NYA LI Chapter: 10 Questions Series- The Resurrection

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Did Jesus really rise from the dead? If not, the Christian faith is futile and false, but if he did then the Christian faith is true! Watch and learn!

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Walking through a crowd, the village is aglow Kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats undercoats
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Everybody here wanted something more Searching for a sound we haven't heard before And it said, welcome to New York It's been waiting for you, welcome to New York Welcome to New York Welcome to New York It's been waiting for you, welcome to New York Welcome to New York And it's go time
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It's go time It's go time It's go time All right, so welcome to our
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New York Apologetics 10 question series. I'm Tim, this is Anthony. As he noted,
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JD is not here tonight, but that's all right. He had something else came up. So we are in the middle of our 10 question series, where we're answering 10 of the biggest questions that people have about Christianity, about the existence of God and whatnot.
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So here's the list here. So why believe God exists? Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
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Which is what we're going to be talking about tonight. If God, why evil? Does science disprove religion? Why trust the
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Bible? Does the Bible condone slavery? Is it intolerant to think Jesus is the only way? How can a loving
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God send anyone to hell? Is Jesus a ripoff of pagan gods? And then number 10, are miracles possible?
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So this will take us through the end of the year. We're here once a month. So anybody who's here for the first time, welcome.
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The last Tuesday of every month is when we meet. So we're doing one a month. So like I just said, it'll take us about a year to get through this.
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So last week, we talked about why believe God exists, okay? Now, really, this is the most important one.
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Because if God doesn't exist, well, then who cares about any of the other questions? Okay, nothing really matters.
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Okay, if God doesn't exist. So that's why we covered that last week. So we're gonna have a really quick recap, okay?
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So I gave two strong arguments to show that we should trust that God does in fact exist.
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What were those two arguments that we had last week? Anybody remember their names?
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It was only a month. Okay, so there's the Kalam cosmological argument, that funny sounding word, right?
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What was the other one? Okay, so these are the two arguments that we talked about last week.
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Kalam cosmological argument, moral argument. So for anybody who wasn't here, or hasn't been attending our classes, typically when you hear the word argument, you think about people fighting, okay?
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That's not what this is about. An argument is simply presenting a case for something. Okay, you're arguing for something.
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So it's not fighting, it's just you're trying to convince somebody of something. So we have the
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Kalam cosmological argument. So what was it? What were the three phrases, the three steps, the two premises and the conclusion?
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Anybody remember what the Kalam cosmological argument actually is? Yes? First, whatever begins to exist has a cause.
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Okay, so that's step one, premise one. Which is the second one?
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All right, so whatever begins to exist has a cause, that was the first one.
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So what's the second statement? The universe began to exist, therefore, therefore the universe has a cause.
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Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause.
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And this is airtight. So long as premises one and two are true, or at least more reasonably true than false, then the conclusion necessarily follows.
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So that's why we like to follow logical syllogisms, because they're focused, you know exactly what you're proving, and also you're giving someone else a target to attack if they want to disagree with you.
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Okay, well, what here do you disagree with? So this is the Kalam cosmological argument.
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Whatever begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause, and really this cause, that is
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God. Okay, so the cause, the best explanation for the universe coming into existence, is a personal, all -powerful, immaterial
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God. All right, so we went from the cosmos, the big cosmological argument, and then we zoomed into the human heart, okay, to talk about the moral argument for God's existence.
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So what were the two premises and the conclusion for that? What was the syllogism for the moral argument?
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That's why we're reviewing. So what is the moral argument?
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Okay, it starts with if. The first word is if. If God does not exist, all right,
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I gave you the first few words. If God does not exist, then what else does not exist? Close, not objective truth, because, okay, good.
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So if God does not exist, objective morality does not exist. If God does not exist, objective morality does not exist.
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So then what's step two, premise two? Objective morality exists, okay, therefore, what do we want to conclude?
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God exists. All right, very good. We're all still Christians. All right, if God does not exist, objective morality does not exist.
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Objective morality does exist, therefore God exists. So we see how simple this argument is.
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Both arguments, very simple. Backed by the kalam is backed by science. It's backed by logic and philosophy.
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Here, objective morality, this is based on everyday normal human experience. Our experience that certain things are right and wrong.
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Okay, the moral code that God put on our hearts. Okay, so we have two powerful arguments that give us good reason to think that God does in fact exist.
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Okay, so that's what we did last week. Why believe God exists? So now we do have reason to do the rest of the questions.
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Okay, so now we've got two through ten. So we do have good reason to believe that God does exist.
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Now, these questions do not exist in a vacuum. So like I said a minute ago, that if God doesn't exist, then none of the other questions even matter.
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But now if we do have good reason to think that God does exist, then this is going to kind of shade our answers for the rest of the questions.
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So we're not answering them in a vacuum. All right, so we're not coming into this blind, that I'm trying to prove that Jesus rose from the dead without presuming the existence of God.
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You're not going to do that. Okay, so if we have good reason to believe God exists, well then really jumping to our very last question, then of course miracles are possible.
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Okay, once we get to month ten, lesson ten, we're going to have a much fuller discussion of that.
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But if God exists, then yes, miracles are at least possible. And if miracles are possible, then it gives us greater reason to think that it's possible that Jesus could rise from the dead.
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Okay, if we're working on the assumption that God doesn't exist, well then there goes all the impact of Jesus rising from the dead.
