The Recrudesce Argument For The Resurrection

 Our friend Caleb Jackson is doing important research on miracles, modern appearances of Christ & other related topics. He is also in the process of writing a book discussing such topics. He was kind enough to write a layout of the argument from the modern appearances for me to share here:

“Many skeptics argue that if Jesus really rose from the dead, we should expect that He would appear to more people around the world to give independent confirmation of his resurrection. Paul is apparently the only hostile witness that we have, and so critics point out that it is surprising that Jesus only appeared to one enemy out of thousands. Such arguments were addressed in multiple posts several years ago, although one may find the current rebuttals on the site just a bit too convenient for the Christian. 

 

In response, I would ask the skeptic, “Who said He didn’t appear to more people?” I am currently developing an argument for the resurrection (which will eventually be published into a book) that, if true, wounds not only this objection, but in fact hampers any current naturalistic objection to the resurrection. The Recrudesce Argument for the resurrection (the name being derived from a term that means “to recur”) argues that the resurrection of Christ is not just an event backed by historical evidence, but is a continuing reality that is routinely evidenced in our current world. Millions of people around the world are claiming to see Jesus in dreams and visions, which convert them to the point of being willing to endure intense persecution. This itself is not inherently miraculous, for people have visions and dreams for various reasons. However, it is amazing when one considers that many of these visionaries are prior enemies of Christianity (basically modern-day versions of Saul of Tarsus) like members of Isis. This phenomenon is surprisingly prevalent, with a survey by Fuller Theological Seminary's School of World Mission estimating that around a quarter of Muslim converts to Christianity were influenced in part by dreams of Jesus. In Hindu countries like Nepal, Pentacostal churches are growing at a rapid rate, with the main driving force to these conversions being miraculous healings and dreams of Jesus. This is a phenomenon that was actually mentioned by the Church Father Origen (Cont. Cel. 1.46),  

 

“Many have been converted to Christianity as if against their will, some sort of spirit having suddenly transformed their minds from a hatred of the doctrine to a readiness to die in its defense, and having appeared to them either in a waking vision or a dream of the night. Many such instances have we known, which, if we were to commit to writing, although they were seen and witnessed by ourselves, we should afford great occasion for ridicule to unbelievers.” 

 

Other elements can be mentioned that make these visions not just incredible, but miraculous:

 

• Often these dreams or appearances will have veridical elements that make psychological explanations unlikely. Non-Christians will sometimes be told in the vision to go to a specific town and look for a person with a detailed description; upon finding the person in the town, they will discover that the person happens to be a missionary and/or Chrisitan (cf. Acts 10: 1-8). Such encounters with missionaries have even been caught on film. Jesus will often recite Bible verses to people who have previously never read a Bible, quoting Scriptures that they would not discover until later. In one incredible case, a missionary reported that he had met a Muslim man that dreamed of Jesus every day for a month, writing down what Christ dictated to him in in the dream. When the missionary asked the Muslim what he had written, the visionary showed him his notebook; the Muslim man had transcribed the entire Gospel of John, despite never reading the Bible! 

• A very interesting point of note is the consistency of the reports. With sightings of things like alien abductions, Marian apparitions, NDEs, etc. the accounts by witnesses almost always vary greatly in detail, especially across cultures. However, Jesus’s appearance remains largely the same: whether He is appearing to Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, or Muslims, He is almost always seen wearing a white robe and covered in a great light. Such similarity not only rules out purely subjective experiences, but often goes directly against cultural expectation; Muslims for example believe that Jesus is supposed to be wearing yellow/saffron while in heaven, which is stated repeatedly in the Hadith. It is then astounding that they all happen to see Him wearing white instead of yellow when He appears to them in conversion dreams.  

• Along with appearances of Jesus, the presence of the risen Christ can be seen through impossible miracles. Many impossible miracles (blindness, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, gastroparesis, amputations) have been healed in the name of Jesus, and have been medically documented. Others like the healing of Duane Miller’s voice have been caught on video. Craig Keener’s book on the subject documents hundreds if not thousands of cases of modern-day miracles.  

• A final but important note is the persecution encountered by so many of these converts. Many who convert to Christianity because they had a dream or witnessed a miracle are rejected by their families and persecuted by the government, especially in many Hindu and Muslim-majority populations. Such persecution does not prove the truth of the claim, but supports the sincerity of the claimants.  

