Apologetics

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In the 1985 debate between Christian evidentialist apologist Gary Habermas and atheist philosopher Antony G.N. Flew concerning the question, "Did Jesus rise from the dead?” the question was limited to historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ - other topics, such as the existence of God and the verifiability of miracles, were off limits. After each debater gave an opening statement, a rebuttal, and the two went "head-to-head", the judges voted 7-2 (one draw) in favor of Habermas as winner of the debate.1
In the debate Habermas employed his own methodology known as the Minimal Facts methodology. As opposed to the traditional Christian apologetics for the historicity of the resurrection, the Minimal Facts argument takes generally accepted facts surrounding the event and connects them to form the best explanation. It is a bottom-up process rather than the umbrella style of traditional apologetics. The strength of the methodology comes from its non-assumptions of biblical inerrancy and biblical inspiration. In this way, the facts that Habermas uses can be attested to by both secular and Christian sources, within and without the Bible. He has compiled a list of biblical scholars, Christian and skeptic alike, totaling over one hundred sources. He also categorizes this database on a hundred questions related to the resurrection. Every conceivable situation has been documented by Habermas providing an extremely strong database of the leading ideas in the field.
Opponents of the methodology accuse Habermas of selection bias. When he says that a majority of scholars agree to a fact, it is because he was able to choose which scholars were in his database. The problem with this idea is that Habermas includes secular scholars as well, as to prevent the selection bias. Another accusation is that the “facts” which Habermas uses aren’t really facts at all. They claim that simply because a majority of scholars agree on an event, doesn’t follow that it can be called fact. In this sense they are correct. Majority vote doesn’t qualify things as true. The problem however, is that if this is true, then nothing can ever be claimed or argued for in history. It is irrational to use scientific procedures on historical events. As such, Habermas uses the same techniques as secular ancient text experts in determining authenticity. The last major accusation against Habermas is his conclusion. He concludes that the resurrection is the best possible explanation for the facts that he states. Opponents state that this doesn’t prove anything. They are quite right. Nothing in history can be 100% proved, but that is not what Habermas is trying to do. He is offering a defense of the Christian idea of Christ’s resurrection as if in a courtroom. He is giving us the most likely explanation of the events that took place with the data that we are able to use. The rest of this paper will detail Habermas’ dialogue with Flew and Flew’s responses.


Habermas gives a list of twelve facts generally accepted among biblical scholars. They are:
1. Jesus died by Roman crucifixion
2. He was buried
3. The tomb was found empty
4. Jesus’ death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope
5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus
6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers
7. The resurrection was the central message
8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.
9. The Church was born and grew
10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship
11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus
12. Paul was converted to the faith2
It is important to note that Flew disagreed about none of these facts with the exception of Jesus being buried, and even for that He was simply unsure, not adamantly against it. I will give the supporting evidence for each of these points and Flew’s responses.
Before I give the historical data regarding the Crucifixion and Resurrection, it is important to go through the process of determining which sources are reliable and which are not. When I say reliable, I do not mean inspired, holy, or empty of error. Reliability in terms of any source is the level to which the original text is accurately reflected in what we have today.
A reliable document is one that is attested to be written by the author, in the correct literary mode, and in the correct time and place. Non-biblical sources are naturally much more commonly accepted to be reliable due to their non-reliance on religiosity. Biblical sources when taken for their reliability and not their inspiration however, are also viewed as legitimate and reliable biographical accounts. The Gospels and a majority of the Pauline Epistles are almost universally acknowledged by biblical scholars as being reliable historical documents for serious scholarship. Even secular biblical scholars have no serious issues about the authenticity of the main Pauline Epistles. If the Bible is inspired, then it follows that Christ has been raised from the dead. Even if the Bible is not inspired, but still reliable, then Christ has been raised from the dead. But what if the Bible is neither inspired nor reliable such as the books of Homer? The following argument would also say that Christ has been in fact, raised from the dead.


Death by Crucifixion
According to founding member of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, “the death of Jesus is the single most attested to event in ancient history.”3 Simply by using the primary ancient sources, one can give a strong argument for the reality of His death. Modern medical tests only add to the legitimacy of the ancient claims. Frederick Zugibe, Ph. D. M.D. from the University of Chicago conducted an exhaustive study of the “art of crucifixion”. In his study, Zugibe responded to many claims against the impossibility of the biblical account.