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But if Jesus did in fact, I'm sorry, if God does exist, we have good reason to think God exists, then of course it's going to make the resurrection much more likely.
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So that's going to be our topic for tonight. So did Jesus really rise from the dead?
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This is going to be tonight's lesson, especially important being that this Friday is Good Friday, and then this
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Sunday is Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday. So by the end of the night, I want you to have even more confidence when you're singing your songs on Sunday, when you're hearing that sermon, you're going to have an even stronger faith.
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You're going to be able to sing those songs with even much more confidence that Jesus is in fact alive.
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Because think about it, especially if you've grown up in church, whether you grew up in whatever church you're going to now, whether you grew up Protestant, Catholic, you've heard the stories.
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You've heard the Bible stories, you know, Jonah and the big fish, David and Goliath. They all become just stories, right?
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They're just, you know, figures that you color on a piece of paper. They're flannel graph stories. And kids kind of absorb them like they're fairy tales, okay?
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They're not. Jesus really rose from the dead. It is a fact of history. And that's the point of what we're going to talk about tonight.
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It's not just some story. This isn't some fairy story that we tell young Christian kids. These are things that actually happened.
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But let me back up before we even talk about the facts about it. Why does the resurrection even matter?
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Why are we here? Why are we talking about it? Why do we celebrate Easter Sunday? And really every
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Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection. So why does it matter? So does it matter if Jesus really rose from the dead?
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What if the resurrection is just legendary or symbolic, as some people argue? Is it
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Christianity just about loving your neighbor and being a good person? So what do we think? What does the resurrection actually matter to us?
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Can I still be a good person even if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead? What if it was just legendary or symbolic?
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You know, Jesus symbolically rose from the dead and kind of brings our spirits back to life or something.
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What do we think about these questions? What does it matter? What does it matter if Jesus really rose from the dead or if he didn't?
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Would it make a bit of a difference in your life, the way that you live, the way that you act? Would you still go to church on Sunday, even if you really weren't sure if this
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Christianity thing was really true? Yes. Okay.
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Okay. You read the
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Bible, Jesus is telling Nicodemus, you know, kind of eliminates the cult part. Mm -hmm.
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You know, to be saved, like they Catholics or Christians.
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Mm -hmm. I mean, I'm not Catholic. Mm -hmm. I don't say that. Mm -hmm.
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Mm -hmm.
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You know, they're out there fighting to end abortion. Mm -hmm. Abortion's a big war. Yeah.
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We have two choices, right? At the end, do we want to enjoy the promise of life? Or do we want to go to New Jerusalem?
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Mm -hmm. And New Jerusalem requires that you believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
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Mm -hmm. And ascended into heaven. So, don't call yourself a Christian.
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You can't be a heretic Christian. Mm -hmm. That'd be the whole thing. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I mean, let's look at what our
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Bible actually says. Okay, the book that we use to follow for our salvation and our life, our religion.
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Okay, this is why it matters. 1 Corinthians 15. This is a very important chapter of an important book.
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And we're going to be coming back to this, okay? So, this is the resurrection chapter. So, Paul saying this, okay?
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Paul, the guy who wrote most of the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 14, he says, If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith.
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And verse 17 says, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins.
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Okay, as someone mentioned a minute ago. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
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So, if I could summarize this, if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead, then we're idiots.
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We're wasting our time. Why are we doing this? Why are we here? Why do we worship on Sundays?
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If Jesus did not rise from the dead, we're just wasting our time. Okay, Paul says this.
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Okay, Paul himself says this. This isn't just me and my opinion. He's telling us that this is what matters.
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The fact that Christ did rise from the dead. Okay, so why it matters theologically.
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There are so many Christian doctrines that hang on the resurrection. Okay, Jesus is dating, just proving that he is who he said he is.
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The Trinity, salvation, forgiveness of sins, eternal life. So many Christian doctrines hang on the resurrection.
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Okay, so it's not just some little piece of Christianity, take it or leave it. It is
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Christianity. It's the core of Christianity. Everything flows from the cross, from the resurrection. So, now let's look at why it matters historically.
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Okay, people talking about, well, where did Christianity come from? How did it arise? Was it simply a legend?
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Is it just these men, Jesus's followers, who kind of created this religion? Well, this guy, his name is
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Bart Ehrman. Is anybody familiar with Bart Ehrman? Know who he is? So, who is he?
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Is he a Christian? No. Okay, so he's a New Testament scholar, but he is not a
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Christian. Okay, people can study the Bible. Anybody can study it. It's not just Christians. So, he is a non -Christian.
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Last I checked, he's agnostic. He's open to the existence of God, but he's a non -Christian. Okay, he's not a friendly, okay, a non -Christian.
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He's an agnostic New Testament scholar. This is what he has to say, and I'll read it for those of you who can't, who may not be able to read the whole thing.
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He says, there can be no doubt, historically, that some of Jesus's followers came to believe that he was raised from the dead.
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No doubt whatsoever, this is how Christianity started.
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Okay, this is a historian, a scholar, saying this, non -Christian. Okay, there's no doubt that this is how
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Christianity started, that his followers believe that Jesus rose from the dead. So, this is just getting rid of any legendary theories right off the bat, that the resurrection is just some legend that formed after dozens, hundreds of years.
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Okay, there goes that idea right there. He says, if no one had thought Jesus had been raised, he would have been lost in the mists of Jewish antiquity, and would be known today only as another failed
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Jewish prophet. He continues, but Jesus's followers, or at least some of them, came to believe that God had done a great miracle and restored
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Jesus to life. This was not a mere resuscitation, a kind of near -death experience. For Jesus's disciples,
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Jesus was raised into an immortal body, and exalted to heaven, where he currently lives and reigns with God Almighty.
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All right, so I'm done, we can all go home. But what he's saying is, this is how
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Christianity started. He's not saying that what the disciples saw was truly
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Jesus rose from the dead, but he's at least affirming that it was their belief.
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They honestly believed that Jesus rose from the dead, and that is how
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Christianity started. Not just some game of telephone, that he goes from being a really nice guy, you know, a prophet, a moral teacher, and then over the years, suddenly he morphs into the
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Messiah. No, immediate. His followers immediately believed that he did in fact rise from the dead, and that's how
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Christianity started. Okay, so in other words, if there is no resurrection, there also is no
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Christianity, period. Okay, it's a non -negotiable Christianity, okay?
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So what I want to do now is, I just want to look at some initial objections, some beliefs that people bring to the table before even talking about these kind of things.
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You know, just the kind of things that kind of prepare where we're going from here. So the initial objection people might have to begin with, is that miracles are simply impossible.
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They just deny that miracles are possible, therefore the resurrection must be impossible, okay?
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But this is simply a philosophical assumption, something that you have to decide upon before you even enter into the conversation, okay?
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If you've already got your mind made up that miracles are impossible, then all right, then you're not going to listen to anything about a resurrection.
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But last month we talked about the existence of God, and if it's possible that God exists, then it's certainly possible that miracles can happen, okay?
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So if it's possible that God exists, miracles are certainly possible too, okay? So let's not rule it out off the bat before even looking at the evidence.
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All right, initial objection two. A miracle is the least probable explanation of any data, okay?
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A miracle is the least probable explanation of any data. Well, yeah, that's what makes it a miracle, okay?
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Otherwise it would just be called normal common day occurrence. That's what makes it a miracle, okay?
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But, I mean, improbable things do happen all the time, okay? They do happen. Someone wins the lotto.
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You know, for that person it's highly improbable, or there are plenty other instances. Improbable things do happen, okay?
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It's not an impossibility, it's simply improbable. But now, if you rule out any natural explanations of the data, then the only possible explanation must be supernatural.
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Again, think back to last month, when we talked about the Kalam cosmological argument. Well, what could bring into existence all things natural?
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It would have to be supernatural, right? If something caused all space, time, matter, and energy, everything natural to come into existence, this cause would have to be supernatural, okay?
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So let's look at Mr. Sherlock Holmes, okay? He's got a great quote.
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He says, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
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Okay, it's a great quote, okay? So if you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
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We're gonna come back to this later. Hopefully we can use this again later. All right, so one more objection.
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History can't prove miracles, okay? That's not the historical method. History is not in the business of proving miracles.
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It only deals with, you know, natural events and whatnot. Well, none of the facts we're going to examine are miraculous, but the best explanation of the facts can be a miracle, okay?
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So none of the facts we're going to examine are miraculous, but the best explanation of the facts can be a miracle, okay?
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So looking at these three objections, all that I'm asking, anybody here, I don't know who's a
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Christian, who's a seeker, I don't know where everybody is at, but all that I'm going to ask tonight is that you simply examine the evidence honestly and with an open mind and don't rule anything out until after you have examined the evidence, okay?
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Just keep an open mind and don't rule anything out until after we've examined the evidence.
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Does this sound reasonable? Can we do this? Okay, all right. So let's talk about the scientific method versus the historical method, but because before we can discuss anything, we need to understand what we're working with, what branch of knowledge we're dealing with.
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We need to understand the methods that we're using to come to truth, what tools that we can use to determine the truth.
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So what's the difference between the scientific method and the historical method? What's the difference between the two?
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Okay, repeatable, good. Historical method, how do we do history?
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Is history repeatable? I mean, by definition, it's history.
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It's in the past. So this is a main difference, okay? The scientific method is all about observation and repeatability.
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Well, we can't observe history. That's the whole point of history. It's not there anymore. It doesn't exist.
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So how do we do history? How does history work? How do we know what happened in the past?
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What do we rely on? Okay, that they passed on, okay.
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Documentation, what else? Okay. So how do we know about the deaths though?
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How would we know that they happened? What kind of things, excuse me? Right, and what past, right.
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So what were these observations though? Like what, how do we have that information today? Because I'm just simply talking about history.
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I'm not denying it. I'm simply saying like, how do we know? Trying to understand the historical method. Okay. Okay.
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Wow. Wow. Crazy.
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Yeah. So if we go back even farther though, because this is something that's recent history.
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Okay, the news reports and whatnot. But if we're going even back before then, how do we know anything about ancient history?
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Where? What else? If there's nothing written, what else are we, what are archaeologists finding?
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Artifacts, scrolls, artifacts. So that's basically what we have to do. It kind of, historians are kind of like detectives.
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They have to kind of put bits and pieces together because again, it's not something that you can just go out and observe. Okay. Yeah, you get, you get, yeah, you get what you get.
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Like you can't be picky when it comes to history. You know, if you get an arrowhead or something, you know, if you get a pot or something like that, that's how history works.
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It's not like science where you can create your own experiment in a lab or whatnot and you could set the conditions. That's not how history works.
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And we can't expect that for history. Okay, so you get the artifacts that you get and then you make your case off of that.
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Okay. Luckily, we're dealing with more than that. Okay, so now let's talk about the primary sources.
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Whenever we're dealing with history, we always hear about primary sources. So what are the, what's the primary source of information about the life of Jesus of Nazareth?
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What's the primary source of information about Jesus? Okay, the New Testament. And this is where people say, oh, the
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Bible, you're using the Bible to prove the Bible. So there it all goes. But the thing is, what we need to understand is that the
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Bible is still a source of historical information. Okay, we're going to use the
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Bible, but we're not going to give it any special religious treatment. Okay, while of course, all of the
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Christians here do believe it's God's very word. As far as what we're going to do tonight, we're not going to use it as such.
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We're just going to be viewing it as a source of information, like any historian, like any scholar would do.
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Okay, an archeologist or whatnot. Simply using it as a source of history. But we're also not going to be unnecessarily skeptical.
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So skeptics can be very fundamentalist too. They could be just as fundamentalist as any religious person that they'll just view the
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Bible and say, all right, well, if it's in the Bible, it's garbage. Okay, but that simply isn't true. This is not what scholars and historians do.
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Okay, they might not accept all the miracles, but they can figure out using their methods. All right, this is what
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I'm going to say is solid history. And this is what is debatable and whatnot. Nobody, no serious scholar, no serious historian treats the
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Bible the way that some kind of atheist skeptic on the internet is going to deal with it. They just toss it all away.
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Okay, it contains true information. Okay, that's how Bart Ehrman earlier came to his conclusion.
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Okay, the Bible does contain truth and it contains history. Okay, to us, it means more to us, but it still is solid history.
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So the next question is, what is the New Testament? Because this is what we're going to be leaning on.
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Well, it's a collection of letters and writings circulated throughout the church. And then later it was compiled into the
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Bible, along with the Old Testament. Again, it's not simply religious, it is history. It gives us history, true historical accounts of things that happened.
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Okay, so what I'm going to be leaning on tonight is what's commonly called the resurrection creed.
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So there are a lot of different approaches that people take when they want to provide evidence for the resurrection, show the truthfulness, the historicity of the resurrection.
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This is just the way that I like to go. I like to focus on what's called the resurrection creed.
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Okay, so let me read it to you. So this is 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 through 8.
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So this says, For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then the 12.
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I don't know if I pronounced that right, but whatever. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
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Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me also to as to one abnormally born.
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Okay, so this is 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 8. So we're going to look at this resurrection creed.
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We're going to look at the validity of it. Okay, when was this written? Okay, well, it was written in about 5455
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AD. Okay, Jesus died around 30. So this means that there was this was written within 25 years of Jesus's death.
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Now we need to understand how ancient documents work. So there's no Twitter. There's no YouTube back then.
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There's no media. There's nothing. So for ancient documents, this is really good.
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This is not like nowadays, where if something happens, you know about it immediately. So this is very close to the time.
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If you think about other ancient documents, other things that were written much, much, much, much later. Okay, the farther back you go in time, the larger the gap you're going to get.
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So this is very, very good. Okay, so to us nowadays, 25 years seems like, well, wait a minute, writing about something 25 years later.
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But this is still a good timeframe for this. But now the creed in 1
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Corinthians 15 was formed even earlier than that. Because as Paul's saying, for what
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I received, I passed on to you. Scholars date this within five years of the crucifixion.
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Some scholars even date it within months. That this creed is something that maybe
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Christians, new Christians, you know, repeated or they taught to the new believers the same way that, you know, there might be creeds or whatnot or catechisms that we may go through nowadays.
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The Apostles' Creed or something like that. This may have been something because the structure, the rhythm of it, it seems like it could be something that was used to catechize new
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Christians, to teach them the Christian story. So again, this is way too soon to be legendary.
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Once again, Mr. Ehrman, you know, told us that it was actually a belief in a physical resurrection that what led
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Christianity to come about. This here, if this rose within five years, maybe even months, this could not just be some legend that formed over years, okay?
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But now let's talk a little bit more about the dating of this Resurrection Creed. So Mike Licona, he is a
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New Testament scholar. He kind of focuses on the resurrection, specializes in the resurrection. He says this, virtually all critical scholars who have written on the subject, including rather skeptical ones, maintain that in 1
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Corinthians 15, 3 -7, Paul has provided traditions about Jesus that he did not form, but rather received from others, as he claims.
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There is likewise widespread agreement that it was composed very early and may very well be the oldest extant tradition, extant meaning existing tradition, pertaining to the resurrection of Jesus.
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So this might be the original creed that Christians were teaching, brand new
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Christians, okay? So this is very, very early. This is very, very early. Not something that is legendary or formed over time.
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So now let's look at the highlights of this Resurrection Creed. So there are four key parts that we're going to look at tonight.
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So the first part is that Christ died. Second is that he was buried.
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He was raised. And then he appeared. So those are the four things that we're going to examine tonight.
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That Christ died. He was buried. He was raised. And he appeared.
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Okay? So the first thing that we're going to look at, the fact that Christ did, in fact, die.
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All right, so the biblical references of the crucifixion, it's in all four Gospels. And many times it's referred to in Paul's writings.
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But of course, people always want to know, well, are there any references outside of the Bible? Or is it just in the
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Bible? Well, the Bible should be enough. But there is still support outside of the
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Bible. There is at least five references to the crucifixion outside of the Bible. Okay, the first two are generally the most important ones.
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Okay, Josephus. Josephus, yikes. A Jewish historian. And then we have
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Tacitus, who's a Roman senator and historian. So here we have a Jew and we have a
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Roman. Two completely different people. Neither of them are going to be sympathetic to Christianity.
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Okay, that's very important. Okay, so we have Josephus and then we have Tacitus. So now, let's suppose that Jesus didn't die.
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Well, what are the objections that people have? Well, the objection is that, no, he didn't die on the cross.
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The other options are that maybe another person was crucified instead. Or that Jesus didn't actually die, he recovered.
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So this is known as the swoon theory or the apparent death hypothesis or what I like to call the walking
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Jesus, okay? So for the first one, another person crucified.
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Really? Like, nobody realized that that guy there isn't Jesus. The people who were with him, his mother was at the foot of the cross.
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His mother didn't realize that wasn't him being crucified. And there's no historical evidence for this.
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What's important to know, whether we're dealing with the resurrection or anything else, whether we're talking about, you know, science, whether we're talking about philosophy, an alternate explanation is not a refutation.
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If someone's like, oh, well, I could explain that. No, no, no, no, no. You need evidence. An alternate explanation is not a refutation for anything.
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All right? You need arguments and you need evidence. There is zero evidence that another person was crucified instead of Jesus, okay?
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Zero evidence. And we're going to see this coming up over and over again. If you have a theory, cool, where's your evidence?
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This is the evidence that we have, okay? We're not going off of hearsay or just making up alternate theories. There's no evidence for this.
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So the next theory is, again, what I call the walking Jesus theory or, you know, swoon theory or the apparent death hypothesis.
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So let's look at what this theory says. So Jesus is crucified.
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Okay, this is what happened. He's placed in a tomb. This dude recovers in three days from that.
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Okay, this is a scene from the Passion of the Christ, but this is what Jesus would have looked like, okay? Or someone who suffered crucifixion.
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He recovers in three days, rolls away the stone, and then convinces everyone he was a resurrected in a glorified heavenly body.
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Him. I think that's going to leave a mark. I think a lot, even three days later, a lot of that's still going to be showing.
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Him. He rolled away the stone on his own, okay? I think we can see how ridiculous this theory is, okay?
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But that's not even all of it because a lot more happened before he was even put on a cross.
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Why does he look like this? What happened? Well, before a criminal would even make it,
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I don't even like calling Jesus a criminal, but the victim, the prisoner, was placed on the cross, well, the punishment began with scourging.
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So, the person is whipped with thongs of leather, which ends in iron balls or sheep bones.
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This is meant to tear the person down to the bone. I'm saying like ripping away meat and skin and muscle and tendon, okay?
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Just ripping away chunks of flesh. The point is to bring the victim near to death.
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Once this is done, then they have to carry the cross or at least the cross beam to where they're going.
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Basically, they're humiliated, okay? It's like, you know, when grandma tells you to go get a switch that she's going to whip you with, but a lot worse, okay?
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Nails driven through his wrists and his feet and then dies from asphyxiation, okay?
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So, he's basically suffocated when someone was on a cross, they're hanging and they can't breathe.
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That's what kills them. And then the verification is that Jesus's side was pierced by a spear just to make sure that he was, in fact, dead.
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And we're talking about Roman soldiers here. Like, they were very good at what they did. If they wanted you dead, you were dead, okay?
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There's no getting around this. I mean, Jesus died. Let's go back to our good buddy
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Bart Ehrman. The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans is one of the most secure facts we have about his life.
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One of the most secure facts that we have that he was, in fact, crucified by the
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Romans, okay? Oh yeah, and forget about the fact of Jesus himself being a legend, okay? That's just dumb.
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No historian believes that. And we're going to talk about that in lesson nine. So now let's look at another scholar,
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John Dominic Crossan. He's the co -founder of the Jesus Seminar. Has anybody heard of the
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Jesus Seminar? So they take a very, very liberal view of the
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Bible, okay? Orthodox are conservative by any means. But he's still saying that he, meaning
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Jesus, was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.
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That's a strong statement. Since both Josephus and Tacitus agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact, all right?
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Jesus died on the cross. It's a done deal. It's a historical fact. It is a fact of history.
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Again, this isn't a story. This isn't just some story, some coloring pages that we did in Sunday school.
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This is history, okay? So the crucifixion is a true fact of history that Jesus did, in fact, die.
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So the next fact that we're going to look at, okay, that Jesus was buried, okay?
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So out of all the facts, this one is one that, you know, might have the least support to it, historical support.
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But I mean, that's what happens when someone dies, you bury them, okay? His burial was in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea.
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It's given in all four gospel accounts. Well, if he wasn't buried, then what else would have happened with the body?
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So common Roman practice was to just leave them there on the cross to be eaten by animals or just throw them in a shallow pit or something like that, okay?
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But that's Roman practice. Who were the ones who really wanted Jesus dead? The Jewish leaders, okay?
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The Romans simply carried out a Jewish execution. The Romans were the weapon, okay?
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But the Jewish leaders are the ones who really wanted it done. Now, who were the Pharisees?
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They were like the religious leaders. They were the original virtue signalers, right? They wanted everybody to know how good and holy they were.
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They followed that law, okay? They prided themselves in following the law, all right?
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And they weren't going to let anything go by. They wanted to rush Jesus's crucifixion to make sure it was done in the right time so they didn't violate the
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Sabbath or whatever, right? Which is crazy. But that's how much they adhere to their law.
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They worship their law. Deuteronomy 21, okay? 22 to 23, completely against Jewish law to just leave somebody there in a tree.
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It says, if someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight.
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Be sure to bury it that same day because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God's curse.
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You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, okay?
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So they're going to follow this, okay? Even though they just completely missed the point of the law, they missed their
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Messiah right in front of them. But they're not going to break this because that's their identity.
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We follow the law. We're better than everybody else because we follow the law. They're not going to violate this.
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They're not just going to leave him in a ditch or something. He would have to be buried. All right, so now the third fact that he was raised, that Jesus was raised.
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So there are three points to support this, okay? The female witnesses, enemy attestation, and then the
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Jerusalem factor, all right? So now female witnesses, all right? This might sound kind of sexist, but all the way back then, the testimony of women simply was not considered credible in Roman and Jewish cultures, okay?
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The only reason that you would record women to be the first witnesses of the empty tomb is if they actually were the first witnesses to the empty tomb, okay?
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In history, you know, to historians, this is called the criterion of embarrassment, okay? If you're writing some kind of historical account, you're going to want it to be as nice as possible.
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If I'm writing my own autobiography, I'm going to make myself out to be like a ninja or Batman or something. I'm not going to include all the ugly stuff, okay?
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If some kind of historical account contains some kind of things that are embarrassing or make you look bad, that's just going to improve the credibility because it's most likely to have happened because people wouldn't put in the negative kind of things, okay?
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If we think about ancient biographies, the deeds of great conquerors are even inflated to make them seem even greater and all the ugly parts are going to be left out.
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But here we have something that really, it would be embarrassing to their story because it would not be considered credible in that culture.
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So the fact that the first witnesses were women is only going to help prove the historicity of it, okay?
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But now we want to look at some of the arguments against this. Okay, well, maybe
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Jesus's body was stolen, okay? So maybe, actually the Jews actually did accuse the disciples of doing this.
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They accused the disciples of stealing the body. In the Bible and also in other ancient writings,
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Jews accused the disciples of stealing the body. So why is this fact important?
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Why does this fact actually help our case? Right, so basically, they're admitting that he wasn't there.
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You don't accuse someone of stealing something if it isn't missing, okay?
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You don't accuse someone of stealing something if it isn't missing. They are accusing the disciples because his body wasn't there.
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Again, it's not just in the Bible, but in two other writers are saying that the Jewish leaders accused the disciples of that.
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But now, what if the disciples really did steal the body? Again, there's no historical evidence of it.
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If you have a counter -argument, where's the data? Where's the evidence? Where are the facts?
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Where is this ancient writing that will support your case? We can't just make up alternate explanations.
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You have to have evidence to support it. No historical evidence. But if the disciples did steal his body, then they lied about the resurrection, which we're going to get to later, okay?
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We're going to talk a little bit more about this later. So there's no historical evidence that this actually happened. Okay, so that's the enemy attestation part.
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So next is the Jerusalem factor, okay? So Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection all occurred in Jerusalem.
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Why is this important? Yeah, I mean, if you're moving a body around, it's going to be a lot easier to intercept it.
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You know, you think about something like, you know, spy movie or something, you know, when like they're moving a suspect around, you know, and suddenly they go under a tunnel and they're like switch vans, you know, like these spy movies, how people make switches and they make swaps.
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But the thing is, it all happened in Jerusalem. It's not like they're traveling here and then they're traveling there. Some people are here, some people are there.
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This all happened in Jerusalem. So anybody could have easily went and checked the tomb, okay?
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It was there. It all happened in the same city. So everybody knew what was going down.
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They knew where he was killed. They knew where he was buried, okay? So it's all in the same location, which is going to make it a whole lot easier to fact check or to disprove.
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But now let's look at the very first Christian sermons, okay? It's not, you know, God loves you and has a plan for your life.
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It's about Jesus's death and resurrection. Okay, Acts 2 .9 and the 31, 32.
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So this is Peter on the day of Pentecost. He says in his sermon, fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch
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David died and was buried and his tomb is here to this day. Okay, that's an important statement because he's making a contrast, okay?
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Verse 31, seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.
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God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of it. So here he's contrasting
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David and Jesus. We know where David's tomb is.
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He was buried. We know where his tomb is. We know where Jesus's tomb is too, but he's not in it.
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This was Peter's very first sermon, a mere weeks after the crucifixion and resurrection in the same place, okay?
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The disciples went right back to the scene of the crime. The cowards as they were, something turned them around.
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They went right back to the scene of the crime to preach this, okay? Either they're really brave or they're really dumb.
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They're going to try to con everybody by this? You know, does this really sound like a con?
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All right, another possible explanation. Well, maybe it's the wrong tomb. Maybe they checked the wrong tomb.
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Once more, there's no historical support for this. Well, anybody could have easily found the right tomb and squashed the resurrection rumor.
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And Jews accused the disciples of stealing Jesus's body. So the correct tomb must have been the empty one.
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Again, the Jerusalem factor. All of this happened in Jerusalem. Everybody knew where the tomb was. Anybody could have easily found it and checked, okay?
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Now, let's just be clear about this. An empty tomb does not mean that somebody was raised from the dead, okay?
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It doesn't automatically prove that. If you see an empty grave somewhere, oh, they rose from the dead. But for Jesus to be resurrected, the tomb must have been empty, okay?
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An empty tomb doesn't prove that Jesus rose from the dead. But for him to be resurrected, the tomb must have been empty, okay?
