¶1Scripture references, whether highly evidenced or not, were given the same weight. The authors of the biblical books were generally treated in traditional terms. And this entire series has been built on establishing Jesus's resurrection by building only on data that are recognized by virtually every scholar who studies this material. Both of these quotations are in the fourth and final chapter of Gary Habermass's 4,000page Resurrection Project. They cannot both be true.
¶2Today we find out which one is. Welcome to Polia where a former Christian takes a look at the claims of Christians. And today we are at the end of the line for an adventure we started years ago as I review the fourth and final volume of Gary's oftised Magnumopus book series on the resurrection of Jesus. >> My name is Gary R. Habbermass.
¶3People say, "What's your middle name?" I say, "Resurrection." It's actually Robert, but I say resurrection. Friends, church started encouraging me about 10 years ago to start writing a magnumopus. Don't don't repeat what you've done. Don't we're not asking you to bring all the books on the resurrection into a single book. I am working on a huge magnumopus right on the resurrection.
¶4You mentioned 20ome books on the resurrection. This big magnum opus I'm working on does not reproduce that material. Right now, I'm over 5,000 pages on this document. >> 5,000 pages long. The evidence is voluminous.
¶5>> Now, don't forget, I'd already been in them for decades and already had done the research in the scope for 13 years. >> 13 years. Wow. >> Over the whole length of those four books. I worked over 70 hours a week when I was in town.
¶6>> He has just published volume one of a proposed four volume set on the resurrection, the evidences. All four books are called on the resurrection and then there's one and this the subtitle that differentiates the >> volume one is in 1300 pages on just the evidence. >> The second one is called reputations and it goes after all the natural theories that deny when people are trying to say well maybe he didn't rise from the dead and the third volume which just came out very recently is called on the resurrection scholarly perspectives. This one is really not apologetic. There's some apologetics in there, but that is like a who's who or I like to call that volume a critical lay of the land.
¶7And the last one says volume four is split in two. How does the resurrection ground Christian theism? And secondly, how does it ground Christian practice? The first half of volume 4 is the resurrection of theology. The second half of I4 is the resurrection and Christian practice.
¶8Sort of like pastoral ministerial ethics, witnessing, death and dying. What do you do when a loved one's suffering? >> It's applying the resurrection to all those tough questions. That's the second half of >> Throughout my coverage, I've been teasing Gary and the apologists covering him for making what seems to be an argument from page count. Some have called this uncharitable, but just as volume 4 was releasing, Gary's editor, Ben Shaw, put out a video of himself slamming each volume down as if that alone answered questions.
¶9>> So, I just mentioned we're going to go over a couple of the reasons for each of those facts. But if you want to get into the depth of them, well, Habermass has done it in a thousand pages just on the evidence. I should do it like more just on the evidence. Okay, so a thousand pages just on historical method and literally evidence, right? But there's more.
¶10It's like an infomercial, right? But wait, there's more. Okay, but I I mentioned it in response to alternative theories, right? 900 pages on alternative theories. There's a third volume.
¶11This is the scholarly spectrum of views, right? Where are different scholars at? There is a fourth one coming out though. It's just out in the fall and that's going to be on pastoral and practical application. So, we can see here when it comes to the resurrection, just this book here, we've got 12 arguments in depth, right?
¶12Most of us, we don't need that much depth. We're good with, you know, here. And that's fine. >> That's sadly accurate. Most Christians seem to be good with a general awareness that there are 4,000 pages on a shelf somewhere that they will never read, but their existence alone is some kind of security blanket.
¶13Just to get all the page count stuff out of the way up front, I'll note that the hardcover edition of volume 4 is 704 pages, but the last page of content is on page 360 with the selected biography starting on page 361. So almost half is supplemental material. >> That book's at least 400 pages long. Whatever he's reading is only half that thick. >> Maybe he's reading a version with a smaller font.
¶14>> Now, for the prior volumes, I've done separate videos for Gary's comments on the press tour and another for the book review itself, but this time thus far, his tour has consisted of just one interview among the popular apologetics platforms. He just finished a massive four volume defense of the resurrection and the final volume on the meaning and practice of the resurrection has just released. Dr. Gary Hammas, thanks for granting me one of your first interviews on this new volume. Personally, this volume may be my favorite because you get down to the nittyritty of what it means to really live out one's resurrection faith.
¶15So, thanks for coming back and for writing a great volume. Yeah, and Sean, I may be wrong, but I think yours is the first interview. I believe got some more lined up, but I think yours is the first. >> But it's my understanding that these have not yet happened for one of the worst possible reasons. >> Well, the mother of my four children died in 1995 of stomach cancer.
¶16I've tell been telling people I have a second wife now who has and I've been saying the same kind of cancer. So my wife presently has pancreatic but they're the two nastiest cancers anywhere. They told me in 1995 and they've told me when Eileen first got sick, my present wife. Both of them have told me that it's the worst cancer you can have. This must be particularly difficult as the death of Gary's first wife is one of the major themes in this book and has famously been one of the driving forces throughout his resurrection research.
¶17Thanks to medicinal science, I am a cancer survivor myself and wish it upon no one. So, I'm sure you'll join me in expressing nothing but sincere support for Gary and Eileen as they focus on being well. And any critique of Gary's arguments are entirely separate from this personal circumstance. If you were here for my volume three discussion, you may remember that I came at Gary pretty hard for what seemed to be false advertising or at least creating some bait and switch expectations to the extent where I feel I may have contributed to this disclaimer sentence in the new volume. Those who may have hoped that the third volume would provide specific headcounts or percentages of scholars who line up on various sides of this or that issue will not find those citations in that volume.
¶18I will say that Gary's pre-release descriptions for volume four have been much more accurate. >> The last volume four says, "Hey, we got the evidence. How can we change lives with this?" And the fourth volume, which is also,00 pages, talks about worldview, ministry, what can pastors do? What can lay people do? What about the problem of pain and evil?
¶19What about when like my wife, what happens when the dearest person in your life dies? How are you going to respond? It applies resurrection to all that. And volume four, part one tells you how does theology follow from the resurrection. And to use my baseball illustration, how can we get from first to second to third and all the way to home?
¶20What does Christianity mean for for um how do you score runs in Christianity? How do you quote home pass home plate? And the second half of the book is how is it practical? Volume four is resurrection of theology, resurrection of practice. >> It is indeed almost like two separate books arbitrarily stapled together.
¶21The first attempts very little scholarly defense. The second drops any remaining pretense. The book itself warns the reader. It should be noted carefully that the chapters in part two of this volume contain very little of the extent of research methods or language that are found in the previous three and a half volumes, including very few footnotes and almost no scholarly discussions or references. Before we dig into the chapter by chapter details, let's look at some general observations.
¶22The first two volumes of On the Resurrection were predominantly Gary advocating and defending his minimal facts argumentation model for the resurrection. I use what's called the minimal facts argument. Um, that's the most common name I use, but it could you could call it the lowest common denominator argument. The minimal facts method is even if all you use are historical facts which critical New Testament scholars accept from volume one. What are the prerequisites for an occurrence to be designated as a minimal fact?
¶23From the outset of my studies on the death and resurrection of Jesus, my thesis has been that there are at least two major requirements for an occurrence to be designated in this manner. Each of these events must be established by an abundance of strong evidences, usually by multiple critically ascertained independent lines of historical argumentation. In addition, the vast majority of published contemporary scholars with credentials in relevant fields of study have to acknowledge the historicity of the event. A lineup of four to six minimal facts were extrapolated. This lighter, stricter list is the major focus of this chapter as well as this entire study.
