 So, the Jewish Bible has what we would call a messianic program, and the messianic program of the Jewish Bible centers on the destiny of Israel as God's instrument to perfect the world. When we study the Bible, we see that every clear and indisputable messianic prophecy focuses on God's people, the nation of Israel. The Messiah himself is the king of Israel, but he is the king of a people. The Messiah is intimately connected to the people of Israel. There's no king without a nation. And so whenever the Bible speaks about the Messiah and the messianic age, the Bible is speaking basically about this nation and its destiny in the ultimate rectification of the world. We'll be calling Hebrew tikkun olam, the fixing of the world. Let me just sketch the basic contours of this messianic program. The prophets tell us, I'm only going to give you very few references. There are many, many references, but the prophets tell us that in the future, the entire nation of Israel will come to fully embrace God and His Torah. We will return fully to serving God. We find that in Deuteronomy chapter 30, Isaiah chapter 59. We're told that when that happens, when we as a nation return to God, God will return us to our ancestral homeland. The Bible predicts in many passages, Jeremiah 29-14, for example, that the exiled people of Israel will return to their homeland. The prophets tell us that we will return to our homeland and we will live there in peace. We find that in the 37th chapter of the prophet Ezekiel and again many other places. We're told that when we've come back to our homeland and we're living there, we will come to see our holy temple rebuilt. We find that in Isaiah chapter 56 verse 7. And we're told that after we've been restored to our land and we've been restored spiritually as a people, we're told that the nations of the world will come to seek Israel as their spiritual teachers. We find that in, for example, the prophet Zechariah chapter 8 verse 23, when the Jewish people have come into their own. As the Bible says, we are to be a light to the nations. As the Bible says, we're to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests. As the Bible says, God tells Abraham at the very beginning of our story, through your people the entire world will be blessed. And so when the Jewish people have been restored to spiritually, restored to our land, we've been embraced by the nations of the world as spiritual teachers. The Bible tells us that this will culminate in the entire world, every human being coming to a knowledge of God. It's Zechariah chapter 14 verse 9 and again other places. And that will eventually lead to universal peace. Chapter 11 in the book of Isaiah. When some individual is successful in leading the nation of Israel through this process, we will know that person is the Messiah. Now it seems fairly clear that the original expectation of Jesus and his followers was exactly this. Their expectation was that Jesus would be the one to lead Israel through this process. We see that the major teaching of Jesus and of his predecessor, John the baptizer, the one thing that Jesus says more than anything else. He says the kingdom of God is at hand, which is basically an expression of the major expectation of the Jewish Bible that the whole world will come to a knowledge of God. And that was the basic hope of the Jesus movement. The book of Luke tells us, the Gospel of Luke in chapter 24 verse 21, it tells us that after Jesus' crucifixion, two of his followers are walking very sadly in Jerusalem. And they meet someone and they say to him, we were hoping that Jesus was going to redeem Israel. They express exactly what the early Jesus movement was expecting, nothing less than the full completion of the messianic program that is outlined in the Jewish Bible. But we know that Jesus did not redeem Israel and he didn't bring to fruition any of the things that the Messiah was supposed to accomplish. Instead he was put to death by the Roman governor for the treasonous claim that he was the rightful king of Israel. When you were claiming to be the king of Israel, you were rejecting the rule of Rome and the Romans did not take insurrection lightly. They crucified over a hundred thousand Jews, anyone they saw as challenging their authority would be crucified. The followers of Jesus expected triumph and they were confronted with humiliation. Many of his followers probably fled Jerusalem as well after his crucifixion out of the fear that they might be next or some of them probably eventually retreated back home to the Galilee with their hopes dashed. However, some of his followers remained in Jerusalem in shock, disappointed, desperately trying to hold on to their belief that Jesus was the Messiah. And they faced a tremendous amount of what we call cognitive dissonance because how could he be the Messiah if he was killed without doing anything the Messiah was supposed to do soon in order to really negate and deal with this dissonance. Some of his followers came to believe that Jesus appeared to them. He's still alive, he's come back from the dead. This belief in the resurrection of Jesus became a central feature in the theological makeover to the concept of the Messiah by nascent Christianity. This new concept of the Messiah shifts from a horizontal historical program centered on the people of Israel led by their messianic king to bring about a utopian world and it shifts to a vertical vision centered on the salvation of individuals who put their faith in Jesus. And there are two main features to this new messianic paradigm. Number one, the belief that anyone who embraces Jesus as their Messiah will secure their forgiveness for all their sins and number two, the belief that by conquering death through his resurrection faith in Jesus holds out the promise of eternal life for the believer. But again here the program is not centered on the nation of Israel. It's centered on what happens to the individual who believes in Jesus. In many ways the resurrection of Jesus became the central event in Christian thought. So critical was the resurrection that the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 17 that if Jesus was not resurrected your faith is in vain. Everything hangs on the credibility of the resurrection and the belief in the resurrection. Now we should realize that the idea of the resurrection of the dead is a basic Jewish concept. Some Jewish people are not aware of this. But Maimonides has 13 basic principle foundational beliefs of Judaism and the belief in the resurrection the ultimate resurrection of the dead in the messianic future is the 13th the last of the 13 principle beliefs of Judaism. And we refer to the resurrection of the dead several times every day in our daily prayers. This is not a concept that was invented by Christianity. This is already an established concept within Judaism. What is interesting to note however is that all of the references in the Jewish Bible to the resurrection of the dead are not references to a special unique individual who will come back to life. But they are references to a general resurrection that will take place for people sometime after the messianic age begins. On your handouts you have on page one the three places in the Jewish Bible that seem to refer to this future resurrection of the dead. Isaiah chapter 26 verse 19 your dead will come to life. My corpses will arise awake and shout for joy you who rest in the dust for your do is like the do that revives vegetation and the lifeless will be toppled to the