(Gary Habermas) Answering Objections to the Resurrection

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Elias Ayala. And today we have a very special guest.

I have with me Dr. Gary Habermas at Liberty University. And he specializes in various areas, but many of you guys who are into the world of apologetics will know his work in the area of the resurrection of Jesus.

And so obviously this is a central feature of the Christian faith. And so it's a very, very important topic, which

I'm very happy to have Dr. Habermas here to kind of dive into some common objections and how we might respond to them.

Now, I was briefly speaking with Dr. Habermas before we got started. I didn't get a chance to let him know and I'm sure he doesn't care, but primarily this channel focuses on presuppositional apologetics and the audience is primarily a reformed audience.

However, I continually share with people my frustration that presuppositionalists are very good at worldview issues, but once you dig deeper into some specifics, okay, well, what are some of the evidences?

How do you use these evidences within the presuppositional framework? A lot of guys don't really know the ins and outs of that.

So I am excited to have someone who probably identifies as an evidentialist. We definitely would have a different methodology, but as you guys always hear me say, we can benefit greatly through the cross -pollination of apologetic traditions and benefit from each other's studies.

So I am very, very excited to have Dr. Habermas with us today. Tomorrow at 3 p .m.

Eastern, I'm going to be having Jason Lyle on to discuss objections against presuppositional methodology.

And I've got a couple of people that are on the back burner. I'll let you guys know as we solidify a date and things like that.

Hopefully I'm still working to get Dr. William Lane Craig on as well. I'm in connection with Kevin Harris about that.

So we'll see if that happens or it falls through. I'll let you know. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome

Dr. Gary Habermas. Why don't you take a few moments to just introduce yourself? Well, where do you start?

I have been at Liberty. This is my 39th year. So one more year would make four decades, if you can believe that.

Yeah, but you know, I was really, really young when I came here. I was just like out of high school or something. People wonder, how could you be doing this for so long?

I finished my doctor's degree way back in 1976. So most of the audience will be going, wow,

I wasn't even born. But I was at two other schools before I came here.

I am distinguished research professor. That's two different research titles. And I teach in the

PhD program exclusively. Every once in a while, I get roped in doing something else. I don't mean that in a bad way.

I enjoy doing, I enjoy teaching, I enjoy ministry. I've written or edited over 40 books and about half of them exactly around the resurrection.

So that's our topic and I'm excited. I also do a lot with near death experiences and a lot with the subject of doubt.

So historical Jesus, there's another one. So I'm kind of a narrow specializer. I don't do too many topics.

Even if someone says, you know, near death experiences, I say, think of it this way. Near death experiences has to do with afterlife and afterlife as an extension of resurrection.

I mean, once you raise the resurrection question, you're raising the afterlife question. That's why people are interested in it because almost 20 times in the

New Testament, we're told that believers will be raised like Jesus. So obviously those two topics work together.

Yeah. Yeah. And you guys, if you're not familiar, I mean, he's written many books that are available on Amazon, right?

You can get them on Kindle and paperback and hardback. And I would strongly suggest if you have not read a book by Dr.

Habermas, you definitely need to get some of his resurrection material. It's just fantastic. I have not availed myself of some of those other areas, but I have listened to some of your talks on the issue of doubt.

And I think that's great material as well. So you are - By the way, if I can jump in real fast.

Sure. On my website, garyhabermas .com, I'll just say nothing's for sale there. So I'm not making a buck on this, but garyhabermas .com.

I've written three books on doubt and two of them are available for free on the website.

So people can go to the website and get one book called, well, it's with Moody.

It's the most, it's dealing with doubt is the most technical one. The second one is called the Thomas Factor.

Okay. And this title is using your doubts to go closer to God. So people are struggling and they're wondering how to work through emotional issues.

Again, on my website, garyhabermas .com, free. I hope they take it, use it, and apply it.

Well, you know, people like free stuff, you know. They do. Can't complain with free stuff.

So definitely folks should check that out. So let's dive right in. Let me give you a scenario here, okay.

Suppose you are on a plane and you are sitting next to someone and you get into an interesting topic and the person looks over to you and says, well, you know, there's really no good reason to think that Jesus rose from the dead.

You know, it's just something you gotta take by faith. Right? And then all of a sudden you hear over the intercom, we're gonna be landing in 10 minutes.

How would you unpack the best you could in 10 minutes a case for the resurrection if you are in such a scenario?

I tell people I can do it in two minutes. I mean, it really is a, the method

I use to get to the resurrection is very brief. I call it the minimal facts record. I call it the minimal facts argument or the minimal facts method.

But I also call it, so people get an idea of where I'm going. I also call it the lowest common denominator method because what it says is you can use the data which critical scholars allow.

Now, let me be clear. I need to, I need to, I wouldn't tell them this on the plane, but by critical scholars,

I mean, somebody who has hopefully a terminal degree, somebody who was trained in New Testament or a relevant field.

So that might be theology, philosophy, history, classics, archeology.

There's a lot of cognate fields, but they have to be a scholar because there's gonna be some audience members or someone's gonna listen to me and say, well,

I'm a scholar and I don't even believe Jesus existed. Well, as Bart Ehrman, the atheist

New Testament scholar says regularly, guys who say that kind of thing, they're already giving them, they're already identifying that they're not a scholar because there's only, he says two.

I think he's talking about Richard Carrier and Bob Price, but he said there's only a couple who have credentials and none of the guys who hold that position are professors and accredited colleges, universities, seminaries.

So I'm talking about the guys who do the research. Okay, now having said that, here's my two minute argument.

I will use the data that they allow. They will recognize that these facts are very well accredited.

I usually use six of them. Sometimes I append another one. So I call it, sometimes

I call it six plus one, but I use these six or seven facts. And my argument is, if all

I use is these six facts that you allow, I can show you that the resurrection is the best answer, the best conclusion for what the facts say.

Now, what was that? Maybe a minute. So using the lowest common denominator, the fewest facts, we can argue to the resurrection from those facts alone.

And I think that's interesting because that's not to deny, pardon, that's not to deny that there are other facts or a broader argument or even a stronger argument to be made.

But that minimal aspect is that even if you were to, even if I were to hypothetically tie one hand around my back and use minimally these specific facts, you can kind of go a long way with that.

I like that. Yeah, I had Greg Monson tell me, I mean, the old days when Greg was alive,

I was good friends with him. And by the way, early in my career, I had a debate with Cornelius Van Til.

He and I dialogued about a prophetic method. Yeah, but Greg and I were good friends. And Greg told me one time over a meal, he heard me give my minimal facts argument for the resurrection way back in the late 70s.

And Greg just, he was crazy. But he said, he said, yeah, I love that argument.

I said, how can you love it if it's an evidential argument? He said, no, it's not.

It's a presuppositional argument. Greg, how do you get presupposition a lot of six facts and a bunch of evidences?

He said, it's presuppositional because what you're doing is taking your opponent's case, turning it against them and saying, heads

I win, tails you lose. On my presuppositions, I'm right. On your presuppositions,

I'm right. Conclusion, Jesus, the son of God who died for his sins was raised from the dead. And I'm using your methods.

So he called the presupposition. And I said, Greg, I don't care what you call it. I'm glad you liked the argument.

That's fine. But it certainly does use a lot of evidence. In fact, I'll tell you this, of the six facts I would use, if you counted every little snippet of data, the way critics count data, not this way, not, well,

I got a verse for this. I got a verse for that. Not the way evangelicals argue, but if you use only this arguments that the critics allow, there are over a hundred reasons to believe these six facts.

That's what you call a lot of data. That's where the evidentialism comes, that you're producing a lot of facts for that.

And so I was happy if he was happy and he thought it was presuppositional. So that's what he's trying to do.

Dr. Baldwin always had a good way to take something and just turn it to his benefit. And I can do that within my wheelhouse.

Presuppositionalize it. That's funny. You know, in the five views book though, I dialogued with Frame, John Frame.

So that makes the big three. That means Van Til, Bonson and Frame.

But I don't know. To tell you the truth, that species of presuppositionalism seems to be losing a little bit.

There's not too many, there's not a lot of young presuppositionalists who are coming up and doing it.

You mean like promoting presuppositionalism? That are arguing the

Christian case from a Van Tilian presuppositional type perspective.

There are a lot of presuppositionalists. I mean, Alvin Platt does probably the most brilliant presuppositionalist in the world, but he does it differently.

Sure, sure. Anyway, a lot of ways to get there. And what we have in common is

Christianity. So I'm tickled that there's different paths

These are method paths, right? The content doesn't change, but you can take a different path to get to Cincinnati from where you live and all the paths could be legit.

But the fact is we all believe in Cincinnati. So that's kind of how it is. Okay, well, that's really cool.

I didn't know that kind of background stuff. I'm sure my presuppositional audience, people who lean more in that direction enjoy that connection there.

