The Case for the Real Jesus

by Lee Strobel

  Even skeptics know that a lot is banking on the answer, as I saw in my interview with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. We met in the living room of his opulent Los Angeles mansion, Hefner clad in his trademark pajamas and silk smoking jacket, to discuss matters of faith for a television program. He professed a minimal belief in God, as a word for “the beginning of it all” and the “great unknown,” but not in the God of Christianity, which he called “a little too childlike for me.”

  Then I brought up Jesus’ resurrection. “If one had any real evidence that, indeed, Jesus did return from the dead, then that is the beginning of a dropping of a series of dominoes that takes us to all kinds of wonderful things,” he told me. “It assures an afterlife and all kinds of things that we would all hope are true.”

  Even though by his own admission he had never studied the historical evidence for Jesus returning to life, Hefner remained a doubter. “Do I think that Jesus was the Son of God?” he asked. “I don’t think that he is any more the Son of God than we are.”

  That is, unless the resurrection is true. Everything comes down to that. “If Christ has not been raised,” said the apostle Paul, “your faith is futile.”22 Nothing is more important in determining the identity of the real Jesus. The cross either unmasked him as a pretender or opened the door to a supernatural resurrection that has irrevocably affirmed his divinity.

  I picked up the telephone to call one of the emerging authorities on the resurrection of Jesus, whose provocative books include an imaginary debate on the issue between the apostle Paul and the prophet Muhammad. I invited him over to my house for a chat. Once and for all, I was determined to get to the truth about the most current challenges to this cornerstone doctrine.

  INTERVIEW #3: MICHAEL LICONA, M.A., PH.D. (CAND.)

  Six-foot-three and lanky, Michael Licona was once a second-degree black belt and award-winning instructor in tae kwon do, a modern Korean martial art that is a lethal form of one-on-one combat. While a ruptured disk has sidelined his fighting in the ring, Licona has morphed into a respected and accomplished participant in another kind of mano a mano contest, this time involving intellectual clashes over the historical claims of Christianity.

  In recent years, during his extensive travels to university campuses and appearances on national television and radio programs, he has debated such formidable opponents as Shabir Ally, the fierce defender of Islam; atheistic street-fighter Dan Barker; up-and-coming skeptic Richard Carrier; and liberal professor Elaine Pagels of Princeton.

  Licona’s expertise as a New Testament historian centers on the resurrection of Jesus. His thesis for his master’s degree in religious studies dealt with the resurrection, while his dissertation toward a doctorate in New Testament from the University of Pretoria in South Africa uses historical methodologies to assess the evidence for Jesus returning from the dead.

  Licona was mentored by Habermas, with whom he coauthored the award-winning 2004 book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Historian Paul Maier said the book’s response to naturalistic explanations for the resurrection “are the most comprehensive treatment of the subject anywhere.”23 Philosopher J. P. Moreland said the book presented what “may be the most thorough defense of the historicity of the resurrection.”24

  Using his impressive knowledge of Islam, Licona later crafted a fascinating book called Paul Meets Muhammad: A Christian-Muslim Debate on the Resurrection, in which he envisions the Christian apostle and the founder of Islam in an intellectual showdown over this key tenet of Christianity. Licona also has been published in the Review of Biblical Literature and contributed to The Big Argument: Twenty-four Scholars Explore How Science, Archaeology, and Philosophy Have Proven the Existence of God. He even used the format of a novel, titled Cross Examined, to creatively present evidence for the resurrection.

  Licona’s own faith was sharpened by a period of doubt that he went through at the end of his graduate studies in 1985. His questions about the veracity of Christianity nearly prompted him to jettison the beliefs he had held since the age of ten. Instead, however, his renewed investigation of the evidence for Christianity and a number of other major world religions, as well as his in-depth study of atheism, ended up solidifying his conviction that Christianity rests on a firm historical foundation.

  Since 2005, Licona has been the director of apologetics and interfaith evangelism for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, where he trains leaders, develops resources, and consults on world religions, cults, and apologetics.

  Licona stopped by my house near the Santa Ana Mountains, settling into a couch in my family room while I sat down in a couch adjacent to him. California sunshine poured through the windows. He was casually dressed in blue jeans without a belt and a blue button-down shirt with thin white stripes. His brown hair was cropped short, like an athlete’s, and he spoke enthusiastically in crisp and complete sentences. Although Licona has a pleasant and friendly demeanor, his eyes appear ever-sharp and observant, seemingly ready to detect any errant thought or lapse in logic.

  Before we began, he set up his laptop computer, loaded with sophisticated historical research tools, on the coffee table in front of him—just in case.

  THE HISTORIAN AND THE RESURRECTION

  I didn’t waste any time in launching into my initial line of questions about how historians can investigate an ancient—and supposedly supernatural—event like Jesus returning from the dead.

  “Isn’t it true that a miracle like the resurrection is actually outside the purview of historians to investigate?” I asked. “Ehrman said: ‘Because historians can only establish what probably happened, and a miracle of this nature is highly improbable, the historian cannot say it probably occurred.’”25

  Licona’s eyes didn’t break contact with mine. “I’m afraid I totally disagree with him,” he said with conviction.

  “On what grounds?” I asked.

  “If someone says Jesus rose from the dead by natural causes—well, of course, that would be the least probable explanation,” he replied, dismissing the notion with a wave of his hand. “But nobody is claiming that. Rather, the claim is that God raised Jesus from the dead. And if God exists and he wants to raise Jesus from the dead, then I would think that could be the most probable explanation. It really comes down to a person’s worldview: Is he or she going to allow for the existence of God and the possibility that he could raise someone from the dead?”

  I tried a different approach. “Is there any way to compute the probability of the resurrection in mathematical terms?” I asked.

  Licona considered the question for a moment. “You’d have to use Bayes’ Theorem, which is a complicated mathematical equation that determines probabilities,” he said. “But there are problems with that.”

  “For example?”

  “Bayes’ Theorem requires that you plug certain background knowledge into the equation, such as the probability that God would want to raise Jesus from the dead. I’m sure you’d agree that probabilities like that are inscrutable.”

  I nodded. “So you can’t say with mathematical certainty whether Jesus’ resurrection is probable or improbable,” I observed.

  “That’s right. Mathematically speaking, Ehrman has no grounds to claim that the resurrection is ‘highly improbable.’”

  “Then this is really a worldview issue.”

  “Yes, it is. Even philosopher Antony Flew, when he was an atheist, said the resurrection is enormously more likely if God exists. Frankly, if we look at the totality of the evidence, I think it’s certainly more likely than not that God does exist. And if he does, then he could certainly have raised Jesus from the dead.”

  “But some historians rule out the possibility of the supernatural at the outset,” I pointed out. “James Tabor, for instance, says you can’t have a virgin birth, so therefore Mary was either raped or had an affair. He says you can’t have a resurrection, so there must be some naturalistic explanation for it. Is that legitimate?” />
  “No, it’s not,” he shot back, politely but firmly. “Tabor is using not only a methodological naturalism, where you can’t consider the supernatural, but he’s going further into a metaphysical naturalism, which says this can’t happen. He says historians have to look at things scientifically and therefore they can’t consider the divine. Therefore, he says women cannot conceive children without a natural father. Well, how does he know that? That’s metaphysical naturalism, or excluding the supernatural at the outset.”

  “Yet if a historian allows for the possibility of the miraculous, doesn’t that throw history up for grabs?” I asked. “You could invoke a miraculous explanation for all kinds of things that happened in the past.”

  “No, because you have to apply historical criteria to determine the best explanation for what occurred,” Licona said. He quickly thought of an illustration. “For example, Aesop’s fables describe animals talking in ancient Greece. Well, did they talk or didn’t they?”

  I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. “Okay,” I said, “how would you assess that?”

  “Well, when we examine the genre of Aesop’s fables, we find that these stories were not meant to be interpreted literally. Besides, there are no credible eyewitness accounts and there’s no corroboration from other sources. So the historian would say there’s no good evidence that Aesop’s fables report actual historical events,” he replied.

  “But regarding Jesus’ resurrection, we find that the Gospels fit into the genre of ancient biographies. We know that ancient biographies were intended to be regarded as history to varying degrees. We’ve got early accounts that can’t be explained away by legendary development, we’ve got multiple independent sources, we’ve got eyewitnesses, and we have a degree of corroboration from outsiders. We’ve also got enemy attestation; that is, affirmation from people like Saul of Tarsus, who was a critic of Christianity until he saw the evidence himself that Jesus had returned from the dead. So weighing the historical criteria, there’s no reason to believe Aesop’s fables are true, but there are good reasons to believe the resurrection happened.”

  Licona had made his point, but I wasn’t ready yet to delve into the specific evidence for the resurrection. There were still preliminary issues to examine. “What’s the standard of proof that historians use in determining the likelihood that the resurrection occurred?” I asked. “Historically speaking, you can’t have a hundred-percent certainty, right?”

  “All that remains of antiquity are ashes,” Licona said. “Philosopher of history Richard Evans of Cambridge says the task of historians is to rake those ashes in order to bring some of them back to life to see what happened in the past. In other words, we have ancient texts, artifacts, and other effects that have come down to us and we try to infer from them what their causes were.

  “It’s like building a window through which we can peer back into the past. Often the window is blurry, with some spots that are clearer than others. That’s why historians of antiquity speak of the probable truth of a theory, rather than absolute certainty. Historical conclusions are like temporary workers waiting to see whether they will one day be awarded a permanent position.”

  “Then all historical hypotheses are provisional,” I observed, more as a summary than a question.