ground. This again is not speaking here about what will happen to the Messiah. This is a passage that speaks about a general resurrection that will take place. The prophet Ezekiel had as we know a very famous vision of a valley of dry bones. I'm not going to quote for you the entire passage but in verses 11 to 14 of chapter 37 Ezekiel writes the following God said to me son of man these bones they are the whole house of Israel behold they are saying our bones are dried out and our hope is lost we are doomed therefore prophecy and say to them thus said the Lord God behold I am opening your graves and raising you up from your graves my people and I will bring you to the soil of Israel then you will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and I raise you up from your graves my people and when I put my spirit into you and you come to life and I set you on your soil then you will know that I the Lord have spoken and I have fulfilled the word of the Lord. Now to be more transparent here I should express that our stages don't all agree on the meaning of this passage some of our stages take this not as a prophecy that is to be fulfilled in the future they actually take this to be speaking about an actual historical event that took place already however it seems a predominant view is that this is some kind of a prophecy and there are two ways in which it's understood number one it's understood to be possibly speaking about the return of the Jewish people from their exile when we're in exile cut off from our land we're like dry bones we're not fully who we can be and so the prophet Ezekiel here is really giving us a prophecy of the return of the people of Israel to their land from exile however many commentaries take this as no more literally a prophecy about the actual revival of the dead people who are dead will come back to life and so we have at least some Jewish commentaries who understand Ezekiel chapter 37 to be referring to again a general resurrection that will take place in the future and finally the last reference is to Daniel chapter 12 verse 2 where he says many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken these for everlasting life and these for shame and everlasting contempt but what you see in these three sources is that they're not referring to an individual they're not referring to the Messiah alone a unique resurrection they're referring to a general resurrection that will place take place sometime in the future however because Christian belief places a special emphasis on the resurrection of Jesus as the apex of history their apologists have tried to find illusions in the Bible the Jewish Bible not only to the general resurrection will take place for humanity at the end of time but they try to find special references what they claim to be prophecies in the Jewish Bible to the unique resurrection of the Messiah himself I found about a dozen such claims we'll look tonight at three of the most popular ones so on your sheets beginning at the bottom of page one we have Hosea chapter 6 verse 2 it is it is actually italicized on the bottom of the page he will heal us after two days on the third he will raise us up and we will live before him and many Christian apologists insist that this is referring to the resurrection of Jesus now obviously we know there's a favorite famous principle that a text without a context is a pretext so what is this passage talking about so actually Hosea chapter 6 verse 2 is a continuation of what's taking place in the previous chapter chapter 5 of Hosea ends saying I will go God is speaking and he says I will go and return to my place until they Israel will acknowledge their guilt and seek my face in their hardship they will seek me chapter 5 ends by predicting that at some point the Jewish people will come to seek God which we saw before is one of the major prophecies of the Jewish Bible that at the end of time the Jewish people will return to God and that's the prediction here at the end of chapter 5 chapter 6 begins by the Jewish people speaking now and expressing those feelings of repentance so they say come let us return to the Lord for he has torn us and he shall heal us he has smitten and he shall bandage us he will heal us after two days on the third he will raise us up and we will live before him one thing is clear here this is not speaking about what's going to happen to an individual this is an entire nation that is speaking this is speaking about what is going to happen to the nation of Israel what does it mean when it speaks about healed after two days and raised up on the third day so we have many ways in which this is explained one way it's explained is that God will heal us from the devastation of our two temples that were destroyed by raising up the third temple or some people say that this is really expressing something in symbolic terminology usually the most severe day of illness the most painful day is the third day of illness we see this in Genesis chapter 34 verse 25 where the sons of Jacob Shimon and Levi attack the town of Shem on the third day after the people were circumcised because that's when they were in the most pain and so by saying that we're going to be healed on the third day is a way of basically saying that look at this incredible transformation that will take place normally when people are ill and they're suffering the third day is the worst day and yet we will be recovered from the plight the sufferings of being in exile very quickly the second source that's appealed to by Christian apologists is Psalm 16 verse 10 now this is not just something that cited by modern Christian apologists the New Testament itself in the book of Acts chapter 2 insists as this this chapter in Psalms is about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead so this is a claim that's made directly by the New Testament I have set the Lord before me always because he is at my right hand I shall not falter therefore my heart rejoices and my soul is elated my flesh to rests in confidence because you will not abandon my soul to the lower world nor allow your devout one to witness destruction destruction you will reveal to me the path of life the fullness of joy in your presence there is delight at your right hand for eternity the first thing to understand about this passage from the book of Psalms is that the first verse in this psalm verse 1 identifies David as the subject and the focus of the psalm there's nothing in this psalm that says it's speaking about the Messiah number 2 David in this psalm is expressing either one of two things or two things David might be here expressing his gratitude for the fact that God has kept him alive and that he hasn't gone to the grave he hasn't died David was in tremendous danger for so much of his life so here he's expressing his gratitude which by the way he expresses many times in the book of Psalms thank you God for keeping me alive however another way in reading the psalm is that David is expressing his confidence that even after he dies his soul will continue to live in the hereafter this is expressing the hope that we believe that our souls will live on after death by extension this would refer to all righteous people not just to David and actually in this psalm in verse 10 it's not a thousand percent clear what the text is some texts actually have the word which would be plural your pious ones so anyone that's pious would be talking about and that means that all pious people can hope for everlasting life spiritually in the world