An Honest Debate/Whoeveristhirsty.com

Several years ago, Ruth R. Wisse, who was a professor of Yiddish literature at McGill University at the time, called anti-Semitism, “the most durable and successful ideology of the ideology-besotted 20^th century.”  I agree with this; but I would add that anti-Semitism is one of the most durable and successful ideologies of all time.  The success of anti-Semitism over the last 2000 years can be seen in a simple statistic cited by George Will a few years ago, “If the percentage of the world’s population that was Jewish in the era of the Roman Empire were Jewish today, there would be 200 million Jews. There are 13 million.”

Those who study anti-Semitism have noted several strains of the virus. For example, there was a pagan anti-Semitism that predated Christianity, and there was the racial, or blood anti-Semitism of the Third Reich, and there is the Islamic strain, but the most virulent form of the disease, and the one which has done the most harm, is Christian anti-Semitism.

This is odd considering the fact that we worship a Jew whom we believe to be the Jewish Messiah and the fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures. This is odd, considering the fact that all of the apostles were Jewish. This is odd, given the fact that we accept the entire Jewish Bible as our Old Testament. This is odd, given the fact that all but two books of the New Testament were written by Jewish men.  This is odd, that we have persecuted the Jews, nevertheless it is true.  Most of the damage done to the Jewish people in the last 2000 years has been done by Christians in the name of Christ–Christians, who call themselves the New Israel, persecuting those who had the audacity to continue to claim the name of Israel for themselves.

So, where did this hatred come from?  The answer to this question has to begin with an acknowledgment that there has been hostility between these two great religions from the very beginning. It should also be noted–and I say this with much caution–the Jews drew first blood.

I say this with caution because I anticipate some of my readers may be Jewish, and I understand their sensitivity to the often repeated accusation that they have somehow provoked their own persecution. I am not, and will not be making this charge. But if we are going to locate the causes of Christian anti-Semitism we are going to need to start at the beginning, because the seeds of hatred were sown in those early years. And if there is a need for Christians to face up to their past sins–and I passionately believe that there is–then it is also necessary for the Jews to face up to an unpleasant chapter in their own history, and unfortunate fact that the hands of neither religion are completely clean.

The Jewish people understandably resist any suggestion that their leaders were directly involved in planning and carrying out the crucifixion of Jesus. We would be sensitive to this charge if we had been accused of deicide too.  But while Jewish apologists propose other explanations for the execution of Jesus,  Jewish involvement in the persecution of the early church is harder to get around, because the record is clear; long before Christians were in a position to persecute the Jews, Jews were persecuting Christians.

The most well known and influential Christian of the first century was Saul of Tarsus (Paul). He was a Jew and proud of it. In fact, he never called himself a Christian, but on a number of occasions he boldly declared, “I am a Jew.” He was also the driving force behind the earliest pogrom against Christians, and this pogrom was authorized and approved by the highest echelons of the Jewish religious establishment in Jerusalem. So if the case can be made that these same men had nothing to do with the crucifixion of Jesus, it’s harder to maintain that that they had nothing to do with the persecution of His followers because one of their own turned state’s evidence.

This is Paul’s own confession to his part in the pogrom: “I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lockup many of the saints in prison, having received authority from the chief priests [emphasis added], but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.” Thus, it was no coincidence that Paul found himself on the road to Damascus, with “the authority and commission of the chief priests” when he had his conversion experience.

But while Paul spearheaded the first Jewish persecution of Christians, it would not be the last. Another example is the execution of James the brother of Jesus. This persecution, recorded by Josephus, was orchestrated by the then high priest, Ananus, and ordered by an illegally called meeting of the Sanhedrin. And so the instigation and participation of the religious leaders of Israel in the first persecution of the followers of Jesus (all of whom were Jews themselves), and the subsequent involvement of this same leadership in similar activities, lends a certain credibility to the New Testament’s charge that these same men were complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus.

These charges are especially compelling in light of the fact that Paul was not the only one to turn state’s evidence. We know, for example, of Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea, both of whom would have had first hand knowledge of the inner workings of the Sanhedrin.  In addition to these two named witnesses, Luke tells us, “A great number of priests were obedient to the faith.”  In light of all of this we have to at least make an honest examination of the New Testament’s charge that the leadership of Israel was in large part responsible for the arrest, torture, and crucifixion of Jesus. We will do this in our next post.

One of the charges that I have frequently come across as I read books on anti-Semitism by Jewish authors is the charge that anti-Semitism is embedded in our sacred documents. The average evangelical would be shocked by some of their examples. I know I was.

For example, every book I have read on anti-Semitism refers to John 8:44a, “You are of your father the devil.” Evangelical Christians read these verses and don’t see anti-Semitism. The reason for this is we read them in their context. In context, Jesus was not speaking of the Jewish people in general, but accusing a particular group of Jews–the leaders of the nation–of proving themselves sons of the devil by plotting His murder.

How then, do these Jewish writers read Jesus’ statement as anti-Semitic? First, they note that their Christian anti-Semitic persecutors have often dehumanized Jews by referring to them as children of Satan, and John 8:44a has been their proof text. Second, even in its context, this verse contains a charge which if offensive to Jewish sensibilities. The charge I am referring to is the charge that there was Jewish complicity in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jews are very sensitive to this charge, and understandably so. If you and your ancestors had been called “Christ Killers” and persecuted for it, you might be a little sensitive too. Some Jewish writers have even suggested that this charge must be dropped if there is ever to be a meaningful reconciliation between Christianity and Judaism. Others have called upon the church to reject these offensive portions of the scripture because of their embedded anti-Semitism.

Of course, our Jewish friends cannot expect us to renounce the passages in question anymore than we would expect them to renounce the Torah. So how do we respond to their concerns? First, let me point out that if all of the texts in question were collected and printed, the pamphlet produced would be very small compared to a collection of similar texts that could be assembled from the Tenach (our Old Testament).

The prophets of Israel had some terribly insulting things to say about their own people, charges they brought against them in the name of God. An anti-Semite could easily seize upon these statements to justify his hatred of the Jews. In fact, they have done so. So should we remove these verses from the Tenach because some have misused them?

Second, it should be noted that the New Testament’s charges against the leaders of Israel for their role in the crucifixion of Christ were not made by gentiles, but by their fellow Jews. My brother, Clark, likes to say these charges are “a family quarrel,” and that we gentiles should “stay out of it.” He makes a very good point. The apostles were a band of Jewish men. And while their exact charges are different from the charges of the former prophets, their style in making them is very similar. Critics of the New Testament should remember that when they read the New Testament they are reading a Jewish book (Luke being the only Gentile writer, and we are not even certain that he was not Jewish). It is in this Jewish book that we hear charges being made by Jewish men against other Jewish men and their own nation.

I have heard other Christian Zionist try to get around these accusatory texts, or try to explain them away. I will not do this. The texts speak for themselves. But, laying aside my belief that they are the word of God, and viewing them as nothing more than ancient first centuries documents produced by the apostles or their associates, I make this very simple observation: the charges they contain are either true or they are not. It seems to me that this is the issue we should focus on. If they are false then, yes, they should be rejected. BUT if they are factually true, then they are not anti-Semitic but a powerful indictment to which Israel should respond.

So what are the charges? The first charge the New Testament makes is not made against the nation as a whole, but against Israel’s spiritual and political leadership–the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, and even the High Priests, Annas and Caiphas. The apostles–Jews all–brought these charges against the leaders of their own nation. They accused them to their face. The specific charges they brought were that they plotted and carried out the crucifixion of Jesus, using the Romans as their instrument.

The second charge is against all of Israel. The charge is that they rejected Jesus. I think even the most angry non-believing Jew would have to plead guilty to this charge. He might disagree that Jesus was the Messiah, but they would certainly agree that he rejects Him and His Messianic claims. According to the New Testament, this is Israel’s great national sin, and the charge, once again, is brought against the nation by Jews. But what evidence do they offer to back up this charge? The destruction of the Second Temple.

Ever since the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, pious Jews have asked the question, why? One Rabbi, Rabbi Ciner, put the dilemma this way, “The Talmud teaches that the First Temple was destroyed through our involvement in idolatry, incestuous relationships and murder. However, during the time of the Second Temple we were involved in Torah, mitzvos (fulfillment of commandments) and acts of kindness. Why was that destroyed?” The explanation Rabbi Ciner gives is found in the Talmud, “sin’as chinam (baseless hatred),” and he adds,”From this we derive that sin’as chinam is equal to idolatry, incestuous relationships and murder.”

The New Testament’s explanation was given by Jesus when He foresaw His rejection as he rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, “When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the day of your visitation.” What an awful scene He describes. No wonder He wept.

Some time ago I heard of an actual incident that occurred at one of those ecumenical dialogs between a group of Christians and Jews. Apparently things got quite heated, and after much bickering a Rabbi stepped forward with a solution. He said, “As I see it, the main difference between us is that you think the Messiah has been here before, and we don’t think He’s come yet. But we both believe he’s coming. So why don’t we wait until He gets here and ask Him if He’s been here before?” The tension was broken with laughter.

I love this story, but it begs for a follow-up question for the Rabbi, “And what if He says he’s been here before?” In my opinion, this is a question Israel needs to think about. If Messiah’s answer is, “Yes, I’ve been here before, I came unto my own and my own received me not,” then His answer would surely go a long way towards explaining the Jewish experience over the last 2000 years.

So what am I saying, that the Jews had it coming? God forbid! I’m just saying this; Israel has a covenant with God that speaks for itself, and in the light of this covenant there must surely be a consequence for rejecting the Messiah. We, on the other hand, gentile Christians, should not do what the church has done throughout the ages and appoint ourselves the executors of that covenant.

Now let me apply all of this to the subject of Christian Anti-Semitism. The apostles’ message to Israel in light of the rejection of Jesus can best be summarized by a statement made by Peter in a sermon to Jewish listeners, “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Messiah appointed for you, who heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all tings about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.”

