I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (47 page)

Why would Paul have been so careful if he were not telling the truth? Again, the best explanation for the accuracy of the New Testament writers is that they really were telling the truth.

5. T
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ESTAMENT
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RITERS
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NCLUDE
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VENTS
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ELATED TO THE
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ESURRECTION
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HAT
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HEY
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OULD
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OT
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AVE
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NVENTED

In addition to the inclusion of embarrassing details regarding themselves and Jesus, the New Testament writers record events related to the Resurrection that they would not have inserted if they had invented the story. These include:

The Burial of Jesus—
The New Testament writers record that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling council that had sentenced Jesus to die for blasphemy. This is not an event they would have made up. Considering the bitterness some Christians harbored against the Jewish authorities, why would they put a member of the Sanhedrin in such a favorable light? And why would they put Jesus in the tomb of a Jewish authority? For if Joseph didn’t really bury Jesus, the story would have been easily exposed as fraudulent by the Jewish enemies of Christianity. But the Jews never denied the story, and no alternative burial story has ever been found.

The First Witnesses—
All four Gospels say women were the first witnesses of the empty tomb and the first to learn of the Resurrection. One of those women was Mary Magdalene, who Luke admits had been demon-possessed (Luke 8:2). This would never be inserted in a made-up story. Not only would a once-demon-possessed person make a questionable witness, but
women
in general were not considered reliable witnesses in that first-century culture. In fact, a woman’s testimony carried no weight in a court of law. So if you were making up a resurrection story in the first century, you would avoid women witnesses and make yourselves—the brave men—the first ones to discover the empty tomb and the risen Jesus. Citing the testimony of women—especially demon-possessed women—would only hurt your attempt to pass off a lie as the truth.
²

The Conversion of Priests—
“Why didn’t the risen Jesus appear to the Pharisees?” is a popular question asked by skeptics. The answer might be that it wasn’t necessary. This is often overlooked, but many priests in Jerusalem became believers. Luke writes, “The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and
a large number of priests became obedient
to the faith”
(Acts 6:7). These priests eventually initiated a controversy that took place later in the Jerusalem church. During a council meeting between Peter, Paul, James, and other elders, “some of the believers who belonged to the party of the
Pharisees
stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses’” (Acts 15:5).

The council resolved the issue, but our main point here is that Luke would not have included these details if they were fiction. Why not? Because everyone would have known Luke was a fraud if there were not significant converts from the ranks of the Pharisees. Theophilus and other first-century readers would have known—or could have easily found out—if such converts existed. Obviously, the Pharisees would have known too. Why would Luke give them an easy way of exposing his lies? After all, if you’re trying to pass off a lie as the truth, you don’t make it easy for your enemies to expose your story. Pharisee conversion and Joseph of Arimathea were two unnecessary details that—if untrue—would have completely blown Luke’s cover. And the Joseph story would have blown the cover not only of Luke but of every other Gospel writer as well because they include the same burial story.

The Explanation of the Jews
—The Jewish explanation for the empty tomb is recorded in the last chapter of Matthew:

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day (Matt. 28:11-15).

Notice that Matthew makes it very clear that his readers already know about this Jewish explanation for the empty tomb because “this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.” That means Matthew’s readers (and certainly the Jews themselves) would know whether or not he was telling the truth. If Matthew were making up the empty tomb story, why would he give his readers such an easy way to expose his lies? The only plausible explanation is that the tomb must really have been empty, and the Jewish enemies of Christianity must really have been circulating that specific explanation for the empty tomb. (In fact, Justin Martyr and Tertullian, writing in A.D. 150 and 200 respectively, claim that the Jewish authorities continued to offer this theft story throughout the second century. We’ll discuss the problems with this theory in the next chapter.
³
)

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ORE
THAN
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HIRTY
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ISTORICALLY
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ONFIRMED
P
EOPLE
IN
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HEIR
W
RITINGS

This is a critical point that bears repeating. The New Testament documents cannot have been invented because they contain too many historically confirmed characters (see table 10.1, in chapter 10). The New Testament writers would have blown their credibility with their contemporary audiences by implicating real people in a fictional story, especially people of great notoriety and power. There is no way the New Testament writers could have gotten away with writing outright lies about Pilate, Caiaphas, Festus, Felix, and the entire Herodian bloodline. Somebody would have exposed them for falsely implicating these people in events that never occurred. The New Testament writers knew this, and would not have included so many prominent real people in a fictional story that was intended to deceive. Again, the best explanation is that the New Testament writers accurately recorded what they saw.

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ESTAMENT
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RITERS
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NCLUDE
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IVERGENT
D
ETAILS

Critics are quick to cite the apparently contradictory Gospel accounts as evidence that the Gospels can’t be trusted for accurate information. For example, Matthew says there was one angel at the tomb of Jesus while John mentions two. Isn’t this a contradiction that blows the credibility of these accounts? No, exactly the opposite is true: divergent details actually strengthen the case that these are eyewitness accounts. How so?

