(Gary Habermas) Answering Objections to the Resurrection

Live. 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 is, 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.

The Resurrection of Jesus as a Central Christian Doctrine

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. 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 study.

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 a 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, 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, 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 dealing with doubt is the most technical one. The second one is called the Thomas Factor and this book 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. 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. I said, 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 your sins was raised from the dead. And I'm using your, 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, Greg. 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 Plantinga is 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. Okay. 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 concede these facts usually without even an argument. And then I say, well, good, because if we're discussing just the facts that both of us agree on,.

How do you reject resurrection? And the issue of inspiration comes up often and it often comes up within the presuppositional perspective, because we want to argue the Christian worldview as a package deal, and that's usually associated with 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'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 get that, that plane's gonna land and you're gonna get to the first point in 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 the 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 a 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.

The Minimal Facts Method and Historical Reliability

All right, I'm sure you've heard this plenty of times. I think I've heard Shabir Ali in the debate and 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, 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 amongst the 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 disagreeing 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't, 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 the high concept. And if we go to people like Richard Baucom 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.

The Earliest Christology Is the Highest Christology

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 we know that.

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 deliver on you that which 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 early 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.

The Early Creed in 1 Corinthians 15

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. Okay. 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. 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 prejudice 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 eye 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, 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 to 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.