to come other textual variants have ha seed ha your pious one and David here refers to himself as a ha seed a pious one that doesn't sound very humble of him and yet we know that in Psalm 86 verse 2 David says Shamro nafshi ki qasid ani protect my soul because I am pious but this is a psalm that's not speaking about the resurrection from the dead it's speaking about the fact that the soul is able to live on after the body goes to the grave and the last reference that's quoted by Christians is Isaiah chapter 25 verse 8 he will eliminate referring to God God will eliminate death forever and my Lord God will erase tears from all faces he'll remove the shame of his nation from upon the entire earth for the Lord has spoken again this is not a prophecy about the resurrection of one person it's speaking again about the fact that either according to the redock it's referring to the ending of death from war and persecution so it's speaking about not the ending of all death people will still die but according to the redock it's saying that at a certain point in history obviously the messianic age people will not be killed in wars and in persecution or according to Rashi it's a reference to the existence of the soul in the resurrection of the dead but this is not a special prophecy about the Messiah one particular person it's a general statement about what's going to be in the future for all people so there is no prophecy in the Jewish Bible about a special resurrection of a slain Messiah that is not referring to the general resurrection of all people in the future but now what I'd like to do is to turn our attention to the assertion itself that Jesus came back to life after three days from his crucifixion what is the historical evidence for the claim of Jesus resurrection what is the evidence that Jesus was resurrected from the dead it turns out that the only source that we have for this belief are the accounts that are written in the Christian Bible there is nothing else and therefore it's important for us to explore the credibility of these reports I don't think anyone on the planet reads anything and automatically assumes it's true just because they read something in print so what I'd like to try to do for the next little while tonight is share with you an exploration of the sources within the Christian Bible themselves the Christian Bible begins with what is referred to as the four Gospels these are four biographies of Jesus they begin with Matthew and then Mark and then Luke and John each of these Gospels report that Jesus rose from the dead now Matthew and John were actually people in Jesus's inner circle Matthew and John were two men who knew Jesus Mark and Luke never actually met Jesus but they became associated with the inner circle early on but what we need to know is that these men that I just mentioned Matthew Mark Luke and John who were part of Jesus's inner circle either while he was alive or shortly after he died never wrote these books in the Christian Bible now they're commonly referred to as the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to Mark and the Gospel according to Luke and the Gospel according to John but if you get your hands on a manuscript of the Greek Christian text it never mentions these men it never says in the actual text this document is written by Matthew Mark Luke or John at the end it doesn't say faithfully written by Mark these men's names are nowhere to be found in the Christian Bible as the authors of these documents these documents were written anonymously they're written anonymously the authors are not identified it was only later on into the second century that church tradition began to develop this idea that the authors of these books were Matthew Mark Luke and John but it's very very hard to take this claim seriously for many reasons I'll share two number one we know that the followers of Jesus were simple Jews from the Galilee who spoke Aramaic the Gospels are written in a very academic Greek so it's hard to assume that the associates of Jesus all of a sudden are able to write in Greek but more problematic is that the dating of these documents according to virtually all Christian scholars is that they they're written approximately between the years 70 and 100 meaning that these Gospels are written between 40 and 70 years after Jesus is crucified now if Jesus is followers let's just suppose let's say his followers were 25 years old I don't know how old they were I'm suspecting they weren't 14 and they probably weren't 50 years old so I'm guessing if we want to be generous that his followers were 25 years old that would mean that they wrote these documents between the ages of 65 and 95 years of age now did they know they were going to live that long I mean 95 was not typical for 2000 years ago and even if they suspected they might live into old age why would they have waited so long to write these stories so scholars essentially don't accept the idea that these followers of Jesus Matthew Mark Luke and John wrote these documents what happened was that the church fathers in order to give these documents written generations later more credibility they attached the names of people who lived earlier on at the time of Jesus so that's the first problem we have with these documents the sources we have for the resurrection of Jesus are not written by eyewitnesses they're written between 40 and 70 years after the alleged events take place number two we mentioned before there is no corroboration outside of the Christian Bible there are no contemporary historical sources outside the Christian Bible to corroborate not just the resurrection by the way any of the Christian story number three we should bear in mind that the authors of the Christian Bible were not objective historians or journalists they were written by fervent believers in Jesus the writer of John says in chapter 20 verse 31 that he wrote his gospel in order to convince people to believe in Jesus he's admitting he's telling you I had an agenda when I wrote this text I'm not a historian I'm basically a preacher I'm a salesperson I'm writing what's really more of religious propaganda than a journalistic report I'm trying to convince people and these are the people that wrote the Gospels the other gospel writers had the same agenda now when we read these stories at face value we read the text at face value it's important to remember that none of the texts mention any eyewitnesses who actually saw Jesus leave his tomb alive even the Christian Bible doesn't mention that any person saw Jesus get up out of his tomb and walk out of the tomb all that is presented all we have in the Christian Bible our unsubstantiated claims that his tomb was found empty and that he appeared to a number of people yet when we read the Gospels we see something very interesting even his own followers were quite skeptical so for example when the first women come to the tomb on early Sunday morning and they see the tomb is empty they don't assume that Jesus rose from a dead the women assume that someone moved the body we find out in the Gospel of John chapter 20 when these women report to the disciples that the tomb is empty and there was someone at the tomb who told us that Jesus rose from the dead we're told that the disciples did not believe these reports we find that in Mark chapter 16 verse 11 to 13 Luke chapter 24 verse 11 and John chapter 20 verse 25 they thought the women were mad they thought they were speaking nonsense what are you talking about he's risen from the grave