That's great. All right, so let's go through some questions here.

I have a list of questions here that I hear all the time and see how you would address them. Okay, so first question or statement, or there'll be a mixture of questions and statements.

The only place we read about the Resurrected is the New Testament and the New Testament is unreliable. But even if it is historically reliable, that does not make us warranted to believe it's miracle claims.

How would you address that? Yeah, I just go, yep, you're right. Next question? No, I'm just kidding. But see, that's where the minimal facts comes in.

Because I think the minimal facts is a species of reliability. There's a bunch of ways to do a reliability argument and reliability's arguments often end in inspiration with the conclusion.

But minimal facts takes the smallest data. And I would turn it around this way. I would say,

I'm not asking you what you think is unreliable in the New Testament. I'm asking you what you think is reliable in the

New Testament. And you could be a Homer expert and you could do all your research on the

Iliad and the Odyssey. And you might think that the Iliad and the Odyssey are really nice ancient pieces of literature, but I'll bet you think there's some historical facts on which the

Iliad and the Odyssey are based. So what if you think that the book is generally fantasy, but there's some facts?

Well, what facts are there? Well, there's this, this, this, this, this. That's good. So I'd say, if you don't buy the New Testament, what do you do with this fact, this fact, this fact, this fact?

I know I only need six of them and I'm gonna get a resurrection. So I don't have to start.

I definitely don't have to start with inspiration. I don't even have to start with such a big basis as reliability.

I'm very happy to go there. I like reliability arguments, but I don't need those arguments. I only need a few individual facts.

That's why I started out saying scholars who know the field, they can see these facts usually without even an argument.

And then I say, well, good. Cause if we're discussing just the facts that both of us agree on, how do you reject resurrection?

And the, the issue of inspiration comes up often and it often comes up within the presuppositional perspective.

Cause we wanna, we want to argue the, you know, the Christian worldview is a package deal and that's usually associated with, you know, our understanding of inspiration.

However, I think it is very important that you don't always have to bring in the issue of inspiration, even though it is a presupposition that we hold as Christians and we can very well go into that if the conversation calls.

So I like the flexibility with which we can kind of go in and out of these topics, depending on who we're talking with and what we're trying to accomplish.

And very much like the Cincinnati example, there are just a lot of ways to get to Cincinnati. And my teaching assistant, he gives a lecture on reliability and he has 13 different paths to reliability.

There, there's more than a dozen ways to show the Bible's reliable. And when you bring them all together, if you prefer to go reliability, go for it.

But it takes so long, you know, you're not getting that, that plane's gonna land and you're gonna get to the first point on your illustration.

So I'd rather go with the whole package. And as my good friend, Greg Koppel says, I would rather leave them with a stone in their shoe.

I can't maybe present the whole gospel, but I wanna tell them some things and they think they've got me easy.

Oh, you can't believe in miracles. And I just say a few things. I want them to walk away going, wow, I gotta think about this.

I was with Jordan Peterson not long ago for a few hours.

And he actually, we met because he tweeted one of my minimal facts arguments for the resurrection, put it up on his site.

And I don't think he was talking about my article. He was talking about the topic of the resurrection, but he said, this might be the most important topic

I've ever thought about in my life. Well, that's putting a stone in somebody's shoe. And that's my job.

If I can't give you the whole gospel, let's give you something to think about. So I think that that's very important for an argument to give a person a chance to come back.

You know, maybe the plane lands, use your illustration. And the guy says, can I email you or can I call you?

And that starts the conversation. Hmm. All right, very good. Here's another thing that we often hear.

It's probably a quote from someone throughout history, but you hear it every now and then. It's the statement, what is more likely, or the question rather, what is more likely that a man should lie or that someone rise from the dead?

You mean David Hume, huh? David Hume, yep, that's right. That's right, part one of it.

I was thinking that was Thomas Paine. But for some reason I thought it was Thomas Paine.

Well, it could very well be, but since David Hume lived before Thomas Paine, we've got that famous essay by David Hume on miracles.

And he said that there, yeah, it's at the end of part one, right before he goes to part two. And he said, if the options are the guy's right reporting the miracle or he misreported it,

I'll take the misreporting it because that's what human beings do. But I'm gonna say, yeah, I mean, if you want me to respond to that,

I'll be glad to. But that's one reason I do near death experiences. That's one reason I do other arguments because I'll say, well, okay,

I'll go, okay, time out. What do you do with near death experiences? Well, I don't know, but there are over 300 evidential near death experiences.

The evidence for near death experience is just incredible. And if you stop for a moment and grant that afterlife looks kind of likely, there's a good place for it.

Then I'll say, okay, time in, let's go back to the resurrection because if there's already another world, if there's already another world, which we call afterlife, and I'm telling you about the event that I think ends up in another world, the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of believers, then you can't belittle the argument because you wonder about this other existence.

You would have to disprove my NDE argument or disprove my resurrection argument or be open to the other world

I'm talking about. So, I mean, there's data, you have to deal with the data one way or the other. All right,

I'm sure you've heard this plenty of times. I think I've heard

Shabir Ali in the debate bring this up and this is often brought up by anyone who denies the claims of deity by Jesus Christ.

And of course, they'll claim that there's a progression of embellishment throughout the gospels. And so how would you respond to this statement here?

The gospel accounts cannot be trusted because they give evidence of development, I'm sorry, of developing embellishment such that they should not be trusted.

So you see this idea of Jesus, the divinity of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, just this later development that was added on.

And so there's really no reason to think that it was something that's grounded in history. You know, I would love to respond directly to the argument, but let me respond first.

Let's say you and I are having a cup of coffee, we're sitting at a restaurant. And I'd say, all right, well, let's use the death and resurrection accounts of Jesus.

Let's get right into that genre. Why don't you give me an example of some of this embellishment you're talking about? Where's the story gotten bigger?

What would you use for evidence? Yeah, I suppose they could appeal, you know, weakly, that's weak, but they could appeal to say the differences between the simplicity of the gospel of Mark and the grandiose, you know, clear cut images of Christ as divine in the gospel of John.

And so see, you see this progression here, that's common among accounts that are embellished to kind of make their lead character, you know, come off as looking, you know, cool.

That's neat, that's a pretty good, but I would accuse you then of picking and choosing. Okay. Because I think you,

I would say, yeah, you just wanna use the examples where it fits your view. Let's use one where it doesn't fit your view. There are only seven miracles reported in the gospel of John.

You think grandiose, as you said, John's grandiose, only seven miracles there. Matthew, Mark, and Luke report at least two and a half times more miracles than John.

So in Mark's short book, he has two and a half times the miracle counts of John in his big book.

So, okay, so John's got a bigger book, but what's exactly expanding? It looks like there's more supernatural in the gospel of Mark.

Here's another one. You go, well, we don't have any appearances in Mark. Mark tells us there's appearances, and then you only have two in Matthew, and you only use about, you have about four, depending on how you count them in Luke, and about four more in John.

See, we've gone from one in Matthew, two in Matthew to four in four. I'd say, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out again.

What's our earliest book? You go, Mark. I'd say, no, 1 Corinthians.

And in 1 Corinthians chapter six, six appearances are recorded, six.

And five of them are in that early creed, which critics, by the way, this is one of the best kept secrets.

The critical scholars date that early creed now to one to three years after the resurrection.

1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses one through 15. And there's five appearances, and Paul adds his own to make six.

But there's five appearances. So if your argument is Matthew has two, Luke has four, John has four, look at the growth,

I'd say, no, no, no, you're missing something. Paul has five, Matthew has two, Luke has four,

John has four, where's your growth? Oh, well, and see, so those arguments kind of evaporate.

If you can pick and choose them, that's great. But my better argument is, I'm gonna go back to the minimal facts.

I'm gonna say, Eli, we've talked about this before. Don't tell me what you don't agree with.

Tell me what you do agree with. Because if we don't agree on the disagreed parts, we only agree on the agreed with parts.

Let's talk about the agreed parts, because I think I can get a resurrection from them. And if I can, it's irrelevant what we disagree on.

If I can get them from the true data, I've got a resurrection. And that's where I'd rather go.

But I think the conclusion, I think you set yourself up for a fall when you say, yeah, but the gospels get more complicated as time goes on, or the

New Testament gets more complicated, it's just not true. And I like to use that one about John only having seven miracles, because it's the last gospel.

You'd think he'd have twice as many as the other ones, but he doesn't. But I guess not necessarily connected to the resurrection.

Couldn't someone say the embellishment then comes with regards to his claims? So it seems like he's hiding his messianic claims, but then in the gospel of John, it seems like he just blurts it out.

So there's embellishment there, and so it gives us kind of a, we should be careful as to what we should accept with regards to those miraculous aspects, even if there's less in John than in the other gospel.

You should always be careful, but the gospel of Mark, which is the shortest, begins like this.

