Apologetics

Below is some helpful information that I have gathered from these 4 excellent apologists:

C.S. Lewis:

The main idea that made me curious about it was when someone told me that it is a well accepted fact by nearly every historical scholar that Jesus certainly did exist, and that he was crucified for claiming to be the son of God. And if that is largely accepted as true, then here is the BIG question: was Jesus who he said he was? With that question in mind I did some searching, and since then my life has completely changed.

Here's a famous quote by C.S. Lewis which simply states what most people get hung up on:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

Evidence for Christianity:

The funny thing is, the more I studied various religions/philosophies such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, New Age Spirituality, Atheism, Agnosticism, etc, the more I realized that what they claim to be true must be taken mostly if not entirely by faith, and so I just assumed that was true for all religions. But since extensively studying Christianity (again this was the last place that I searched for signs of truth), I was amazed to find out that there is a lot of historical information to back up its claims!

Like many people, I thought a person had to believe in the Bible to be able to believe in Christianity. However, it turns out that since about the 1990s the field of Christian apologetics has greatly expanded and has uncovered a wealth of historical evidence outside the bible which greatly helps to support its claims, so that the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection do not have to be taken purely by faith. Indeed, the overall accuracy of the Bible does not need to be questioned to be able to come to a highly reasonable conclusion that Jesus died and rose from the dead! And all of Christianity hinges on the resurrection claim. Furthermore, if Jesus is the Son of God who died and then rose from the dead, there is no other religion that can claim anything close to that. So if Christianity is true, then all other religions at best may contain only some amount of truth in them.

Lee Strobel / Dr. Mike Licona / Dr. Gary Habermas:

The Minimal Facts Approach

Dr. Gary Habermas has been credited with developing what he calls "The Minimal Facts Approach". Here is both a long and a short version of that approach on YouTube.

A Historian Explains the Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus:

Click here for an Interview with Dr. Gary Habermas

Click here for a brief version of the interview

Below is a written summary of "The Minimal Facts Approach" which can be found in the books: "The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus" by Dr. Gary Habermas and Dr. Mike Licona, and Lee Strobel's, "The Case For The Resurrection."

Both books I have found to be extremely helpful and informative in the defense of the resurrection of Jesus.

Dr. Mike Licona has debated many well known atheists and skeptics. He has many free videos online of his debates and I have found several of them to be well worth the watch. https://www.risenjesus.com/category/videos

The following is summarized from Lee Strobel's book, "The Case For The Resurrection." In it, Lee interviews Dr. Mike Licona, with parts of that interview detailed below.

Lee Strobel writes about Mike Licona: "His dissertation toward his Doctorate in New Testament from the University Pretoria in South Africa used historical methodologies to assess the evidence for Jesus returning from the dead. In 2004, he joined Dr. Gary Habermas in writing the comprehensive and award-winning book titled, 'The Case For The Resurrection of Jesus."' It was in this book that Habermas and Licona detailed the minimal facts approach to Jesus' resurrection. Licona himself will admit that we all see evidence through the lenses of our own prejudices, which is why checks and balances must be put into place. Many people will not take the story of the resurrection simply by faith, which is why historical researchers such as Habermas and Licona have gone to great lengths to study the story of Jesus.

Dr. Licona states: "Under this approach, we only consider facts that meet two criteria. First, there must be very strong historical evidence supporting them. And, secondly, the evidence must be so strong that the vast majority of today's scholars on the subject - including skeptical ones - accept these as historical facts... We're saying that this evidence is so good that even skeptical Scholars are convinced by it. Let's face it: there's a greater likelihood that a purported historical fact is true when someone accepts it even though they're not in agreement with your metaphysical beliefs. Habermas has compiled a list of more than 2,200 sources in French, German and English in which experts have written on the resurrection from 1975 to the present. He has identified minimal facts which are strongly evidenced and which are regarded as historical by the large majority of scholars, including skeptics."

Fact #1: Jesus was killed by crucifixion

This is mentioned in detail by all 4 books of the Gospel, and it is confirmed by at least 5 non-christian sources such as: the Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historian Tacitus, the Greek Satirist Lucian of Samosata, the pagan Mara Bar-Serapion, and even the Jewish Talmud reports it.

Fact #2: Jesus' disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them

Dr. Licona states: "There are three strands of evidence for this: Paul's testimony about the disciples, oral traditions that passed through the early church, and written works of the early church."

1) Paul was an early persecutor of the church for about 2 years after Jesus' death. He then completely changed his opinion after personally encountering the risen Jesus. After that, he was willing to endure hardship, persecution, and even death, rather than disavow his testimony that Jesus' resurrection occurred. Paul later met with several disciples of Jesus and confirmed with them that they were all preaching the same message about Jesus' death and resurrection.

2) "People in those days relied on verbal transmission for passing along what happened until it was later written down. Scholars have identified several places in which this oral tradition has been copied into the New Testament in the form of creeds, hymns, and sermon summaries. One of the earliest and most important creeds was relayed by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian Church, which was written about A.D. 55 [only about 20 years after Jesus died]. It says: '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 Peter, and then to the twelve (disciples). After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. He then appeared to James, then to all the apostles...' Many scholars believe Paul received this creed from [the disciples] Peter and James while visiting with them in Jerusalem 3 years after Paul's conversion. That would be within five years of the crucifixion."

3) "Finally we have written sources, such as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Even very liberal scholars will concede that [these are] four biographies written within seventy years of Jesus' life that unambiguously report the disciples' claims that Jesus rose from the dead."

"Think about the depth of evidence we have in these three categories: Paul, oral tradition, and written reports. In all, we've got 9 sources that reflect multiple, very early and eye-witness testimonies to the disciples' claims that they had seen the risen Jesus. This is something the disciples believed to the core of their being. We've got at least seven early sources testifying that the disciples willingly suffered in defense of their beliefs and if we include the martyrdoms of Paul and Jesus' half brother James, we have 11 sources."