The answer of the Christian anti-Semite is a little different, “Therefore God is through with you. You are no longer Israel. God has appointed a New Israel made up of Gentiles in your place, and He’s going to give them all of the blessings of your covenant. You, on the other hand, will retain its curses. The blood of Jesus is on your hands and the hands of your children and you will exist throughout all generations, cursed, and the objects of divine wrath. What’s more, since you are Christ killers we are justified in whatever we do to you.” I may have left out a little of the bile, but I think you catch the drift.

In my judgment, Christian anti-Semitism did not come from the charges made in the New Testament, but from the “therefore” after the charges. I note that the apostles did not seek any retribution against the nation. In fact, as we will see, they urged just the opposite. But others have had a different attitude and a different agenda. And they have written a different conclusion after the “therefore.” And with their conclusion we have the beginnings of Christian anti-Semitism.

[i] Rabbi Ciner - From Rabbi Ciner’s Weekly Parsha

I have already pointed out that in the early conflict between Judaism and Christianity, the Jews drew first blood. Please understand that this is an observation only, and is not meant in anyway to justify Christian anti-Semitism. For example, I can also make the observation that native Americans drew first blood in their conflict with English settlers in the New World, but only a fool would use this observation to justify the subsequent treatment of the aboriginal population of the North American continent. In the case of Christianity, our subsequent treatment of the Jewish people is inexcusable even if every Jew in the world were involved in our persecution. After all, our Lord commanded us to love those who mistreat us and to pray for those who persecute us. Jesus Himself set the example in this when He forgave those who nailed Him to the cross.

The persecution of Christians that began in Jerusalem and Judea continued to a greater or lesser extent until the Jewish Church finally separated itself from the rest of Judaism by relocating in Pella rather than standing with their countrymen against the Romans. However, before they parted ways the large Jewish-Christian church in Jerusalem and Judea, and it’s leader, James, apparently managed to gain some measure of acceptance and respect within the broader Jewish community.

One of the best evidences of an unofficial accord between the Jewish Church and their fellow Jews is that when the High Priest, Ananus, executed James, the protest against his actions was raised not by Christians but by pious Jews whom Josephus calls, “The most equitable of the citizens.” He continues, “they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa] desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified.”

I say all of this to make this simple observation: in spite of much opposition and varying degrees of persecution at the hands of their fellow Jews we find no trace of anti-Semitism in the early Jewish Church. This should come as no surprise because these early Jewish believers clearly viewed themselves as Jews in every sense of the word.

We note, for example, James’ statement to Paul when he came to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey: “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law. “

But because of the Judean Church’s zeal for the Law he would add they were very uncomfortable with reports that were reaching them about Paul, “They have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children not walking according to the customs.”

It seems clear from this passage that while the Jewish Church accepted Gentile conversion, they were determined that Jewish believers not lose their Jewish identity. Paul for his part seemed to be in agreement with their desire to maintain their Jewish distinctives. We see this in the fact that he agreed with James that he should purify himself in the Temple to demonstrate that, “there is nothing to the things they have been told….but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the Law.”

While there was no anti-Semitism in the Jewish Church, there is evidence that the same was not true among the Gentiles. This was, as we will see, especially true in the church of Rome. It seems that the church of Rome may have been the birthplace of this moral evil.

If I were to guess the place where Christian anti-Semitism began I would probably guess Alexandria, Egypt, because Alexandria was the hot-bed of pagan anti-Semitism. It was Alexandria that produced what we might call the first Judaphobic–or proto Anti-Semitic–writings.

Produced over a period of three centuries, the Judaphobic writers of Alexandria spread their doctrines throughout the Greco-Roman world. By the first century Alexandria boasted the largest Jewish population in the Roman world. But in spite of the fact that two-fifths of the city was Jewish, Alexandria’s home-grown Judaphobia had made it the most anti-Jewish city in the ancient world. Finally, in 38 AD, the hatred that had been fomenting in Alexandria for many years spilled over into anti-Jewish riots. As a result of these riots two delegations were sent to Rome. One of these groups– the one defending the pagans–was led by one of the leading Judaphobes of the age, a man by the name of Apion.

Apion has been called the first Titan of Anti-Semitism. He is well deserving of the title. Apion was one of those responsible for stirring up the hatred of the pagan population of Alexandria and once the riots started he helped fan the flames. Later, Apion was appointed the head of the delegation that was sent to the Emperor to formally present charges of disloyalty against the Jews of Alexandria (Philo was the head of the Jewish delegation).

Once in Rome, Apion decided to stay. There he opened a school, and there he propagated his ideas until his death in 45 AD.

In his school and in his writings Apion taught three great themes that would be picked up by the church and repeated down through the centuries: (1) He cast aspersions on the racial origins of the Jews (2) He questioned their patriotism and loyalty as citizens (3) He accused them of secretly practicing human sacrifice and cannibalism.

To put things in historical perspective, there were no Gentile Christians at the time all of these things were happening. At the time of the Alexandrian riots the conversion of the first gentile, Cornelius, was still about two years away. Acts tells us that Saul’s persecution (which had occured several years before these events) had resulted in the church being spread throughout Judea and Samaria, as far north as Phoenicia and Syria, and as far west as Cyprus. So Christianity was spreading, but it was still an exclusively Jewish institution. Its final split from Judaism was years away.