When anyone hangs with their arms extended vertically, even on monkey bars, the intercostal deltoids and rhomboids surrounding the lungs contract. This makes it increasingly hard to exhale the longer you are hanging. The response of the crucified is to raise their legs and in turn the body to ease the process of exhaling. As long as the victim is able to hold themselves up, it is possible to draw out the process of death. When the victim can no longer hold themselves up, the breathing becomes harder and they eventually die of asphyxiation.4 Jesus however, was not just hanging on the cross with His hands tied. His body was suspended by nails driven through His wrists. Also, a single nail was driven was through both arches of the feet. This leaves the knees moderately flexed, allowing for movement up and down along the main post of the Cross. With each slight movement, the nails in the wrists aggravate the median nerve creating excruciating pain up through the fingers and the arms. In order to temporarily alleviate the pain on His arms, Christ pulls Himself up with His legs, only to have the nail in His feet send the same pain through His toes and His legs.
As the process continues, the muscles mentioned above begin to weaken and cramp, removing any possibility of holding the body up simply with arms. Thus begins the slow agonizing process of asphyxiation. It is a painful cycle of shooting pain through the extremities, the struggle to raise the body to ease the pain, only to have the pain reappear in other places. After hours of this process, the lungs and heart struggle to pump blood and oxygen throughout the body. The loss of fluid rich blood forces the heart to pump heavy, thick blood to the brain causing the reaction of thirst.
It is believed that Christ’s actually cause of death was the bursting of his pericardium brought on by the scourging, beating, carrying of the cross, falling with the cross, the hanging on the cross, and the stress brought on by being on the cross. The piercing of the side by the Roman legionnaire gives evidence for the rush of blood and water mentioned in the biblical accounts. The heart is surrounded by a sac of fluid called the pericardium. It is believed, as I mentioned before, that the pericardium was damaged during the Passion. Christ knew it was nearly finished, feeling the damage going on in His heart. He felt the bursting of the pericardium.
The biblical account of Jesus’ death accurately describes the modern medical observations regarding crucifixion. The guards proceeded to break the legs of the other two prisoners to quicken their deaths. When they came to Jesus, they saw that He was already dead, leading us to believe that He was unable to hold Himself up to breathe. Pilate was surprised at how quickly Jesus died, given the long lengths of time crucifixion usually took, which suggests a sudden mortal injury consistent with what we see in a burst pericardium. We must remember that Jesus suffered incredibly more than the usual criminal. He was beaten, scourged, flogged, made to wear a crown of thorns, and forced to carry His own cross.
The extra biblical accounts of secular scribes Josephus, Tacitus, Africanus, and Suetonius accurately describe the circumstances surrounding His death. Josephus, a Jewish scribe, states, “Jesus, a wise man, was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross.”5 Tacitus, a Roman scribe, states, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus”6
Julius Africanus, a Roman convert to Christianity, stated:
This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the Passover; but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun.7
He doesn’t explicitly talk about the crucifixion, but he mentions events that happened during the period and the impossibility of natural phenomenon playing the deciding factor. There is also the description mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud was written from 70A.D. to about 500A.D. so the earlier the writings the more reliable they are thought to be. Luckily for us, the writing about Christ’s crucifixion is one of the earliest writings in the Talmud. It states, On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald . . . cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy."
There is also an account from Lucian of Samosata. Writing in the 2nd century A.D., Lucian here is mocking the worship by Christians. He says:
The Christians . . . worship a man to this day--the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.
Another pagan by the name of Phlegen of Lydia, expressed doubts about the odd occurrences during that time. He says:
In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad there was a great and extraordinary eclipse of the sun, distinguished among all that had happened before. At the sixth hour the day was turned into dark night, so that the stars in the heavens were seen, and there was an earthquake in Bithynia which overthrew many houses in the city of Nice.

Ancient Christian author Tertullian also referred to the unusual occurrences.  "At the same time at noonday there was a great darkness. They thought it to be an eclipse, who did not know that this also was foretold concerning Christ. And some have denied it, not knowing the cause of such darkness. And yet you have that remarkable event recorded in your archives." 