thirdly in the Gospels when Jesus appears to people they don't recognize him so for example in Luke chapter 24 verse 16 Jesus appears to two of his disciples they don't recognize them they don't know who it is in Luke chapter 24 verses 36 to 37 Jesus appears to all 11 of his disciples but they're startled and they assume they're seeing some kind of a spirit in John chapter 20 verse 14 Mary Magdalene doesn't recognize Jesus when she sees him she thinks it's the gardener and then in John chapter 21 verse 4 Jesus appears to seven of his disciples on the beach and they don't recognize him and then finally Matthew tells us in chapter 24 28 verse 17 that when the disciples see Jesus on a mountain in the Galilee some of them worship Jesus well they paid honor to him but Matthew tells us that some of them were doubtful these are the believers in Jesus who were skeptical now there was a chance there was a chance for the resurrection story to have secured an anchor of credibility the story could have secured an anchor of credibility in Matthew chapter 12 were told that the Jewish leaders asked Jesus for a sign and Jesus is a bit snarky with them and he says an evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign but he says but only one sign will be given to you and he says that's the sign of Jonah for just as Jonah was buried in the stomach of the huge fish for three days and three nights Jesus says so too shall I be buried in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights and I will emerge the problem is that after Jesus died he never came back and appeared to these Jewish leaders he never showed up at the Sanhedrin and said hi here I am like I told you he only appears to those people who were devoted to him this is very similar by the way to the founding of Mormonism Joseph Smith claimed that an angel had given him golden plates from which he translated the Mormon scriptures since those Mormon scriptures have been published since 1830 on the front pages they list 11 witnesses who claimed to have seen these golden plates who were these 11 witnesses they all just happen to be very close associates or relatives of Joseph Smith the story would have much more credibility had Joseph Smith taken the golden plates to the Smithsonian Institute or to some museum or to some newspaper reporter so the fact is that Jesus could have established some credibility by appearing not just to those people who were devoted to him but to the people who questioned his reality friend of mine Larry Levy who was one of the founding directors of Jews for Judaism in Baltimore like Julius Larry Levy also went through a period of time where he was a Jew who worshiped Jesus and while he was part of a messianic congregation one of the women in the congregation came to him one night and said Larry the Lord spoke to me and the Lord told me that we're to be married and Larry freaked out because he didn't like this girl me like the nice person but he had no interest in marrying her so Larry went to the pastor and the pastor said to Larry listen when the Lord comes to you and the Lord says to you you should marry her then we'll talk but she can claim all day long that God told her that was supposed to be married to you don't worry about it now if you've been peeking at the sheets I gave you one of the greatest challenges to the believability of the resurrection claim are the incredible inconsistencies between the accounts of the different witnesses you know if you go to a court case and the prosecution is trying to prove that someone's guilty and the prosecution brings four witnesses and the four witnesses tell four relatively different stories it's gonna be a very difficult time getting a conviction now in the chart that I prepared for you I listed 26 inconsistencies in the accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus that's just a small number Michael Alter just recently published 850 pages on the resurrection a critical critical inquiry by the way this is volume one volume tomb is gonna come out soon and in this book he lists many many more than just 26 inconsistencies this is a serious problem this is a story that has many many many holes in it it does not inspire much confidence okay so let's look at some of the discrepancies between the different accounts of the crucifixion and alleged resurrection of Jesus we'll see that when it comes to the question of even when it happened we get different stories in the synoptic gospels which are Matthew Mark and Luke we're told that Jesus is crucified on the first day of Passover but in the Gospel of John we're told that Jesus is crucified on the day before Passover on the way to the crucifixion who carries Jesus is cross so again in the synoptic gospels Matthew Mark and Luke we're told that Simon of Cyrene is carrying the cross but in the Gospel of John we're told that Jesus himself carries the cross the entire way what time was Jesus crucified well that depends on which gospel you read in the Gospel of Mark we're told that Jesus is crucified at nine o'clock in the morning but in the Gospel of John we're told it was sometime after noon when it comes to the alleged story of the resurrection again we find tremendous discrepancies between the accounts so who first comes to the tomb on Sunday morning of the alleged resurrection according to the Gospel of Mark it's Mary Magdalene Mary the mother of Jesus and a woman named Salome in the Gospel of Matthew it's only two women Mary Magdalene again but another woman named Mary not Mary the mother of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke it's Mary Magdalene Mary the mother of James a woman named Joanna and we're told other women and finally in the Gospel of John we're told only one woman comes it's Mary Magdalene when did these women actually arrive at the tomb so here we get four slightly different accounts we're told in the Gospel of Mark that they came after the sun rose on Sunday morning in Matthew we're told it's as dawn was approaching on Sunday morning in Luke it's early dawn on Sunday morning but most significantly the Gospel of John recounts that it takes place very early Sunday morning while it was still dark when they came to the tomb was it open or was it blocked by a stone so the Gospels of Mark and Luke and John report that the stone had already been rolled away by the time the women come to the tomb but the Gospel of Matthew reports that when the women show up the tomb the tomb is still blocked by a large stone and an angel descends and rolls the stone away who do these women first see when they come to the tomb so in Mark we're told that it's just a young man sitting inside the tomb in Matthew we're told that it's an angel sitting on a rock outside the tomb in Luke we're told there are two men who were sitting inside the tomb and John reports that when Mary Magdalene first comes she doesn't see anyone at all but when she later returns with two of Jesus' disciples she sees two angels now what are the women first told when they have this appearance at the tomb so in the Gospel of Mark and in Matthew the women are told that Jesus has risen and he's going to meet the disciples in the Galilee however in the Gospel of Luke they're not told that Jesus will be meeting the disciples in the Galilee as a matter of fact they're given specific instructions to remain in Jerusalem and in the Gospel of John we're told that the angel gives Mary no instructions at all when first seeing her the Gospels differ in terms of whether Mary when she first sees Jesus is allowed