Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Catholic_Lady]

The Minimal Facts (4+1)

The minimal facts include four that are so strongly evidenced that nearly every scholar (including the skeptic) regards them as reliable facts. The fifth fact, the "+1", is accepted by a significant number of scholars though not nearly as many as the first four.

The Minimal Facts are:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion
2. Jesus' disciples believed that He rose and appeared to them
3. Saul, the persecutor of the Church, was suddenly changed
4. James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed
5. Jesus' tomb was found to be empty

In subsequent posts, I will present the evidence in support of each of these facts.

This is the classic apologetic put forth most often by WLC and Habermas / Licona. It's nothing new and to be honest it has major flaws. To appeal to authority here is absolutely baseless. Just because a scholar says Jesus probably existed doesn't make it true.  And despite your claim that extraordinary claims do NOT need extraordinary evidence, this is simply a false delusion to make your case easier to assemble. 

1.) Jesus died by crucifixion. - Not a provable fact. Actually, there has been much doubt raised that a real historical Jesus even existed at all. Now admittedly there is no single claim that disproves a historical Jesus but there are several oddities that when aligned and added up cause enough doubt to make it difficult to even more forward. 

     A.) There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever, outside of the the books that were written by alleged christ followers that prove he existed. Rattle off your list because I know you've already got it down: Josephus, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Lucian, Tacitus, Clement, Ignatitius, Polycarp. Yes it looks impressive at first glance but when you start digging in there's nothing. Take time and research each one (Barker does a great job of this in his book Godless) and you will find each source easily discredited. Not a single word about Jesus appears outside of the NT in the entire first century. The argument from silence is quite damning and gives us serious reason for doubt, not a stage to say his existence is a minimally based fact. 

    B.) The NT stories are internally contradictory. Again, not evidence in itself to disprove Jesus but it does give us reason to pause and consider. Reading the bible in a horizontal fashion comparing the stories of the gospels side by side will help illuminate the inconsistencies....some are small but some are glaring. 

    C.) There are natural explanations for origin of Jesus as a legend: Jesus patterned after a story found in the Jewish Talmud about the illegitimate son of Mariam and Pandora the Roman Soldier. Or, growing out of the pre-Christian cult of Joshua. Or, a fanciful patchwork of pieces borrowed from other religions (Pagan mythical parallels are in copious detail, Attis, Mithra, Dionysus, etc) Again, this gives credence for us to consider that maybe the Jesus character is a myth just like the other pagan sky gods that were abundant in that era. 

     D.) The miracle reports make the story of Jesus non-historical. If a miracle is defined as some kind of violation or the laws of nature, by definition we cannot test that. History is the weakest of all sciences and at best only produces an approximation of truth. In order for history to have any strength at all it must adhere to a very strict assumption that natural laws are regular over time. Since the NT contains numerous stories of events that are either outrageous or impossible the story must be considered more mythical than historical. 


Given this information, we cannot even move past the first minimal fact and the remainder of the argument is therefore mute. I would suggest reading Carrier's "On the Historicity of Jesus, why we may have reason to doubt." He covers an enormous amount of ground using the Bayesian theory of prior probability to show that given the evidence we actually have in hand, including silence, we cannot reasonably say that it is probable a historical Jesus existed.

All I gots ta say about that is....

TC likes red's erections.