’m perfect comfortable with the idea – and I think it happened – that people created stories, invented stories
Crossley: there are too many cases where people are sincerely professing that they thought they saw Jesus after his death
Would you expect the disciples to have visions of a resurrected Jesus if nothing happened to him?
Habermas: the dividing line is: did something happen to Jesus, or did something happen to his disciples?
Habermas: the view that people were seeing a kind of ghostly Jesus (non-bodily) – a Jedi Jesus – after his death is a resurrection view, but I hold to a bodily resurrection view
Brierley: N.T. Wright says a resurrected Jesus was contrary to expectations – should we expect the disciples to have a vision of Jesus as resurrected?
Crossley: Wright generalizes too much thinking that there was a single view of the resurrection (the general resurrection at the end of the age), there are a variety of views, some are contradictory
Crossley: Herod Antipas thought that Jesus might be John the Baptist returned from the dead, and he knew Jesus was flesh and blood, there is the story of the dead rising in the earthquake in Matthew, there are stories of the resurrection in Maccabees, and this would influence what people expected
Habermas: the earliest Christian view was *bodily* resurrection
Crossley: yes, I think that’s right
Crossley: In Mark 6, they thought Jesus was a ghost, so there is room for disagreement
Why should a historian not rule out a supernatural explanation?
Habermas: to get to supernatural, you have to go to philosophy – it’s a worldview problem
Habermas: he predicted his own death and resurrection
Habermas: one factor is the uniqueness of Jesus
Habermas: the early church had belief in the bodily resurrection, and a high Christology out of the gate
Habermas: you might look at evidence for corroborated near-death experiences that raise the possibility of an afterlife
Crossley: I’m content to leave it at the level of what people believe and not draw any larger conclusions
Crossley: regarding the predicting his own death, the gospels are written after, so it’s not clear that these predictions predate Jesus’ death
Crossley: it’s not surprising that Jesus would have predicted his own death, and that he might have foreseen God vindicating him
If you admit to the possibility of miracles, is the data sufficient to conclude that the best explanation of the facts is resurrection?
Crossley: If we assume that God exists, and that God intervenes in history, and that this was obvious to everyone, then “of course”
Brierley: Are you committed to a naturalistic view of history?
Crossley: Not quite, broadly, yes, I am saying this all I can do
Brierley: should James be open to a supernatural explanation?
Habermas: if you adopt methodological naturalism,it colors how look at the data is seen, just like supernaturalism does
James Crossley is my favorite atheist ancient historian, such a straight shooter. He’s on the skeptical left, but he has a no-baloney way of talking that I really like. I was so excited to summarize this, and there’s not a speck of snark in this summary. Crossley dates the gospel of Mark 37-43 A.D., far earlier than most scholars. Justin Brierley does a great job as moderator. Gary Habermas is OK, but he is not familiar with any useful arguments for God’s existence, (kalam, fine-tuning, origin of life, Cambrian explosion, etc.), and that is a problem in this debate.
Christian philosopher and historian Gary Habermas has been at the forefront of the ‘minimal facts’ approach as evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.
He debates the commonly agreed facts with agnostic New Testament scholar James Crossley and they discuss whether the miracle of the resurrection can be a historically valid explanation of the evidence.
Note: this is the first of two shows they are doing together!!
Habermas: the minimal facts are the facts that even the majority of skeptical scholars will accept
Habermas list of minimal facts: (near universal acceptance)
Jesus died by Roman crucifixion
After his death, his disciples had experiences that they believed were appearances of the risen Jesus
The disciples were transformed by their experiences and proclaimed his resurrection and were willing to die for their belief in the resurrection
The proclamation of his resurrection was early
James was converted by a post-mortem experience
Paul was converted by a post-mortem experience
Habermas list of widely-accepted facts:
Burial for Jesus in a private tomb
The private tomb found empty
The disciples despaired after Jesus was crucified
The proclamation of the resurrection started in Jerusalem
Changing the worship day from Saturday to Sunday
Crossley’s views on the minimal and widely-accepted facts:
Crossley: I am in broad agreement with what Gary said
Crossley: “the resurrection appearances are some of the hardest, best evidence we have” because it’s in early 1 Cor 15:3-8 creed
Crossley: people were convinced that they had seen the risen Christ
The burial in a private tomb:
Crossley: I have my doubts about the private tomb burial and the empty tomb
Crossley: Mark’s gospel has the burial in a private tomb by Joseph of Arimethea, and Mark is the earliest gospel
Crossley: I don’t have a doubt, it’s just that there are other possible alternatives, and then the tradition was invented later – but that’s just a possibility
Crossley: there is not enough evidence to make a decision either way on the burial
The empty tomb:
Habermas: there are multiple lines of evidence for the empty tomb
Habermas: the reason it’s not one of my minimal facts is because a quarter to a third of skeptical scholars reject it
The transformation of the followers of Jesus:
Crossley: “yes, clearly, I don’t think you can argue with that, it’s fairly obvious”
The conversions of James and Paul:
Crossley: “yes, because it’s based on 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, that report, that was handed on to him”
Where Habermas and Crossley agree:
Habermas: you agree with the 6 facts in the minimal facts list, and you have problems with 2 of 5 facts from the widely accepted list
Crossley: Yes
The empty tomb:
Crossley: Two problems: first, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 doesn’t mention it, but it “probably assumes the idea that Jesus left behind an empty tomb when resurrected, I am convinced by some of the conservative arguments on that one, but it’s not hard evidence for there actually being an empty tomb”
Crossley: Second, “the other early source we have ends with no resurrection appearances”, it makes him a bit skeptical of the empty tomb
Habermas: the empty tomb is not a minimal fact, I want 90% agreement by skeptical scholars for it to be a minimal fact
Habermas: I have never included the empty tomb in my list of minimal facts
Brierley: William Lane Craig puts it in his list of minimal facts
Habermas: It is very well attested, so if that’s what you mean, then it’s a minimal fact, but it doesn’t have the 90% agreement like the other minimal facts
Habermas: I have 21 arguments for the empty tomb, and none of them require early dating of sources or traditional authorship of the gospels, e.g. – the women discovered the empty tomb, the pre-Markan source, the implications of 1 Cor 15 has some force, the sermons summary in Acts 13 which Bart Ehrman dates to 31 or 32 A.D. has putting a body down and a body coming up without being corrupted
Why is 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 more respected as a source than the gospels?
