4.5 Resurrections in other religions

Reading Time: 7 minutes Sceptics like to cite Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Attis and Marduk etc. What makes Jesus’ resurrection more credible?  1. Most accounts tend to be unclear Justin Martyr tried to parallel the resurrection to the Romans in hope to reduce persecution by citing examples like the roman Emperor Augustus’ funeral—someone swore they Read more…

4.2 Is the resurrection the best explanation?

Reading Time: 3 minutes Theories that attempt to refute the resurrection are known as naturalistic explanations because they appeal to the natural rather than supernatural. In the 19th century, liberal scholars rejected the resurrection and provided refutations, however prestigious scholar Karl Barth, a 20th century scholar pointed out how each opposing theory suffers from Read more…

4.1 Opposing theories

Reading Time: 2 minutes Introduction  Given these 5 facts we’ve discussed, we now want to compare and contrast the various explanations for them. We want to do what the doctor did in explaining the symptoms. Any good doctor is going to pick a diagnosis that explains all the symptoms, not just a couple. We Read more…

3.8 Conclusion

Reading Time: 2 minutes Conclusion So what do these five facts mean then after all of this? Well we’ve put to one side, for the sake of argument, the inspiration and inerrancy of the bible, just valued them as historical documents that sceptical scholars accept, so I’m deliberately using sceptical data to make it Read more…

3.6 Fact 5. Jesus was buried (Part 1)

Reading Time: 7 minutes Introduction This is a fact that is accepted by nearly all scholars and an impressive majority of sceptical scholars. Gary Habermas discovered in a large survey that roughly 75% of scholars accept the empty tomb as a historical fact (our other four facts have a 90-99% acceptance rate).  Prominent critical Read more…