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So that is the third fact that we're looking at. So now the fourth and the most important one is that he was seen, okay?
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That Jesus was seen by his followers and many other people. So this is the post -crucifixion account.
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Well, the disciples, they're defeated and downtrodden. They're all hiding. They thought, we lost.
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Our Messiah was killed. We lost. We're next. Then they all believed that they saw their risen
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Lord. We're not going to assume that they saw him. That's what we're trying to prove. But they at least believed that they saw him, which is exactly what
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Bart Ehrman said earlier. They honestly believed that they saw him. This is attested in all four
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Gospels, Acts, and ancient creeds, such as the tradition in 1 Corinthians 15.
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Again, this was the earliest teaching about Christianity, that Jesus was seen. Excuse me.
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So this turned their lives around, which led to the great spread of Christianity, and it also led to their persecution in modern day.
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That's the big thing, okay? They didn't just live out happy, healthy, and wealthy lives, okay?
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They suffered because of it. And they were willing to do it. They started off as cowards.
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And if all things the same, they should have stayed cowards. They should have stayed in hiding.
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They should have ran for their lives. But suddenly, they became proclaimers of the
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Gospel after their leader was allegedly defeated, right? You would think that the followers would scatter.
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Instead, they were bold enough to spread the Gospel, even in light of their persecution and martyrdom.
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So the appearances, the post -mortem appearances, so in 1 Corinthians 5, 5 through 8.
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So there's Peter, the first one named. He's the coward and the denier. We all know his story.
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There's the 12, the original disciples, minus Judas, okay? There's 500 brothers and sisters, most of whom were still living.
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Why does Paul include that? Basically saying, check me. Check the facts.
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You don't believe me? There's 500 people that you can go ask. James, the brother of Christ, he thought his brother was crazy, okay?
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If you have a brother and they're like, I'm the Messiah, nah, you're nuts, okay? Typical family, though.
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Typical brother, all right? He thought his brother was crazy. They thought that he was nuts at first, his family. It's in the
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Gospels. Jesus' brothers and sisters thought he was crazy. But then suddenly, James came to accept it.
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All of the apostles, he appeared to the apostles. And then Jesus appears to Paul, who was the
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Christian killer. Dude killed Christians. And Jesus appeared to him. So let's return to our buddy
50:07
Bart Ehrman. It is indisputable. Wow, that's a strong word. Indisputable that some of the followers of Jesus came to think that he had been raised from the dead and something had to have happened to make them think so.
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Our earliest records are consistent on this point, and I think they provide us with historically reliable information in one key respect.
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The disciples' belief in the resurrection, excuse me, was based on visionary experiences.
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Again, he's no friend of Christianity. He's a critic, a harsh critic of Christianity. But he's saying that these men truly believed that they saw
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Jesus risen from the dead. Indisputable. That they truly saw Jesus. All right, well, what are the natural explanations of this?
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The natural explanations instead of a miracle, instead of a resurrection? Well, there's the hallucination theory.
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And then there's the conspiracy theory. So first of the hallucination theory.
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So due to the disciples' immense grief, they hallucinated that they saw their risen
51:17
Lord. Okay? Not just the disciples, though, but 500 plus people hallucinated this.
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Well, there's a problem with hallucination theories, okay? Hallucinations are private and individual.
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They're not collective. So like if I had a really cool dream last night, and I was at Disney World or something, and I wake up and I'm like,
51:38
Connie, wasn't that an awesome dream? She's like, what are you talking about? You were there, you were with me. It's like, the kids were there too.
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It doesn't matter if she was in the dream, like she wasn't in the dream. You know what I mean? That doesn't work like that, okay?
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Hallucinations are private and they're individual. They're not collective. People do not collectively hallucinate.
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And then hallucinations are visual, not physical. The biblical accounts tell us when
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Jesus appeared to the disciples, they thought they were seeing a ghost, right?
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Rightly so. You were dead, we saw you dead. They thought they saw a ghost, so he invited them to touch him, and he even ate in front of them, okay?
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To prove, yeah, no, this is me, okay? This is me, and then of course, we know what happened with Thomas, wanted to put his fingers in Jesus' holes, but Jesus still wanted to prove that he was alive.
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He ate in front of them. I'm a human being, I'm back, I'm not a ghost. So now the other theory is the conspiracy theory, okay?
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So the disciples lied that they saw their risen Lord. But why would they do this?
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Why would they lie about it? Think in general, why do people lie generally about anything in life?
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Why do people lie? Okay, to cover something up.
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Basically, people are gonna lie to get out of trouble, not to get into trouble, okay?
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Generally, when people lie, it's, you know, it's maybe for fame or for fortune or something like that.
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But you don't lie to get yourself into trouble. You don't lie to get yourself killed, okay?
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The disciples were persecuted and martyred, attested by plenty of the church fathers, okay?
53:26
Because as far as Christian writings are concerned, the Bible was the beginning. But then the disciples wrote the
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Bible, but then the disciples' disciples wrote also. They gave their sermons, their teaching, their commentaries.
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Their disciples had disciples and had disciples. So there's a whole chain of command of Christian writers carrying on the message.
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While the Bible is the only authoritative word, there are still plenty other Christian writers who are describing what happened.
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And they tell us about the martyrdom of plenty of the disciples, the followers of Christ. But now, all right, plenty of people who have died for their faith.
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What makes the disciples any different? So what's the difference between the disciples in 9 -11?