Again from Lucian is a short section about these events. He states, "Look into your annals; there you will find that in the time of Pilate, when Christ suffered, the sun was obscured, and the light of the day was interrupted with darkness."
There is also an interesting letter, written by Mara bar Sarapion of Syria in 73A.D. Though a pagan, Sarapion nonetheless mentions the death of Christ along with Socrates and Pythagoras as horrible mistakes that will bring future oppression. He states:
What else can we say, when the wise are forcibly dragged off by tyrants, their wisdom is captured by insults, and their minds are oppressed and without defense? What advantage did the Athenians gain from murdering Socrates? Famine and plague came upon them as a punishment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea and the Jews, desolate and driven from their own kingdom, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates is not dead, because of Plato; neither is Pythagoras, because of the statue of Juno; nor is the wise king, because of the "new law" he laid down.
The most popular response to the claim of Jesus’ death is known as the Swoon Theory, simply that He that was not actually dead. As the evidence above suggests, this goes against both ancient and modern medical science, as well as the numerous extra-biblical sources. From the extreme precision killing procedures of the Romans to the unusual circumstances leading up to His death, it is the strongest, most powerful point in the list.
Jesus’ Burial
The second fact Habermas lists is that Christ was physically buried. The earliest account we have is from the Epistles of Paul, where he quickly states in a creedal passage that Christ died, was buried, and was raised. A generation later the four canonical Gospels retell the story in great detail. Each of them state that Christ was laid in a tomb purchased by Joseph of Arimethea from Pilate. The Gospel of Mark, the earliest, states that Joseph was not necessarily a follower of Jesus. He simply wanted to make sure that the burial went according to the Jewish customs during the Passover. In some cases, the bodies were left to hang on the cross after crucifixion, but this was the Passover. Bodies were not allowed to be left hanging, thereby refuting the claim that Jesus’ body was simply eaten by wild animals, a common occurrence at the time.8
It is also important to note that in Mark, universally accepted as authentic, Joseph and the other Pharisees had a guard posted at the tomb. If Jesus was not buried, why guard the tomb? As I stated above, Jesus was a major thorn in the side of the Romans and Jews. They wanted to see the process through and would not leave it to chance simply letting His body go or to be left hanging.
The importance of the canonical Gospels as reliable historical documents cannot be understated. It is unheard of in ancient literature studies to have multiple, let alone five independent sources about the same thing. In Jesus’ case, all four Gospels have eye-witness accounts, as well as Paul’s Epistles, whose information content can be dated to as little as a few months after Christ’s death.
Wilbur Smith, author of "Therefore Stand," writes:
We know more about the burial of the Lord Jesus than we know of the burial of any single character in all of ancient history. We know infinitely more about His burial than we do the burial of any Old Testament character, or any king of Babylon, Pharaoh of Egypt, any philosopher of Greece, or triumphant Caesar. We know who took His body from the cross; we know something of the wrapping of the body in spices, and burial clothes; we know the very tomb in which He was placed, the name of the man who owned it, Joseph, of a town known as Arimethea. We know even where this tomb was located, in a garden nigh to the place where He was crucified, outside the city walls. We have four records of this burial of our Lord, all of them in amazing agreement, the record of Matthew, a disciple of Christ who was there when Jesus was crucified; the record of Mark, which some say was written within ten years of our Lord's ascension; the record of Luke, a companion of the apostle Paul, and a great historian; and the record of John, who was the last to leave the cross, and, with Peter, the first of the Twelve on Easter to behold the empty tomb. (Smith, TS, 370-71)
Empty Tomb
The third fact is that Christ’s tomb was found empty. All four of the Gospels mention women as the first witnesses to this. Habermas uses the principle of attestation by embarrassment. The 1st century Jewish community was dismissive of women. They couldn’t even appear in a court of law. That being said, it would be a major turn-off for the readers knowing that women first found it empty, unless it was true. No writer would write things like that unless it had credible evidence. The claim that the body was stolen, as mentioned before, is simply improbable. The Jewish leaders made sure that nothing would get in that tomb. They posted Roman guards in front of it. A massive stone was rolled in front of the tomb. No one was getting into that tomb. The claim that the soldiers simply fell asleep is ridiculous. These were the best trained soldiers in the ancient world. To fall asleep at the job meant their execution, especially in a special case like this.