The Recrudesce Argument for the resurrection takes all of these factors and combines it with the historical evidence for the resurrection. Even if a naturalist attempted to explain away the empty tomb or the appearances to the 12 disciples, any secular hypothesis will become strained in additionally explaining the subsequent miracles and veridical dreams that complement the historical evidence. Once fully developed, the Recrudesce Argument has the potential to be a ground-making methodology in resurrection apologetics, and when combined with a historical formulation (Minimal Facts, Maximal Facts, etc.), the probability for the resurrection becomes not only high, but arguably inevitable.”

Forthcoming Commentaries

 Here’s a fantastic site that lists all the commentaries due to come out soon or being worked on:

https://www.bestcommentaries.com/forthcoming/

Martin Hengel & The Gospel Titles

 “Almost all books which were duplicated by copying, disseminated in the book trade and collected in libraries, also had a title which had similarly been structured by the model of the inclusion of the book…works without the titles easily got double or multiple titles when names were given to them in different libraries… this is also evident from individual pseudepigrapha of the old and New Testament‘s, for example... The strange uniformity and early attestation of the titles of the Gospels excludes the possibility that for a long time they had been circulating anonymously in the communities...Works without titles no longer had a chance of establishing themselves in the mainstream church. At best they reached esoteric circles as in the case of the Nag Hammadi texts. Where the name of the author was removed, as in the case of Hebrews and the letter to Diognetus, at least the name of those to whom it was addressed (whether fictitious or authentic) was preserved. By their striking consistency in the manuscript tradition for Matthew to the book of revelation, in particular the writings which later formed the “New Testament” generally show that from the beginning, i.e. from the time they were produced or disseminated and circulated, they were associated with their original titles. In practice, therefore, these could no longer be changed. The few exceptions prove the rule. In contrast to this, both the titles and the textual traditions of the “apocryphal“ writings of the second century are often unstable. Essentially greater arbitrariness is predominate here. If the titles of the Gospels, the letters of the apocalypses have been changed or expanded, this would have left a record in the textual tradition, which is uniquely well tested for antiquity…Where there were uncertainties, for example with the letter to the Ephesians, discrepancies in the textual attestation indicate the fact. most of the inspired “holy Scriptures“ of the prophets of the Old Testament already bore the names of their authors from Moses to Malachi and were sometimes also coded with these names. In the New Testament, Moses is mentioned 79 times, Isaiah 22 times Jeremiah three times; Daniel once; Hosea once; Amos three times; Joel once; psalms (of David) or David as Psalmist around 10 times.” Hengel (2000:48, 54, 105, 125n. 502)

References

Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels And The One Gospel of Jesus Christ. Trinity Press International 2000.

Proselytize or Apostatize Resurrection Debate Review

My friend Caleb Jackson and Aaron Aquinas did a debate on the resurrection against village atheists David Johnson & Matthew Taylor. Caleb has a good, accessible book defending the resurrection you can purchase here. 

Debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KllcQ77QgE&t=2170s

1: Caleb defends an NT Wright style of argumentation which I am sympathetic to. I wish he had time to defend the Gospels, but time constraints made that impossible. He gave a good, albeit brief over view of the concept of resurrection and afterlife in Antiquity. 

2: He (Caleb) mentioned independent traditions in the empty tomb narratives. To bolster his case here, I'll quote some material from Jake O'Connell (2016:130f). "Matthew included the information about the guards at the tomb (28:8-10). Luke changes the list of women at the tomb even though he would have no conceivable reason to do this and he also includes the fact that Peter ran to the tomb (24:12), another event not found in Mark. John has Peter and the beloved disciple running to the tomb (20:4) and an appearance to Mary Magdalene by the tomb (20:11-18), both events which are not found in Mark. Thus, since the Gospel writers had independent information about the empty tomb, they do not all drive their account from Mark, and so we have four independent sources."

3: Caleb rightly points out that they would have had the language to describe a mere ascension or exaltation into heaven, drawing on Acts 12.

4: Caleb points out David Johnson can't make the elementary distinction between a resurrection and resuscitation. If Johnson bothered to do the bare minimum amount of research, he'd see there isn't a dearth of material on just this subject. Take Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003).

5: Aaron is sharp, but spends too much time getting unnecessary preliminaries out of the way. A lot of those are already known and agreed on

6: Johnson brings up the virgin birth for some odd reason. Every non Christian scholar denies the virgin birth, but still believe quite a number of episodes in the Gospels are historical. Nothing but weasel words.