¶24When referencing the shorter list of minimal historical facts, I most frequently think in terms of a 90some percentile headcount, but researchers will not necessarily agree with one another regarding the particular interpretations that may be thought to accompany these occurrences. In other words, more than one interpretation may exist for most or even all of these facts and various angles can be discussed. To repeat, regardless of how much agreement there is across the scholarly spectrum on the nature of particular data, the interpretations will often differ. Otherwise, we would have no skeptical to conservative spectrum. Gary is explicit that his arguments put no weight on the reliability of the gospels.
¶25Although this additional point may be even less apparent, this method does not even require that the New Testament be generally reliable. To take this matter a step further, the New Testament text could even be generally untrustworthy and still yield truths among which could be these wellestablished data. It should be repeated once again that none of this scholarly agreement depends on particular persuasions pertaining to the general reliability of the Gospels or any other canonical texts. Actually, these minimal facts are derived just fine, even superlatively so when operating with an unreliable New Testament, such as with a recognized list of historical facts provided by potential atheist, agnostic, self-identified non-Christian scholars or otherwise skeptical commentators who do not recognize either the inspiration or even the reliability of the canonical writings. But the minimal facts argument is all but forgotten in the new book.
¶26The phrase minimal facts appears at least 168 times in volume 1, but I count just nine times in volume 4. And of those meager nine, two are in Dale Allison's endorsement blurb inside the cover. So not even part of Gary's text. And since I mentioned that, please indulge me for a brief tangent. >> And even Dr.
¶27Dale Allison chimes in and says, I think that the minimal facts approach is the best. Underline best. Take that apologia. >> What did I do? Why is this a blow to me somehow?
¶28I also think the minimal facts approach is the best of the apologetic arguments. It's utterly terrible, but it is the best. I agree with Dale here. >> He goes on, "My skeptical approach doesn't deny any of the minimal facts." >> I'm still agreeing with Dale. My skeptical approach also doesn't deny the minimal facts, particularly when they are most strongly phrased without extraneous conditional flourishes and when they're not smuggling in secret facts as Gary tries to do in chapter 6.
¶29Stay tuned for that. >> So yeah, there's some vindication for Gary there. >> Vindication how exactly. I could have written the same blurb for Gary. >> Take that, Paulia.
¶30>> All right, you got me, I guess. back to enumerating the mere seven times that Gary uses the phrase minimal facts in this fourth volume. Five of the uses are in footnotes. So that leaves only two minimal facts mentions that are in the main body text. Both in chapter 2, leaving the rest of the book, including the full second half, minimal facts free, avoiding dependency on gospel reliability, was everything that made minimal facts unique and interesting and worth discussion with a skeptic.
¶31If you're talking to someone who already accepts gospel reliability, then you don't need a single page of any of Gary's volumes. That person would just believe in the resurrection because the gospel said it happened. In Gary's mind, this doesn't mean he's abandoned evidential methodology. Here's how the series starts. And here's to me what we're doing before chapter before the fourth volume.
¶32The resurrection argument stands on a evidences volume one b reputations volume two and if I don't have I am basing you're going to hear me say it point blank without one and two I couldn't do four unless it were at a maybe a lay level for Christians who are going to grant everything and I'm just going to talk or preach but but if I'm going to do something scholarly yeah it's built on the back of one and two. So we go from there to the first half of four and then what does it mean for your life? Second half of four. >> Gary is not this explicit, but this is my honest attempt best steelman version of the argument he lays out in volume 4. One, followers had experiences they believed were post-mortem appearances of Jesus.
¶33Two, these experiences were objective external encounters. three, the encounters revealed a physical, immortal, resurrected Jesus. These three are roughly what Gary thinks he accomplished with volumes one and two of his series, and volume four does not rehash this terrain. So, in my view, it's fair to say that this new book builds on the first two. Also, in my view, he completely failed to convince me of points two and three, but that is well documented already.
¶34Nevertheless, this book wants to advance to defend further premises. Four, a divine agent caused the resurrection. Five, the agent intended to endorse Jesus and was morally incapable of endorsing error. Six, the gospels reliably preserve the particular sayings and priorities being endorsed. Seven, those sayings entail deity, atonement, kingdom timing, eternal life, heaven, and proposed practices.
¶35Eight, the practices work because the theology is true rather than because ordinary cognitive and social mechanisms work. In other words, Gary is saying now that the minimal facts proved that Jesus really rose from the dead, what other facts flow from that resurrection? Let's quickly go through each chapter in part one so that you get a sense of the arguments while he's still bothering to make arguments. In chapter 1, a theistic universe, Gary asks what kind of universe is required to allow Jesus's resurrection and in parallel what the resurrection in turns tells us about the universe. In an effort to avoid the obvious charge of circularity, he uses two lines of reasoning he calls the perspective argument and the retrospective argument.
¶36The perspective argument attempts to establish that we live in a theistic universe without referencing Jesus at all. Drawing on four arguments for God that will be very familiar to anyone who has spent an afternoon talking to a Christian apologist. The first borrow largely from CS Lewis is that naturalism can't account for the reliability of human reasoning. All knowledge depends on the legitimacy of our reasoning processes. Unless human reason is trustworthy.
¶37No scientific conclusion can be regarded as true. And even further, we could never know whether any proposition is true or false. Since all knowledge relies on our ability to think rationally, we may state a rule. No thought is valid if it can be fully explained as the result of irrational causes. This is an objection only slightly more sophisticated than the fizzing soda cans.
¶38>> We're no different than a Coke can fizzing. I'm a Coke can fizzing and Dennis might be a Pepsi can fizzing and you're a Sprite can fizzing. If we're all just molecules in motion, >> evolution selects for survival. And survival in a physical world depends heavily on forming accurate beliefs about that world. A creature whose senses and inferences systematically mislead it, one that mistakes a predator for a harmless companion, does not last long enough to reproduce.
¶39Because accurate mental mapping drives successful action, natural selection applies steady pressure toward minds that track truth, not away from it. Our brains evolved elaborate cognitive machinery to solve concrete survival problems like outsmarting predators or coordinating within the group. Once that machinery existed, its general reasoning capacity came along for the ride and we now apply it to tasks with no survival payoff at all. Also, if human reason is really fundamentally unreliable from the start, then no argument built from that reasoning can establish God's existence either. If I talk myself through some premises to a conclusion that's derived rationally, which is that I don't I should now not believe any of the things that my reason tells me, I think I should disregard the argument as well.
¶40And now I don't have an undercutting defeater anymore. Right? I only I'm only entitled to keep the undercutting defeater if I trust my reasoning in the argument that led me to believe that I've got an undercutting defeater. So I'm sort of having it both ways. pretending that I can reason enough and believe the consequences of that reason even and also believe that I can't believe the consequences of my reason, right?
¶41And that just seems like it's an inconsistent thing to do. >> The second is William Lane Craig's colum cosmological argument with all its familiar refrains. One argument that has become very popular in recent years concerns cosmological research and how a theistic universe could follow from some of these developments. The Colam cosmological argument can be stated very briefly. One, whatever begins to exist has a cause.
¶42Two, the universe began to exist. Three, therefore, the universe has a cause. Because Gary inherits the argument from William Link Craig, he also inherits all of the repeatedly explained flaws and objections, primarily, in my view, this painful distortion and misuse of cosmology. Many recent discoveries have indicated that the universe is expanding and that all its matter came into being at the Big Bang. The Big Bang describes the expansion of our observable universe from a hot dense state roughly 13.8 billion years ago.
¶43It does not describe a transition from nothing into something. Physics does not rule out a universe that is past eternal, cyclical, or perhaps one region within a larger multiverse. And in fact, a recent comprehensive study shows that a non-caused universe is the majority view. In other words, most cosmologists do not accept that there ever was a state of nothing. Naturalists often agree that the universe has a cause.
¶44Cosmologists who adapt methodological naturalism rarely agree that the universe has a cause. Gary waves away volumes of reputations to Craig's colum with barely a passing glance. To be sure, much discussion has taken place regarding the kalam cosmological argument, let alone attempting any meaningful defense. The third is design and finetuning in biology and cosmology. Harry points to Michael Beehey's bacterial fugellum, Hubert Yaki's objections to the odds of life arising by chance and Hugh Ross' long lists of finely calibrated physical constants, treating the accumulation of examples as evidence of a super intelligence behind the structure of life in the cosmos.
¶45Arguing from the nature of cell design, Beehey noted the presence of irreducible complexity. In particular, Beehe made famous the example of the bacterial fleellum, which appear to be thin hairs with rotary motors made of protein that protrude from microorganisms propelling the organism along. These amazing organisms are irreducibly complex in that all the parts necessarily must function together. >> Creationism, but that's not science. >> It is.
¶46Now Gary is ignoring or worse unaware of the fact that Beehey himself lost this very argument in a court of law. There's a great documentary called Judgment Day intelligent design on trial where you can watch Beehe fumble this. Gary inherits the fallacy of constant function in the alleged examples. Yaki determined that the required amount of information is far too great and the time far too brief to produce such results. Yaki's calculation treats amino acids as shuffling completely at random.
¶47But protein folding is constrained by physics with molecules settling toward low energy shapes the way a weighted coin favors one side. And evolution suggests proteins are built from smaller already stable domains rather than one amino acid at a time. These estimates also assume only one sequence can do a given job when we don't know how many alternatives could perform the same function. The huge numbers expose a flawed modeling of random sampling, not the impossibility of life's emergence. Many scholars have argued that an untold number of aspects in the universe arguably contain multiple signs of having been prepared previously for the appearance of life.
¶48I'm always a fan of Douglas Adams puddle analogy here. Assuming the universe was designed for us gets the causal direction backward. Life evolved to fit the conditions that already existed. Given that we exist, we would expect to find ourselves in a universe whose parameters allow for that existence. Fine-tuning lists usually vary one constant at a time while holding everything else fixed, which produces a lifeless result almost by design.
¶49When multiple constants are allowed to vary together, they interact in ways that open up other configurations that are also stable and length permitting. The argument also assumes that these constants could have taken on any value at all. But if matter and energy are brute facts, then the properties of matter and energy are also brute facts and not variables that could have been tuned. Fourth is near-death experience research treated as evidence that consciousness can operate independently of the brain. As this is the portion of the chapter where Gary does more than vaguely summarize is worth taking a few minutes here on this case against naturalistic materialism.
¶50rather than being a rare phenomenon. One of the latest medical estimates indicates that perhaps as many as 9 million to 20 million people in just the United States alone may have experienced NDEs. Over 500 evidential NDE cases can be located in the relevant literature. The results have included a vast array of more recent NDE accounts featuring far more examples taken from a larger worldwide pool, including more research sources with wider variation and greater amounts of documentation and evidence from a broader variety of angles. With such an embarrassment of riches at his fingertips, Gary selects eight near-death experiences to present to his readers with named sources, page numbers, and sometimes a professional witness who can be checked.
¶51Presumably, these will be the best, most convincing, and independently verifiable examples brought forth to champion the general principle that if a mind can perceive while the organ that produces the mind is shut down, then mind and brain are not the same thing, and consciousness survives the body. Sadly, his chosen examples do not stand up to even modest scrutiny. I recognize the first case from Lee Stroel's case for heaven movie and I discussed it at length in a video called the case for heaven is dismissed. >> My favorite example is Pamela Reynolds. >> Perfect.
¶52A specific case we can dig into. Pam Reynolds. At the age of 35, she underwent a surgery that required the blood be drained from her brain, her eyes be taped shut, and have devices placed in her ears. And yet >> she witnessed things that she had no way of knowing unless her consciousness somehow survived her clinical death. >> One specific instance concerned a 35-year-old woman who underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm.
¶53The details of this case have been refuted thoroughly. So it seems a bit disingenuous for Gary to water down the description to these vague generalizations. After surgery, she reported an amazing array of specific details regarding about a halfozen rather specific observations, including both the occurrence of certain events as well as the timing of these factors. A reconstruction of the timeline by Keith Augustine revealed that her two acute observations were under ordinary anesthesia with an electrically active brain hours prior to the circulatory standstill. These were intermixed among incorrect visual details like misdescribing an instrument's handle, which is exactly the pattern expected from someone reconstructing an experience from sound rather than sight.
¶54Again, check my case for heaven video for the full array of the problems. The next case is betrayed by Gary's own peer-reviewed source. He tells of a 7-year-old girl who was submerged for 19 minutes and then recovered 3 days later, reportedly describing not only her resuscitation, but events at home miles away, including that her mother had made roast chicken and rice. But the original 1983 article on the case says she could not supply any other details of the 3-day period other than being in a tunnel. There's no roast, chicken, and rice in the peer-reviewed source.
¶55Instead, that material first appears 7 years later. The clinical record describes a coma rather than no brain function and no mention at all of EEG readings. Gary has four more cases from the self does not die book. Each of a general structure where a patient reports an outof body perception of some physical detail and a staff member later confirms it. But the accounts include no named patient, no named physician, no named hospital, and no dates.
¶56even though Gary presents them as cases a person could theoretically go and verify. The seventh case involves a patient who reportedly perceived events at his home 1,250 mi away during surgery. This was published without further detail or documentation in a New Age Press as a retelling of what a patient told a physician about what his houseitter had told him. >> Where did you hear it? My squire.
¶57He heard it from a stable hand who heard it from his father, a fisherman whose shipmate claims he saw it. >> Finally, Gary describes >> late Oxford University atheistic philosopher AJ Ayer is one of the many who actually experienced a couple of NDEs for himself and admitted that he could not explain them within the confines of his materialistic framework. On the face of it, these experiences on the assumption that the last one was vertitical are rather strong evidence that death does not put an end to consciousness. What Gary leaves out is that the very next day published a follow-up in the spectator explicitly walking that sentence back. In his own words, my inflexible attitude toward that belief was the thing that had changed and his underlying disbelief held firm throughout.
¶58His stated preference in the original essay itself was that his brain most probably kept functioning even after his heart stopped exactly the presentation predicted by ordinary dying brain physiology in the hypoxic feebral 77year-old. His biographer David Beerman affirmed that settled atheism underwent no fundamental change. I don't need to survey the whole of NDE literature to notice that when apologists pick their eight best cases, this is what the eight best look like. So far, the prominent prospective attempts to objectively verify out of body perception have come up empty. The 2014 AARE study followed over 2,000 cardiac arrest events and used hidden visual targets in participating hospitals, but no patient who reported an out-of- body experience was actually able to identify one.
¶59Aware two followed another 567 inhosp cardiac arrests. Again, nobody identified the visual target. So, NDEs themselves certainly turn up in research. What has not emerged is compelling verification of the extraordinary perceptual claims. These spectacular cases touted by apologists like Gary still tend to be anecdotes whose evidential quality has to be assessed case by case until a new best-in-class case substantially improves on those.
¶60I am comfortable giving them only partial attention. It's important to note that Habermas continues in his volume to argue as though philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism are the same thing. The naturalistic paradigm often assumes that God does not exist, that the universe and the life within it are ultimately due to chance and that neither miracles nor any other supernatural occurrences can occur. >> Philosophical naturalism asserts that nature is all there is. Methodological naturalism just suggests looking for natural causes without taking a position on whether anything beyond nature exists.
¶61This applies to many fields including science, history, journalism, economics, and law. In the second appendix to volume two of this series on Jesus's resurrection, it was argued that naturalism, materialism, and similar views cannot be established to be true by strong arguments, especially empirical ones. If this is the case, these positions provide insufficient explanations of the universe's existence. Neither can these views disprove God or the afterlife. Only philosophical naturalism carries a burden of proof the way Gary imagines.
¶62Methodological naturalism merely waits for sufficient evidence that the supernatural might be a candidate explanation. >> The world views of naturalistic, materialistic, and related positions have not been demonstrated and are beset by myriads of their own problems. My tentative commitment to methodological naturalism is guided by AAM's razor. Other things being equal, we should prefer explanations that introduce the fewest unwarranted assumptions. The natural world is directly available to experience and investigation.
¶63Supernatural causes add further assumptions. So natural explanations are preferable unless the evidence requires otherwise. the specific evidences for Jesus's resurrection, such as those raised in volume 1, plus the additional considerations introduced here, including the serious doubts as to whether naturalism, materialism, or related views can even be established as the default position. Demanding a priori that miracles are impossible, isn't a default position, but acting as if any given action is the result of natural forces is indeed the default position. No matter what you believe about the supernatural, natural explanations are considered first until evidence demands a supernatural one.
¶64Even if you believe that miracles are possible, lawyers don't get to argue that a demon did it. >> What does that do to the whole system of law if a a person can walk in and say, "The devil made me do it." >> That is indeed the default whether Gary likes it or not. You've likely noticed that none of these four arguments mention Jesus. And Gary thinks that's a feature rather than a bug. He wants theism established on its own terms before the resurrection enters the picture so that it can bolster his prior resurrection claims.
¶65Gary's retrospective argument runs the other way from the resurrection back to theism. If the minimal facts argument in prior books somehow convinced you that Jesus really rose from the dead, then we should take what Jesus said seriously. It is exceptionally unlikely that God would have raised a heretic from the dead, especially since Jesus is the only known resurrected prophet in history. Positively, the best explanation for the resurrection is that by this act, God actually placed his stamp of approval on Jesus's teachings. These considerations are taught in the New Testament by Jesus as well as by those spokespersons who followed him.
¶66This is basically a Frank Turk catchphrase. >> Look, I just have a personal policy. If somebody rises from the dead, I just trust whatever the guy says. All right. >> Of course, this principle need not hold.
¶67God works in mysterious ways. His ways are not our ways. That God would not raise a false prophet is not a neutral historical claim that can be evaluated with theological dispassion. It is a specific claim about the divine character drawn from Christian lore being smuggled into the argument, thereby begging the question. In fact, Gary's methodology seems undermined by Deuteronomy 13:13.
¶68If a prophet or one who foretells by dreams appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, "Let us follow other gods, gods you have not known, and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and all your soul. So the Bible anticipates that false prophets will predict signs and wonders. That those signs and wonders will in fact come to pass. They will happen as predicted and God is allowing this maybe even causing this as a test of his faithfulness.
¶69So Gary simply cannot say that from a biblical perspective that a heretic could not rise from the dead. This passage says explicitly that real signs will happen in support of false messages. If I were a Christian, that passage alone might make me toss out Gary's book as theologically flawed. But even if we grant that this line of reasoning holds, we would still need a reliable way to know what Jesus said or did not say. Gary is making the unwarranted leap that the canonical gospels tell us with reasonable confidence exactly what Jesus was teaching.
¶70This is particularly unwarranted in a book that also says many of the arguments elaborated here do not rely on the inspiration or even the reliability of the New Testament. Nevertheless, Gary avoids the most egregious version of this circular argument. It's not resurrection is plausible because of the supernatural which is plausible because of the resurrection but his modestly more sophisticated take is still self-referential. Resurrection is evidence for God only if supernatural alternatives are live possibilities and supernatural alternatives are live possibilities only if the perspective argument for theism is persuasive. So while Gary's two arguments utilize different evidence, there's still a circle here.
¶71The retrospective argument borrows plausibility it has not earned and the perspective argument borrows specificity it cannot reach on its own. In chapter 2, Gary turns his case from something happened to something happened to a man who claimed to be God. Because a resurrection only counts as divine vindication if there's something specific being vindicated. For some reason, the debate about whether Jesus claimed to be God has been visited by a lot of debates and discussions this year. If this is supposed to indicate that Jesus is claiming to be identical to Yahweh, what does that make the rest of us?
¶72>> You're saying Jesus was just a terrible, terrible communicator. And that, I have to say, is the one option I cannot accept here. >> No, the theme of the gospels, especially John's gospel, is how comprehensively the Jews misunderstand what Jesus is saying. When he says, "I and the Father are one," they say, "Ah, you're claiming to be God." And he said, "No, no, you're not getting me." But to be honest, I'm disinterested in this debate, largely because I do not view the Gospels as reliable. If I did, I'd just accept that Jesus rose from the dead, and I wouldn't bother reading Gary's books because I'd already believe.
¶73But to Gary's credit, he's attempting to operate on a level above. The heart of the discussion will be taken from those gospel passages that, for a variety of reasons, are more widely recognized among scholars as most likely being authentic, preserving Jesus's own teachings. Gary is careful to say he is not simply trusting the gospels as reliable history, but rather identifying individual sayings of Jesus that he can defend as multiply attested even when taking literary dependence into account. So when Matthew or Luke copy a passage from Mark, Gary counts it as just one attestation. Altogether, these texts are drawn from at least four and very possibly all five of the major gospel sources, namely Mark, L, and John along with either M, Q, or possibly both.
¶74He takes these attestations along with the criteria of embarrassment and the criterion of dissimilarity which states that if a saying or title like this could not have arisen out of Judaism or out of the early church, it must be authentic. Here I will say that I agree with Gary's methodology to a modest extent. For example, it is by precisely these criteria that I have become convinced that historical Jesus was likely from Nazareth and that historical Jesus was likely an apocalyptic preacher. The trouble on this chapter's topic is that the sayings of Jesus fall into this more reliable category are massively underdeterminate and do not explicitly make the divine claim without massive interpretive assumptions. The debate is not one by merely granting that Jesus said these words.
¶75As Gary himself admits, every Christian should be willing to say Jesus never said, "I am God." He might have had a big issue with it. I don't know. But he never said, "I'm God." >> But my objection is more fundamental. If I were to be convinced that the historical man Jesus was openly claiming to be divine, then I think the case is strengthened that followers after his death may have fabricated or become mistakenly convinced of false claims that Jesus rose. If your mentor regularly claimed to be God, unsubstantiated stories of his resurrection are more plausible than if he was constantly insisting that he was just a regular guy with no special powers.
¶76So, if Gary succeeds in this chapter, it makes the naturalistic alternatives all the more plausible. I don't think he succeeds, but it would help my hypothesis. Confident that he's defended the historical resurrection, the existence of God, and that Jesus claimed to be God. In chapter 3, Gary argues that historical facts are not self-interpreting. They require a framework to achieve special significance.
¶77However, when events are coupled with other factors, meaning may ensue. More specifically, he posits by raising Jesus from the dead, God placed his stamp of approval on Jesus and his message concerning his own deity as well as his other teachings. Because God would not have raised a heretic from the dead. Those who have read the Bible may be wondering about all the other people who rise from the dead like Lazarus, Gyrus's daughter, Tabitha, Udicus, and all the saints who wandered the streets of Jerusalem. Did God endorse every word every uttered by these individuals?
¶78Since God would not have raised a heretic from the dead. Don't worry, Gary handwaves this question away in a footnote. Only the father could raise Jesus from the dead in a new resurrection body. Which is apparently important because the distinction of these summary words is to distinguish Jesus's resurrection from others in both the Old and New Testaments like Lazarus who were brought back to life and lived longer only to die again. So don't just believe any old schmuck who rises from the dead.
¶79first. Make sure they don't die again. >> I've been alive for 4 and a half centuries and I cannot die. >> Well, everybody's got their problems. >> Of course, no human can verify that another human will never die.
¶80The best we can do is falsify it if they die before us. But he simultaneously waters down the claim by granting God-affirming power to the non-resurrection miracles of Jesus that the gospels claim happened. Meyer concluded in some the statement that Jesus acted as and was viewed as an exorcist and healer during his public ministry has as much historical corroboration as almost any other statement we can make about the Jesus of history. Where multiple attestation and dissimilarity might be enough for mundane claims like being from Nazareth or preaching an apocalyptic message. It can't carry the weight for Jesus performing miracles and not because of an a priority rejection.
¶81The miracles aren't tested in hypothetical sayings document Q. So you're left with the canonical gospels which I am persuaded are all literally dependent on Mark making them non-independent. More importantly, the miracle stories clearly bolster and support the overall theological message thereby losing the criterion of dissimilarity. Gary himself later walks back Meyer's assertion. It is not being affirmed that these recent critical scholars necessarily agree that actual miracles occurred in Jesus's ministry or that Jesus exercised genuine demons.
¶82If the methodology for affirming Jesus walking on water presented in this chapter actually worked, then Gary wouldn't need the minimal facts argument in the first place since it would also apply to the resurrection. But Gary presumably knows this strategy doesn't work in principle since he does champion the minimal facts approach. Bragging that it doesn't need gospel reliability when it comes to critical scholarship. The more modest claim that can be defended is that at some point Jesus came to be known as a healer and exorcist. This reputation whether based in actual events or not is sufficient to explain stories of miracles in the oral tradition and later codification in the gospels.
¶83No actual miracles or even the performance of fake miracles are required. So the chapter's conclusion that miracles show that a morally perfect God endorses the gospel portrait of who Jesus was fails on both counts. Gary has neither provided sufficient evidence that Jesus's miracles actually happened. Nor that even if we grab the miracles that we have sufficient reason to think that the canonical gospels accurately represent what God was intending to endorse. For all we know, historical Jesus had a very different message that has since been lost.
¶84In chapter 4, Gary argues that Jesus preached the kingdom of God more than anything else. And since the resurrection proves that God endorses everything Jesus said, and somehow we know the gospels accurately reflect what he said, that there's going to be a happy afterlife with Jesus. The parts of this chapter where Gary uses his Jesus criteria to affirm that historical Jesus likely preached a future kingdom of God is exactly what I mean when I say I think it's probable that historical Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. So, I'm on board. We actually know more securely that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish prophet announcing the kingdom of God that we know almost anything.
¶85>> But again, the devil is in the details and affirming the words isn't the same as affirming Gary's brand of evangelical take on said words. Again, this does not mean that there is unonymity of interpretation concerning some of the details. In fact, Meyer finds that scholarship is strongly divided regarding what is perhaps the foremost issue, the timing of the kingdom and whether Jesus taught that it was primarily a present or a future reality or both. >> The other problem with opening this door is that it draws attention to the fact that among these words of Jesus are some of the most problematic passages. Critical scholars held that Jesus believed in his imminent return and the unveiling of God's final kingdom, meaning that he mistakenly held that it would all culminate very shortly.
¶86Spoiler alert, God's final kingdom didn't culminate very shortly. >> This nondisaster is a catastrophe. >> Are you really so disappointed the world didn't end just so you could be proven right? Jesus clearly taught that even he did not know when he would return >> concerning that day or that hour. No one knows.
¶87Not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Not very compatible with Jesus being an omnipotent God. Gary repeatedly references Mark 9:1, but doesn't explicitly let the reader know that this verse says, "Truly, I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God has come with power." Perhaps not wanting to point it out to those unfamiliar. Again, spoiler, but everyone standing there has tasted death, and the kingdom of God doesn't seem to have come yet. See my video, Yes, Jesus Was a Failed Prophet with guest Tim O'Neal for an in-depth discussion on this topic.
¶88There is little scholarly disagreement that the center of Jesus's teaching was confronting his listeners with the kingdom message and the possibility of entering its blessings. There remains however significant scholarly disagreement about what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God and his blessings and its level of centrality can be known only from the gospels as historical Jesus may well have given it lesser emphasis than is portrayed which makes Gary's conclusions circular. By raising Jesus from the dead, God especially emphasized Jesus's primary message and gave it a stamp of approval. For God would not have raised a heretic from the dead. It would make little sense to confirm some lesser truth if the greater message of the kingdom had been mistaken.
¶89>> This assumes that Jesus rose, that there is a God, that the gospels accurately record not only Jesus's words, but also accurately reflect the proportionality of importance to him. One quick fun contradiction in this chapter. What is to be concluded about the difficult subject of Mark 13:30, often taken to be Jesus's comment that his generation would witness his return? The answer is clear to Gary that in Mark, Jesus was answering a two-part question where the answer to the first question regarding the fall of Jerusalem and the temple is that these events will indeed occur within the time span of this present generation. So Gary is affirming that the Greek word Janaa in Mark 13:30 should be interpreted as present generation.
¶90But what about the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke which copy this exchange from Mark? Well, just a few pages later, Gary writes, "In some, it is highly likely that Luke did not mean Jesus's generation by his use of the term Geneia. And is even troublesome in light of the composition dates of Matthew and perhaps Mark to think that they took Genea to be Jesus's generation, or else they would have known that Jesus had been mistaken." In academic and historic analysis, offering mutually exclusive arguments creates a formal contradiction. You cannot logically claim that Janaa strictly means Jesus's contemporaries to salvage the AD70 reading in Mark while simultaneously claiming that Janaa cannot mean Jesus's contemporaries to prevent Jesus from appearing mistaken. In chapter 5, Gary claims salvation and kingdom entry are part of Jesus's kingdom of God preaching that Jesus placed the dual conditions of repentance, reorientation away from sin, and faith in the form of active trust and surrender.
¶91Having already outlined some general principles regarding God's kingdom, the path of entry as outlined by Jesus consisted of a personal decision of commitment that Jesus taught for admittance and participation in the blessings of eternal life. Alongside the calling of the disciples and the rich young man narrative in Mark 10, which advocate renunciation of personal interest, Gary draws on a handful of theologians as his sources to argue that repentance and faith get folded together with penal substitutionary atonement, exclusive faith in Jesus's person, and eternal consequences for rejection. How this works remains a matter strongly contested in Christian denominations. And while the scope of the debate is well outside the scope of this video, I'll merely note that Gary's is far from the only plain interpretation of the Gospels. But Gary repeats his epistemic refrain.
¶92So Jesus's kingdom message should be taken above all as God's word even for today. Jesus spoke for God on the topic of salvation. This appears to be required by the resurrection since God would especially be emphasizing the message that Jesus indicated was at the core of his mission. It does not make much sense to hypothesize that God raised a heretic from the dead, particularly in such a crucial matter. Gary again insists his argument avoids circularity by first establishing the resurrection through the minimal facts and then expanding backwards to Jesus's teaching.
¶93But by now, you'll notice that God not raising a heretic from the dead is doing all of Gary's heavy lifting. But heresy is not a neutral historical category. It exists only relative to a standard of orthodoxy. This problem would have been less apparent if Gary would have substituted God would not raise a liar from the dead on more discreet claims like claiming to be Messiah or advocating the coming kingdom. But by this chapter, Gary is moving in much more complicated and nuanced territory.
¶94Moving from the resurrection happened to the resurrection endorses this specific theological package requires an added claim about what God would or would not do. A claim about divine psychology that no historical method can establish. Habermass has to already know what God approves of before he can read that approval into the text. Again, this argument requires that gospel authors accurately preserve Jesus's own salvation teaching. That later doctrinal formulations like penal substitution correctly capture what Jesus meant by his death.
¶95He throws in Paul and credle formulations, but these are evidence only of what early Christians came to think. They are not a transcript of what Jesus taught. Much ink is spilled on how deeply sincere Jesus wants our beliefs and commitment to be. But Gary does not seem to be aware that the intensity of a movement's internal culture does not demonstrate that the movement's claims are true. Sincerity is not the same as accuracy.
¶96What does it take for someone to be really transformed by a religious message? Even if that message is clearly false, it is pretty clear that something is wrong when the members of a particular group sell all their possessions, give the money to their leader, and await some catastrophic prediction that never occurs. You would be forgiven if you thought he was talking about the early Christian church. But no, here he's talking about a UFO cult. >> They were waiting for a child to be born, to be a vessel for their god, who would then be resurrected and make the world a new.
¶97It sounds like one of those crazy doomsday calls. >> Yeah, sounds like it. >> The last chapter of the first section wraps up Gary applying his God wouldn't endorse a heretic line of argumentation to one final doctrine, eternal life in heaven. or 180 pages and five chapters, he's been repeating the pattern, defending particular gospel passages as likely true when he can apply multiple attestations to the motif and also argue a criteria of dissimilarity that the teaching is different than the Judaism that came before it or the Christianity that followed. He then presents a mainstream evangelical version of a doctrine at top these more defendable passages and declares that his interpretation has divine endorsement because God wouldn't raise a heretic.
¶98I can't speak for others, but this repetition and fatigue had my skeptical guard down. So, I almost didn't notice that Gary loads up chapter 6 with some of the most contested passages, not the mundane preaching snippets. He starts with Mark 12, which questions about wives in heaven, which isn't great under his paradigm, but acceptable. Then, with the goodwill of Mark, he smuggles in the changes Luke made to this passage as if they were Jesus's words rather than theological enhancement. That's no good.
¶99Then he adds in singly attested sheep and goat story from just Matthew which carries all kinds of new details about judgment day as if this is the same as vague motifs of a coming kingdom of God and a culture of pentance like he argues for earlier. This is a similar pattern to the earlier volumes after hundreds of pages of the artifice of good scholarship in minimal facts. Non-defensible gospel passages and evangelical doctrines are smuggled in and put under the shield unwarranted when you're too tired to notice. But it doesn't stop there. Now brings in the resurrection appearances.
¶100Jesus eating fish in Luke 24. Doubting Thomas inspecting Jesus's wounds in John 20. Women grasping his feet in Matthew 28. The empty tomb, which you may recall that Gary repeatedly insists in prior volumes is not one of his minimal facts. >> Now, someone will say, "But I wouldn't use the empty tomb." Well, I'll say something.
¶101I've never used the empty to the empty tomb is great evidence, but I'm not I don't use it as any of my minimal facts. If skeptical scholars accepted any one of these as reliable, defensible passages of the gospels, then Gary would not have had a career, and his minimal facts argument wouldn't need to exist. These specific details of post-resurrection appearances cannot be defended by the criteria Gary outlines in previous volumes, nor in the criteria set forth in this volume. Obviously, since I don't buy the starting premise of the book, that historical evidence has demonstrated the resurrection of Jesus as an event that happened. and we're now building theology on top of that.
¶102Everything up to this point was me trying to charitably play what if like a parent going along with an invisible friend tea party. >> Who made the tea? >> Daisy. >> Daisy. Where's Where's Daisy?
¶103>> Oh, yes, of course. Hi, Daisy. >> Not for me. Pretending post-resurrection appearances are in any way part of a minimal authentic sayings is where Gary has jumped the shark. Even playing in his own hypothetical sandbox.
¶104Don't even have the energy to properly scold Gary for depicting first century Jewish views on resurrection the afterlife as a monolithic lockstep absolute that he can contrast with Greek thinkings in absolute terms or assuming biblical unilicality or conflating figurative language with literal. The problems are many. >> We've got a problem. We have so many problems. >> Some of you may know that I advocate for what I call the minimal witnesses hypothesis, proposing that the evidence we have for early Christianity, specifically including Gary's six minimal facts, can be fully explained by only a single disciple, probably Peter, having experience of risen Jesus, followed a few years later by Paul having a different experience.
¶105Two mistaken witnesses covers all the evidence. So imagine my surprise when in a chapter ostensibly about heaven in a book that barely mentions the minimal facts at all that Gary casually drops a lengthy seemingly nonsequitular footnote which begins some questions have been raised regarding whether or not the bodily nature of Jesus's resurrection appearances and the group nature of these events are both parts of the minimal facts argument. Actually, both topics were clearly treated as minimal facts in several places in this series, especially in the first volume where they were accompanied by several historical considerations, each in their favor. However, due to the more theological nature of this volume, several details from the views of Jesus and Paul on the resurrection body for both Jesus and believers were purposely held until this chapter. As such, the study at this point may be helped by briefly reviewing a few of the considerations that warranted the inclusion of these two important topics in the minimal facts from the very outset of this discussion.
¶106After several paragraphs depending physical bodily resurrection, the final paragraph of the footnote reads, "Regarding the overall question, then the bodily as well as the group resurrection appearances of Jesus were already clearly a part of the minimal facts argument from the very beginning of this research as part of the second fact that included the nature of the disciples experiences. By far the majority of the resurrection appearances that are cited in the Gospels, Acts, and Paul, beginning with the pre-Pauline credle tradition in 1 Corinthians 15:3 and following, are claims made about group events. Even a number of the most skeptical researchers in recent years have cited multiple independent sources that list a number of these group sightings along with additional historical reasons. Even though these current scholars themselves disbelieve the view, but throughout this entire study, it is precisely the early New Testament beliefs that are being primarily analyzed rather than the personal beliefs of the scholars. Were group appearances somehow part of the minimal facts all along?
¶107>> He has the power to make things always have been other things. I think that's called retconing. >> Let's start with looking at the relevant fact number two from volume one where he lays it out definitively. Two, the disciples afterwards reported experiences that they thought were actually appearances of the risen Jesus. Obviously, this doesn't say anything about groups.
¶108It has long been a feature for Gary that the facts are made as vague as possible so that they can be endorsed by the largest possible group of scholars. If this had said reported group experiences instead of just reported experiences, the statement would garner significantly fewer supporters, moving it out of scholarly consensus. Gary can't retroactively add words and concepts and pretend that agreement from non-eangelicals would remain the same. >> That's not what I meant. >> That's what you said.