  “That’s right. New evidence might overturn a theory,” came his reply. “For example, when the Titanic sank, some eyewitnesses said it went down intact, whereas others said, no, it split before sinking. Despite the conflicting witnesses, British and American investigations concluded that the Titanic went down intact, based on the preponderance of the evidence at the time. Later, when explorers discovered the sunken Titanic, they found it had indeed broken in two and then sank. That’s a good example of why historians need to hold their theories provisionally.

  “So again, historians of antiquity don’t look for absolute certainty; we look for probable certainty. When a historian says something occurred, he means that given the evidence at our disposal today, this is the best explanation.”

  My mind scrolled through several events of ancient history. “Still,” I said, “you would concede that some historical matters are far better attested than others.”

  “Granted, there’s a continuum of certainty,” he said. “When you have a historical hypothesis that you accept as the best explanation, and it outdistances all competing theories by a significant margin, then we can have more confidence of its truth.”

  “Like the resurrection?”

  He picked up his glass of water and took a sip. “Yes,” he said. “In my opinion, that’s what we have with the resurrection of Jesus.”

  THE HISTORIAN’S THREE R’S

  I remain fascinated by the approach historians take in evaluating the evidence that Jesus returned from the dead. “How would a historian begin investigating something like the resurrection?” I asked.

  Licona put down his water glass, unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, and rolled up his sleeves as if he were getting ready for a lengthy discussion. “You’ve heard of the three R’s of an elementary education: Reading, ’Riting, and ’Rithmetic? Well, there are also three R’s for doing good history: Relevant sources, Responsible method, and Restrained results. First, historians must identify all the relevant sources.”

  “All right,” I said. “What would those be in the case of Jesus?”

  “There are the New Testament writings; a few secular sources who mention Jesus, such as Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger; the apologists, who were early defenders of Christianity; and even the Gnostic writings. We also want to examine the apostolic fathers, who were the next generation after the apostles.”

  “Which of the apostolic fathers are the most significant?” I asked.

  “Clement of Rome is believed to have been a disciple of the apostle Peter, and Polycarp was probably a disciple of John. So their writings can give us a window into what those apostles taught. That’s what makes them particularly valuable,” he said. “Then, once all the relevant sources have been identified, we have to apply responsible method. This means assigning the greatest weight to reports that are early, eyewitness, enemy, embarrassing, and corroborated by others.”

  “And what do you mean by ‘restrained results’?”

  “This means that historians should not claim more than the evidence warrants. This is where such scholars as John Dominic Crossan and Elaine Pagels get on thin ice. Their imaginations are very good—and I mean that in a positive sense—but I believe their methods are sometimes questionable and their results unrestrained. In the end they may experience some embarrassment because their views are founded upon an early dating for the Gospel of Thomas, and in Crossan’s case, the Secret Gospel of Mark. Now it appears Thomas may very well have been written after AD 170 and the Secret Gospel of Mark wasn’t actually composed until the twentieth century! What does that do to their revisionist theories, which rely on a much earlier dating of these sources?”

  Licona’s point was well taken, especially in light of my earlier interview with Craig Evans about “alternative gospels.” At the same time, though, I knew that Licona—as well as all conservative scholars—also bring their own prejudices to the discussion.

  “What about biases?” I said. “You can’t deny that you see the historical evidence through the lenses of your own prejudices.”

  “Absolutely. Nobody is exempt, including theists, deists, atheists, or whatever—we all have our biases, and there’s no way to overcome them,” Licona said. He gestured toward me. “Lee, you’re trained as a journalist. You know that you can try to minimize your biases, but you can’t eliminate them. That’s why you have to put certain checks and balances in place. This is what historian Gary Habermas did in creating what’s called the ‘minimal facts approach’ to the resurrection, which he and I wrote about in our book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus.”

  “How does this help keep biases in check?”

  “Under this approach, we only consider fac
ts 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. You’re never going to get everyone to agree. There are always people who deny the Holocaust or question whether Jesus ever existed, but they’re on the fringe.”

  “History isn’t a vote,” I interjected. “Are you saying people should accept these facts just because a lot of scholars do?”

  “No, 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. Or let me put it another way: your bias could be leading you to a conclusion. But if the evidence is also leading someone with vastly different beliefs toward the same conclusion, then there’s a good chance the conclusion is true. This serves as a check on bias. It’s not foolproof, but it’s very helpful.”

  “How do you know what all these scholars believe about the evidence for the resurrection?”

  “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 that are strongly evidenced and which are regarded as historical by the large majority of scholars, including skeptics. We try to come up with the best historical explanation to account for these facts.

  “It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece represents a historical fact, and we want to put them together in a way that doesn’t leave out any pieces and which doesn’t require you to shove or force any of the pieces to make them fit. In the end, the puzzle creates a picture that’s based on the best explanation for the facts that we have.”

  With that background in place, I issued Licona a challenge. “Use only the minimal facts,” I said, “and let’s see how strong of a case you can build for Jesus rising from the dead.”