7: Johnson channels Chris Hallquist in bringing up alien abductions. He neglected to mention old hag syndrome as an explanation.

a) Let's assume alien abductions happen. That does nothing with the resurrection evidence. One giant red herring.

8:He says we have more evidence for alien abductions than the resurrection, but never puts his money where his mouth is. His assertions are only as good as their supporting arguments.

9: He brings up reputational martyrdom for aliens, but has no clue how this line of argument works. The whole point is that the apostles sincerely believed what they saw and preached.

10: He says "We most certainly have evidence for the resurrection, but it pales in comparison to the evidence for alien abductions". He has yet to back this up in anyway. He cites 0 sources.

11: He brings up Trump and his supporters saying that he actually won. Well, maybe because there is evidence of voter fraud, or, at the very least, they suggest there is evidence of voter fraud?

(I will not give my opinions on that matter here.) 

12: You don't get to compare 1c Christians with 21c Christians. This is laughable at best. To boot, there are non-Christian Trump supporters. Ironically, it is David Johnson who can not parse the facts. 

13: Taylor brings up the fact that his grandfather had lied to him about his birth. Notice, he fact checked him, in the same way the early Christians could have verified the claims going around. 

a) Not all testimony is the same, we must take it on a case by case basis. 

14: Taylor needs to give some examples of ancient historians making things up. No doubt they did, but examples would be useful, so that we could compare them with the Gospels. 

15: Sure, we should put the Gospels up to the test! Happy to oblige.

16: He brings up the ending of Mark. Does he not realize that works against him? We are able to distinguish between out right fabrications and historical memory. 

17: He brings up progressions of Jesus in each Gospel account. This is beyond an exercise in misdirection. Matthew and Luke include a virgin birth, whereas the earliest and latest Gospel do not. Does John contain exorcisms? Compare the number of miracle accounts in the Gospels. See if John has the most in comparison with the earlier accounts. 

18: Mark doesn't narrate the resurrection, but it is anticipated (8:31; 9:9, 31; 10:32-34; 14:28).

19: The Gospels are remarkably accurate when compared to non-biblical sources. There are standard books and commentaries on this, which Taylor & Johnson obviously haven't bothered to consult. They want their opposition to do all the leg work. 

The Burial of Jesus Part 1

 Three stages in the argument for and against the burial of Jesus: 

1. The probability relative to our background knowledge. The prior probability. This includes things like the frequency of burial for crucifixion victims, the practices of the Romans, Pilate’s character, Old Testament precedent, Acts, 1 Corinthians 15 creed etc. 

2. Direct evidence for the hypothesis (i.e. any data that is less surprising on B than on ~B). This includes things like the Gospels’ testimony, the potential location of the tomb, 1 Corinthians 15 creed, evidence for the empty tomb, etc.  

3. Direct evidence against the hypothesis (i.e. any data that is more surprising on B than on ~B). This usually includes the discrepancies in the Gospels, the lack of the tomb, Paul’s silence, parallels in other religions, the non-historicity of Joseph, etc. 

Ehrman vs. McGrew: Round 1 Review

 I was recently re-watching Tim McGrew's debate with Bart Ehrman on Unbelievable? with Justin Brierley. I wasn't planning on blogging today, but when I heard Ehrman's misleading arguments, I had to write down some replies. 

(You can listen to it here)

1: Ehrman claims the first mention of Gospel authorship is by Irenaeus c. 180. This is such a simplistic reading, & is only true of Luke. Here is a list of when, and who, mention the Gospels by name: 

Mark- Papias (100), Justin Martyr (155), Irenaeus (175), Clement of Alexandria (195), Muratorian Fragment (late second century) Matthew- Papias (100), Gospel of Thomas 13 (140-180), Apollinaris (175), Irenaeus (175), Clement of Alexandria (195), Muratorian Fragment (late second century) John- Papias (100), Ptolemy (150-175), Heracleon (150-175), Acts of John (150-200), Irenaeus (175), Hegesippus (175), Theophilus of Antioch (180), Polycrates (190), Clement of Alexandria (195), Muratorian Fragment (late second century), Act of Peter and the Twelve (200)

(I am thankful to my friend Chris for the above) 

2: Ehrman claims Justin Martyr doesn't quote John. This is questionable. He neglects to mention C.E. Hill's study on the topic, which you can read here. To my knowledge, Hill isn't some fringe scholar, he is mainstream. I wonder why Ehrman doesn't mention this? Maybe because he teaches at a seminary?