It doesn't start with the birth accounts. Mark starts and says,

Jesus went out preaching the kingdom, and he says, repent, for the kingdom of God is here, and Jesus is called the

Son of God. Right as Mark opens, he starts with this high concept. And if we go to people like Richard Bauckham and other very well -known

New Testament scholars today, there's a little saying going around today, which is really hard hitting, and it goes like this.

The earliest Christology is the highest Christology. Now, it takes a while to think about, because critics go, oh, no, no, there's way less in Mark and a whole lot more in John, because they had decades to think about it.

Not true. The highest Christology is what was preached at the earliest date, and you go, well, when?

Mark at plus 40? I'd say, no, the New Testament creeds from zero to five years after the cross.

Jesus is called the highest things in scripture in those early creeds, which

Bart Ehrman, atheist New Testament scholar, Garrett Ludeman, I understand an atheist

New Testament scholar, and other skeptics, they will tell you these materials are within five years after the cross.

And I think personally, the best verse, the best text for the deity of Christ, anywhere in the four gospels, is not before Abraham was

I am, John eight, not I and the father are one, John 10. Actually, I think those two are a little bit ambiguous.

I and the father are one. Well, according to Jesus, my wife and I are one too. So what does one mean here in this context?

I think the clearest example is Mark 14, 61 to 63, where, 61, 64, where Jesus is before the high priest and he affirms his deity four different ways.

They say, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed one, which is to translate that a little bit, are you the

Messiah, the son of God? And he says, ago am I, in Greek, I am.

And henceforth, you'll see the son of man. He takes a second title now, son of man, which is deity.

That's not the human title. Coming on the clouds, in the Old Testament, whenever coming on the clouds is used, it's always and only a prerogative of God.

And here's the big one, seated on the right hand of God. The New Testament scholars think that the highest thing

Jesus claimed there was not ago am I, not yes to the

Christ, the son of God. They think the highest, most blasphemous thing he claimed, if false, is that he would be seated on God's right hand.

He was such that he could be a co -regent on God's throne. You crossed the line now.

That's either true or it's heresy. And I think that's the clearest claim.

And don't forget, when the leaders came to Jesus and said, the critical leaders said, what have you done that we should believe these things of you?

He said, I'm only gonna give you one sign, the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah was three days and three nights in the fish, son of man, three days and three nights.

So his resurrection shows, if God raised me from the dead, why would he be raising me if I were some heretic?

It's no sense, especially when no other founders of the world religions were raised from the dead. So, I mean, you can use the early references in the gospels.

You can get the deity of Christ very easily, but just have people remember that phrase. The earliest

Christology is the highest Christology, and it's the highest in those early creeds between one to zero to three years after the cross.

Now, when you speak about the creed, you have in mind, I'm thinking 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

Let's just read it here. And I want you to comment on what I wanna just share right after that.

1 Corinthians chapter 15 says, now I would remind you brothers of the gospel I preached you which you received in which you stand and by which you're being saved.

If you hold fast to the word I preached to you unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as a first importance what

I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas then to the 12 then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time most of whom are still alive though some have fallen asleep and on and on it goes.

What is significant about this is not only is it early because 1 Corinthians is earlier than the gospels, but this creed, am

I correct? This predates even 1 Corinthians 15. I mean, in other words, it's of course.

You know that easily because Paul, by the way, 1 Corinthians is one of the seven books that critics won't even argue with you of using but 13 books that bear

Paul's name. Seven of them are called undeniable Pauline epistles.

And so what is Paul saying there in verse three? I gave you what

I was given. How do you know it's before 1 Corinthians? He says, he said, when I came to you

Corinthians, I preached. Okay, let's think of it this way. He comes to Corinth 51 AD.

He writes this book about 53 AD. In those verses he says, when I came to you,

I gave you what I was given. So now you put this together, book 53, came there and preached it 51.

When did he get it? He doesn't say what year, but he said, I got it before I came to you in Corinth.

So it's in the 40s or at least. The consensus New Testament view today is that those verses date from the early 30s

AD, early 30s. That's why the earliest Christology is the highest

Christology. In the similar verse, 1 Corinthians 11, where Jesus said same words, almost same intro.

I delivered on you that which I also received, how that I received from the Lord, he said, a higher term than Christ, from the

Lord, how that Christ was betrayed. He took bread, he broke and he gave thanks after supper, he passed the cup and he's

Lord there. And that's also pre 1 Corinthians. So that's that early Christology. And by the way, the earliest

New Testament book is 1 Thessalonians according to almost everybody. And it's about 50 AD, which is plus 20, plus 20 years.

But in 1 Corinthians, I'm sorry, 1 Thessalonians, there's a very high Christology in 1

Corinthians. If Paul doesn't stop and say, let me tell you what son of man means. I'm sorry, let me tell you what son of God means.

Let me tell you what Lord means. Let me tell you what these words mean. He assumes they know, they've heard him preach.

And he goes right on with that. That means he's laid the groundwork before he wrote the book in 50 AD. Again, it's early

Christology. Yeah, now you said something with regards to the minimal facts where you take a small portion of what you both agree, what do you do?

And perhaps this doesn't even address the historical question, but perhaps just apologetically useful to think about what do you do when someone just says they play the ultimate skeptic?

Well, there's nothing we agree on with regards to the New Testament because it's a book of fantasy.

There are other books that have names of real people that doesn't mean it actually happened. What would you do with the person who just throws out the

New Testament in its entirety, which some people do. They do, but here's the advantage there.

I only have six facts. If you say you don't agree with any of them, if you agree with them,

I'll use them. If you don't agree with any of them, I'll say, okay, look, we're trying to have a meaningful discussion here.

So I assume you want to know if there's data for this. Let me tell you. My first one is

Jesus died by crucifixion. My second one is that the disciples had experiences that they thought were appearances of the risen

Jesus. I'd say, all right, let's go through them. Do you agree with that he died by crucifixion? No, I didn't even think he lived.

Oh, okay, you don't think he lived. What if, how many sources do I have to give you in the ancient world?

Oh, I don't know. Give me five and don't use the New Testament. It's a prejudiced book. Great. In my book,

The Historical Jesus, I have 18 sources for Jesus, and all 18 are outside the

New Testament. And Bart Ehrman, the atheist New Testament scholar, again, when he gives 15 independent sources for the crucifixion of Jesus, four of them are non -canonical.

Four of them are not in the New Testament. So for the prejudiced, that's what I'd say, for the prejudiced people who won't even look at the

New Testament because they think they're prejudiced, they think that they're believers, take them. All right, what if I use

Tacitus? What if I use Josephus? What if I use other early books? And if you keep saying, no, no, no, no,

I'd say, you know something? I call that head in the ground. I call that somebody who doesn't wanna learn. And there's a reason that atheists like Garrett Ludeman and Bart Ehrman, there's a reason why they object very strenuously to the way you are arguing, and they are atheists, but they know the material, that's a difference.

Right, so the way, for someone who says, I won't give you any, I start from the bottom up and I only have to get to six.

Okay, good stuff. Now, the next one you've heard probably so many times, it'll give you a headache just listening to it again.

Okay, okay, ready? Extraordinary claims, okay? You can just finish the sentence.

It's just hard. Extraordinary evidence. That's right, so extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

How would you respond to that for folks who, even though Christian apologists have responded to this and even non -Christians have responded to the illegitimacy of this sort of statement.

How would you respond to that? I would say it's an I prior rejection unless you're gonna respond to my data.

And if you say, okay, I'll respond to your data. I will, there's several, again, how many trips past the

Cincinnati do you know? I would ask, here's one. Eli, you're giving me this objection.

Let me ask you something. If I answer your questions and give you evidence that you're really surprised about, will you become a

Christian? What would you say? Well, if you, I mean, this is gonna differ, but if I were to say no, how would you respond to that?

I'd say that doesn't sound to me somebody who's really honest about the data and wants to look at it. But I would say, look, extraordinary,

I'll agree with you. If you're gonna talk a miracle, I want good evidence. So my problem,

I think, with this kind of mindset is your definition of extraordinary evidence means,

I'm guessing, my guessing your definition is you'll never get there. There's no evidence in the world.

And no matter if I can think of 10 things that you can't refute, you'll still say,

I need more, I need more, I need more. That's because you are determined, it seems to me, not to come to Christ, no matter what.

And so you're not saying extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You're saying, let's paraphrase it, extraordinary claims require so much evidence that don't even start, because I'm telling you right now,

I won't believe if you give me a million pieces. Now that's just prejudice. That's like saying, we're doing a trial and you wanna know if this guy committed murder and I'm the lawyer for the person.

You're telling me that if I gave you a thousand reasons why they couldn't have been at the scene of the crime, you're still not gonna believe it?

No, well, then why are we talking about this? That's just prejudice. And why is it, you know, why do atheistic

New Testament scholars argue against that view? And again, I would say, here's another path of Cincinnati.

I would say, what do you do with near death experiences? Because if you can't deny an afterlife, don't go after me for introducing an argument that leads to the afterlife.

If I already know that Rome was there, or if I already know there's a God, you have to be interested, if you truly are, in what

God could do in history. So I have to open up that other world for the person, but I'm totally willing to do with evidence.

I just think they're playing a game if they say it requires extraordinary evidence. And the definition of extraordinary evidence means,

I'm telling you right now, you will never get there because there's not that kind of evidence in the world. I'd say, well, you don't study very much.

Yeah, I've heard some people say, you know, what kind of evidence would be sufficient for you to believe in God?

And some atheists would say, I don't know what evidence would convince me, but if there's a God, he would know.

I hear one say a lot, they'll say, well, if he would send a plane, one of those writing kinds that write in the sky, or get the plane out of there.

If there was a message that says, Bob, this is for you, this is

God. I want you to trust Jesus Christ, your personal savior. The atheist said, yeah, that would make me sit up and take notice.

And then he pauses for a minute and he goes, yeah, but of course you could have set that up.

My eyes could be deceiving me. I could have a brain tumor. In other words, even the clearest data, he can think of 10 reasons why he doesn't have to believe it.

That tells me there's a lot of prejudice. Right, and at that point, you're not really doing apologetics if the person's setting up, you know, even from a presuppositional perspective, and we use like a transcendental argument, you take something that you both agree upon and ask what are the necessary preconditions for those things?

But if you can't find anything that he's gonna agree on, you're not really doing apologetics at that point. You know. Eli, I've got a question for you.

This is one of my pet peeves. Sure. I've never had an interview where I ask the interviewer questions. Transcendental argument.

I think the transcendental argument is really, really useful but why is it that the best forms of the transcendental argument are not argued by the

Vantillian presuppositionalists? They all say it's good. They all cite it, but Greg Bonson, Vantill, Frame, don't give the argument.

It relies on the credentialists and others to give the argument. You mean like in a logical structural form, like with premises?

Yeah, like steps and yeah. I mean, I think that's a good argument.

I think it's a good argument, but I'm just teasing. You know, Vantill, Frame, and Bonson, all three of them, they say in their books,

I cite them in the book, Five Views, they all say evidences are needed. We need evidences for Christianity.

You got a worldview and you need evidences, but then each one of them say this, I'm not the guy to do it.

And the next one goes, I'm not the guy to do it. And then I go, well, how come no Vantillians have done it? If you need evidences, but you're not the one to do it, what's wrong with that picture?

Right, and I - You can't do a method, that's not so good. Yeah, I do agree that there is certain areas of lacking within the presuppositional school.

And even Vantill said himself that, you know, I would appeal to those in the history department to talk, because he said he would engage in historical apologetics, but that wasn't his focal point.

I mean, it does. And you know what Frame said in our dialogue, our written dialogue, Frame said, it's kind of amusing.

He says, if I wanted to argue for God, I would tell him to go read Bill Craig's books because Bill is in our dialogue too.

And then he said, if I want someone to believe in the resurrection, I tell him to read Gary Habermas' books. And then he pauses and he goes,

I just wish Craig and Habermas were more biblical. And I said, John, if you don't think we're biblical, go do your own arguments.

But we don't get around to it, so. Yeah, I mean, I've seen, again, in terms of its logical structure of the transcendental argument, it really depends who you speak with, because some people argue over whether it can be formulated.

Other people think that you can formulate it and say like a deductive form and defend one of its premises transcendentally, which

I have seen some people use. In terms of practicality, I have no problem appealing to evidence as a presuppositionalist since we believe that evidence understood within a presuppositional framework is useful.

And so within a one -on -one conversation I have used, I've used the Kalam cosmological argument as a presuppositionalist or historian.

By the way, you might get a big kick out of this. I won't tell you the name just because I don't wanna surges anybody, but one of the largest presupposition, one of the best known presuppositional publishing houses in this country, they came to me a few years ago and they asked me if I would agree to do a little 50 page book on each one of the minimal facts and to tell their readership how to argue for minimal facts for each of the six facts.

And when the guy first called me, he was very high up in the company, I said, why are you asking me that?

I said, you're basically a Vantillian press and you're known for your presuppositional approach.

He said, right. I said, well, why are you asking me to do six or eight little booklets for you on minimal facts?

He said, because we don't have enough evidence and we need to share evidence with our readers. We need to know how to argue evidentially.

Honestly, I'm not saying that was inconsistent. I'm saying it was really cool because he knew that they had to do more and he was willing to do it.

So I think that's super. Yeah, I would disagree with the, I mean, perhaps he's being sarcastic.

Oh, we don't have any evidence. Well, I mean, I've heard many presuppositionalists talk about evidence given a proper presuppositional framework, but you don't see it a lot in the literature, which

I'm hoping that people can get on the bandwagon. I say that lovingly because I tell my students all the time, my

PhD students, and some of them are presuppositionalists. I had a guy, when he finished his PhD, he kept teasing me after class.

He'd say, I'm still a Vantillian as he left. I said, okay, John, that's fine. I'm fine with that.

I don't try to change anybody. I don't care what approach I wanna use. We're defending the same gospel and I think there's different ways to get there.

So again, Cincinnati, different ways to get there. Yeah, and we'll move on to the next question, but just a last comment.

People know that I'm an ardent Vantillian and I have no problem appealing to evidences and you are right that Vantillians do need to develop this area a little more and stop merely parroting

Vantill and Bonson and just take the method a little bit further and incorporate the findings of our evidentialist brothers.

That's why I like to have people from different apologetic backgrounds because there is fruit to be had between different methodologies.

We can say it the other way around. Maybe Vantillians are better at establishing worldview.

Maybe there's worldview things to be learned and we need a worldview background for the evidences. So you can go the other way too.

Thank you very much for that. All right, let's take, I'm gonna go one more question and then we're gonna take a quick break.

Not you, you take a quick break from this normal line of questioning and then we'll take a couple of questions in the live chat, okay?

Okay, so you mentioned the existence of Jesus. So that was the next question. So we'll just skip to another one over here.

If God is loving, why would he make the central claim of Christianity be a historical claim?

History, while important, is a fickle thing. New evidence can overturn hypotheses so this is not a firm foundation upon which belief should be based, especially when eternity hangs in the balance.

I'm sure you've heard that before. Yeah, and you know what? Here, I would take us back to Jesus and I would make a presuppositional point, a point in favor of presuppositional view.

And I would refer to John 10 and John 14, where again, if we have reasons to accept those texts, we've done our reliability homework.

We go to John 10 and especially John 14, Jesus said, if you don't believe me for my word's sake, believe me for my work's sake.

And in John, as in many places in the Old Testament too, works means miracles, works means great signs.

And of course, Jesus did many of them. So I've got a feeling from John 10 and John 14,

Jesus preferred his listeners to believe him for his word's sake. So I go, okay, but what would be the evidence for that?

Well, when the people heard Jesus speak, they said, he's brilliant.

He's more brilliant than our teachers. He's wise, listen to the way he teaches. Oh, and there goes another miracle.

And there goes another miracle. Ed Yamauchi, the historian from University of Miami of Ohio, retired a number of years ago.

Ed said that Jesus is the only founder of a major religion of whom miracles are reported within a generation.

So they could say, I saw a miracle. They could say, I have good data. Later they could say, and he was raised from the dead.

But Jesus said, if you don't believe me for my word's sake, the miracles are there too.

So you say, history's fickle, and that's a good critique. But I think

Jesus is far better known to people who couldn't give evidences, but they listened to him.

He's the most influential person who ever lived. And that means he was just what the gospel listeners said, that he was beyond the scribes and the

Pharisees and very wise. He's a philosopher. Anthony Flew, my good formerly atheist buddy, but he becomes a theist before he died.

He called Paul a first -rate philosopher, and he called Jesus a first -rate moral philosopher, an ethicist.

And I think they were listened to in the history of religions because they were brilliant, they made sense.

So if the whole world doesn't know history and history's fickle, again, we're talking about Cincinnati.

The only way to get there is not by overpowering somebody with miracles. Bill Craig says over and over again, for the person who says, a la

Alvin Plantinga or whatever, if they say, I have a God consciousness, Romans 1, God has revealed himself to me, this is the clearest book that shows me a path to God, that's why

I accepted this. For so many people, as I've said many, many times, evidence has come later after they become

Christians, evidence comes later. So if only a few people read and study history, everybody can hear words, everybody can hear a great teacher, everybody can hear a teaching and respond for themselves, whether that's something they wanna believe in.

And I think the words of Jesus and the commitment to it are the key, but for those who need miracles,

I'm just thankful Jesus has given us another path as he says himself, you don't believe me for my word's sake, believe me for my work's sake.

So it's different strokes for different folks, as Paul says, 1 Corinthians 9, he says, I become all things to all men, that I lead anybody to Christ.

So - Well, Monson used to say that a lot all the time, that's where I first heard that. That's because it's in Paul. No, but he's right, and that's right.

And you know what? That's why we can use different apologetic methodologies, that's why we never have to say there's only one apologetic path.

Apologetics is a method, the path and the truth of the deity death and resurrection, that's what we have to agree on.

How you get there is a different matter. Okay, let's take a couple of questions here.

Some of these questions have nothing to do with the resurrection, some of them may be related. And so we'll take it from there.

And first, this is not a question, but here's Guillaume Bignon is telling me to ask Gary to talk about hockey to derail the whole interview.

I don't know if you are familiar with Guillaume. I do, I know him, yep.

We bump into each other regularly. Yeah, you know why he's saying that? Because I was the head ice hockey coach at Liberty for nine years.

Really, okay. And yeah, we had to go to another town, there's no ice rinks, I mean, not much here. So we had to go to Roanoke, which is an hour away, just to have a practice and just to have our games.

But for nine years, I coached hockey. I tell people hockey is similar to apologetics, because hockey players and apologists solve their problems in roughly the same manner.

They both drop the gloves, it gets kind of messy sometimes. That's right, that's right. That's probably what he's after, he wanted to hear that.

Okay, all right, this is the name they put on, but some person, what does a quote different form in John 16, 12 mean?

It says, after that, he appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country.

I suppose he's making reference to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Yeah, if that is a reference, if they're asking, is that the two on the way to Emmaus, that's not even reported in the

Gospel of John. That's in Luke, Luke chapter 24. So in a different form, here's another way to ask the same question.

Why did Jesus look a little bit different after his resurrection? Mary, maybe she's crying, maybe she got her back turned to him as the famous paintings say, but she doesn't seem to know he's the

Messiah at first. There are cases like that in the Gospels. I think it goes like this, when

Jesus died and then he was raised, God raised him in the same body in which he died.

Now in the Gospels, he shows that by showing him his hands, Luke says his hands and his feet,

John says his hands and his side, he shows him his wounds. Now, if this body still has the wounds in it, the implications are it's me.

In fact, he says to them in Luke, handle me and see, I'm not a spirit.

So, but Paul says there's a difference between the resurrection body and the body that died.

I think there are differences in Jesus' body. I mean, here's a crazy example.

People who have near death experiences, they tell you they were with their dad and they're sure it was their father, but he died when he was 84 and he looked like he was about 25 years old.

Well, people can be the same person in the same body and be a different, they can be younger, older.

We often ask, what's the ideal age in heaven? I don't know. But if you know me now and you know my ideal age, it's not now, this isn't me at my best.

So I think there's enough difference. You remember, right? You get to heaven, you still have glasses, you got the white beard, oh, come on.

And I don't want that mole in the middle of my forehead. I don't want the scar on my cheek or whatever. But to me, there was just enough difference that they could misunderstand him when they see him because he's the same body, but there's different things.

He doesn't have to have that scar. He could be a few years younger, or if you died as an elderly person, he could be a lot younger.

So there are gonna be some differences. And besides, would you admit to your friends that you just saw a dead guy?

You probably would admit that there's a psychological block against saying, I just saw a dead guy. So you're gonna be really sure.

And that's why they wanted to touch him. That's why they wanted evidence that he was really there. All right, very good.

Next comment here, this is from our local skeptic. I say local because he's usually popping in out of the comments here.

He makes a comment here, my sister died two weeks ago. Pray for her in the name of Jesus. If she rises from the dead like Lazarus, I will believe.

Now the reason why I use this, and sorry to hear that, Doug, I truly am. But this is a real,

I guess this is a real challenge that people put forth and are struggling existentially with trying to come to grips with, well, if God did this, then

I would believe. How would you respond to someone if you were sitting down with them to having like a heart -to -heart conversation and someone were to bring a statement like this up to you?

There would be a lot of things I would say, but one of the first things is I really wonder if you would believe if you saw your sister.

I'm thinking maybe you would have reasons for it was what you drank last night, or your senses weren't working, or I might find out later

I needed new glasses or whatever. But I would say something like this. I would say, why don't you study the near -death literature where there are people who have data from having seen somebody.

The evidence is incredible. I'm just telling you, there are over 300 evidence cases.

And what if you did see your sister, but in a near -death experience? What if she came to you and said something that could be verified?

That's the key, not, I think she came to me. No, what if she came to you and gave evidence?

In fact, here's something everybody can check out. I've got a book right here, because I do a lot of writing. Here's a book by a well -known resurrection skeptic.

This is Dale Allison, Resurrecting Jesus. Dale is liked by the skeptical community because he's a skeptic.

And yet he says he has no doubt Jesus appeared to the disciples, why?

He says one of the main reasons is because he had a near -death experience and he saw somebody very dear to the family who had passed away.

Anyway, he's sure because he's sure he had that experience. And so having the near -death experience opened up the resurrection world to him.

And now he believes Jesus appeared because of the near -death experience.

So I'm saying you may not have to say, what if my sister appears to me today?

What about something similar in a near -death experience, which is verified? What if that experience,

I could give a lot of examples because there are a lot of examples of this sort of thing. But what if you do see her, but it's a verified site and her body's still in the grave, but you saw her alive?

That happened to Dale Allison. He explains it. He explains it in the book. And he said, he's positive that person was in the room with him, even though they buried her slightly just before that.

Now, of course, a conversation like that would be much longer. And obviously, there's more to be said to that.

But it's a stone in the shoe. It opens up the category. It kind of takes a shot at skepticism in general.

And it kind of says this world is a much more complicated place than we think it is.

Thank you for that. We have a question here by the fire. Why does he think the minimal facts approach is superior to a maximal facts version, such as Dr.

Lydia McGrew of the resurrection argument? Yep, I know the McGrews. In fact, I was just with them.

I have no problem with Lydia McGrew. Remember I said earlier that my teaching assistant has a lecture where he gives 13 ways to do reliability.

Lydia's is one of the 13 ways. The minimal facts is another way. What I mean is different strokes for different folks.

The maximal approach is fine, but let me use your own example, Eli. What happens if we're on the plane and the plane's landing in two minutes?

Can you do a maximal approach in two minutes? Probably not. Or like some people say, well, how fast could you explain the gospel in a taxi ride?

So different strokes for different folks. If you and I are friends and we go out for lunch a lot and we have time to debate this and draw it out, yeah, there are other ways.

I have no problem with the maximal approaches. I was speaking up at Western Michigan and the

McGrews asked me, what do you think about her approach? And I said, I'm fine. I think it's one way to get to another argument.

Depends on what argument you wanna use. But I think they're... You know what Lydia says about the minimal facts argument?

She says one benefit of it is it comes ready -made for a debate. It comes with a small outline of facts that you can track to get to the point real quickly.

So different strokes, different folks. And I have no problem with... I love maximal approaches to the

New Testament. I just don't always have time to use them. Right, okay, very good. Let's move quickly here. Here's a question here.

What's the evidence that Paul got the 1 Corinthians 15 Creed from the Jerusalem pillars as opposed to someone else?

Well, if you want me to track this for you, there's a more basic question, but here's the way the argument goes. Walt says in 1

Corinthians 15 that he gave them what he also received. When and from whom did he get it?

It has to be before 50 AD because he goes to Corinthians in 51. So how much earlier did he get this?

Now you can argue that there's three individuals in those lists. Jesus appears to Peter, Jesus appears to James, and Paul adds his own appearance at the end.

In that first meeting in the pillars that's being referred to in this question, that's Galatians chapter one, also accepted by the skeptics.

And Paul goes there and he spends 15 days with Peter, James, and of course, Paul is the third one.

So you can say, well, that's circumstantial evidence. But here's the more important thing I'm interested in. Not how early the

Creed is. I'm more interested in how early are the data that are in the

Creed. And we have reports for what was Paul doing for 15 days?

The whole theme of the book of Galatians is they were discussing the gospel. That's what Galatians is about. It's the only thing the book of Galatians is about.

And so if he had 15 days with Peter and James and Paul, they're discussing the facts of the gospel.

I don't really care how old the Creed is. I wanna know how soon the facts were proclaimed.

And critics, the consensus New Testament position. Let me cite Bart Ehrman, atheist New Testament scholar.

Bart Ehrman says, every Creed in Paul's epistles were probably in existence by the time he was on his way to Damascus.

Think about that, at plus two or plus three, all the creeds are already there.

He says, Bart Ehrman, coming from the city of Jerusalem and possibly, if not probably, coming from some of the apostles themselves.

That's Bart Ehrman. So it's tracked by the critics, Gert Ludeman. Gert Ludeman puts it back there the same way.

So they believe the data are there from the very beginning. James Dunn is well known as New Testament historical

Jesus scholar as there is. James Dunn says that Creed was probably developed the first year after Jesus' crucifixion, one year.

So my question isn't how old's the Creed. Almost everybody puts that Creed back at that time.

But I'm more interested in the facts. And the facts were there, if Ehrman is right, the facts are there before Paul even left on his journey for Damascus and met the

Lord. All right, very good. This question deals with kind of presuppositional and evidential issues and different methodologies.

But you can go and give your perspective on that. Is man's reason autonomous and the judge over evidence or does reason and evidence only make sense if we presuppose

God? Well, now that's a version of the transcendental argument. And I think, first of all, let me go back even to a meta question before this.

I believe reason has fallen. I'm not one of these guys that says reason never fell and reason's a magisterial whatever.

But I think it's true that if there weren't God, I do think the transcendental argument's good.

And if God's not there, all our facts do not make sense. When Anthony Flew came to believe in God and he wrote the book, there is no

God, and the word no is crossed out and it says there is a God. He used three arguments for why he became a theist.

One is intelligent design arguments. Two, Aristotle's cosmology. Why is there something rather than nothing?

And number three, why do the laws of the universe always work a separate way instead of a different way?

Why the laws of the universe always work one way and not two ways?

If we have order, we have to have a view that presupposes order because we use the order, so we assume the order, therefore there's something preexisting before it.

So I do think we have to have an intelligence, somebody, because I think other arguments, like the moral argument, say it's a person.

So you have to have somebody there to get the ball rolling, to be able to talk about the ball rolling.

Mm -hmm, mm -hmm. All right, very good. This is from my mom. Great interview,

Eli, with Dr. Gary Evans. Very interesting, love it. Of course, mom, thank you very much. That's great, that's great.

Well, it's good. How about my mom and my dad, Poppin? That's good. Someone says here,

I see you have a lot of books behind you, both at the moment, too, or can you suggest any positive reading from there?

How about you give a couple of suggestions and I'll give two suggestions and then we'll move on to the next one.

Books on what, the resurrection? Well, I guess you're just looking at all the books we have. Is there anything worth reading on your shelf?

No, nothing. I would say on the resurrection, I would recommend a book that Mike Lacona and I co -authored called,

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of the Cregal. Based on the reader's comments and based on how the book is selling, the thing's been out since 04, so that's 16 years.

People think it's, it's written like a teaching tool, so it can be used in teaching. If people want deeper stuff, they should read the 100 pages of end notes at the back of the book, or read

Mike's big Resurrection of Jesus 700 -page book, which I think is the best historical book in print on the resurrection right now.

I also, Bill Craig's little book that you can get used on Amazon, The Sun Rises.

Great book, or the follow -up book that he wrote with Servant on the Empty Tomb, but The Sun Rises by Bill is a great book.

The McDowells have a book, The Resurrection Factor. Lee Strobel's interview book that has three lengthy chapters on the, well, on the death, but also on three on the resurrection.

That's great for people who don't get into technical stuff and wanna read the data. So all the way from, you know, mere

Christianity to Lee Strobel, to a doctoral dissertation like Michael Kona's, there's a lot of material on the, you know, there's almost no thing in Christianity that doesn't have more material on the resurrection.

I'm just finishing a magnum opus on the resurrection. I'm in my last chapter and I'm at 5 ,300 pages right now, 5 ,300 pages, so not to be said.

A lot of material to be covered. I would suggest also N .T. Wright's book on the resurrection, his giant work on the resurrection.

I think I have, it might be on my other shelf, but. Right here, but I have Tom's right here, but I also have

Mike's. Here's Mike's, look at all the bookmarkers in the top. Can you see all those? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's from a guy who's been through my former students' book. Mike did a really good job in that book.

Right, yep, I agree. All right, one more question here, and then we're gonna stop the common questions because then we'll just never leave.

So someone asked a question about the situation at Liberty. If you want to comment on it, great.

If not, no worry, but here's his question. What does Gary think about Liberty dissolving their philosophy department? Well, now you kind of caught me not working everything out because this news just broke yesterday.

Okay, I'll tell you a few things about it. First of all, the five people in the department were not fired, they were not pushed out or anything like that.

In fact, most of them teach distance for us, so they're still Liberty professors. They are free as of this moment.

They can go anywhere else in the, or they can go to another school, but they're free to go anywhere in the university and get an open position that somebody else is offering.

A lot of our guys are multiply trained in either Bible or theology or philosophy.

They can apply for another job. Some other ones are look like they're opening up, so they can go somewhere else.

Yeah, I'm disappointed that the philosophy department has kind of taken a fall, but that's because ever since 2012, our numbers have been cutting down and we had five full -time people in the department.

So what do you do? And we've really tried hard, but a

BA in philosophy doesn't equip you to make a million dollars your first year out of school. So it's not like a degree in business or we suffer from telling people you could have a better mind and they go, yeah,

I'd rather have a fuller wallet. So there's an issue that I hope it's gonna, we're gonna get some things worked out, but this just broke.

They could always go to Prosperity Preacher University and learn to be an evangelist or something.

I hear there's good money in there. All right, so let's get back to my main line of questioning and then we'll wrap things up.

You're doing a great job and I do appreciate the time that you've given to us thus far. So let's continue.

All right, so here's something that people often hear. Of course, well, you don't often hear it, but we can hear it. Of course,

Jesus rose from the dead. The evidence seems to point to that quite strongly, but why think it proves all the rest of the claims?

Perhaps we just live in a really strange world and one day we may be able to explain how this was possible.

Well, okay. The last part of the question is problematic in that it points to the future.

That's like saying, I don't like Einstein or I don't like the latest whatever.

Someday maybe we'll find out what kind of science is real. So I'm just not gonna study science until I get the real science.

And of course you're not around for it. It's discovered in 300 years or something. So you can't hold off.

You gotta deal with what you have right now. But here's the argument. Let's just say Jesus was not the son of God.

If not, I've got articles published where I'll argue up to eight unique things that Jesus taught that are utterly unique in the history of religions.

Like this might hit people. They might have to stop and think about this, but no founder of a major world religion besides Jesus claimed to be deity.

No other founder did that. The earliest sources for Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tzu, Buddha, I mean,

Taoism, all three of them seem to be naturalists, not even believing in God. Zoroaster, Muhammad, David, Moses, Daniel, they're all prophets.

They're not the son of God. So that would be pretty bombastic and pretty blasphemous if you claim to be the son of God and you weren't.

Second, every major prophet says, I'm bringing you the words of life. Jesus made what philosophers would call an ontological claim by saying,

I am, I embody the words of life. It's about me. What you do with me determines where you spend eternity.

Obviously I'm paraphrasing them. But so those are two pretty radical claims. I am the son of God and I can occupy his throne.

Uh -oh, that's bad, look out for the lightning. And number two, what you do with me determines where you spend eternity.

So now you've had your shot and you've done all that and you die by crucifixion.

What's gonna make you rise again? You can't raise yourself from the dead. So what did

Jesus say? My father will do it. My father does all my miracles, he taught. My father will do it.

Why would your father raise you? Because I'm the obedient son. Oh, you're not the blasphemous son.

No, I'm the obedient son. How so? Well, nobody else claimed to be the son of God. That seems like you're encroaching on God's territory.

Nobody else said what you do with me determines where I spend eternity. That's encroaching on God. God wouldn't have raised a heretic from the dead.

I know it's an old argument, but try to think about a way around that. If someone's gonna concede the resurrection, they have to concede the truth of Jesus' teachings.

And that's why Jesus said, we talked about earlier, John 14. If you don't believe me for my word's sake, believe me for my work's sake.

If Jesus is who he claims to be and God raises her from the dead, I think we better start thinking about eternity and what

Jesus has for us, because the connection is too tight. It's really hard to come up with a natural theory as to why a

God would raise a man who otherwise would be a heretic. But if his views are true, we have a long life ahead of us trying to learn and follow his commands.

Now, next question. Why isn't the hallucination theory more plausible than an actual resurrection, even though the fact that the disciples may have hallucinated and others may have hallucinated is implausible at some level?

Surely it is at least more plausible than a man rising from the dead. Okay, great question.

Now, you say it's not, the questioner says not plausible at all levels. I've got a co -author who is a medical doctor.

We've published together. Another, actually I was on the phone with the second guy just about an hour ago, and he's a clinical psychologist.

He's published a number of books. They both did lit reviews, one in medicine, one in psychology.

And they both reported that over the last, I'm not sure, I think 25 years, in the last umpteen years, there is not one documented case of a group hallucination.

People don't see, don't forget, a hallucination is a radical concept. It's not when you see a bear and think the bear is

Bigfoot. That's not a hallucination. That's an illusion. When you think you saw a UFO, but we find out it was a special plane that was flying over this area that the army's using.

Those are illusions, not hallucinations. And hallucinations is when you stop and see something in space that is not there.

The object is not there. No object is there. You're looking at thin air and you see something.

And that's why people don't see hallucinations of groups. Now, the questioner raises a good point. Okay, so there's no known cases in the literature.

You're correct. Okay, why isn't that still more likely than a resurrection?

And here's the reason. No one group hallucination will give it to you. If you look at the resurrection accounts and the data we have, this theory shouldn't be called a resurrection theory.

It should be called the resurrection, resurrection, resurrection. I'm sorry, it should be called the group hallucination, group hallucination, group hallucination, group hallucination theory.

Because the data, take that early tree in 1 Corinthians 15. He appears to disciples.

He appears to a group called all the apostles. He appears to 500 at once. And critics always throw in there the women.

He appeared to the women outside the tomb. That's four groups of appearances. So at the very least, and there's others in the gospels, but there's at least four.

So you can't call this group hallucinations more likely than resurrection.

No, it's a group hallucination, group hallucination, group hallucination, group hallucination theory. Now, what's more likely?

A weird psychological event for which there are no duplicates in the data or this wasn't an hallucination.

And you go, well, no, group, no. The four hallucinations are still rare. And I'd say only if there's no

God and no afterlife. But if there's a God or if near death experiences show you there's an afterlife, now resurrection becomes much more likely.

Now, what if someone says, for example, okay, group hallucination, group hallucination, group hallucination, very unlikely, but there's no reason to think that it's impossible.

And so if it's even possible, why prefer a supernatural explanation as opposed to this very rare natural explanation?

It still seems possible. What if you ask the question the other way? What if there's good data for God?

What if there's good data for near death experiences? If there's a God, Bertrand Russell said the two hallmarks of atheism are no

God and no afterlife. If you can either one of them, you're in trouble if you're an atheist. If we have

God, intelligent design, transcendental argument, if you have a God and if you have near death experiences,

I'm telling you what, a resurrection is much more likely if there's an afterlife, much more likely if there's a

God than for group hallucinations, none of which are known in the scientific literature.

So it depends on, see, what I think that questioner, not the person who asked the question, but the person who holds that view, what they are revealing is they are so, they don't even consider theism to be a possibility.

They don't even consider an afterlife to be a possibility. They're sure there's no such thing. They're positive.

So they go, well, there's no chance of resurrection on your worldview. But what about my worldview with data,

God or near death experiences? What now do you say? If you can't refute

God or the near death experiences, don't tell me resurrection makes no sense.

Now you've changed the worldview and you lose. In fact, I've got a book right behind me on the shelf here.

A couple of them. Richard Swinburne has a book where he starts out neutrally.

He starts out with God's existence as being 50 -50 to be fair to all sides. 50 -50 for God's existence.

Really on this channel, you're gonna have, you're gonna, for the presuppositionalist listeners, you don't wanna use the trigger word neutrality.

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, you're right. But what I'm saying is he uses 50 -50 so he doesn't upset anybody.

And he still argues that the resurrection is 97 % likely. You talked about the

McGrews earlier, Tim McGrew, who is the big expert on Bayes' theorem and the use of evidence like that.

He told me, and he told me he told Richard Swinburne this, his only problem with Richard Swinburne's argument is that 97 % is too low.

He thinks the likelihood that Jesus rose to the dead is 99 point something. So if you can't refute

God or near -death experiences, you're in trouble trying to refute the resurrection. You just can't do it in a vacuum. All right, thank you for that.

I was just joking around, but neutrality - No, no, I totally agree with you.

Totally agree with you. There's no such thing as neutrality. But he's been saying, let's start with God 50 -50 to be fair to everybody.

I'm just joking. It's a curse word. Yeah, that's funny. No, that's good.

All right, I have two more questions and then we'll wrap things up. And I do apologize for folks who are still sending in questions on the side.

I just wanna respect Dr. Habermas' time here. So this is a common one. I'm sure you've heard it plenty of times and it's definitely been suggested in the literature.

Why think Jesus didn't just get buried in a shallow grave and his body was eaten up by dogs? And so there you go.

We can't find his body, but he was eaten up by wild animals that's more likely than someone being raised from the dead.

Let me ask, not this person, but whoever holds that view, here's a couple of ways to do it.

I have given in this show, I have given a bunch of first century evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

All right, now let's put the shoe on the other foot. Why don't you give me three first century texts that Jesus's dead body was thrown in a common pit and dogs ate him up.

Give me some evidence. Don't say what if. You don't like me saying what if, so don't use what if with me.

How do you know he was thrown in a common pit? I want data. Well, what if the person says, okay,

I don't have any data and I understand why it's important to have data if I'm gonna suggest something, but that seems far more plausible than someone being raised from the dead.

So, I mean, I don't even need data if you think about it. I mean - Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't need data for your view.

Well, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, it's more plausible given what we know about reality. It's more plausible to think that that's more likely than someone actually rising from the dead.

I mean, what's more probable, Dr. Habermas? Someone's body? Eli, you're a presuppositionalist.

So here's what a presuppositionalist is gonna say. He's gonna jump in and say, more likely on your view.

There you go, yeah. Not more likely on a theistic view. Okay. Not more likely on a view with life after death.

And besides, now that you don't, now that it could be God or the afterlife and you don't have any evidence for your view, don't even talk to me.

Don't tell me to give you 10 evidences and you don't give me any. What world do you think this is? I'm just basking in the fact that I could ask questions to make you sound like a presuppositionalist.

Hey, I don't have a problem with that, but here's one more. Here's one more. What do you get if that view is true?

If that view is true, here I'll be a presuppositionalist again. If that view is true - I'm blushing,

I'm blushing, bring it on. If that view is true and he was thrown in a common pit and the dogs ate him up, all you've answered is the empty tomb.

The number one evidence for Christianity is the appearances and your comeback doesn't go to first base explaining the evidences.

And if you can't explain the best evidence for the resurrection, don't waste my time. If you're only gonna explain a very small thing, let me tell you how bad that view is.

Critics, especially the one that, the variation that says the disciples stole the body, especially that one.

Do you know that no, virtually none, virtually no major critics have taken that view since 1765.

Now count that out. I mean, if there were that many years between 1765 and now,

I mean, think of the Revolutionary War. That book wouldn't even have been written yet. It's too long.

We can't even find a critic who takes that view. Why? Remember the ones young people used to do this?

Loser, that one? That view, that view, that's right, that's right. That view is a loser view.

And the reason you prove it's a loser view, no skeptic takes that view. So how come your own people don't use that view?

It's not a good one. And by the way, I was sitting with Bob Price one time, who's a friend of mine, the

New Testament skeptic. We were talking to Paul Kurtz when Paul Kurtz was alive, and he's one of the best known atheists.

He worked on Humanist Manifesto Two and all that. And we were waiting to go in. We were at a conference together, and we were waiting to go into this room for lunch.

And we're sitting on the couch, and I'm talking to Paul Kurtz. And Paul Kurtz was known for taking this one view of the resurrection.

I won't say what it is, because then you'll wanna discuss that, and it'll take forever. But so I'm sitting there with Paul Kurtz, and he's giving me his theory.

And Bob Price walks up, who is on Paul Kurtz's side, right? He comes up and goes, what are y 'all doing?

I said, oh, Paul's trying to convince me of this theory, and I think the view is silly. And Bob Price says to Paul Kurtz, Paul, Paul, Paul, this response is silly.

Well, Paul had a friend who was arguing on his side. So Bob sat down next to me in a chair, and he goes,

Paul, I'm on Gary's side. We're gonna argue against you guys. And we argued against the naturalistic theory from the data we had.

The only thing is, neither one of those two guys had training. Neither one of those two guys knew the data. Bob and I are both trained in this, but Bob was on my side, arguing against the naturalistic theory.

It was hilarious. That's awesome. Well, you're listening to Gary Habermas, world -renowned presupposition.

I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. You're not bothering me at all. Okay, here's my last question, and then we'll wrap things up.

And once again, for those commenting on the side, I do apologize that we're gonna be wrapping things up, but you guys can go back and listen to the content that was covered.

I think you're gonna benefit greatly from this discussion if you go back and listen. So here's my last question.

Do you know people, and this is more kind of a, perhaps you can give an illustration or a story. Do you know people who were convinced by the historical evidence for the resurrection?

Because it was so strong when you, in your conversation, kind of presented it, maybe at a debate afterwards, someone came to you.

Why don't you tell us a story or a testimonial that you can kind of dive into for us to show, really, that this information is not, yeah, we know these battle -hardened skeptics that just won't budge in, but when you're really sharing this with people who are really searching,

I mean, what have been the responses in your experience? Well, incredible, by God's grace, because I don't think any, here,

I'm a presupposition once again. I don't think any argument is gonna force anybody into the kingdom.

I think people are only gonna come if God's working. So when people are going, chalk one up for me, I led somebody to Christ last week.