First, let’s point out that the angel accounts are not contradictory. Matthew does not say there was
only
one angel at the tomb. The critic has to add a word to Matthew’s account to make it contradict John’s.
⁴

But why did Matthew mention only one if two angels were really there? For the same reason two different newspaper reporters covering the same event choose to include different details in their stories. Two independent eyewitnesses rarely see all the same details and will never describe an event in exactly the same words. They’ll record the same major event (i.e., Jesus rose from the dead), but may differ on the details (i.e., how many angels were at his tomb). In fact, when a judge hears two witnesses giving exactly the same word-for-word testimony, what does that judge rightly assume? Collusion—the witnesses got together beforehand to make their stories agree.

So it’s perfectly reasonable that Matthew and John differ—they are both recording eyewitness testimony. Maybe Matthew mentioned only the angel that spoke (Matt. 28:5) while John described how many angels Mary saw (John 20:12). Or maybe one angel was more prominent than the other. We don’t know for sure. We just know that such differences are common among eyewitnesses.

In light of the numerous divergent details in the New Testament, it’s clear that the New Testament writers didn’t get together to smooth out their testimonies. This means they certainly were not trying to pass off a lie as the truth. For if they were making up the New Testament story, they would have gotten together to make sure they were consistent in every detail. Such harmonization clearly didn’t happen, and this confirms the genuine eyewitness nature of the New Testament and the independence of each writer.

Ironically, it’s not the New Testament that is contradictory, it’s the critics. On one hand, the critics claim that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are too uniform to be independent sources. On the other hand, they claim that they are too divergent to be telling the truth. So which are they? Are they too uniform or too divergent?

Actually, we think they are a perfect blend of both. Namely, they are both sufficiently uniform and sufficiently divergent (but not too much so) precisely
because
they are independent eyewitness accounts of the same events. One would expect to see the same major facts and different minor details in three independent newspaper stories about the same event.

If you don’t believe us, then log onto the Internet today and look at three independent stories about a particular event in the news. Pick one story from the AP, another from Reuters, and maybe another from UPI or an independent reporter. Each story will contain some of the same major facts but may include different minor details. In most cases, the accounts will be
complementary
rather than contradictory.

For example, if three news sources carry a story about a presidential visit to a foreign country, the stories will all properly identify the country, but they may emphasize different minor details. If one account says the president visited the prime minister of Great Britain, and if another account says the president visited the prime minister in a room with marble pillars, are those two accounts complementary or contradictory? They are complementary. The second account doesn’t contradict the first, it just adds to it.

In the same way, all the Gospels agree on the same major fact—Jesus rose from the dead. They just have different complementary details. And even if one could find some minor details between the Gospels that are flatly contradictory, that wouldn’t prove the Resurrection is fiction. It may present a problem for the doctrine that the Bible is without any minor error, but it wouldn’t mean the major event didn’t happen.

Simon Greenleaf, the Harvard law professor who wrote the standard study on what constitutes legal evidence, credited his own conversion to Christianity as having come from his careful examination of the Gospel witnesses. If anyone knew the characteristics of genuine eyewitness testimony, it was Greenleaf. He concluded that the four Gospels “would have been received in evidence in any court of justice, without the slightest hesitation.”
⁵

The bottom line is this: agreement on the major points and divergence on the minor details is the nature of eyewitness testimony, and this is the very nature of the New Testament documents.

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HALLENGE
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HEIR
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EADERS TO
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HECK
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UT
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ERIFIABLE
F
ACTS
,
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VEN
F
ACTS
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BOUT
M
IRACLES

We’ve already seen some of the claims of accuracy the New Testament writers made to the recipients of their documents. These include Luke’s overt assertion of accuracy to Theophilus (Luke 1:1-4); Peter’s claim that they did not follow cleverly devised tales but were eyewitnesses to Christ’s majesty (2 Pet. 1:16); Paul’s bold declaration to Festus and King Agrippa about the resurrected Christ (Acts 26); and Paul’s restatement of an early creed that identified more than 500 eyewitnesses of the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15).

In addition, Paul makes another claim to the Corinthians that he wouldn’t have made unless he was telling the truth. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul declares that he previously performed miracles for them. Speaking of his own qualifications as an apostle—someone who speaks for God—Paul reminds the Corinthians, “The things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders and miracles—were done among you with great perseverance” (2 Cor. 12:12).

Now why would Paul write this to the Corinthians unless he really had done miracles for them? He would have destroyed his credibility completely by asking them to remember miracles that he never did for them! The only plausible conclusion is that 1) Paul really was an apos- tle of God, 2) he therefore really had the ability to confirm his apostleship by performing miracles, and 3) he had displayed this ability openly to the Corinthians.

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ESTAMENT
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RITERS
D
ESCRIBE
M
IRACLES
L
IKE
O
THER
H
ISTORICAL
E
VENTS
: W
ITH
S
IMPLE
,
U
NEMBELLISHED
A
CCOUNTS

Embellished and extravagant details are strong signs that a historical account has legendary elements. For example, there’s a legendary account of Christ’s resurrection that was written more than 100 years after the actual event. It is from the apocryphal forgery known as the
Gospel of Peter,
and it goes like this: