In his book, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, Michael Licona argues that there are three facts regarding Jesus' life which are "historical bedrock" and thus must be explained by any hypothesis hoping to account for Christian origins. These three facts are:
- Jesus died by crucifixion
- After Jesus' death, the disciples had experiences of Jesus that led them to believe and proclaim the Jesus had been resurrected and had appeared to them.
- Paul converted to Christianity after an experience that he interpreted as an appearance of Jesus.
In this post, we'll examine some of the arguments for these points to see why scholars give such high probability to their truth.
Jesus died by crucifixion
Licona lays out multiple reasons why the crucifixion of Jesus has gained such wide support: multiple independent attestation by early sources, evidence from the passion narratives, and the implausibility of surviving Roman crucifixion.
Multiple independent ancient sources
The very earliest Christian literature - the Pauline epistles - refer to the crucifixion in all of Paul's undisputed letters (with the exception of Philemon), each of the four canonical gospels attests to it, Josephus in the refers to it (18.3.3)1, Mara bar Separion refers to the event, Tacitus stating that "Chrestus, from whom [Christianity was named], suffered the most extreme penalty" shows his knowledge of the death of Jesus while possibly alluding to his crucifixion by calling it "the most extreme penalty," additionally, Lucian referred to his crucifixion and death in Palestine. This provides a wide swath of testimony from the ancient world, Christian, Jewish, and pagan, all attesting to the death of Jesus.
Many of these sources are also very early. What is key here is that the less time between the event and our records of it, the more reliable the report. Paul is writing in the 50's, and the source behind the Gospels, Q, was written about this time attesting to it as well. Additionally, scholars widely maintain that Paul's report in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 goes back to the early months after Jesus' death and is likely the oldest creedal statement in Christianity.2
The Passion Narratives
The passion narratives by and large have a number of marks for historical authenticity. When looking at historical documents it is important to critically examine one's sources to attempt to identify areas where embellishment may be taking place. For the passion stories in the Gospels, we find evidence of authenticity from areas such as the criterion of embarrassment which lends credibility to events which are embarrassing to the authors or the community that propagates the material. Embarrassing facts are more likely to be expunged, or in the case of fabrication, not included at all. An example of this is the prominent role of the women in the narratives, particularly at the climax when they discover the empty tomb. To modern readers, this is hardly scandalous, but in the highly patriarchal society of first century Palestine, women were widely considered to be unreliable witnesses, so much so that their testimony was inadmissible in legal proceedings. As such, the criterion of embarrassment lends credibility to the women discovering the empty tomb of Jesus.
With regards to the passion narratives, there are numerous embarrassing details such as Jesus' crucifixion with thieves; honor being shown to Jesus by Joseph of Arimithea - a member of the Sadducees, the group who had Jesus killed - not by his disciples who scattered, by his burial; and death on a cross like a common criminal just to name a few.3
Jesus died by crucifixion
Crucifixion was a brutal and painful way to die. Although it took some time to die, once it began, it was all but inevitable. Josephus records the only example in the extant ancient literature where someone survives. In this case, three friends were crucified and Josephus pleads to have them removed and provided medical attention. Despite their best efforts only one of the three survive the ordeal. As a result, those who argue that Jesus survived are few and far between in the scholarly community.
There are no other narratives for Jesus' death coming out of the ancient world to explain Jesus death. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, any other hypothesis is pure speculation.
Post mortem appearances
After his death, Jesus' disciples reported that Jesus had appeared to them and they traveled throughout the Roman world and elsewhere proclaiming this. Discussions of the nature of the appearances themselves will be set aside for now, so rather than focusing on what they saw, we will discuss the evidence that they saw something.
Perhaps the most important passage is the aforementioned creedal statement found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 which lists a series of witnesses, from Peter and the other disciples to 500 witnesses, James, and finally to Paul himself. This creed captures the core of the earliest Christian belief which would be passed on and repeated to others, confessing belief in Jesus' death, resurrection, and appearances. The 500 is interesting because Paul notes that most of them are still alive but some have passed away. This is issued as a challenge to his audience in Corinth to go and ask the people who are witnesses, to talk with the people that they are already familiar with and corroborate Paul's story.
Appearances are reported in the Gospels and Acts, and motivated the apostles to spread Christianity. The apostles were martyred and persecuted for their belief in Jesus and his resurrection, but there are no traditions of them ever recanting or wavering in their testimony. They clearly believed they saw Jesus, that they had an encounter with him after his death.
Paul's conversion
The most detailed accounts of Paul's conversion experience come from Luke's second book, Acts. Paul provides biographical details in Galatians 1:12-23 where he portrays himself as a rising star among the Jewish Pharisees having studied under a well-known Rabbi and being zealous for the Jewish faith, going so far as to persecute the earliest Christian believers. By every appearance, Paul seemed content in his pre-Christian life and this is reiterated in his Philippians 3:6-7.
Paul states God, "was pleased to reveal Christ to me" (Galatians 1:16). His dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus is provided in two accounts in (9:1-9 and 22:6-11) as well. The result of Paul's experience radically altered his life, changing him from one who was persecuting the Christians to one who was being persecuted for being a Christian. His missionary work saw him imprisoned, beaten, stoned, and eventually executed for his belief and proclamation of that belief.
Conclusion
Here we looked at three, minimal facts that have a wide consensus and strong supporting historical evidence to get a glimpse at why they have such strong scholarly support. No explanation for the facts was provided here, simply a discussion of what must be accounted for by any viable historical hypothesis.
- This is the infamous passage in The Antiquities of the Jews known as the Testimonium Flavium which likely contains later Christian interpolations. This does not however entail that the entirety of the passage must be redacted as many scholars have worked at trimmings and reworkings of the text which are consistent with views that were held by Josephus (for example, the fact that he was not a Christian himself) without doing damage to the text such that the authentic portions may be retained. This position is the majority view over and against those who maintain that it was entirely forged or entirely authentic. For an example of a reconstruction and further discussion, see John Meier's A Marginal Jew.
- For more see James Dunn's work Jesus Remembered for a discussion of the history of this passage.
- It is interesting to note that many later writings such as found in the Gnostic texts omitted many of these features, most notably death on the cross itself.