to touch him so in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke we're told that Mary actually touches Jesus but in the Gospel of John he tells her specifically not to touch him how many appearances does Jesus make after his alleged resurrection so we're told in the Gospel of Mark that he appears to his disciples on three separate occasions in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke we're told that Jesus appears to his disciples only on two separate occasions and in the Gospel of John it reaches four separate occasions that Jesus appears to his disciples where does Jesus first appear to his disciples so in Mark he appears in the Galilee in Matthew he appears at a mountain in the Galilee but in both Luke and John he appears in Jerusalem and so these are just some of the many discrepancies irreconcilable discrepancies between the Gospel accounts of the resurrection story now the way Christian apologists deal with these inconsistencies is to say look if you have an automobile accident and you have four people that have seen an automobile accident and they tell what happened they're not going to be entirely consistent they'll have different points of view they might differ a little bit in their presentation of the details and so they say that's what happened with the Gospels there are basically four different points of view of what happened the problem with this idea is that number one none of the gospel writers were eyewitnesses number two the differences between eyewitnesses might account for for example was the car dark silver or light silver what was the actual shade of the car or exactly how fast was the car going was it 65 or 75 kilometers per hour that kind of difference you will have between witnesses but if it was a collision between two cars you're not going to have some witnesses say there was a huge truck truck that smashed into a car so to say that the four gospel writers had different perspectives because they're different witnesses will not account for differences like whether Jesus appeared to his disciples in the Galilee or was it in Jerusalem that's not the kind of thing eyewitnesses can disagree about or whether the crucifixion took place on Passover or the day before Passover meaning that the differences that we find in these gospel stories cannot be explained away as differences in perspective now what i want you to realize i don't want to make a big deal about these inconsistencies some people they have like a gotcha attitude that's not the point the point is when we see these stories and how they are inconsistent what we're going to see and this is really going to be the the the centerpiece of what i want to share with you tonight we see that this story of the resurrection of Jesus was a fluid story that developed over time so what i want to try to do now is see how this development unfolded over the decades following Jesus crucifixion so now i'm going to ask you to give me all of your brains and let's try to stay focused because i'm going to walk you through the timeline that you'll find on page two of your handouts the first resurrection testimony was actually not in the gospels the first story of the resurrection of Jesus is not found in the gospels it is basically told by the Apostle Paul now this often comes as a surprise to many people because when you look at the New Testament the gospels come before the letters of Paul however that's not the order in which they are written Paul writes his letters in the fifties most of them in the mid fifties we said before that the gospels are written between the year 70 and the year 100 so the letters of Paul are by far the earliest sources in the christian bible and i want to suggest that generally speaking if we're trying to get a handle on what might have happened 2000 years ago we're probably going to have the most reliability in the earlier sources and that as time goes on and this story begins to shift and develop we're probably getting a less accurate view of what took place so Paul claims that Jesus appeared to him Paul claims that Jesus appeared to him does that prove that Jesus was resurrected bodily the fact that Paul says Jesus appeared to me does that mean that Jesus's body came back to life and he walked out of the tomb Paul as we know never met Jesus while Jesus was alive Paul never met Jesus the book of acts chapters 9 22 and 26 give three accounts of the time that Jesus first appears to Paul and this is what Paul writes Paul says a light a brilliant light flashes from heaven and then Paul falls to the ground he hears a voice but doesn't see anything that was the appearance of Jesus to Paul it's very clear that Paul is having what we would refer to as a visionary experience but Paul never encounters a flesh and bones Jesus the appearance of Jesus to Paul was not a flesh and bone Jesus that rose from his grave recovered from his wounds and appears to Paul now it's very important to understand that this is consistent with Paul's teaching on the nature of resurrection in general Paul writes in first Corinthians that in resurrection it's not that the old body comes back to life that's Paul says that's not what happens Paul says in resurrection the person is given a new glorified spiritual body in verse 50 of that chapter Paul writes flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God so Paul's conception of resurrection in general and the resurrection of Jesus is not that Jesus came out of his grave and his body recovered and he was able to walk around Paul sees has a vision a spiritual mystical vision of Jesus and the truth is that Paul's visionary experience is the kind that happens in many many contexts so for example the gospels report in Matthew 17 Luke 9 and Mark 9 the same story that Jesus took James and Peter and John to the top of a very tall mountain and on the top of this mountain they saw Moses and Elijah now are we to believe that Moses came back from the dead his body was sort of all nice and fine looking is that what were to believe happened in this gospel story when Matthew Mark and Luke claim that Peter and James and John went to this mountain top and they saw Elijah and Moses is the claim that Moses was resurrected from the dead and they saw him and if so what happened afterward did Moses continue to look around and and hang out with people or did he quickly die again it's very clear that this story that's told in the gospels is a spiritual visionary experience that's what it means when it says they saw Elijah and Moses in the book of Acts chapter 7 verses 55 and 56 were told that Stephen gazed intently into the heavens and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God clearly this is not meant to imply that Stephen saw a flesh and blood and bones Jesus he has a mystical spiritual vision of Jesus I will tell you that over the years I've met dozens of people who have told me with a straight face that Jesus appeared to them and spoke to them I met many people like this that tell me with a straight face that Jesus appeared to them and spoke to them I don't think that in most of these cases they would tell you that it was a physical being that stood in their presence we know that the catholic church's congregation for the doctrine of the faith has validated numerous claims which means by the way there were claims they didn't validate but the catholic church has validated the claims of numerous individuals and groups of people who claim to have seen the virgin Mary and this is numerous times similarly by the way it's