The number of additional sources confirming the empty tomb is amazing. The Jewish polemic that the disciples stole the body unintentionally gives us evidence that the tomb was empty. They needed a way to explain it. It would have been impossible for the disciples to proclaim the resurrection without the empty tomb. If the body lay in the tomb, they could hardly go about saying that Christ had risen. The tomb was in Jerusalem, in close proximity to the population base. If they wanted to test to see whether or not these claims were true, they would go see for themselves. The case is however, that we have no such evidence that any of the Jewish leaders made such a claim. They knew the tomb was empty and needed a story to explain it.
Some skeptics claim that the tomb story was simply legend. There are many reasons to believe that is not true. The very nature of the description of the finding of the empty by both the women and the disciples gives testimony to its reality. It is only very recently that apologists have used it thoroughly as a device. The early disciples did not. The accounts are very pure theologically, without additional information and apologetic devices. The use of the phrase on the first day of the week, rather than, on the third day, shows the proximity of the written accounts of Mark and Paul to the actual events. There was not enough time for legend stories and tradition to take hold. Also, the stories and accounts simply don’t read like legend or myth of the day. C.S. Lewis, an expert on literature, commented  "I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this."
Other ancient sources give testimony to the burial and resulting empty tomb of Christ during that period.
Justin Martyr, an ancient apologist in Rome, states  that “godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven.”9 He is retelling the Jewish idea that the body was stolen.
Tertullian in the 2nd century A.D. says "This is He whom His disciples secretly stole away, that it might be said He had risen again, or the gardener abstracted, that his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitants!"10 Notice how even by the 2nd century, the story of the disciples stealing the body was no longer the popular response by the Jewish people. The idea that the disciples stole the body circulated prior to any of them being martyred or suffering for their faith. It had been a poor first attempt and it was thrown by the wayside. Instead they said the gardener did it, very unlikely.
In the 6th century A.D. another Jewish record called the Toledoth Yeshu states that “a diligent search was made and he was not found in the grave where he had been buried. A gardener had taken him from the grave and had brought him into his garden and buried him in the sand over which the waters flowed into the garden.”11 We still see the hopeless effort to pin the missing body on the gardener, except six centuries later.
Disciple’s Despair and Hopelessness
The fourth fact is that Jesus’ disciples, after his death, were despairing and hopeless. In all four of the Gospels, we have accounts of the disciples deserting Christ and hiding. In Mark 14 his disciples fled. In Matthew 26, Peter tried to stay with Jesus, but went on to deny Him three times. These men were Jews who really believed in the Messiah. They really believed that Jesus was that Messiah. In their thinking, the Messiah was a military leader, or a political one, that would come and restore Israel as a great nation. When Jesus began His ministry, they followed Him and believed in Him. When He died however, they didn’t understand what He had told them about His resurrection. Their Messiah was dead, and they were now wanted by the local authorities for working with Him. The traditional Jewish teaching was that there was no local resurrection, just the Final Resurrection at the end of days. This fact is a stepping stone for the amazing transformation of the disciples into bold proclaimers.
Experiences by The Disciples of The Risen Jesus
The fifth fact is that the disciples saw and experienced what they believed to be the risen Jesus. Antony Flew lost the debate 15 years prior to Habermas. He has had over15 years to find better arguments. It is a testament to the strength of this fact that Flew admittedly could find no other natural explanation possible than the one he gave in 1985.