One would like to think that the Judaphobia of Alexandria was confined just to Egypt. Unfortunately it spread to Rome, the home of the second largest Jewish population in the Greco/Roman world. Unfortunately, long before a church was planted in Rome, proto anti-Semitism was there waiting for it. In time the Church of Rome would become its most formidable champion.

We know, for example, of Apollonius Molon. Apollonius was a famous Alexandrian rhetorician. He was the teacher of both Cicero and Julius Ceaser. He also has the distinction of being the first man to compose an entire work against the Jews. In it he charges them with misanthropy and atheism; “The worst among the barbarians, lacking any creative talent, they did nothing for the good of mankind, they do not believe in any god.”

The works of other anti-Jewish writers were also well known in Rome. For example, Damocritus had written that every seven years the Jews would capture a stranger, lead him to the Temple, offer him as a sacrifice, and cut him into small pieces. This charge would later be picked up by the church. Many Jews would lose their lives because of it.

Pagan Rome never became the hotbed of Judaphobia that Alexandria was. Generally speaking, the Romans were tolerant of the Jews and made special allowance for their distinctive religious practices. Most of the Emperors could not have cared less about them. Others, such as Hadrian, were openly hostile to them. Most were ambivalent.

But the upper classes were a different matter. Many leading Roman thinkers, such as Horace, Ovid, Nero’s advisor, Seneca, and the historian, Tacitus, were openly hostile to them. Seneca called them a “most wicked nation.” Tacitus wrote that they are, “sinister, shameful, and have survived only because of their perversity.”

This, then, was the environment that greeted the unknown Christians who planted the church in Rome; a church destined to become the most influential in all of Christendom (The later claim that the church of Rome was founded by Peter is really nothing more than the self-serving mythology of a church well infected with the spirit of Diotrephes).

Rome was certainly not Alexandria, but the seeds of the doctrines that would form the core of Christian anti-Semitism had already been planted; and, as we will see, by the time the Apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans they had begun to germinate in the Roman church.

“Deliberations in Jerusalem, Riots in Rome”

No one knows when the church of Rome was started or the circumstances of its founding. Later Catholic claims that Peter founded the church are clearly apocryphal. Peter was most likely still in Judea when the church was planted.

Rome had the second largest Jewish population in the world at the time the church began on the day of Pentecost. And Acts 2:10 tells us that pilgrims from Rome were among those who heard the first Christian sermon on the day of Pentecost. It seems probable that the gospel made its way to Rome through these pilgrims. Those who heard and rejected the message would nevertheless have a story to tell when they returned home. If there were believers among them, then their presence is perhaps the best explanation for founding of the Church of Rome. And if these returning pilgrims are indeed the ones responsible for the founding of the church, then the Church of Rome can at least claim a direct line to Peter through them since he preached the sermon that resulted in their conversion on the Day of Pentecost.

It would also be ironic in light of its later history if the Church of Rome was founded by Jews. But given the origins of the Christian faith, Christian anti-Semitism is an ongoing irony.

Like all of the churches of the first decade of the Christian era, the Church of Rome would have been a Jewish church. Even a cursory reading of the first 15 chapters of the book of Acts will reveal that the first Christians were Jewish men and women who viewed the church as an exclusive Jewish institution. All the churches they started until the conversion of Cornelius were exclusively Jewish; and they were incredulous when they heard that Peter had baptized the first Gentile converts.

In Acts we learn that the first persecution resulted in many of the Jewish believers in Jerusalem fleeing to places as far away as Cyprus, Cyrene, and Antioch. But Luke tells us they were careful to preach the gospel only to their fellow Jews. But after a church had been planted in Antioch something happened that was destined to change the church forever. It was in Antioch that Jewish believers began to proclaim the gospel to their Gentile neighbors. The response was phenomenal. Multitudes came to faith. Interestingly, it was the believers of this now racially diverse church who were first called Christians.

We do not know when the same thing began to happen in Rome, but by the time Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, it, like Antioch, had become a racially mixed church. Though I don’t know when the Roman outreach to the Gentiles began, I have an educated guess. I think it probably started somewhere around the year 49 AD.

49 AD was an important year in the history of Christianity. It was the year of the Jerusalem council (Acts 15). The leader of the church did not come together to determine whether or not the church was the New Israel, but to decide whether or not Gentiles should be required to become members of Old Israel. The thing that brought events to a head was the conversion of Gentiles as Gentiles, both in Antioch (where the controversy first flared) and in the cities Paul and Barnabas evangelized during their first missionary journey.

In reading Luke’s account of Paul’s first missionary journey we discover that the Jewish Christians in Judea were not the only ones upset about the conversion of the Gentiles. We don’t normally think of Judaism as a missionary religion, and yet in the formative days of the church Judaism competed openly with the church for Gentile converts. The Jewish literature on anti-Semitism takes note of this rivalry and suggests that this rivalry between the two faiths that may have been partly responsible for the growth of Christian anti-Semitism. There may be something to this observation, but in the early years this rivalry led to persecution of the weaker of the two faiths, Christianity.

In every stop during the first missionary journey Paul’s success at converting Gentiles led to Jewish jealousy, hostility, and in several cases, violence. In every city Paul began his ministry in the local synagogue, preaching primarily to Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles (today we would call them, seekers). Invariably, when the Gentiles responded to the gospel - and invited their friends to come and see - there was hostility from the Jewish community.

I want to suggest that the problem the Jews of Asia Minor had with Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles was not that the was converting them. They too wanted to convert the Gentiles. Nor was the claim that Jesus was the Messiah a problem. Perhaps he was. There was some openness to this idea. The problem the Jewish establishment had with Paul’s ministry was that he was converting Gentiles without requiring them to become Jews first. To teach that Jesus was the Messiah was one thing–a Jew could teach this and still be a Jew–but to teach that Gentiles could be acceptable to God without submitting to circumcision and without being taught to observe the Law….well, that was another thing entirely.

The council of 49 AD settled the matter among believing Jews (Gentile converts observed the deliberations, but they did not participate). Some people mistakenly think that the Jerusalem council set aside the law for all Christians, but a careful reading shows that this was not the case. The decision of the apostles and elders was that there would be two tracks within the church, one for Jews another for Gentiles. The Gentiles would not be required to observe the Law, but Jewish believers would continue to do so.

Meanwhile the Jews in Rome were rioting. Tacitus informs us that this was not an isolated event. They had apparently done this on more than one occasion. The source of this rioting was “one Chrestus.” Most take this as a reference to Christ, and the majority of historians believe that there was rioting in Rome, as there had been in other cities, between the Jews who believed in Jesus and those who did not.

The Emperor Claudius finally put an end to the fighting by expelling the Jews from Rome. This expulsion is mentioned by Tacitus, Suetonius, and the 5^th century Christian historian, Orosius. We also have confirmation of it in the book of Acts. It was this expulsion of Jews that brought Aquila and Priscilla to Corinth. Assuming that the traditional understanding of expulsion of the Jews from Rome is the correct one, the relevance to the development of Christian anti-Semitism is obvious. First of all, there would have been resentment on the part of many in the church because the Jewish community had made themselves enemies of the gospel. There would also have been resentment because the expulsion would have robbed the Church of Rome of its Jewish leadership and members.

The loss of individuals of the quality of Aquila and Priscilla would have been an enormous blow to any church; but more importantly for our purposes, at the same moment in which the church in Jerusalem was deciding what to do with Gentile converts, the Church of Rome was becoming a church of Gentile converts.  Depending on how thorough the expulsion was, the Church of Rome may have been - at least for a few years - the only completely Gentile church in the world.

For the record, the results would have been the same even if the rioting among the Jews was not over Jesus. Whatever the cause, Claudius’ actions created the world’s first Gentile church in the most important city in the world, Rome. And, if the traditional view of the cause of the rioting and expulsion is correct, it would have been a Gentile church with a great deal of anger against the unbelieving Jews who they would have viewed–I believe correctly–as the cause of the problem. Add in the fact that Alexandrian anti-Jewish propaganda was already thriving in the city, and you have the ingredients for the birth of Christian anti-Semitism. The fact that it first surfaced there can be seen in Paul’s response to it in the 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th chapters of Romans.

Paul’s epistle to the Church in Rome was written somewhere around the year 57 AD, eight years after Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome. All we know about the Church in Rome at the time is that which can be gleaned from Paul’s epistle to the Romans, however, there is one thing we know; after the death of Claudius the Jewish community reestablished itself in Rome. We also know that at least some Jewish believers returned as well.  We know this because Paul sent his greetings to Prisca and Aquila (Romans 16:3-5). 

In his Survey o f the New Testament, Robert Gundry writes that “Some scholars maintain that the Roman church consisted mainly of Jewish Christians. They argue that the emphasis on the Jewish nation in chapters 9-11, the appeal to the example of Abraham, the quotations of the Old Testament, and the passages in which Paul appears to be arguing against Jewish objections imply a Jewish congregation.”[i] I disagree.

The above arguments lend themselves to other explanations, and there indications in the text that Paul was writing to a predominantly Gentile church. For example in Romans 1:13, Paul speaks of his desire to minister in Rome so that he “may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles” (Emphasis added). Also - and I consider this very important for the argument I am going to be making - In Romans 11, a chapter in which Paul had much to say about the nation Israel, he said, “But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles” (Romans 11:13a). Then, as he concluded his letter, he wrote, “I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given to me from God, to be a minister of God to the Gentiles….” (Romans 15:15-16).

Taking these verses and others into account I think it is very likely the church in Rome - having become a Gentile church when Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome - continued to be a gentile church even after some Jewish believers returned to the city.

I also see evidence that once they returned to Rome the conflict between the Jewish community and the church - minus the riots - took up right where it had left off.  For example, in Romans 11:28a Paul writes, “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for you sake…” 

I also think the passages that some scholars use to infer that the church was predominantly Jewish are better explained as Paul’s apologetic, his detailed answers to Jewish objections to the gospel.  Obviously, such an apologetic would be very useful to a church embroiled in competition with the Jewish community for Gentile converts. Perhaps it was this competition, or maybe it was the open opposition of the Jews to the gospel, that led to the development of certain ideas and teachings which would later become foundation stones of Christian anti-Semitism.  Paul certainly seems to be aware of these dangerous ideas - perhaps Aquila and Prisca informed him - since rebuking and refuting them seems to have been a major part of his agenda in writing the epistle to the Romans.