No, you didn't. You can't lead, you can bring a horse to the water, but you can't make them drink. Drinking's the job of the

Holy Spirit, and so God's gotta work. But I've had a number, I keep them in a file, but I've had a number of cases where people become

Christians later after hearing the data. But here's one for you. I was debating a fellow one time live, and it was an audio debate.

We were debating live. This fellow was either a chemist or a biologist or a biochemist, but that was his field, and he was an atheist.

And we were arguing the case for miracles, and it was a one -hour dialogue, and it was a talk show, and we were on together.

But we were sitting right next to each other. We didn't come from different cities. And we're arguing for miracles, and I gave arguments for miracles in general and for the resurrection in particular.

And Eli, halfway through the program, the guy stops and he goes, wow,

I don't know what to say. I think I'd better think about this.

And behind him, we each got to bring one guy into the recording studio. I had a friend of mine who was a

Christian. He had a guy sitting behind him who was his man.

And while he was saying, it looks to me like your miracles are probably true. I've never thought about this before.

The guy sitting behind him was going like this. He was going, yes, like that quietly.

And I thought, I'm thinking you're on his side. Why are you doing that? I find out later that the guy he brought in was a

Christian who wanted this guy to come to the Lord. But halfway through the dialogue, the guy pretty much conceded the whole case.

And I just pretty much quit talking. We shot the breeze for the last half hour because it was supposed to go on for an hour.

And he just said, you could be true. This could be right. I've got to think about this.

Right in the middle of the debate, right in the middle of the dialogue, it's all on tape. But most of the time they write me later and they tell me, you don't know this, but you really got me working.

And again, Greg Koukls put a stone in their shoe. You really got me working. And I'm a minister today, as one just told me recently.

I'm a pastor today. I was a skeptic. So, I mean, it happens. But I'll tell you what, here's where I thought you were going with the question.

In a lot of cases, they say, well, if your evidence is so good, why don't the skeptics become believers?

I'll say, well, let me ask you a question. Let's say theoretically, you're my best friend. You're single.

I'm married. I think marriage is a great institution. I think you should be married.

You disagree. That's fine. We're best friends. But I wanna introduce you to a blind date. And I say, you're gonna think this person is the greatest person in the world when you come back from the date.

And my friend has a few dates and comes back and says, she's the neatest person

I've ever met in my life. You're totally right. And I said, hey, can I be your best man? And my best friend says to me, no, you can't be my best friend.

I think she's the neatest woman I ever met. But you think that means I wanna get married. There's a disconnect here.

Best friends and must get married are two different things. I'm not ready to be married, maybe in five years, but not now.

So what I mean is you can lead a horse to the water, can't make the horse drink. Even the best evidences, I don't expect a person to be overpowered into the kingdom by evidence.

If God's not working, the guy's not responding, that's the issue. It's not how good the evidence is.

But I think the evidence is, a lot of people know my story. I was a skeptic for a long time.

In fact, I was very, very, very, very close to becoming a Buddhist. And so I believe it without having being convicted from the beginning.

So anyway, that's my - And I like those stories and seeing how this stuff works out in real life.

I worked there as a childcare aide and I worked with a skeptic, his name was Will. And we would sit and we worked from 7 .30

in the morning to 9 .30 and we'd get our egg sandwiches and sit in the car and we would talk and we'd go back and forth.

And I used a mixture of my presuppositional approach. We talked about some specifics and we talked for a couple of years.

And then I hadn't seen him for years after that until I bumped into him in a parking lot of a hospital.

He kind of scared me. He worked there and he grabbed me around and he was like, Eli. And I was like, oh, wow, it's

Will. And he's like, I just want, he didn't even say hello. He says, I just want to say thank you because of those conversations that we had,

I'm actually going to seminary to be a youth pastor. And so at the time -

Because of your conversations. I'm sorry? Because of your conversations. Because of those conversations, he actually got invited to get a church out in Fire Island.

I live on Long Island, Long Island. So it's a little fish island, we got the Fire Island there. And he was invited to speak there.

And he invited, he paid my wife and I a little ticket to take the ferry to sit in on that service so that he can share with folks how our relationship had worked and contributed to bringing him to the

Lord. So apologetics, for the battle -hardened skeptic, a lot of these people on the internet, they say, it doesn't really work.

Apologetics is just, these cheap car salesmen, they're just trying to sell your religion. But when you get to these really, these intentional relationships and conversations,

God is working and there are testimonies. I'm sure we can multiply the stories and have an entire show.

I know a testimony that's not mine, but I know a person who witnessed to a guy,

I'll change some of the details here so I won't give anything away. But this person,

Christian, probably a presuppositionalist, very faithfully witnessed to this guy for ages.

And the guy made fun of the other guy. The skeptic said, you're a blankety, blank, blank.

You're this, you're unbelievable. And the Christian kept witnessing, kept witnessing.

And the guy was nasty. I'm not saying, Christians can be nasty too. But the skeptic was nasty and in front of their friends, he always put the guy down, teased, made fun of him physically.

Now, why is your nose crooked? Why is this? Why is that? And made fun of him. And the

Christian was so bothered by the harassment that he quit witnessing for a long period of time.

He quit witnessing because it was very bad experience. And then a little while later, one of their mutual friends said to him, hey, have you heard about Bob?

And the guy said, no, Bob what? He said, because of your witnessing,

Bob became a Christian. And now Bob, you cannot sit down with him for five minutes and not hear the gospel.

And he's gonna give you the gospel. He's gonna give you a very detailed presentation. And he was the same guy who called this person all these names.

And he was, because some people they react because they're as angry as can be and things happen to them. It's not a rational argument, it's an emotional argument.

But then he became a Christian. And they said, the funny thing is you can't talk to him without him giving you the plan of salvation.

So these stories are out there. They're, you know, I mean, you see them in your own life like this one right in the middle of the dialogue where the guy started changing.

I just thought I've never seen anything like this in the middle of a dialogue. The guy was an atheist, not just a skeptic or something.

Sure, sure. Incredible. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Habermas. Let's bring this to a close here.

You've given us one hour and 29 minutes or 28 minutes of your time. I greatly, greatly appreciate it.

I'm sure folks will find the content very helpful. Is there any final words you'd like to say before we close out? No, you know what?

I would just say, we've said this a little bit, probably because you're presupposition is non -evidential.

Seriously, presuppositionalists are often have more ministry intent at the end.

Although you've got a guy like Bill Craig who's very much into evidence and he always ends with his testimony. But we ended with a couple of testimonies right here.

And I think that's really, really cool about these other people. I would just say, if Jesus has been raised from the dead, and as per the earlier question, if the father is the one who raised him had to be for a reason,

I can't think of a reason that even approaches a better reason than he must've been speaking the truth. The God of the universe doesn't glorify lies.

And therefore I would end by saying, Christianity makes the most sense.

In this day and age of viruses and people who get sick and die, my wife died, I'm remarried, but my wife died and the mother of my four children died of cancer, stomach cancer in 1995.

She's only 43 years old. And when that happens, I'm really thankful for Paul's testimony in 1

Thessalonians where he said, we grieve, but not as those without hope. We grieve, but not as those without hope.

When it comes to death and dying, they say there's no atheists in foxholes.

I don't know, but we want hope. We want something that lasts forever. And if the evidence is there,

I'd say, stop the anger, stop the whatever. Don't consider me, consider the evidences.

And if it's there, why wouldn't you wanna live? I just saw a comment from Bart Ehrman, the atheistic,

I hope I'm quoting him correctly, but he recently said in print that he does not believe in an afterlife, but he hopes there's something like that true because he wouldn't mind living forever in a very nice place.

He said, he hopes it's true. I heard Albert Ellis, the famous atheist, cognitive psychologist,

I heard him say, it would be really nice if it's true. It's everybody's hope. So I would say

Christianity is the way that has reasons. It gets you all the way to the Emerald city, and so we might as well get on the path.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Please go back and listen to this a couple of times.

I mean, there's a lot of good content here, answers to common objections that I think would be very useful to you guys in your interactions with others.

Also, again, I always joke around with my TV reformed theology joke.

If you haven't subscribed to the YouTube channel Revealed Apologetics, we are a living demonstration of total depravity, amongst other things.

So if you haven't subscribed, please do so. And stay tuned for some great content coming up as well.

Tomorrow, I have Jason Lyle to talk a little bit more about apologetic methodology. Once again, thank you so much,

Dr. Habermas, for coming on and for everyone to take care. Thank you for your good questions. I'm sorry?

Thanks for your good questions. Oh, well, thank you for your awesome - You always like interviewers who are well -prepared instead of the ones that shoot from the hip and the questions aren't so good.

Okay, well, I'm glad you like the questions. Good, very good. Tell your mom you did a good job.

Oh, she'll be very proud. That's right. All right, that concludes this broadcast.