While the appearances to the other disciples are well-documented and attested to as well, many skeptics have problems with the particular conversion of Paul. This is the one that I will focus on. Flew’s best guess for the conversion of Paul seeing Jesus in Person is that it was “conversion psychosis disorder” and the disciples experienced grief hallucination like when a 3rd person may be seen in the house who had passed away. Habermas explains for Paul to have a Conversion Disorder (and Paul does not disclose a disorder in his words or conduct) we have multiple problems with the facts:  There is nothing in the diagnostic literature about hallucinations. It’s short lived and goes away. The DSM-3 and DSM-4 are the standard diagnostic tools for psychiatry.  You would also have to have an auditory hallucination (of hearing!). You would have to have a visual hallucination (of sight!).  A great psychosis – often called Messiah Complex. Paul, instead, says what he receives is from God, not from himself. 12
There are also five other signs of this disorder. Up to 5 to 1 it happens to women. It happens mostly to adolescents. It happens mostly to people of low economic status. It happens to people with low IQ.  It happens to military persons in battle.13 These are the most common circumstances. Not a single one of them applies to Paul. This adds up to 9 items. Moreover, there is not a speck of evidence Paul ever wanted to convert from Judaism to Christianity. Paul (Saul) was a persecutor of all things Christian. As he says in his defense before Festus,
The Jewish people all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that I conformed to the strictest sect of our religion, living as a Pharisee…I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.14
He was at, and encouraged, the stoning of Stephen. There is absolutely no documented evidence of Paul and the other disciples being mistaken about the identity of this figure. The burden of proof rests on those who would say that his experience was simply a grief-related experience considering the lack of positive evidence to the contrary. The disciples saw, heard, and touched, what they believed to be the risen Christ!
Flew also gives the response that it was a grief hallucination. Unfortunately for Flew, there is no such thing as Grief Hallucination in the DSM-4, the most standard diagnostic tool for psychiatry. Even Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD), usually present in soldiers is not considered a grief hallucination. However, hallucinations are documented in cases where someone is alone. But in the Bible the various settings were of different group sizes seeing the resurrection of Jesus in different places; men and women; indoors and outdoors; walking, sitting, standing; and an empty tomb. Hallucinations do not come out of despair necessarily, but when you believe something so strongly, you make the image. Considering the prevailing Jewish thinking of resurrection, there was no expectation of Jesus literally rising from the dead. It was unheard of for a local resurrection, let alone a bodily one. Let’s not forget that Christ’s followers were first and foremost Jews. In their mind, Christ had come to fulfill the Jewish religion, in all the ways expected. Once he died, they reverted back to their Jewish law-heavy thinking. The last thing they would hallucinate about is the resurrection of someone they believed to be a fraud.

Doubters to Bold Proclaimers
The sixth fact is that the disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers. It is no secret that just because you belief something so much that you die for it, it is true. Muslims blow themselves up and Buddhists set themselves on fire for their beliefs, but the early Christians were different. They killed no one. They fought no one. They didn’t harm themselves. The Muslims who do this sort of thing sincerely believe in their cause, but they do not know if it’s true. The disciples were in a position to know whether or not Jesus was raised from the dead. It simply is not plausible to suggest that each of these men would face continual persecution and horrifying deaths for something they knew to be a lie. Liars don’t make good martyrs. They did no harm to anyone, but loved their enemies and willingly accepted persecution from them for the sake of the gospel.
The majority of biblical scholars agree that whatever happened, it radically changed the disciples. Peter’s sermon on Pentecost is a prime example of this phenomenon. Peter stands in front of some of the very people responsible for Jesus’ death, accuses them of killing the chosen Messiah/King sent by God, and challenges them to repent. A man in Peter’s position does not do this, especially with the ridicule he was presently facing, unless he is convinced he has seen the risen Jesus and accepted his message.
According to church tradition, all of the disciples except for John suffered a martyr’s death because they continually preached what they had seen and heard: Jesus was crucified, but now He was alive again because God had raised Him from the dead.15 James, the brother of John, was killed by Herod with the sword (Acts 12:2). An early church tradition according to Tertullian and Origen records that Peter was crucified upside down, which is consistent to what Jesus told him in John 21:18–19.16 Matthew was stabbed with a sword while preaching in Ethiopia. Mark was killed in Alexandria when he was dragged by horses through the streets. Luke was hanged by priests on an olive tree in Greece. John was boiled in oil in Rome, but was miraculously saved and remains the only apostle to not die a martyr’s death. James the Just was thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple, but survived the fall. He was then beaten to death in the streets by the mob. Bartholomew was flayed to death by whips while preaching in Armenia. Andrew was also crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece, similar to Peter. Thomas was stabbed with a spear while preaching in India. Jude, the defiant brother of Jesus, was shot with a volley of arrows. Matthias, who replaced Judas Iscariot, was stoned and later beheaded. Barnabas, one of the seventy disciples, was stoned to death in Salonica.