The first indication we have of proto anti-Semitism in the Church at Rome is found in Romans 3:3. Here Paul asks and then answers the rhetorical question, “What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?”  The fact that Paul asked this question is significant. Certainly, the Jewish community wasn’t asking it. They were quite confident in their covenant relationship with God. So who was saying Jewish unbelief would cause God to be unfaithful? The obvious answer is that that there were those in the church in Rome who were teaching this doctrine.

I’m sure these Christians were not actually accusing God of infidelity; but Paul recognized that no matter how nicely it is stated, if someone says that Jewish unbelief negates the promises God made to  Israel, then they are calling the faithfulness of God into question.

The same is true today. Christian anti-Semites have always said that Jewish unbelief cancels the covenant relationship between the actual sons of Israel and God, and it is interesting that we find this foundational doctrine present in Rome in 57 AD. I think it’s also important to note that Paul completely rejected it in the strongest possible language (Note, Paul’s argument is the same argument I make in another post, An Argument with Myself About Amillennialim).

But the third chapter of Romans is not the only place in which we find the foundation stones upon which full-blown anti-Semitism would later be built. However, it is important to note that the “apostle to the Gentiles,” Paul, rejected all of these ideas.  Sadly, like so many other Pauline doctrines - such as justification by faith - the church soon abandoned his teaching on this subject too.

Originally posted in March, 2007

There has been some talk recently about Barak Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ, and his friend, spiritual mentor and pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In a recent article, Ed Lasky, of The American Thinker raised the issue of anti-Semitism. He pointed out that Obama has acknowledged his pastor’s influence on him.

As a pastor I have no problem with this…as long as the pastor’s influence in beneficial. Unfortunately there are questions concerning the wholesomeness of Rev. Wright’s influence. Ed Lasky points out that Rev. Wright is committed to an Afro-centric view of Christianity,” which emphasizes, “a Black Work Ethic, commitment to a Black Value System, and an allegiance to all Black Leadership that follows the Black Value System.” The concern here is that “anti-Semitism…is…often associated with other leaders and groups that have emphasized black separatism and empowerment (think Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton).”

Lasky concludes that “some qualms might be warranted, particularly given some of the actions and statements of [Rev. Wright].”It is also troubling that “Pastor Wright is…a supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in 1984 traveled with him to visit Col. Muammar al-Gadaffi.” Further concern is raised by the fact that Rev. Wright is a proponent of liberation theology, and, as Lasky points out, “The language of liberation all too often veers off into anti-Jewish rants.”

I am in complete agreement with Lasky. But the example he cites to illustrate his point completely misses the mark. He refers to “one of the founders of the movement, Gustavo Gutierrez,” and his stated position “that the infidelities of the Jewish people made the Old Covenant [between the Jews and God] invalid.”

I agree that Gutierrez’s view is anti-Semitic. But Lasky is apparently unaware of that fact that this view is actually quite orthodox. This pernicious teaching is sometimes referred to as replacement theology because it asserts that Israel has been replaced by the church. It lies at the heart of an ancient system of Christian eschatology known as Amillennialism. Far from being an aberration unique to liberation theology, Amillennialism has been embraced by the church since the third century. Even today the majority of those who call themselves Christians – Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant — hold to Amillennialism or some variant of it such as Postmillennialism.

Amillennialism teaches that the covenant between God and the Jewish people has indeed been invalidated (God got around His obligation to keep the covenant to the physical descendants of Israel by declaring the church, “The New Israel.”) Having replaced the old Israel with the church, God then transferred the blessings of the covenant to the New Israel (A term, by the way, that occurs nowhere in the New Testament). But what about the old Israel? Well, having expropriated the blessings of their covenant, the church has been very generous and has allowed the Jewish people to retain the curses.

In responding to a recent post I became involved in a discussion of Luke’s competence as an historian. Luke competence is important for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he produced more of the New Testament than any other single author. Speaking personally, I have always been impressed with Luke because I sense a kindred spirit in him. But I am taking the time to defend him here because his accuracy has become an issue in the debate over my recent posts on the resurrection.

The great American jurist, Simon Greenleaf, has demonstrated that Luke, and the other canonical gospels, could be admitted as evidence in a legal proceeding under the ancient document rule. But certain hostile documents have survived too. These Jewish and Roman sources concede the empty tomb and missing body, but they offer an alternate theory; that the apostles stole the body. These sources could also be admitted as evidence under the ancient document rule.

One of our posters offered an alternate explanation. He has asserted that the disciples changed their story. He accuses them of doing this even though no ancient source has made this charge. Nor is there any documentary evidence that would refute the claim that the tomb was empty and the body missing. But since a reader has made this argument I think I should respond to it.