Fact #3: The conversion of the church persecutor Paul

"We have six ancient sources in addition to Paul - such as Luke, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Tertullian, Dionysius of Corinth, and Origen reporting that Paul was willing to suffer continuously and even die for his beliefs." A martyr is someone who is willing to die for their beliefs - and liars make poor martyrs.

Fact #4: The conversion of the skeptic James, Jesus' half-brother

"We have good evidence that James was not a follower of Jesus during Jesus' lifetime. Mark and John both report that none of Jesus Brothers believed in him. Then, however, the ancient creed material in 1st Corinthians 15 tells us that the risen Jesus appeared to James. As a result of his encounter with the risen Jesus, James didn't just become a Christian, but he later became leader of the Jerusalem Church. James was so thoroughly convinced of Jesus' Messiahship because of the resurrection that he died as a martyr, as both Christian and non-Christian sources attest. So we have another example of a skeptic who was converted because of a personal encounter with the resurrected Lord and was willing to die for his convictions."

Fact #5: Jesus' tomb was empty

Unlike the above 4 facts which nearly all scholars believe to be true, Dr. Habermas determined that about 75% of scholars on the subject of the empty tomb regard it as a historical fact. There are basically three areas of evidence:

1 )"Jesus was publicly killed and buried in Jerusalem, and then his resurrection was announced shortly afterwards. It would have been impossible for Christianity to get off the ground in Jerusalem if Jesus' body were still in the tomb."

2)"The Jewish leaders who had Jesus crucified claimed that someone stole the body from the tomb, so they indirectly admitted that the body was missing." There was a Roman guard posted at the tomb, and the large stone covering the entrance required several people to move it. "On top of that, the idea that the disciples stole the body is a lame explanation. Are we supposed to believe that they conspired to steal the body, pulled it off, and then we're willing to suffer continuously and even die for what they knew was a lie? That's such an absurd idea that Scholars universally reject it today."

3)"We have the testimony of women that the tomb was empty. In both first century Jewish and Roman cultures, women were lowly esteemed and their testimony was considered very questionable. If you were going to concoct a story in an effort to fool others, you would never that day have hurt your own credibility by saying that women discovered the empty tomb."

Summary of the Minimal Facts:

"Shortly after Jesus died from crucifixion, his disciples believed that they saw him risen from the dead. They said he appeared not only to individuals but in several group settings and the disciples were so convinced and transformed by the experience that they were willing to suffer and even die for their conviction that they had encountered him."

"And we have two Skeptics who regarded Jesus as a false prophet - Paul, the persecutor of the church, and James, who was Jesus' half brother. They completely changed their opinions 180 degrees after encountering the risen Jesus. Like the disciples, they were willing to endure hardship, persecution, and even death rather than disavow their testimony that Jesus' resurrection occurred."

"Thus we have compelling testimony about the resurrection from friends of Jesus, an enemy of Christianity (Paul), and a skeptic (James). Finally we have strong historical evidence that Jesus' tomb was empty. In fact, even enemies of Christianity admitted it was vacant. Where did the body go? If you asked the disciples, they'd tell you they personally saw Jesus after he returned to life."

Two last notes by Dr Licona:

To help put all of this into context, Dr. Licona states that "Our two best sources on Alexander the Great, for instance, weren't written for at least 4 hundred years after his life." And, "Consider the secular example of Hannibal crossing the Alps to attack Rome, for which there are two historically incompatible and irreconcilable accounts. Yet no classical historian doubts the fact that Hannibal did mount such a campaign." So the amount of historical evidence for Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is something that historical scholars basically drool over.

"It's no good falling back on science as having disproved the possibility of resurrection. Any real scientist will tell you that science observes what normally happens; the Christian case is precisely that what happened to Jesus is not what normally happens. For my part, as a historian I prefer the elegant, essentially simple solution rather than the one that fails to include all the data: to say that the early Christians believed that Jesus had been bodily raised from the dead, and to account for this belief by saying that they were telling the truth."

One final thought regarding our court system:

Regarding the law, the criminal justice system in the United States is based upon moral principles which Moses thousands of years ago reported to be given directly to him from God, in the form of the Ten Commandments. Even to this day, before a person testifies under a court of law in the US, they must first swear on the Bible to "Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

Furthermore, if people across the world were to embrace the 2 main teachings of Jesus - love The Lord your God above all else and love one another as you love yourselves - I believe that this world would would hardly need any other laws. Note that those 2 teachings of Jesus are an incredibly simplified version of the Ten Commandments, because for some reason people appear to have a very difficult time trying to follow many different rules all at once. Before Jesus came to earth, there were more than 600 laws of Moses! Yet Jesus simplified all of those rules with his 2 main commandments which are based on love.

Video with a whole lot of defense of Christianity in under 8 minutes - impressive!!

Also recommended for further reading:

"The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel

"Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis

Buy yourself a copy of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist!!!

Additional videos on Christian Apologetics:

The A, B, Cs, Ds, & Es of Defending the Gospel, by Dr. Mike Licona

• Discusses well known contentions about the validity of the Bible's alleged authorship, bias, contradictions, dating, and eyewitness testimony

The Search for the Real Mt Sinai

Video on The Bible's Hidden Messages - Torah Codes (Chuck Missler)

• this shows how the Bible is a supernatural book

For more information, see the section on Atheism versus Creationism

Apologetics simply means: the study of the defense of Christianity. All Christians should be able to defend their faith, but some are professionals at it, such as C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel, Dr. Mike Licona, and Dr. Gary Habermas. Let’s look at what these experts in apologetics have to say.