The seventh fact deals with the Resurrection as the central fact of the newly found Christian faith. Paul says it himself in 1 Corinthians 15, “if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is in vain.” Here the Apostle provides objective data by which to judge the legitimacy of the Christian worldview. Show that Christ has not been raised from the dead and you will have successfully proven Christianity false. Conversely, if Jesus did rise from the dead then His life and teachings are vindicated. The Christian faith, as it turns out, is falsifiable. It is the only religion which bases its faith on an empirically verifiable event.17
Anyone who denies the resurrection itself as the explanation for the origin of Christianity must posit some other explanation. Only three possibilities seem to exist. If the resurrection did not occur, then Christianity was either the result of Christian, Jewish, or pagan influences. Obviously the disciples could not succumb to Christian influences since Christianity was not yet in existence. But just as unlikely is the idea that the disciples’ belief in the resurrection originated from Jewish influences. The Jewish conception of the resurrection was one final, general resurrection of all mankind (or all the righteous) occurring after the end of the world. Nowhere in Jewish thought do we find the idea of a single individual resurrecting within history, never to die again. The pagan groups such as the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, etc…simply do not have the robust historical data to back their claims up. The apostles were well-versed in Greek and knew the pagan stories. In fact, Paul passionately defends the historicity of the event against the attacks of the Greeks living in Ephesus. Each of the pagan religions have a bit of truth to them, but all of them don’t get the whole picture. Christianity not only fulfills the Jewish religion, but it also makes distinctions from the other pagan myths. In Christianity’s case, The Resurrection myth of pagan religions has become fact in the person of Jesus Christ.
Due to the remarkable circumstances in first-century Jerusalem, Christianity would have never been able to get started if Jesus had not risen from the dead. The eighth and ninth facts deal with the location and speed that the Church began. Recall that the Resurrection of Jesus was central to the disciples’ preaching. Even if they had the courage to preach without having seen the risen Lord, what message would they have proclaimed? They certainly could not repeatedly claim to have been eyewitnesses of His Resurrection, as they did. Without this bold proclamation of the Resurrection, and if His body was rotting in the grave, people would not be converted and the memory of Jesus and His disciples would quickly fade. In fact, it may be safely said that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, very few people living today, if any, would have ever heard of Him. If Christ was not raised, why would the central message, and the most incredible, be preached in the very city where he was executed? Jerusalem was the center of the Hebrew nation within the Roman Empire making it a hot bed for trade and conversation. Understandably, this is would be a main point for critics. It was only a matter of time for a rumor of miracles to happen in the place where Jesus was executed, especially in a place like Jerusalem. But we have more than rumors. We have eye-witnesses, elected officials, pagans, Jews, almost every category of people in Jerusalem with some sort of complimenting record of the events in the city. They are more than just rumors.
The tenth fact is fairly straight forward; the early Church members worshipped on Sundays. Devout Jews would not do this, as it was forbidden in the Law of Moses, unless they were certain that Jesus had fulfilled the law, and a new covenant was instituted by the resurrected Messiah. They determined that Christ was crucified on Friday, and three days had passed, making Sunday the day of His Resurrection. Had Christ not been raised, there is no reason why a multitude of law-abiding Jews begin to worship on a Sunday.
The eleventh and twelfth facts deal with the personal conversions of both Paul and James the brother of Jesus. What could compel a man who had grown up with Jesus to suddenly change his mind about his older brother? James likely remained in his unbelief until after Christ’s death. After all, while He was on the Cross, Jesus entrusted the care of His mother to the Apostle John (John 19:26–27). If one of his brothers had been a believer at this point, it would have been their responsibility to care for Mary. Although Scripture does not describe the conversion of James for us, it does provide the most likely cause for his drastic change of heart. Upon telling his readers that Jesus appeared to over 500 people at once, Paul wrote, “After that He was seen by James”.
We have ancient sources like Josephus that detail the martyrdom of James. And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus... Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.18
Eusebius also writes, “they threw down the just man, began to stone him: for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and kneeled down, and said: "I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."19
The story of Paul is attested to far more than any other apostle. The most direct account of Paul is in Acts. "I saw a light...blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to fight against my will" (Acts 26.13-14). "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man" (Acts 9.7).