The explanation he suggests is actually just a reworking of a theory first proposed by certain German Rationalistic theologians in the 19th century. They claimed that the story of the resurrection was a later addition to the original story of Christ.  They based this claim, in part, on their theory that the gospels were produced in the second century. Given this, and their rationalistic assumptions, the idea of legendary embellishment made sense.  But as additional documentary evidence continued to accumulate, it became undeniable that most of the New Testament was produced by no later than 85 A.D. It should also be noted that 85 A.D. is the oldest possible date for most of the New Testament, and we now know that the majority of the books of New Testament were produced before 70 A.D.  This chronology pretty much destroyed the theory that the New Testament accounts of the life of Christ were legendary, since the events they record were as recent to readers of the gospels as the election of Ronald Reagan is to us. There were just too many people around who remembered the facts to get away with legendary embellishments.

Tom Anderson, the former President of the California Trial Lawyers Association and co-author of the Basic Advocacy Manual of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, explains:

“Let’s assume that Christ did not rise from the dead. Let’s assume that the written accounts of his appearance to hundreds of people are false. I want to post a question; with an event so well publicized, don’t you think that it’s reasonable that one historian, one eyewitness, one antagonist would record for all time that he had seen Christ’s body, ‘Listen, I saw the tomb. It was not empty.’ ‘Look, I was there , Christ did not rise from the dead.’ ‘As a matter of fact, I saw Christ’s body.’ The silence of history is deafening when it comes to testimony against the resurrection.”

Nevertheless, our reader and his friends are recycling the “legend theory” in a most extraordinary way. They are claiming that the legendary elements former critics spread over more than a century, were somehow added to the original gospel message in just over two decades; and no one noticed!

How believable is this explanation?  My conclusion is that it is absurd to suggest the apostles could have changed their story in time allotted by this theory without someone picking up on it and challenging them for it.  This would particularly be true in Jerusalem, where the gospel was first proclaimed and where it continued to be published until shortly before the destruction of the city in 70 A.D. If the story had been changed, surely we would find some record of someone saying that the Christians had changed their story. Surely someone as hostile to the gospel as the fierce second century critic, Celsus, would not have missed an opportunity make the charge. But we find no such record, we find no such charge.

But since this theory, at least as our reader stated it, is based on the assumption that Luke-Acts is a harbinger of the changing story, the credibility of Luke is obviously something that I need to address in order to defend the thesis I have set forth in my previous posts on the resurrection.

I note that Luke begins his gospel by explaining why he wrote it. He tells us that he had written sources, because many others had written accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus before him. We probably have two of those other accounts in Matthew and Mark, unfortunately, the others have not survived.

Luke also mentions the testimony of “eyewitnesses and servants of the word [who] have handed them down to us.” We know that Luke was in Judea for a three year period while Paul was imprisoned in Caesaria; so there was an extended period of time during which he would have had the opportunity to depose witnesses.

Let’s consider the testimony of some of those witnesses. As we dissect his gospel we notice that Luke, uniquely, paid special attention to the testimony of woman. This was highly unusual. Luke was writing at a time when the testimony of a woman was considered inherently unreliable. I mention this, because Luke’s treatment of the testimony of women is a strong argument for his reliability as a historian. Including the testimony of women, particularly in connection with the resurrection, would do nothing but weaken his case. So why include it if you are trying to persuade people to accept a “new gospel?” It doesn’t make sense. The only cogent reason for including their stories would be a determination of Luke to tell the story “as it really was.”

It is also relevant to mention the access Luke’s association with Paul gave him to the apostles and other witnesses, and to documents and official records that have long since perished. What modern historian would not envy access to Luke’s sources? Surely, no modern critic can claim better sources. This being the case, one would hope that these critics would be a little more modest in their claims and theories, but I digress.

Another thing that strikes the reader of Luke’s introduction to his gospel is the fact that he did not just accept the stories he heard on face value. Instead he says he “investigated everything carefully from the beginning,” and that the knowledge he gained from his investigation qualified him to compose an accurate account in consecutive order of “the things that have happened among us.” That Luke was indeed well known for this very thing, even before his extended stay in Judea, is confirmed by the fact that Paul refers to him as, “the brother whose fame in the things of the gospels has spread though all the churches” ( II Corinthians 8:18).

The accuracy of Luke’s reporting is also confirmed by the way in which the “testable details” of his account has been independently verified. There is also evidence that Luke was meticulously careful about getting his facts right in the “testable detail contained in the sequel to his gospel, the Book of Acts.

This does not mean that Luke’s accuracy has never been challenged. The opposite is the case. As the Catholic Encyclopedia, explains; “It was the fashion, during the nineteenth century, with German rationalists and their imitators, to ridicule the ‘blunders’ of Luke, but that is all being rapidly changed by the recent progress of archaeological research.”

The story of the conversion of one of these critics is instructive. The great archaeologist, Sir William Ramsay, was once one of those who ridiculed the “blunders” of Luke. He was educated in the theories of the German Historical Schools of the 19^th century who taught - foolishly in retrospect — that the New Testament was produced in the second century.