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Okay, we had some religious fundamentalists who were willing to die for what they believed.
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How are the disciples different? What's the difference between the disciples in 9 -11? Besides about 2000 years, what's different?
54:35
They were eyewitnesses. The disciples were eyewitnesses, no matter how strongly the terrorists believed was true what they were doing.
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They were not there in the time of Muhammad. Okay, no matter how strongly they believed it.
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Meanwhile, the disciples watched everything happen. They saw Jesus' miracles.
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Maybe they weren't there when he was killed because they were cowards, but they had experienced him risen.
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That's the difference. Trying to compare the two, it's apples and oranges. It doesn't matter how strongly some people believe in their religion and they're willing to fight and die for it.
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The disciples knew. They would have known that they were dying for a lie.
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Okay, who does that? No one wants to suffer and die for a lie. There's nothing to be gained for it, okay?
55:28
Yeah, people suffer and die for things they think are true, but who would suffer and die for a lie?
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Knowing, knowing full well that it's a lie. Not that they were fooled. They would know fully that it was a lie.
55:43
Who's going to do that? Let's look at the Jewish concept of the resurrection.
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Continuing on the conspiracy theory mindset, okay? Is this the kind of story they would have even made up?
55:56
So as far as the Jews were concerned, resurrection of the righteous dead happened at the end of time and not before.
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In Jewish thought, there was no idea of the Messiah that they were expecting rising from the dead.
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See, what kind of Messiah were the Jews expecting? What did they think they were going to get? What did they think the
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Messiah was going to be like? Right, that he was going to come in and he was going to free the
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Jews from Roman occupation, establish a kingdom on earth. Jesus isn't what they were expecting at all, okay?
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So the idea of the Messiah being killed and then rising from the dead isn't something that they even would have thought to make up.
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That's why even after the fact, Jesus had to explain it to them. He went through the scriptures and then he showed them after.
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He went and he told them. Think about it. All throughout his ministry, when he's like, I have to suffer, I have to die.
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And they're like, what? All right, people have called them the disciples for a reason, okay?
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Because they didn't get it. Even after he died, he still had to explain it to them. Now do you see? Now do you see?
57:05
Now do you see? This isn't something that they would have made up because no one would have expected a Messiah to die and come back to life.
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That wasn't part of the story. William Lane Craig says this, there was no expectation of a
57:19
Messiah who instead of establishing David's throne and subduing Israel's enemies would be shamefully executed by the
57:26
Gentiles as a criminal, okay? And then he quotes N .T. Wright. He says, if you're a first century
57:33
Jew and your favorite Messiah got himself crucified, then you've got basically two choices.
57:38
Either you go home or else you get yourself a new Messiah. So as far as a conspiracy is concerned, this isn't the kind of story you would make up, okay?
57:49
You would make up a story about, you know, Jesus came down from the cross and he killed all the Romans and, okay?
57:54
This isn't the kind of story that you would make up. So let's just recap looking at our four key facts.
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So Christ died, he was buried, he was raised, and then he appeared.
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So those are the four key facts that are solid. They're factual, they are historical.
58:15
It's not simply belief or a Bible story, a coloring sheet, okay? These are facts of history.
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The failed theories that we've looked at, wrong person crucified, the swoon theory, hallucination, conspiracy theory, they've all failed.
58:33
None of them can explain the facts better. That's what we're doing here. Here are the facts.
58:40
Can you explain it better? Do you have better evidence? Do you have better arguments? Can you better explain the data?
58:48
So let's go back to our buddy Sherlock Holmes. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth.
58:57
And the best explanation of the facts that we just looked at are that he is risen.
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He is in fact risen. It's not just some story. It's not something that we simply believe.
59:10
It is a fact of history. This is what launched Christianity. This is what made the disciples go out and preach the message, even at the cost of their own lives.
59:25
So what are the implications of this? Okay, well, all of Jesus's claims were vindicated.
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All of his teachings, everything that he said was vindicated. Just shows that he is, in fact,
59:37
God. The Bible is the word of God. Because Jesus preached it.
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He preached the Old Testament, and then some of his disciples recorded his words, and then he authorized the rest to keep writing his word.
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So he authorized the Bible as his word. And then Christianity is the only true religion.
59:58
John 14 .6. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
01:00:04
Father except through me. That's what Jesus taught. Jesus is the only way to salvation.
01:00:10
Acts 4 .12, okay? You're the only name through which you can be saved. Now, what are the implications for you personally?
01:00:19
Well, if you're a Christian, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is available to you and giving you life.
01:00:28
That is Romans 8 .11. If you're not a Christian, you can have hope, forgiveness, and eternal life.
01:00:39
If you want to look more into this, okay, some resources. So two quick resources. So The Case for the
01:00:47
Resurrection of Jesus. So this is by Gary Habermas, another resurrection scholar, and then
01:00:52
Michael Lacona, who I've quoted tonight. So that's a book. And there's the movie The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.
01:00:58
It was on Netflix. I checked earlier. It looks like it's not on it anymore, but you could either get it from Amazon or get it from the library.
01:01:06
I think it's available interlibrary loan if yours doesn't have it. But The Case for Christ, this is based on Lee Strobel's book, okay?
01:01:13
It's very well done. If you've read the book, then great, you know? But I would definitely recommend watching
01:01:18
The Case for Christ. Very well done. Very well produced. So if you want to study it more for yourself, they offer a lot more facts in the book,
01:01:26
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Any questions?