not uncommon for people some studies have shown about 15 percent of the human race it's not uncommon for people to report seeing a loved one or a close friend shortly after they pass away I've met people that have told me this as well so now that we understand the nature of Jesus's appearance to Paul we can appreciate several other features of Paul's testimony number one Paul mentions nothing about an empty tomb now the idea of the tomb being empty is critical in the gospel stories but Paul mentions nothing about it as far as Paul knew Jesus was probably still in the tomb and his body decomposed because as far as Paul's concerned that's not what resurrection is all about resurrection from Paul's point of view is not that the body that gets buried comes back to life the body that's buried stays buried the same way when in the New Testament they see Moses there's no belief that Moses came back to life they're seeing a vision of Moses and so Paul mentions nothing about an empty tomb because for Paul resurrection is not physical it is spiritual Paul mentions nothing about any flesh and blood appearances of Jesus to anyone else and importantly I can't stress how important this is Paul compares Jesus's appearance to the other disciples to his experience seeing Jesus meaning from Paul's point of view when Paul says that Jesus appeared to the 11 disciples and to James and to 500 other people Paul says that experience that they had was just like his experience meaning they had a spiritual visionary experience it wasn't an encounter with a risen Jesus in his body that was revivified now it's interesting that Paul tells us about himself that even though he was not a follower of Jesus and he has this encounter with this vision of Jesus Paul says that after that experience for some reason he wants to tell us that I didn't go to Jerusalem to meet with the disciples I mean it's very strange Paul at this point has his conversion experience he now is going to become a follower of Jesus but obviously his problem is he never met Jesus he doesn't know what Jesus taught what Jesus stood for what he should do as a follower it would make sense okay now that I believe in Jesus good at Jerusalem find out from the people who knew Jesus and hung out with Jesus what do I do now what did Jesus teach what was he all about and Paul says I didn't go to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles however after three years he finally goes and he finally meets with the apostles these are the people that actually were with Jesus now had these disciples of Jesus if they had had they encountered if the actual disciples of Jesus encountered a flesh and bones body of Jesus that's what they encountered it's unquestionable that that's what they would have told Paul they would have told Paul what they experienced on Easter Sunday and yet Paul never reports that the original apostles had met a flesh and bones physical Jesus now it's worth noting one more thing we know that the church itself never preserved a tradition of where Jesus appeared to his followers bodily meaning one of the proofs that there wasn't a bodily meeting between Jesus a risen bodily Jesus and his followers is that had that happened imagine if they actually saw Jesus not just some vision but they actually saw a physical Jesus that spot where it happened would have become a very holy spot you could imagine it would have been an incredible shrine this is the spot where we saw the risen Jesus and yet church tradition doesn't have any such tradition that that's the spot where we saw him so it's clear that no such bodily meaning no such meaning with a bodily revivified Jesus took place all that they had were visionary sightings that's the first witness that we've called today now after Paul who we said wrote during the mid fifties the next report about Jesus resurrection is from whoever wrote what became known as the gospel of John I mean gospel of Mark I'm sorry so whoever wrote the gospel of Mark is the second person to write and he composed it around the year 70 around the year 70 and here we're going to find some of the clearest evidence that the story of the resurrection went through tremendous tweaking and quote unquote improvement over time the story itself went through incredible tweaking and embellishment how can we know this because the original manuscripts of mark end in chapter 16 verse 8 by the way I should tell you I made one mistake I think at least one on your charts I think the charge that you have say chapters 14 and 15 in mark and it should say 15 and 16 so I apologize for that okay so the the charts that you have of the inconsistencies in the resurrection story they should refer you to mark chapters 15 and 16 I think I have 14 and 15 but that's just an aside we're not doing this chart now okay so in the gospel of mark in the gospel of mark the story in the original manuscripts end at chapter 16 verse 8 what happens there so we're told there that a number of women came to Jesus tomb on Sunday morning and they were told by someone that Jesus had risen and they should go tell the disciples that he will meet them in the Galilee but the women are terrified and they tell no one of what happened and that's how it ends in the original version of Mark's gospel there is no mention of any appearances at all there aren't any stories in marks and don't forget mark is the second earliest source doesn't mention any appearances of Jesus to his disciples at all now you can imagine this was terribly embarrassing and untenable for the church the church felt this is impossible that here we have the earliest gospel telling the story of Jesus and there's no appearances after he dies so what happened about 300 years later someone took pieces from the other three gospels they took pieces from Matthew and Luke and John and they constructed a more suitable ending for Mark's gospel that included Jesus appearing to people now some Christians have insisted that this ending to mark was there all along it's the original ending but it got lost it just went lost but it's not made up 300 years later it was the original story there are numerous problems with this claim number one we have to realize that 2000 years ago Mark's gospel did not look like this it wasn't a book where the last page can get ripped out they didn't have books 2000 years ago they wrote on scrolls and so it's not likely that part of the scroll is going to go missing number two it doesn't appear meaning these last verses verses nine to 20 of mark don't appear in any of the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts of mark they don't appear in the oldest manuscripts number three the church fathers in the early third century were totally not aware of these last verses in the book of Mark so we see that even in the third century no one knew about these mysterious verses nine to 20 number four the language the actual vocabulary and the style of verses nine to 20 are not consistent with the rest of mark it's very clear that these last verses are tacked on by someone else and by the way in the succeeding years there were actually several other endings that were composed for mark a couple that were longer a couple that were shorter but you see that there was tremendous concern and agitation over the original version of mark because it didn't have any appearances of Jesus this improvement of the original story and the embellishment of the original story speaks volumes regarding whether the gospels can be read without taking them with a big grain of salt