KindiakMath

Previously, we have established the following historical facts with strong confidence:

• There actually existed a Jesus of Nazareth who lived and taught and died by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate.
• The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), even in English, are historically reliable in recounting the life, death, and sayings of Jesus.
• The Old Testament (even in English), are accurately transmitted since the Old Testament in Jesus’ day, comprising of a three-part structure: the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings.
• Jesus made claims to divinity according to accurately interpreted Old Testament passages and imagery.

Now we come to the all-important question: did Jesus rise from the dead? This question is of profound importance, since Jesus isn’t just some random individual to have been supposedly resurrected, but that He claimed to be God, and resurrection justifies His claim to divinity in the following sense:

Theorem 1. Jesus’ claims to divinity are legitimate if and only if He resurrected from the dead.

Proof. Suppose that Jesus’ claims to divinity are legitimate. He claims not just to be God, but to be the Messiah figure described in the Old Testament. This Messiah figure is said to be a descendant of David, as God’s servant, the Son of Man whose kingdom given to him by God will last forever:

You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor let your Holy One see corruption. [Psalm 16:10]

In particular, if Jesus is God, then he is the Holy One, and thus will not see corruption, i.e. not remain in the dead. Therefore, Jesus must resurrect from the dead.

Suppose Jesus resurrected from the dead. Only God can resurrect anyone from the dead:

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. [Deuteronomy 32:39]

Suppose for a contradiction that Jesus’ claim to divinity are not legitimate (i.e. that he is not God). If Jesus resurrected, that means God resurrected a liar. However, God is not a liar:

God is not man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? [Numbers 23:19]

Furthermore, God’s condemnation against false prophets is death:

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. [Deuteronomy 18:20]

More specifically, God commands death by stoning for any blasphemer:

Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death. [Leviticus 24:16]

Therefore, if Jesus is not God, then He is a liar and a blasphemer. God would have kept Him dead, and would not resurrect Him, a contradiction. Therefore, if Jesus resurrected, then Jesus’ claims to divinity are legitimate.

Therefore, if Jesus resurrected from the dead, then his claims to be God are legitimate, and thus He is God, and whatever He speaks are, quite literally, the words of God.

Corollary 1. If Jesus resurrected from the dead, then He is God.

Therefore, we need to answer the resurrection question: Did Jesus resurrect or not? If he didn’t resurrect, then he was a false prophet and we should not regard any of his words or even remain Christian at all:

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. [1 Corinthians 15:17–19]

However, if he did resurrect, then he really is God and deserves our worship:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28:16–20]

Therefore: Did Jesus resurrect or not? We claim in the affirmative, and eventually expound on its implications for our lives today.

For now, we will adopt the minimal facts argument developed by Gary Haberman for the resurrection of Jesus.

Lemma 1. The following claims are historically true:

• Jesus died by crucifixion.
• Very soon afterwards, his followers (i.e. disciples) had real experiences that they thought were actual appearances of the risen Jesus.
• The lives of Jesus’ followers were transformed as a result, even to the point of being willing to die specifically for their faith in the resurrection message.
• The resurrection of Jesus was taught very early, soon after the crucifixion.
• Jesus’ unbelieving brother, James, became a Christian due to his own experience that he thought was the resurrected Christ.
• The Christian persecutor Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus) also became a believer after a similar experience.

Proof Sketch. Here’s a summarised sketch of the varied historical sources that assert each of these historical claims.

• Jesus’ death by crucifixion: Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Flavius Josephus, Antiquities 18.63–64; Justin Martyr, First Apology 35; Galatians 3:13.
• Resurrection appearances to disciples: 1 Corinthians 15:3–8; Luke 24; Acts 2:32; Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 3.
• Transformed followers: Mark 14:50; John 20:19; Acts 4:33; Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 5; Ignatius, To the Trallians 9.
• Early proclamation of the resurrection: 1 Corinthians 15:3–7; Galatians 1:18–19; Acts 2:24–32; Didache 10.6; 16.1.
• Conversion of James: Mark 3:21; John 7:5; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19; Flavius Josephus, Antiquities 20.200; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.23.
• Conversion of Paul: Galatians 1:13–16; Philippians 3:6–8; Acts 9; 22; 26; Ignatius, To the Ephesians 12; Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 5.

Note that the New Testament passages are not assumed to be divinely inspired, but regarded as historical sources akin to its contemporaries like Josephus and Eusebius. By verifying that the sources are reliable, consilient, and place the person in real places or institutions, connected to at least one anchor, we can conclude with confidence that these claims are historically factual.

