Can I Prove the Resurrection?

Can I prove that Jesus rose from the dead? Facts of history are often hard to prove. How is it that we know that Hannibal crossed the alps? Well, from two historians testimonies: Polybius (a Greek historian), and Livy (a Roman historian). These accounts are riddled with contradictions-but both agree that Hannibal did cross the alps with a truckload of elephants. They meet a historical criteria called the criteria of independent attestation. That is, when two sources, independently written, attest to a singular event, that event is more likely to have occurred.
                I use the word likely. That's because historians deal in probabilities. It's possible that actually, Hannibal crossed the alps with a truckload of alien monsters that looked like elephants. However, that's just highly improbable, so as to be a ridiculous option for any thinking person. When we come to Jesus, new testament scholars use similar criteria to evaluate his life, his historical context, etc. Those who deny Jesus's existence are on the radical fringe (in fact, no "mythicist" holds a teaching job of history at any accredited university. Not one. Yikes)-and the vast majority of historians, be them atheist, agnostic, Jewish, or liberal "Christian" (I use that term lightly), think that we can know some stuff about him. So the next few blog posts will be my attempts to demonstrate that the Resurrection is as historically likely as Hannibal crossing the alps, or the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans in AD70. The first issue I need to get out of the way is this: did the disciples just lie about it?
               No historian thinks that the disciples lied-virtually all historians that have studied the issue since the early 18th century have agreed that the disciples sincerely believed what they were preaching. However, you will find this idea to hold sway among many internet atheists. Why is that? Well-they simply haven't given it much thought. 
                When you consider a historical claim, you must consider that claim against the context of its history. For example, if I were to say "Albert Einstein was a bad man because he left Germany and became famous in America. He forsook Germany for fame"-that would be entirely untrue. If I proceeded to make sweeping generalities about how men often do selfish things for glory, and then project those reflections onto Einstein, I'd come across as a moron. Why? Einstein left because he was on tour in America, and couldn't go back because Hitler took power, and Einstein was of Jewish descent. 
              So when you think about the disciples, it will not do to say "lots of people claim wack-job things they don't really believe for glory." The moment we project such a reflection onto the disciples, we play the role of the ignorant dude who makes the above claim about Einstein. So what was the disciples specific context?
              First, we must understand what "Resurrection" meant in a first century Jewish worldview, and an ancient worldview in general. "Resurrection" was not a way of saying "little Timmy's body lies in the grave but his soul goes marching on". It was always a way of talking about a return to life. The Pharisees believed that Resurrection was corporate; that is, it was something that was supposed to happen to everyone at the end of the world, not one person ahead of everyone else. This is well documented through Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, and early interactions between Christians and Jews.
             Secondly, the ancient pagan world categorically denied that resurrection was possible. Just read Homer, where the view of the after life is a life in Hades. In Platonic versions, the soul escapes the flesh and goes off to a world of unembodied bliss (sadly, many Christians have picked up on that vision, which is simply un-Biblical). The Epicureans believed that the god or gods were way out "there"-they never interacted with our world, and simply let man go about his own business. Democritus believed that all that existed was atoms...like a modern materialist. I could go on and on. Simply put, the ancient Greek world in which the early Christians were surrounded by denied that resurrection happened. The Jews who believed in Resurrection believed that it would happen to all of God's people at the end of the world, not one person ahead of everyone else. That's why the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the early church in Corinth, says that the Cross is "folly to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews" (1 Corinthians 1:23). On both the Jewish side and the Gentile side, the Christian doctrine of resurrection was seen as absurd. 
              A word about Messianic movements. Jesus wasn't the only ancient Jew to make Messianic claims or cast a Messianic vision. We know of several movements on either side of Jesus. To list one movement, Simon bar Kochba revolted against the Romans after they had destroyed Jerusalem. He had excited hopes about himself that he was the Messiah. He, like all Messianic figures before him, was publicly executed in a triumphal procession, where soldiers would whip him and at the end, kill him. Messianic movements had a common pattern: either the movement disbanded, or the adherents found a new Messiah. In the dozens of the Messianic movements on either side of Jesus, there was no case in which the adherents continued to champion their founder as Messiah. There's a very good reason for that.
             Ask yourself: what is the point of crucifying people? The crucifixion of Jesus is something virtually all historians agree about (like, 99% in the words of agnostic new testament scholar Bart Ehrman...certainly no friend of Christianity). When a criminal or someone who presented some sort of threat to Roman rule was crucified, it intimidated Rome's subjects into submission. The message implied was this: if you follow in the footsteps of this dude, you will be crushed. So it was with all Messianic figures. The execution of the founder strongly discouraged the followers of the figure from continuing.
             Finally, let's take a look at the context of persecution that existed around the early Christian community. It is a known fact that Nero blamed a fire in Rome on the Christians, and that incited persecution. It is also a known fact that Pliny the Younger, a Roman historian, records the persecution of Christians (they were killed unless they admitted they rejected the Christian faith). Even earlier than that, we have evidence of persecution right from the church itself. Paul, before he was a Christian, used to persecute the early church. We know this because he presupposes that the readers of his letters have heard about his life as a Christian-killing Pharisee! (Galatians 1:13, 1 Corinthians 15).