3: Ehrman goes on to say that the Gospels are quoted anonymously by all of our earliest writings. Dr. McGrew goes on to point out (rightly) that the same is done with Paul's letters. But, lets crank up McGrew's argument up a notch. Notice those same sources Ehrman goes to, do the same exact type of citation with the Old Testament! Some examples include: 

1 Clement 4:1- "For so it is written, And it came to pass after certain days that
Cain brought of the fruits of the earth a sacrifice unto God, and
Abel he also brought of the firstlings of the sheep and of their
fatness." (Italics mine)

1 Clement 4:6- "And Cain said unto Abel his brother, Let us go over unto the plain.
And it came to pass, while they Were in the plain, that Cain rose up
against Abel his brother and slew him." (Italics mine)

1 Clement 8:4-5- "and He added also a merciful judgment: Repent ye, O house of
Israel, of your iniquity; say unto the sons of My people, Though
your sins reach from the earth even unto the heaven, and though
they be redder than scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, and ye turn
unto Me with your whole heart and say Father, I will give ear unto
you as unto a holy people. And in another place He saith on this wise, Wash, be ye clean. Put away your iniquities from your souls out of My sight. Cease from your iniquities; learn to do good; seek out judgment; defend him that is wronged: give judgment for the orphan, and execute righteousness for the widow; and come and let us reason together, saith He; and though your sins be as crimson, I will make them white as snow; and though they be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool. And if ye be willing and will hearken unto Me, ye shall eat the good things of the earth; but if ye be not willing, neither hearken unto Me, a sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things." (Italics original)

Ehrman is simply misleading the audience here. You can look at the rest of the 1st century corpus here. 

4: Ehrman claims McGrew is appealing to authority when bringing up Martin Hengel. However, some how, Ehrman fails to realize that all McGrew is doing here is stating where he originally got the argument from. 

5: Ehrman simply resorts to weasel words when pressed on the Gospels being formally anonymous. He was very clearly using it as an argument against traditional authorship. However, I will make a few points.

a) No doubt some Greco-Roman (GR) historians/biographers identify themselves in the text, but the Gospels aren't modeled on these texts. They imitate the Old Testament history books in this regard (though not only in this way.)

b) The Old Testament history books are also formally anonymous!

c) With respect to a), lets assume the Gospel authors are trying to do the exact same thing as the elite GR historian, Xenophon does writes about himself in 3rd person, even though he is a direct eyewitness! 

Xenophon, Anabasis 3.1- “There was in the army a certain Xenophon, an Athenian, who accompanied the army neither as a general nor as a captain nor as a private soldier; but Proxenos, an old acquaintance, had sent for him.” 

Simon Gathercole, in his 2018 paper The Alleged Anonymity Of The Canonical Gospels (p. 11 fn. 37 & 38) cites 4 Roman historians, Sallust, Livy, Tacitus & Florus. According to Gathercole, none of them identify themselves in their texts. 

5: Ehrman claims that McGrew is simply assuming the Christian tradition is correct. Well, prof. McGrew, looks like all those Friday nights you spent in the library as a teenager were just a waste! Pack it up!

On a serious note, secularism isn't objectivity. If anything, he is more biased in his research, given he is on record as saying a miracle is the least probable explanation, he needs to throw out quite a number of events from antiquity!

6: Ehrman claims that the early Christians had strong theological reasons for attributing the Gospels to their respective author, but what is the theological reason for naming Mark and Luke the authors of their respective Gospels? This alone cuts against Ehrman's assertion. 

7: McGrew calls out Ehrman's bluff on his repetitious appeal to 'critical scholars'. On a side note, does Ehrman not count the likes of Bauckham, Hengel, Keener, Gathercole, et al as serious scholars? Like McGrew said "...critical scholars as in the ones that agree with you?"

8: Ehrman acts as if McGrew does not know anything about NT scholarship.

a) McGrew has access to the same books & articles Ehrman does. 

b) McGrew is associated with several erudite scholars that are in the apologetics field as well. 

9: Ehrman rambles about harmonization, yet never provides an argument against its legitimacy. 

The rest of the debate goes on to issues of alleged contradictions in the narratives, but that is old fare, and Ehrman's examples have been addressed numerous times. Two recent posts by Jonathan McLatchie come to mind, here & here.

Thread On The Flood Narrative

 Here’s a good thread taking on source critical approaches to the flood story in Genesis 6-8:

https://twitter.com/jamesbejon/status/1329258412941697025?s=21