For a more complete exposition, see this blog post by Frank Turek of Cross Examined. In fact, we will be adapting the contents therein for this blog post.

What explanations can account for these facts? The most coveted claim is that Jesus resurrected from the dead. If Jesus resurrected from the dead, then all of these historical events would have occurred as a corollary. However, what if Jesus didn’t resurrect from the dead?

Firstly, either Jesus actually died or he didn’t. The latter is called the swoon theory, and is false by Lemma 1. Therefore, the events that follow happen after Jesus died, and his tomb is empty (yet another historically verifiable fact). What could account for the empty tomb?

Lemma 2. The disciples could not have stolen the body.

Proof. By Lemma 1, the disciples were willing to suffer and even die for their proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection, a commitment that would be irrational if they knowingly fabricated the claim. The earliest polemic against the resurrection—the bribing of the guard to circulate a theft story—is itself evidence that opponents conceded the body was missing, not that the disciples possessed it (Matthew 28:11–15). Moreover, the conversions of James and Paul occurred independently of the apostolic circle; their acceptance of the resurrection lacks plausibility if the original witnesses had confessed to hiding a corpse. Therefore, theft fails to satisfy the sincerity and independent verification embedded in the minimal facts.

Since the body of Jesus did not remain in the tomb and Lemma 2 precludes the disciples stealing the body, by Lemma 1, perhaps the disciples hallucinated the resurrection of Jesus.

Lemma 3. The disciples couldn’t have hallucinated the resurrection of Jesus.

Proof. Lemma 1 includes group experiences and physical interactions such as eating and conversation independent from the twelve:

• For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. [1 Corinthians 15:3–6]
• When he was at table with them (i.e. Cleopas and friend), he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” [Luke 24:30–34]

Collective hallucinations of this kind lack precedent in ancient or modern testimony, especially when they involve sensory modalities beyond sight. Additionally, James and Paul were both skeptics prior to their experiences; their encounters were private and adversarial, making suggestion or mass ecstasy implausible. Paul’s letters state that he investigated other witnesses, indicating critical scrutiny rather than psychological contagion:

• Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. [Galatians 1:18–19]

Hence the hallucination hypothesis cannot explain the breadth, content, and transformative effect of the reported appearances.

Since the disciples did not hallucinate the resurrection of Jesus, their experiences of the resurrected Jesus are real and actual. Therefore, we have come to the crucial conclusion of our writeup:

Theorem 2. Jesus resurrected from the dead.

Proof. Since the disciples did not steal Jesus’ body nor hallucinated the resurrected Jesus by Lemmas 2 and 3, their experiences of the resurrected Jesus are real and actual. Thus, Jesus actually resurrected from the dead.

Corollary 2. Jesus is God.

Proof. Theorem 2 and Corollary 1.

The implications of Jesus being God are huge.

Corollary 3. The words of Jesus are absolutely true.

Proof. Since Jesus is God by Corollary 2, the words of Jesus are the words of God. Since God speaks only truth, Jesus speaks only truth.

Corollary 4. The Old Testament is the Word of God.

Proof. Jesus describes the Old Testament using its tri-partite sectioning.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” [Luke 24:44]

Whenever Jesus prefaces his quotes with the phrase “God said” or its equivalent, he quotes the Old Testament:

• For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ (Exodus 20:12); and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ (Exodus 21:17) But you say…thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” [Mark 7:10–13]
• Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God…have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? [Mark 12:24; 26]
• David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ [Mark 12:36]

Therefore, Jesus regarded the words in the Old Testament as the words of God. By Corollary 3, his words are true, and therefore, the Old Testament is the Word of God.

Therefore, any challenge against the Word of God is a non-issue for Trinitarian Christians who regard Jesus’ words as true: since Jesus affirms the Old Testament as the Word of God, the Old Testament really is the Word of God. Therefore, the Old Testament is true in all that it intends to communicate. Furthermore, the central thrust of Old Testament is toward Jesus Christ (i.e. Jesus the Messiah), truly man and truly God:

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” [Luke 24:44]

Now we have one more loose end to tie: is the New Testament the Word of God? Trinitarian Christians say ‘Yes’, and this we aim to justify in the next post.

For now, we can sing the hymn of the ages:

Christ is risen, He is risen indeed!
Oh, sing hallelujah
Join the chorist’ and all the redeemed
Christ is risen, He is risen indeed

—Christ is Risen, He is Risen Indeed by Keith and Kristyn Getty

—Joel Kindiak, 19 Oct 25, 1845H