            So let's think this through. When we turn to the early disciples, what do we find? We need only use a bit of historical imagination. When Jesus had been killed, that seemed to demonstrate that Jesus wasn't the Messiah. Messianic expectations were of a figure who would overthrow Israel's enemies, not get crushed by them! We know that from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and from the messianic figure in Daniel 7, as well as God's promises to establish his kingdom through the Davidic king in Isaiah 9, among many other passages.
          To a society where resurrection was just as absurd to them as it is to us, is it rational to expect that the disciples made up belief in the resurrection? Would they really say "let's continue the movement by claiming that Jesus rose from the dead, even though that's absurd to our listeners, even though that will tick off the Jewish authorities, even though that's unpopular with the Gentiles, and even though we are setting ourselves up for some serious persecution and imprisonment"? Would the disciples really embrace the persecution that would arise from claiming Jesus rose from the dead-especially in light of the fact that they're getting nothing from it?
           Consider their situations in life. Most of them were Jewish peasants who were content with their relatively peaceful lives. They had nothing material to gain from claiming Jesus was risen from the dead. That wouldn't have gained them popularity, as the Gentiles thought that was stupid, and the Jews thought that was blasphemous and slanderous against God. It didn't gain them money, because the early Christians often were beaten, imprisoned, and didn't have access to a whole lot. No one would have paid them for preaching such an absurd idea anyway. The financial support they got from churches was provided for the spread of the Gospel-more church plants.
          So if one is to maintain that the disciples were insincere in their belief, they must maintained that the disciples willingly embraced persecution, mockery, insult, imprisonment, and for many, death, all to champion a belief that was absurd to their culture, knowing that their lives would be a heck of a lot harder because of this belief. Is this rational?
         Maybe they just wanted to continue the memory of their friend. Sorry, this doesn't work either. What they may have said is: "God has exalted him among the martyrs." That may have actually been helpful in honoring Jesus. But they didn't say that. They claimed he was risen from the dead, and was the Messiah. This sets Jesus up for the obvious critique: a Messiah wasn't supposed to get crushed by the enemy. Where was God's reign through the Messiah? Where was the establishment of Israel? By their standards, Jesus was a horrible Messiah. That wouldn't honor Jesus's name-that claim would've set him up for ridicule.
          Maybe they wanted to gain fame. This doesn't work either, for all the aforementioned reasons. Claiming that Jesus rose from the dead would've brought them shame in the Jewish culture, and ridicule by the Gentiles (indeed, it did. Paul spent a good amount of time debating Epicureans and their ilk!). Maybe they wanted a sense of community that's characteristic of church. That doesn't work either-they had a strong sense of community as Jews. Israel was built off of that sense of tight-knit community.
           So again, if one wants to maintain that the disciples lied, then they have to maintain that the disciples decided to preach a doctrine that was ridiculed by their culture (when they knew it was a lie), all for the glory of being beaten, mocked, looked at as fools, imprisoned, faced with opposition from the Jewish elite and the Gentile law, and killed (as following such a figure and claiming such things entailed the strong possibility of death). They were willing to do all these things, to make their lives THAT much harder, spending countless years toiling to plant churches in spite of opposition, knowing that they would either die by old age under harsh conditions, or die by execution, and knowing that they got nothing materially out of it?
          And look at Paul. Paul was a Pharisee-which means he was part of the Jewish elite of his day. That means he had authority-he persecuted the church! Are we really to believe that Paul surrendered this authority to embrace a doctrine he once thought was absurd (and evidently, knew was absurd because he supposedly didn't believe it), embrace imprisonment, embrace hardship, set himself up against his fellow Jews (that in itself embracing the possibility of death), embrace public whippings (which he received), all for the glory of leading a burdened life rewarded by non-existence?
         Suppose we object: Paul wanted do it because he was thinking about how he would be received in future generations. Assuming Paul knows what he's preaching is BS, then this couldn't have been the case. The culture was predominantly hostile to Paul's gospel. They revolted against the idea of Resurrection. He would've been seen as crazy. Unless Paul had a reason to believe that the church would thrive (and the only reason he would have to believe that is if he believed Jesus actually rose from the dead-otherwise, from Paul's point of view, he knows he's fostering an idiotic belief that people will get persecuted and killed for), then he wouldn't have preached such a gospel for future fame or whatever.
         Rather, as a Pharisee, Paul gave it all up for the sake of being mistreated with God's people in Christ. Why? If we say Paul lied about it to, we're saying that Paul gave up his societal position of high standing all to be beat up, imprisoned, mocked, etc. He gave up his privileges as a Pharisee to embrace the persecution that came with holding such an absurd belief, and devoted his life to planting churches centered around an event Paul thought never really happened-even though he got no benefit from it, and his position as a Pharisee was (from a materialistic sense) better than his position as a Christian. I think that's utter nonsense. In the words of Paul himself: "What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
(1 Corinthians 15:32 ESV)

This is why the position that the disciples were insincere isn't a credible position among academia. It's simply nonsense. If a terrorist blows himself up, he clearly believes what he's dying for. If a Buddhist priest burns himself in Vietnam to protest a war, he clearly believes in Buddhism. If the disciples proclaimed a belief they knew would get them mocked, shunned from their community, persecuted, and killed, they clearly believed it was true. You can say they hallucinated-many New Testaments scholars go that route. That's riddled with problems, but more on that later. What's clear is that the disciples genuinely believed Jesus rose from the dead. I will build on this to make my case as I make more posts.