the third testimony we'll consider is the gospel of Matthew composed around the year 80 now here too in Matthew the story gets embellished Matthew throws in a lot of supernatural stuff going on earthquakes and very spooky things happen but even in Matthew what we seem to have is a visionary experience to the disciples they have a visionary experience of Jesus atop a mountain in the Galilee but again as we saw before it says but they doubted it still wasn't that clear now as a slight aside how credible is Matthew so in the previous chapter chapter 27 of Matthew verses 52 to 53 Matthew tells us something unbelievable Matthew says that at the time Jesus was crucified the graves of many righteous people in Jerusalem opened up and they got up they didn't leave the graves they just somehow came to life in their graves and then Matthew says and after Jesus was resurrected these righteous people came out of the graves and walked around Jerusalem and appeared to many people now if i was Matthew i would have just said that the caves of many righteous people opened up and they came out of their graves and mazel tov leave it alone keep your mouth shut but for him to go on to say and they appear to many people is very problematic because that would mean the story would have legs if that actually happened if the graves of many righteous people in Jerusalem opened up and these righteous people came around and appeared to people that would have been a huge news story i mean that very few stories as big as that story and yet no one else on the planet knows about this story forget about the fact that the Talmud doesn't talk about it Josephus doesn't mention it Philo of Alexander doesn't mention it none of the roman texts mention it but Mark doesn't know about it and Luke doesn't know about it and John doesn't know about it and Paul doesn't know about it so when i read Matthew and my inspired to say well obviously every word he writes must be true now we're going to see a tremendous shift we discussed so far Paul the earliest source writing in the 50s Mark writing around the year 70 and Luke i'm sorry Matthew writing around the year 80 when we get to the later sources which is Luke and John we're going to see that the story gets massaged and pumped up to solidify these alleged visionary sightings into an actual encounter with a flesh and blood physical being this is the real point of transition meaning the church was not satisfied with the idea that Jesus only appeared to people in a vision which leaves open the possibility it's just a hallucination not everyone that sees Elvis Presley is really seeing him so the later gospels in order to take away that idea and to say no it wasn't just a visionary experience so we're going to see that Luke and John are very invested in making it clear that the sightings of Jesus were experiences with a real flesh and bones person that came back to life from the grave in Luke's gospel written around the year 90 Jesus appears to his disciples and he eats bread and fish with them that's pretty physical and in John's gospel writing around the year 100 Jesus has Thomas the doubting Thomas he has Thomas take his finger and put it into the wound in Jesus's side just to make triply sure that it's really Jesus but you can see that the story is written in a way to really try to convince you that the person they're seeing is a flesh and bones revivified body so what we've seen in the last little while is how the accounts over time are embellished to create the impression that the resurrection was not just a visionary experience but the physical revival at actual corpse what I'd like to do now is briefly review with you some of the main arguments that are put forward by Christian apologists to support and shore up the resurrection story one claim they make is the following they say they challenge they say if Jesus was not resurrected why didn't his Jewish opponent simply produce his body right they're running around saying Jesus rose from the dead so anyone that was going to question that can simply go back to the grave open it up and show you know here's Jesus body and disprove the whole resurrection story number one as we just saw the original belief in the resurrection of Jesus was not that Jesus actually came out of the grave with his body they were not claiming that Jesus came out of the grave all they were claiming was that Jesus appeared to them in a vision so no one would have any reason to go and check the grave as we saw Paul himself doesn't claim that the grave was empty and even according to the accounts in the Christian Bible that try to convince us that it was actually Jesus's body that came back to life it's important to remember that the disciples of Jesus did not begin publicly preaching about Jesus being resurrected until 50 days after his burial now at that time of the year was summer time in Israel it wasn't winter time in Calgary it was summer time in Israel any body after 50 days would be unrecognizable because of the decomposition that would set in so even if they could find the grave it's very unlikely that they'd be able to know that the body in there was Jesus but it's also possible and we should bear this in mind that Jesus was removed from the tomb why would that have been so we know that Jesus was crucified on a Friday and died Friday afternoon at a time of the year around April where sundown was probably around six o'clock at night normally to bury a body that required preparation they'd have to wash the body and back then they would anoint it with oils and spices so that it wouldn't give off too much smell as it was decomposing and so we're told that John of Arimathea didn't have time to give Jesus a proper burial so the gospels say that he very hastily put him into a temporary tomb Friday afternoon because Shabbat was coming he had to be ready to for Shabbat himself but it's quite possible that John of Arimathea's plan was to return to the tomb Saturday night after Shabbat was over and take the body and prepare it properly for burial wash it and anoint it and then put it into a permanent tomb so that even if anyone decided to go look into the tomb that Jesus was originally put into it's certainly possible he could have been moved from the tomb now the gospel of Matthew tries to obviate this possibility by saying no it was impossible to remove the body anybody because the Romans posted guards at the tomb the problem is when you read this story in Matthew the Romans don't post any guard to the tomb until sometime after Shabbat morning Saturday morning which means that someone could have come very very very late Friday night or early early Shabbat morning the most popular defense of the resurrection story is a psychological defense this defense posits that the followers of Jesus were totally defeated after his crucifixion and that something dramatic must have happened to be able to transform the followers of Jesus into a group of bold believers who preached their faith in Jesus as the Messiah publicly this is the most popular defense of the resurrection that's offered by Christian apologists they say something must have happened to revivify these defeated followers of Jesus what could it have been other than the fact that he came back from the dead another part of the same argument is that if we're saying the resurrection didn't take place then we're saying in effect that there are people who made up the story and so the argument goes we know that people would be willing to die for a belief that's not true but no one