¶109>> That's not what I meant. >> An important smoking gun against Gary's new claim that the group appearances were always part of it comes in footnote 55 of chapter 5 of volume 1, which is the chapter that lists and defines his minimal facts. A further clarification may be helpful and interesting with regard to those who may enjoy inside details to some additional specifics of the minimal fact argument. When Mike Lacona wrote his PhD dissertation and his excellent subsequent tome on the subject of Jesus's resurrection, he reported a phone call with me in 2008 where just three minimal facts were utilized. Jesus's death by crucifixion, the disciples experiences which they believed were appearances of the risen Jesus, and Paul's own experience, which he also believed to be a resurrection appearance.
¶110Four years earlier in our co-authored volume, the case for the resurrection of Jesus, Lacon and I had listed four minimal facts by adding James's own experience, which he likewise thought was a resurrection appearance of Jesus, and by appending the empty tomb as a separate outsider occurrence and referring to it as a plus one argument, though not one of the minimal facts. When subsequently responding to Mike in the journal article minimal facts approach, I suggested the caveat that perhaps it was time to separate out three more facts that were more or less already implied in the list. The early date just mentioned the centrality of the resurrection proclamation and James's experience. Often I had also separated the disciples life transformations for their willingness to die for these teachings. Actually, Mike and I had already included all four of these others in our co-authored work with James being added as his own point.
¶111Plus, we had conflated the other three within these first four facts. The interested reader can check out examples of each of these submerged elements within our two chapters. The very early time element, the central importance of the message of Jesus's resurrection and the disciples life transformations to the extent of being willing to die for their faith. All told, it seemed like it is just perhaps time to move ahead and increase or perhaps the operative term is simply to unpack the list of minimal facts as done or at least started in other publications. As it turned out, Mike had also been thinking the same way and was interested in considering still other candidates, such as James's experience, as we had already done previously, the bodily nature of the resurrection appearances, the group nature of some of the appearances, Jesus's predictions of his death and resurrection, and even the empty tomb, our plus one fact in case for the resurrection of Jesus.
¶112For these additional details on Mike's thoughts here as well, see Lacona in reply 5556. As intimated, then even more steps in this direction could still be taken, but the 6 plus one configuration is enough for this study. Habermas now says in volume 4, the group appearances were always an unspoken part of his minimal facts, but his own footnote seems to say something different. He specifically identifies several facts that were already implied or submerged in his earlier argument, and group appearances aren't among them. Instead, he says Mike Leona was interested in considering still other candidates, including the group nature of some of the experiences.
¶113This sounds much more like a proposed expansion of the minimal facts than unpacking something that had always been there. If you go read Mike Lacona's in reply essay that Gary references in that footnote while keeping in mind that historical bedrock is the term Lacyona uses for his set of minimal facts. He writes >> in my lectures and debates during the past 2 and 1/2 years I have been contending that Jesus disciples proclaimed they had experienced what they perceived was a the bodily/physically raised Jesus and b had done so in group settings. Although I had argued for both of these in ROJ, I did not include them in my relevant historical bedrock. Thus, they did not factor in my final analysis.
¶114So, in the pages Gary references, Lake Kona is decisively putting group appearances outside of what can be justified as historical bedrock or minimal facts. That was volume 1. Yet now, in volume 4, Gary's pretending that group appearances were part of the facts all along. A few years back, I had a chance to question Mike and Gary on this fact, and Gary was not able to come up with a scholarly justification for claiming group appearances were a consensus view, including skeptics. >> Would Would you say a strong majority, >> yes, >> of m of scholars grant the group appearances?
¶115>> They grant appearances. And since the majority of the appear if you're only going to count appearances to single individuals to get away from groups, I don't think that's fair. And the earliest account >> Well, I think it's fair. I mean you I mean when we talk about answering hallucinations >> one of the the the correct responses we give group appearances >> right >> so isn't it fair it's fair for someone like Paul or someone to say well what percentage of scholars today in in the field would grant the group appearances in volume one called the evidences making the positive claims for the minimal facts I found but one paragraph dedicated to defending group appearances It is 6 in a section called a checklist of data favoring the disciples experiences. Another consideration that also possesses tremendous evidential value concerns the number of the appearances between Jesus and his disciples that took place in groups.
¶116In total, counting duplicates in the separate texts up to 13 group appearances are mentioned in the literature. Three of these from the credle tradition in 1 Corinthians 15 3-7 which likely preceded Paul's conversion. The group sightings together indicate that in a variety of events and circumstances, many people reported seeing Jesus at different times and locations. As cited above, even the Jesus seminar and John dominant cross and site from four to up to seven texts that report independently attested group appearances to Jesus's disciples, plus a couple of sources for the two followers on the way to Emmas. Meaning that these group appearances are multiplyattested, as is also the case for Jesus's appearances to individuals.
¶117First, I would dispute the notion that there are any duplicates of resurrection appearances in the New Testament. Each seems to be unique and not multiply attested without some credulous strain. I agree that there is multiple attestation in appearance motif, but motif alone is what we would expect when these stories are growing legends. The criteria repeated chapter after chapter in this latest volume is multiple attestation combined with dissimilarity. These appearances survive neither.
¶118They are saturated with theological and pmical purpose. This new claim that group appearances were part of the minimal facts all along lies in the face of the books themselves and every lecture and interview he's given on the topic. This is revisionist history. >> Alex, really these revisionist history lessons should be against the law. >> Are you suggesting our history is wrong?
¶119>> History is written by the victor and neither of you seem to be winning. I focused on the group appearances here, but the idea that specifically bodily resurrection has also always been a minimal fact is also preposterous. The Lyona footnote and essay lumps them both together as separate ideas from the six minimal facts in final form. A quick check of Gary's third volume. See, it has some purpose, I guess, shows that Gary himself is aware that critics like Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossen, Robert Funk, Maurice Casey, Donald Atinson, Hansskung, Gregory Riley, and James Robinson argue for spiritual, metaphorical, luminous, or objective vision interpretations where no physical body exited the grave.
¶120And this is just a sampling of a larger pool that would certainly not meet Gary's scholarly acceptance standard. The chapter closes with an appeal to how satisfying the doctrine of heaven feels. But as this chapter pointed out, there is a crucial side of Jesus's resurrection that proceeds far beyond any arguments. Jesus and his followers provided a few details regarding heaven's characteristics. They also employed some incredible word pictures, not only providing us with additional hints regarding its nature, but stimulating our longing to seek God and his heavenly kingdom above all else.
¶121The results should arouse our intellect as well as invigorate our hearts. >> Obviously, this does no evidential work at all. Wanting eternal life to be real, says nothing about whether the doctrine is true, but shifting from evidence to feelings is appropriate here because the rest of the book entirely abandons evidence to talk about feelings. Here are the author's own words about the second half of the book. Well, quarter of the book since the actual last half of the pages are just indexes and biography.
¶122The last two volumes moved to less evidential paths due to my growing conviction throughout the decades of studying this topic that there is so much more to Jesus's resurrection than evidences and arguments alone. It should be noted carefully that the chapters in part two of this volume contain very little of the extent of research methods or language that are found in the previous three and a half volumes, including very few footnotes and almost no scholarly discussions or references. Part two of this present volume was written as a more popular book. It used much less technical language and discussion than were used in volumes 1 to three as well as in part one of this volume. Scripture references, whether highly evidenced or not, were given the same weight.
¶123The authors of the biblical books were generally treated in traditional terms. Neither were these chapters part of an apologetics text. In one sense, the second part of this book has largely been about bringing the resurrection and other truth to bear in the daily lives of believers. How does the former relate to the latter? One of the major themes that shows up repeatedly throughout these pages is that real facts are related to real spirituality.
¶124Gary is upfront about this, so I can't really complain about it. He's not trying to pull the evidential wool over his reader's eyes, and this section just isn't for me. Maybe one day if someone first convinces me of the resurrection. I will say though that these chapters often abandon even tenuous connection to resurrection. For example, in his fear of death chapter, he advocates that positive thinking has benefits over negative thinking.
¶125That it's the mindset that matters regardless of whether the positive affirmations are grounded in something true. He even acknowledges this is not resurrection dependent. Even while denying the existence of eternal life and other religious teachings, a large number of secular studies have very successfully shown that emotional pain is often quite manageable by the application of various strategies of cognitive methods even in the face of death and dying. Chapter 12 on daily power and praise is largely drawn on standard principles from cognitive behavior therapy and behavioral psychology as popularized in 1980s pastoral counseling paperbacks. his main sources for the chapter.
¶126I'm pleased he's advocating for secular therapy mechanisms like accountability, cognitive restructuring away from false beliefs and toward true ones, and approach over avoidance motivation. But the resurrection is nowhere in sight here. Just a vague nod towards a verse in Romans and a verse in Philippians. The final chapter of the entire on the resurrection magnumopus rests on the list of advice in Philippians 4:6-9 and Matthew 6:33's command to seek first God's kingdom and righteousness. Again, this is fine for an uplifting devotional, but no resurrection in sight.
¶127Of interest to skeptics may be how Gary describes us in this section. It would be a mistake to think that there is only one kind of doubt. It is helpful to speak of three different species of doubt. Factual or philosophical, emotional and valitional uncertainty. Factual doubt may be caused, for example, by questions that concern the truth of Christianity, such as the existence of God, evidence for a miracle, or the basis for accepting scripture as God's word.
¶128>> That's me. I have factual doubt. >> If the chief questions are factual in nature, when the issue is adequately addressed, this variety of uncertainty should be helped tremendously or even largely subside. This is true, but I've now read 4,000 pages hoping that my questions would be adequately addressed. Sadly, Gary's Magnumopus has not accomplished this mission.
¶129Emotional D is by far the most common of the three. There's probably 12% or so for both factual and valitional. Volional, by the way, not wanting to spend a lot of time on it. Volional is pretty much what young people today call deconstructing. It's people who start wandering, keep it up, and no matter what their friends say, they're gone and they leave.
¶130And it's kind of a decision. It's often firm. They don't want people to talk to them. They get angry. In many cases, this species of doubt often develops in persons who are advanced in biblical understanding, but who struggle perhaps with unanswered prayer or some lapse into sinful practice opposed to the clear teaching of scripture.
¶131These are often, if not usually, intelligent individuals who know apologetic arguments better than most. Frequently, these persons grow angry with God for not answering their needs in the ways they think are best. >> And there we have it. There is no slot in Gary's system or a well-informed person who examined the case and simply wasn't convinced. Their doubt has been reclassified before anyone looks at the reasons.
¶132Gary's even less restrained in person. You can't really answer these guys because here's the key. If they're really skeptical, no matter what I say will make no difference. They will either go to something else just as easily or they will make a new story up and act like it was their story all along anyway. >> There it is.
¶133According to Gary, skeptical people don't change their mind based on new evidence. So why bother with evidence? That's an undertone in the book, but here he spells it out. >> Emotional doubt is by far the most common of the three types, as well as often the most painful. It basically arises from one's feelings and is more subjective in its perspective.
¶134Fortunately, Gary tells us at length about Cathy, an excellent Christian who spent hours in prayer but developed severe anxiety attacks, convincing herself she was unsaved because of her negative feelings, and also Philillip, a college student in philosophy who was physically abused as a child and suffered agonizing doubt over whether God loved him or if he was truly a Christian. We can be assured that Gary's really real advice was a tremendous help to these really real people. Throughout this book, the examples of people, including the names and details, are entirely fictitious and do not refer to any actual individuals. The stories are often composits of several cases or simply reflect very common responses that have been heard often in thousands of context. Yeah, if you've been watching my coverage of Habermass over the years, you will not be surprised that he admits that some of the conversations he purports to have are in fact entirely fictitious.
¶135I think I will get mileage out of that one. But to my surprise, in his chapter claiming that transformed lives of Christians is evidence for the truth of Christianity, Gary openly narrowed down the number of disciples he has good evidence for down to the exact same narrow list that I use for minimal witnesses. There is good evidence that at least the leaders like Paul, Peter, and James, the brother of Jesus, died for their faith. And judging from their actions, many of the others were apparently at least willing to suffer and die for their faith. >> So much to observe here.
¶136First, only one of the 12 disciples is listed. Peter, when Gary says many of the others, he's acknowledging that saying that all of the others were out preaching is a claim beyond the evidence. Thirdly, apparently willing seems to be an admission of indirect evidence rather than direct evidence. It's too bad that Gary doesn't elaborate on judging from their actions because I contend that Gary could not defend any of the rest of the 12 disciples were out preaching. Indeed, none of Andrew, Bartholomew, Thaddius, Simon the Zealot, James son of Alphus, Philip, or Matthew are mentioned by name in this volume.
¶137That most of the 12 disappeared from reliable history, seems tacitly affirmed by Gary, or at least not refuted in his new volume. So, we opened with two contradictory sentences. Scripture references, whether highly evidenced or not, were given the same weight. The authors of the biblical books were generally treated in traditional terms. And this entire series has been built on establishing Jesus's resurrection by building only on data that are recognized by virtually every scholar who studies this material.
¶138The true one is the first one. Though Gary intended only the second half of the book to use the Bible uncritically. By my view, this was his methodology cover to cover. And the second claim turns out to just be artifice. At the end of the day, volume 4 is as advertised.
¶139It is openly written explicitly for a reader who is already convinced that Jesus really rose from the dead as a true historical event. Every argument flows from that being true. I am not such a reader. So every paragraph in the book lands on the floor with a thud. >> As your target audience, I'm not hooked yet.
¶140>> You are not my target audience. The trouble is, this is supposed to be the final volume of the great Gary Habbermass's 4,000page magnumopus to demonstrate to a skeptic or someone doubting that the resurrection really happened. It is going to be set beside the other three volumes on the shelf of a pastor who will point to it and say, "Gary Habermass wrote 4,000 pages on evidence of the resurrection, but the pages in this volume contribute very little to the case. It's a devotional, feel-good book to assuage people with the fear of death that they're going to be in heaven, wearing the hardcover jacket of a scholarly evidence-based endeavor. Its primary value is adding visual heft to what was already written.
¶141Perhaps one day I'll do a meta review of the whole series. Even this video is nothing more than a brief skim and overall impression, not a deep dive into the details, nor a comprehensive enumeration of the problems. But for today, if you don't already believe that Jesus rose from the dead, this new volume will not change your mind because at no point does it try to. Thank you so much for watching. If you appreciate what we do in this channel, please tap on the subscribe button.
¶142And if you're willing and able, consider helping with the mission of the channel by joining as a YouTube member or patron with links in the description. If you want more of this former Christian taking a look at the claims of Gary Habermass, tap on the Apology versus Gary Habbermask playlist on screen now and I'll see you over there. Until next time. Later.