We know the others saw a light, fell down to the ground, and heard a voice. The only thing they did not experience was in seeing Jesus Christ in Person. Plainly they experience an objective event. And, if Paul is having a conversion disorder, why are these things happening to his companions? Paul gave three reasons why he thought this was the physical body of Jesus Christ in Philippians 3.20-21, not a ghostly appearance.
Following his conversion, Paul spent three years in Arabia and Damascus before returning to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:17). While in Jerusalem, Paul spent more than two weeks visiting with James and Peter (Galatians 1:18-19). During that time, he completed what, in today’s words, would be called a comprehensive interview. He asked them personal questions about their time with Christ and the message to which they were preaching. He also was burdened to compare his words to the words of the other Apostles as to not preach heresy. So within six years of the crucifixion, Paul was comparing notes with James and Peter. In terms of ancient literary criticism, six years is an extremely short time for any first-person accounts to be written, let alone be attested to. He was simply comparing notes after six years, so he must have had the doctrines and knowledge even before that. Some of the most liberal scholars suggest that he was knowledgeable in doctrine and in as little as two years following the Resurrection.
Paul was eventually imprisoned and sent to Rome. There, he was most likely martyred, dying by execution under the reign of Nero. Eusebius intimates that the tombs of two apostles, with their inscriptions, were extant in his time; and quotes as his authority a holy man of the name of Caius, who wrote against the sect of the Cataphrygians, who has asserted this, as from his personal knowledge.20
This concludes Habermas’ twelve historical facts of the resurrection. I have given the responses given by a majority of skeptics including Antony Flew and have in turn responded to those. As stated earlier, Habermas was voted as the winner of the debate, but the impact goes further than that. The methodology of the Minimal Facts argument gives critics very little room to disagree, for by doing so they undermine basic historic truths. Alexander the Great, Caesar, Genghis Khan, etc…none could be historically valid under the constraints to which critics put the Bible under. Flew later became a Deist, and possibly a Theist, most likely because of the overwhelming evidence supporting this event. Flew admitted; “The evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It’s outstandingly different in quality and quantity.”









 


 




Bibliography
* Bauckham, Richard “Jesus and The Eyewitnesses” (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Pub. 2006)
* Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus. New York City: HarperCollins, 1991.
* Kirby, Peter. "Testimonium Flavianum: Josephus' Reference to Jesus." Early Christian Writings. 2013. 
* Habermas, Gary, and Antony Flew. Did the Resurrection Happen?. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009
* Habermas, Gary “Tough-Minded Christianity” (Minimal Facts), Nashville, B&H, 2001
* Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2010)
* Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, v. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991).
* Zugibe, F.T. Forensic and Clinical Knowledge of the Practice of Crucifixion; A Forensic Way of the Cross in The Turin Shroud; Past, Present and Future, International Sci. Sympos.,Turin, Italy Mar. 2000





1 Habermas, Gary, and Antony Flew. Did the Resurrection Happen?. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009.
2 Habermas, Gary, and Antony Flew. Did the Resurrection Happen?. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009.
3 Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus. New York City: HarperCollins, 1991.
4 Zugibe, F.T. Forensic and Clinical Knowledge of the Practice of Crucifixion; A Forensic Way of the Cross in The Turin Shroud; Past, Present and Future, International Sci. Sympos.,Turin, Italy Mar. 2000,
5 Kirby, Peter. "Testimonium Flavianum: Josephus' Reference to Jesus." Early Christian Writings. 2013. 
6 Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, v. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991).
7 Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2010)
8 Bauckham, Richard “Jesus and The Eyewitnesses” (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Pub. 2006)
9 Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2010)
10 Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2010)
11 Habermas, Gary “Tough-Minded Christianity” (Minimal Facts), Nashville, B&H, 2001
12 Habermas, Gary “Tough-Minded Christianity” (Minimal Facts), Nashville, B&H, 2001
13 Habermas, Gary, and Antony Flew. Did the Resurrection Happen?. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009.
14 Acts 26
15 Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, v. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991).
16 Bauckham, Richard “Jesus and The Eyewitnesses” (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Pub. 2006)
17 Habermas, Gary “Tough-Minded Christianity” (Minimal Facts), Nashville, B&H, 2001
18 Kirby, Peter. "Testimonium Flavianum: Josephus' Reference to Jesus." Early Christian Writings. 2013. 
19 Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2010)
20 Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2010)
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