would die for a belief that they themselves made up and they know is not true so if these people made up the story why would they be willing to go to their deaths proclaiming their belief that Jesus came back from the dead those are two very strong points that we need to address so number one it's important to realize that it wasn't their belief in the resurrection that created their devotion to Jesus it was the other way around it was their incredible devotion to Jesus that led to their belief that he was resurrected again the psychological principle at play is what we call cognitive dissonance and it was because they had this incredible belief they had followed Jesus for three years unquestioning him and if you read the gospels Jesus demanded absolute loyalty from his followers one of his followers wanted to go bury his father after his father died and Jesus says no let the dead bury their own dead Jesus would not allow any questioning of his authority he demanded absolute obedience and people followed him for three years devoted to the belief that he was the Messiah and they were crushed by the fact that he was crucified and so psychologically it is not surprising at all that the belief emerged that he had actually come back from the dead let's also not forget that the original belief in the resurrection of Jesus was not a physical revival of a corpse it was not of a event that could be filmed on camera there was not the original belief it was merely a belief that they had a visionary experience of Jesus and they really believe this so it's not that anyone made up a story these are people that actually believe they saw Jesus and when the people that I've met personally tell me that Jesus appeared to them I don't assume that they're crazy these are people that believe they have a belief that Jesus appeared to them you can't argue with a belief but it's not as if someone is trying to make up something that they know is not true number three the claim that the disciples of Jesus were willing to go to their deaths to defend their belief in the resurrection is an empty claim for a number of reasons number one there is no real evidence that any of the disciples of Jesus went to their deaths because of their belief in the resurrection Dr Candida Moss who is a professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame published a book in 2013 called The Myth of Persecution how early Christians invented a story of martyrdom and she shows that this idea of Christians going to death for their belief in the resurrection of Jesus and for their beliefs in general is just simply not true there's no historical evidence that it took place secondly the Christian Bible itself only tells two stories of people who were martyred the first was Stephen we mentioned him before in Acts chapter 7 but Stephen was not a disciple of Jesus Stephen was a later convert to Christianity so he never experienced the resurrection he merely accepted the claims made by other people so you can't accuse Stephen of dying for a belief that he knows is not true he had no way of knowing if it was a true or not he simply accepted the story that someone else told him secondly the story in the book of Acts doesn't tell us that they killed Stephen because he believed in the resurrection it actually tells us they killed him for other reasons and thirdly even if he did believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead he was never told that he could save himself by recanting that belief when you make the claim that the people were willing to go to their deaths for their belief in the resurrection that would imply that someone held a gun to their head and said give up your belief in the resurrection or i'll kill you that's not what happened in in Stephen's case at all the only other martyr in the book of Acts is the apostle James however there as well were not told why he was killed or if he was given a chance to save himself by denying the resurrection so this idea that the fact that people were willing to go to their deaths for their belief in the resurrection of Jesus does not prove that the resurrection took place in philosophy there's a principle known as Acom's razor or what's called the law of parsimony and it insists that in trying to explain any phenomenon a simpler and more natural explanation is to be preferred over a fantastic theory that requires belief in the supernatural as the old saying goes when you hear hoof beats think horses not zebras the possibility of Jesus body being removed from his grave by the way which is precisely what his followers thought it happened originally that possibility that he was removed from his grave is infinitely more plausible than the claim that his body came back to life and rose from his tomb in conclusion we have to ask a very critical question if Jesus was resurrected if the story is true what would it prove that he was the messiah well in the bible we're never told that one of the ways of knowing if someone is the messiah is if they're going to be resurrected that is simply never given as a criteria for the messiah as we saw before the bible gives very clear criteria the messiah has to accomplish very specific historical missions and finally the bible tells us in Deuteronomy chapter 13 that miracles don't prove anything because false prophets are able to do miracles and in the christian bible chapter 24 of Matthew he says that false messiahs can do incredible supernatural miracles so the fact that Jesus may have been resurrected would not prove he's the messiah would it prove that he's god which you should know is what christianity classical normative christianity believes that jesus was not just the messiah they believe he was god in the flesh so when being resurrected prove that jesus is god well obviously not even the book of acts by the way says repeatedly that god raised jesus from the dead it's a miracle that god would have done to jesus not that jesus is god and it would be just another example of one of god's miracles in the jewish bible we have stories of elisha the prophet and elisha resurrecting people from the dead through the power of god it would not prove that either elisha elisha or the person resurrected was god and the truth is that in the new testament itself there are many other stories of resurrections no one would assume those people resurrected are god and one concluding thought christianity insists that the belief in the resurrection is crucial for personal salvation without the resurrection and the belief in it no one can have their sins forgiven and no one can go to heaven and have eternal life but richard carrier has written appropriately the following he writes no wise or compassionate god would demand this from us such a god would not leave us so poorly informed about something so important if we have a message for someone that is urgently vital for their survival and we have any compassion that compassion will compel us to communicate the message accurately and with every necessary proof not ambiguously and not through unreliable meteories presenting no real evidence that's the great problem with the resurrection story it demands absolute obedience and belief with the poorest amount of proof the foundational event in judaism was the event surrounding the exodus from egypt and the revelation at mount sinai which took place publicly and dramatically in the presence of three million hebrus to supersede this event would need a dramatically clear demonstration at least as clear as the revelation at sinai