Habermas: There is a unanimous New Testament conclusion, across the board, from conservative to liberal, that in 1 Cor 15:3-8 Paul is presenting creedal data, Richard Bauckham says that this goes back to the early 30s A.D., Paul got this from the eyewitnesses he mentions in Galatians 1 and 2
Crossley: [reads 1 Corinthians:3-8 out loud], now that’s a tradition that’s handed on, this is Paul, we know this is Paul, writing mid-50s, this is kind of gold, this is the evidence I wish we had across the board
Why doesn’t James accept the resurrection:
Crossley: Historians should not conclude that the supernatural is real, concluding the supernatural is outside of history
Crossley: I am more interested in what people believed at that time
Brierley: as a historian, are you required to give an explanation of the commonly-accepted facts
Crossley: yes, historians must give their explanation for the facts
Crossley: we know people have visions, and how the cultural context determines the content of visions, e.g. – the background of martyrdom
Brierley: so you would go for the hallucination hypothesis?
Crossley: yes, but I prefer not to use that word
Should historians rule out the supernatural?
Habermas: let’s not ask what caused the event, let’s just see if the disciples thought they saw him before he died, that he died on the cross, and then believed they saw him after he died, like you might see someone in the supermarket
Habermas: I’m not asking whether a miracle occurred, I just want to know whether Jesus was seen after he died on the cross
Crossley: that sounds like the angle I’m coming at this from
Crossley: the problem is that there is a supernatural element to some of the appearances, so it’s not a supermarket appearances
Brierley: it’s not angels and hallelujah in the sky
Habermas: nothing like that, no light in the early accounts, fairly mundane
Does James agree that people believed they saw Jesus after his death?
Crossley: yes, I think that’s fairly clear that we do
Crossley: but historians cannot prove claims that what happened to Jesus was supernatural
Brierley: your view is so far from what I see on Internet atheists sites, where they say it’s all legendary accumulation, fairy tales
Crossley: I’m perfect comfortable with the idea – and I think it happened – that people created stories, invented stories
Crossley: there are too many cases where people are sincerely professing that they thought they saw Jesus after his death
Would you expect the disciples to have visions of a resurrected Jesus if nothing happened to him?
Habermas: the dividing line is: did something happen to Jesus, or did something happen to his disciples?
Habermas: the view that people were seeing a kind of ghostly Jesus (non-bodily) – a Jedi Jesus – after his death is a resurrection view, but I hold to a bodily resurrection view
Brierley: N.T. Wright says a resurrected Jesus was contrary to expectations – should we expect the disciples to have a vision of Jesus as resurrected?
Crossley: Wright generalizes too much thinking that there was a single view of the resurrection (the general resurrection at the end of the age), there are a variety of views, some are contradictory
Crossley: Herod Antipas thought that Jesus might be John the Baptist returned from the dead, and he knew Jesus was flesh and blood, there is the story of the dead rising in the earthquake in Matthew, there are stories of the resurrection in Maccabees, and this would influence what people expected
Habermas: the earliest Christian view was *bodily* resurrection
Crossley: yes, I think that’s right
Crossley: In Mark 6, they thought Jesus was a ghost, so there is room for disagreement
Why should a historian not rule out a supernatural explanation?
Habermas: to get to supernatural, you have to go to philosophy – it’s a worldview problem
Habermas: he predicted his own death and resurrection
Habermas: one factor is the uniqueness of Jesus
Habermas: the early church had belief in the bodily resurrection, and a high Christology out of the gate
Habermas: you might look at evidence for corroborated near-death experiences that raise the possibility of an afterlife
Crossley: I’m content to leave it at the level of what people believe and not draw any larger conclusions
Crossley: regarding the predicting his own death, the gospels are written after, so it’s not clear that these predictions predate Jesus’ death
Crossley: it’s not surprising that Jesus would have predicted his own death, and that he might have foreseen God vindicating him
If you admit to the possibility of miracles, is the data sufficient to conclude that the best explanation of the facts is resurrection?
Crossley: If we assume that God exists, and that God intervenes in history, and that this was obvious to everyone, then “of course”
Brierley: Are you committed to a naturalistic view of history?
Crossley: Not quite, broadly, yes, I am saying this all I can do
Brierley: should James be open to a supernatural explanation?
Habermas: if you adopt methodological naturalism,it colors how look at the data is seen, just like supernaturalism does
WINTERY KNIGHT 