Is the historical Jesus the Jesus of the Bible?
"The technique of examining all of the evidence before conclusions are drawn is required by the proper use of inductive research methodology. Accordingly, such an approach is utilized not only in physics, but in such varied disciplines as law, medical science, criminal justice, and journalism. Historians also investigate the known facts to find whether an event actually happened or not."
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"Conclusions that are drawn before and against the facts are both non-historical and non-scientific. To rule out the possibility of miracles a priori is not a valid procedure. We must investigate the evidence and then draw our conclusions."
"History, like all inductive disciplines, is based on weighing the evidence derived from the sources before a decision is made. Historians must examine their data to ask whether an event actually occurred, in spite of the doubts that might be raised."
"Since it is claimed that miracles have happened in space-time history, they can be investigated as such."
"Scholars ought not reject the possibility of an event before an investigation. Such a priori dismissals constitute improper historical methodology, even if we dislike the conclusion indicated by the data."
"The issue is not a battle of how many scholars hold these positions, but the reasons behind their views."
"The question is not how many scholars hold such-and-such a view, or what trends have dominated intellectual thought, or even how surveys tell us the majority of people think. The real issue is what the data tell us about the Jesus of history."
"While knowledge is indeed integrated, research paths are multiple, and each discipline has its own strengths."
"While some believe that we know almost nothing about Jesus from ancient, non-New Testament sources, this is plainly not the case. Not only are there many such sources, but Jesus is one of the persons of ancient history concerning whom we have a significant amount of quality data. His is one of the most mentioned and most substantiated lives is ancient times."
"Paul reminds us that, apart from a historical Gospel, there is no basis for faith whatsoever, since it would be vain and groundless (1 Cor 15:1-20)...Without a historical core of knowledge concerning Jesus, Christianity would have little initial impetus to encourage faith in an otherwise unknown person."
"Paul's traditional material was obtained from witnesses so close to the original events that anyone who would charge that Paul was mistaken regarding the apostolic nature of the Gospel message must hear the burden of proof."
"That Paul was converted to the Christian faith is not denied. Yet such a drastic turnaround—from being an exceptional young scholar and chief persecutor of the church to an apostle—certainly demands an adequate explanation."
"As a result of early and eyewitness testimony, the Christian teachings concerning the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus are open to historical testing."
"The importance of the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff. can hardly be overestimated. No longer can it be charged that there is no demonstrable early, eyewitness testimony for the resurrection or for the other most important tenets of Christianity, for this creed provides just such evidential data concerning the facts of the gospel, which are the very center of the Christian faith."
"Paul shows just how much he values the historical facts concerning Jesus' resurrection appearances when he points out that, if they are not true, then there are absolutely no grounds for any distinctly Christian faith (1 Cor 15:12-19)."
"Not only had Paul personally seen the risen Christ, but his testimony concerning the facts of the gospel agreed with that of the apostolic eyewitnesses."
"Jesus taught in Palestine and was crucified and buried in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate...Could Christianity have survived in this location, based on its central claim that Jesus was raised from the dead, if his tomb had not been empty?"
"The Gospels are unanimous in their claims that women were the earliest witnesses to the empty sepulcher. This is a powerful indication of the authenticity of the report, since a women's testimony was generally disallowed in a law court, especially on crucial matters. To use women as the central witnesses in such a case would be intellectual suicide, unless they really were the first witnesses."
"That the tomb in which Jesus was buried was later discovered to be empty does not prove that Jesus's body had been raised, but it does strengthen the case for the resurrection. For one thing, it makes it much more difficult to formulate naturalistic theories. For another, it points in the direction of a physical event."
"The city of Jerusalem is absolutely the last geographical location the disciples would preach the resurrection if Jesus's grace was still occupied. Anything other than an empty tomb would have made the resurrection message a moot point."
"If the disciples stole the body [of Jesus], they would not have been willing to die, in all probability, for a known lie or fraud. Liars do not make good martyrs."
"There is no good reason why [the Gospel writers] would pervert the historical in order to preserve the spiritual when both were so important and even complemented one another."
"Transformations often occur even based on false causes, but there is a qualitative difference here. It is generally acknowledged that almost anyone who is willing to die for something genuinely believes in that cause. But the chief similarities stop here. Jesus's disciples suffered not only for their belief in a cause, but precisely because they thought they had seen Jesus after his death. In short, their transformation was not simply due to their beliefs, as is the case for those who live and die for other causes, but was expressly based on their experience with the risen Jesus. Without the resurrection experience, there would have been no transformation."
"There is no known case of mythical deity in the mystery religions where we have both clear and early evidence that a resurrection was taught prior to the late second century AD, obviously much later than the Christian message."
"Myths cannot provide the direct cause for the resurrection appearances to the disciples, for these occurrences were real experiences linked to historical facts and not legendary parallels."
"When the earliest Gnostic Gospels were being written in the mid to late second century AD, at least the teachings of Jesus as presented in the canonical Gospels had already circulated for quite awhile and had been well established as Scripture."
"The trustworthiness of the Gospels follows from the earlier dating of the Gospels, especially if we can show that the writers were those who were either eyewitnesses or still in a position to know the truthfulness of their report."
"Despite [the] complaint that history is written by the victors, the four Gospels, in particular, were certainly not 'forced' into the New Testament canon. Rather, there are fitting reasons why the biblical Gospels were the 'victors' — the facts indicate that these writings are simply better-attested sources for the teachings of Jesus."
"It should be pointed out that these latter, critical facts, were not accepted in this chapter simply because the critics also accept them, but because they are established by the facts, such as by the creeds that we investigated in this chapter and by the work of careful historical methodology. Thus, critical scholars should not object to this data, since it is both validated by their methods and accepted by their cohorts."
"If the Gospels are judged according to the standards of ancient historiography in terms of data and reliability on issues that can be compared to other known data, they measure well and ought to be accepted as good sources for historical information about Jesus."
"If a careful investigation fails to provide a satisfactory explanation, and the conditions warrant the possibility of the miraculous, then we should be willing to check the feasibility of supernatural causation, as well. While supernatural causation is not the initial option, it may still become the most likely scenario. But to continually refuse to consider miracles as real possibilities, or to assert that nature only allows natural events, constitutes an a priori rejection."
"Christian preaching is not useless, and faith in Christ is not in vain. Proclaiming the truth about God raising Christ is not false testimony. Since Christ has been raised, our faith is not in vain and forgiveness of sins can be a reality. As a result, saints who have died in Christ indeed do have hope. And life does have much meaning, both in this world and the future."
All these quotes were gleaned from Habermas' books "The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence For The Life of Christ" and "The Risen Jesus and Future Hope". Click or tap the titles for my chapter-by-chapter reviews of the books. I highly recommend these books along with Habermas' other excellent works on the historical Jesus at his site GaryHabermas.com.
Check out these other posts on the historical Jesus:
