CRJ: Class 4 Recap

Our fourth meeting was on March 25th, 2016 at Mt. Zion UMC where we did went over six things: The quiz Class changes Who did Jesus think he was? Heavenly vision or bodily resurrection? The Trinity (spontaneous discussion) The Resurrection hypothesis

The Quiz This was our third quiz and it was the shortest so far with only five questions plus one bonus question. A few people got 6/5 including the overall leader for the second week in a row, MIT! Others are only a few points away and so the final champion could be any one. But, we only the final cumulative quiz left!

Class Changes We’re changing up the last couple weeks of class. Here is a summary of the changes. Skype call with J. Warner Wallace moved from April 17th to March 31st Chapter 10 moved from March 31st to March 24th Chapter 8 moved from March 24th to April 7th Final cumulative quiz on April 7th Skipping chapters 12-13 No class on April 14th The reason for the changes are due to scheduling changes with J. Warner Wallace and a general desire to reorganize the content. I thought it made more sense to move some chapters around and then realized that some content (chapters 12-13) can be skipped for now. But, regarding chapter 13, “The art of sharing” I recommended Greg Koukl’s Tactics as an excellent resource to learn how to maneuver in conversations about the resurrection when you (hopefully) strike up discussions with others! The updated syllabus can be found here.

Who did Jesus think he was? As we get ready to analyze the resurrection hypothesis, we want to find out who Jesus was. Why? Because we need to know the historical and religious context of the person that has supposedly been raised from the dead. There’s a huge difference between the claim that some random, unknown person was raised from the dead compared to the claim that a person who acted and talked like he was God, performed miracles, and was killed for blasphemous claims of being God was raised from the dead. Context matters. To do this scholars look at titles Jesus used to refer to himself and also analyze how he acted. So we looked at the titles “Son of Man”, “Son of God” and then implicit claims to divinity. Son of Man This is the title Jesus most often uses to refer to himself and even the most skeptical scholars agree that it is authentic. Its authenticity is supported by: Dissimilarity: appears only 3 times in NT outside of Gospels and only 3 times in Consistent: found in all Gospels Does not appear to be theological evolution: seems to emphasize Jesus’ humanity But what does this term mean? It could just be a way of saying he was human (though this would be an odd way to say that). Actually scholars believe Jesus meant something more. They say that Jesus was referring to himself as the divine Son of Man as professed by Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7:13-14). There we read about a “Son of Man” with divine authority and then Jesus affirms this self-reference in his response to the high priest’s accusation (Mark 14:60-64). You know it’s shocking because the high priest’s reaction is to demand Jesus’ death for blasphemy! Son of God This title could be a generic title of leadership and general authority. But Jesus understood himself to be the “Son of God” in an exclusive and divine way. We mentioned three examples of this claim and some reasons why these are considered historically authentic. Jesus refers to self as Son of God while claiming ignorance of his return (Mark 13:32) Embarrassment: says Jesus doesn’t know something! Jesus refers to self as Son of God when talking about knowing the Father and Son (Matt 11:27; Luke 10:22) Embarrassment: says Son is unknowable to followers Multiple, independent accounts Goes back to early Aramaic (in “Q” sayings) Jesus refers to self as Son of God when teaching parable of wicked tenants of the vineyard (Mark 12:1-9) Independent accounts: also in skeptic’s favorite Gospel of Thomas Historical fit with actual actions and images Dissimilarity: concern over who should possess the vineyard (symbol for Israel) after its taken away is non-issue for later church Another example of Jesus using “Son of God” to mean that he has divine authority is in Mark 13:32, ““But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” There he lists groups in a hierarchy from humans, to angels, to the Son, then the Father. Thus he is putting himself in a divine position above humans and angels. Implicit claims Jesus’ implicit claims to authority are most startling to me. He does and says things that only God should do and say and therefore thought of himself as God. Here are some examples: Preaching the kingdom (and guess who’s king!) Teaching authority (e.g. “Truly, I say to you…”, “You’ve heard it said… but I say…”) Exorcisms Claim to forgive sins Miracles People judged based on their attitude towards him (Luke 12:8-9) For these reasons scholars agree that Jesus thought of himself as divine. And so it’s in that context that we must consider the resurrection hypothesis. But first we briefly looked at the question of…

Heavenly vision or bodily resurrection? We quickly breezed through this topic because we were running low on time. I’ll refer you to chapter 9 in the book for details. The challenge here is that critics claim that the original story (as taught by Paul) is that the resurrection was of a non-physical, spiritualized form but then the later writings embellished the story and added the physicality to the resurrection story. What’s at stake here is not the resurrection. That’s agreed. Rather the question is about the form of the resurrection, bodily or spiritual only. Again, I’ll refer you to the book for details on this topic since we didn’t cover it much in class.

The Trinity We did take a bit of a detour to chat about the Trinity but it was a great conversation. This came up as we were talking about the claim “God raised Jesus from the dead.” If Jesus is God, did he raise himself? Responding to this took us into a discussion about God being tri-personal, three persons of the Trinity, which then got us talking about what we really mean about the Trinity.

It was a great discussion and I’ll simply state what the Council of Alexandria of 362 established about the trinity, that there is one being, one substance, one essence, one nature, which is God, but there are three persons, three individuals. Three persons who are the same being and have the same essence. Here is a great diagram about the trinity. It shows that each person is God but each person is not the other.

An important distinction is the difference between statements like “Jesus is God” and “The Trinity is God”. The first is true in the sense that Jesus is divine but should not be meant to identify God (in all) as Jesus. That’s not enough. As an identity statement it is more accurate to say, “The Trinity is God”. God and the Trinity are the same thing. On a lighter note, here’s a humorous video on bad analogies about the Trinity. It features St. Patrick so it’s only slightly past the an appropriate date. (Also check out their video on Richard Dawkins. It is funny and relevant since it concerns the resurrection!)

The Resurrection Hypothesis We ended our meeting by assessing the Christian claim, the resurrection hypothesis made by the first disciples, that “God raised Jesus from the dead”. We assessed it using some criterion that historians (and scientists) generally use to evaluate competing hypotheses. What is its explanatory scope? I.e. How much of the evidence (our minimal facts) does it explain? What is its explanatory power? I.e. If this is true, how likely is the evidence (our minimal facts) to be true? Is it plausible? I.e. Is this hypothesis, on its own, plausible? Is it contrived? I.e. Does it require us to take on any new, unfounded beliefs? Does it require us to give up established beliefs? that “dead men do not rise”? How does it compare to the other competing hypotheses? Explanatory scope: The resurrection hypothesis explains all of our established facts. Explanatory power: All of the facts are very likely and expected if God really did raise Jesus from the dead. For example, the tomb really would be empty! Plausibility: Given the proper context of Jesus’ life, divine claims and actions, and the existence of God, the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead is quite plausible. By comparison, the hallucination hypothesis is highly implausible because, for example, group hallucinations are highly unlikely. Contrived: The only “new” belief that the resurrection hypothesis would require is the belief that God exists. But for the person who already believes in God, there are no new beliefs required. By comparison the guilt theory requires us to take on a new unfounded belief that Paul was morally convicted over persecuting Christians. Giving up established facts: The only possible established fact we may have to give up to support the resurrection hypothesis is that “dead men do not rise.” But that needs to be qualified. “Dead mean do not rise naturally”. We don’t need to give that up. The resurrection claim is that God raised Jesus from the dead supernaturally. Comparison to other competing hypotheses: By comparison, the resurrection hypothesis far and above out performs the competing hypotheses. And so there is very, very good reason to believe the Easter claim that God raised Jesus from the dead!