Ramsey was so convinced this was correct that he became an archaeologist and went to Asia Minor on a mission; to find the evidence to refute Luke. His plan went poorly. Not only was he unable to refute Luke, the results of his work caused him to switch sides and reverse his entire view of the Bible. After years of study, this is what he had to say about Luke:

“Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense…in short, this author should be placed along with the greatest of historian”

Quite a turnabout.

In my last post I discussed the legal/historical method which is used for establishing a non-repeatable historic event.  I also talked about the ancient document rule, a rule of evidence that allows the admission of historic documents into evidence in a court proceeding and the fact that Simon Greenleaf has demonstrated that the gospels (and I Corinthians, which also discusses events surrounding the resurrection) could all be admitted as evidence in a court of law.  I also acknowledged that other ancient documents, sources hostile Christianity, and could also be admitted into evidence. 

Whether one believes in the resurrection or not, these are the source materials a person would be forced to use to construct a legal argument either for or against the resurrection because they would be the only documents that could come in under the ancient document rule.   I mention this because one of our readers responded to my last post by asking, “Which documents,” implying that there are all sorts of other documents that could come in as well.  But this is simply not true, at least not in a legal setting.  The other so called “gospels” produced in the second century or later would not be admitted under the ancient document rule for a variety of reasons.  One standard alone would eliminate them; without dispute, all of them are forgeries.  This is also one of the reasons none of them made it into the New Testament.

The theories of later critics, while interesting, would also not be admissible in a legal proceeding because they are speculation.  If someone tried to enter them into evidence they would not be allowed in because of a lack of predicate, or foundation. 

 There was one other thing I pointed out and highlighted.  In ancient time, when the growing Christian sect was seen as a danger by both Jews and Romans, the only alternate explanation either side ever came up with to explain the material facts – the empty tomb and the missing body – was that the disciples stole the body.  This, by the way, is one of the reasons Matthew’s unsupported report of the guards being bribed to say that the disciples stole the body while they slept, seems credible.  It was clearly written as an apologetic to refute claims that were being made at the time the Gospel of Matthew was written. 

But the most important thing in my last essay was the stimulations.  In an actual trial the attorneys for both sides would get together and see if there were areas of agreement which could be stipulated to.  In other words; are there points of agreement that would not need to be litigated?   

In the case of the resurrection there is an amazing level of agreement between the New Testament sources and the hostile Jewish and Pagan sources we have available to us.  In my last post I listed these areas of agreement, which, presumably could be stipulated to if, for example, the disciples were ever brought up on charges for grave robbing and perpetrating a hoax.   Once again, these are the points of agreement, the stipulations:

•  Somewhere around the year 30 A.D. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate
•  He was buried in a nearby tom
• Three days later the stone that had sealed the tomb was discovered rolled away and the tomb was empty.
• The body was never recovered
• Shortly after the empty tomb was discovered the disciples of Jesus were proclaiming both in Jerusalem, and ultimately throughout the Greco/Roman world — that Jesus had risen from the dead and that they were witnesses of the resurrection.
• Subsequently many of the disciples died torturous deaths for making these claims.
• None of them ever changed their story.

As I pointed out, modern critics have challenged one or all of these stipulations, but it is significant that at a time when the facts were fresh and witnesses still living no one denied these stipulations, there is a reason for this; they could not or the opponents of Christianity surely would have.

Take just one example.  It has been proposed that perhaps the women, in their grief over the death of Jesus went to the wrong tomb.  This ignores the fact that the resurrection was proclaimed first in Jerusalem, within easy walking distance of the real tomb.  All the authorities would have needed to do to abort Christianity was to have a field trip to the real tomb and produce the body.   Both the Jewish authorities and the Romans would have been delighted to do this if they could…but, quite obviously, they could not.  The best they could come up with was the stolen body theory.   So if a trial were to be held using the legally admissible documents, this would be the theory of the case the plaintiff would be forced to present.  It was, in fact, the explanation they used to counter the Christian claim of a resurrection.

 This is the way the trial would go: The plaintiff would use Jewish and Pagan sources to try to make the case that the body was stolen.  The defense would site the testimony of the apostles and their associates’ eye witness testimony to the empty tomb, and their claims that they touched, ate with, saw and conversed with the risen Jesus.  .

In any trial, the court or the jury has the responsibility of weighing the credibility of the witnesses.   They do this by asking questions about their competence to testify to the things they claim to have seen and heard (i.e. are they sane), their sincerity (do they think they are telling the truth), their credibility (this goes to such things as consistency, reputation for honesty), etc.

Now I will admit that there is one big thing that any ancient judge or jury would have had trouble accepting.  But it is actually one of the strongest pieces of evidence we have as to the sincerity of the New Testament record.  The thing I’m referring to is the testimony of women.

In both ancient pagan and Jewish opinion, the testimony of woman was considered inherently unreliable.  In fact, one of the earliest critics of Christianity, Celsus, mocked the claim of the resurrection by pointing out that it was mainly women who claimed to have seen the risen Christ.  This would have been a powerful argument to a first century jury.  So if one were trying to write a book to convince 1^st century unbelievers of the resurrection the last thing you would include in it is the testimony of women….unless, of course, that just happened to be the way it happened.

But let’s look at the charge made at the time, that His disciples stole the body of Jesus from the tomb and perpetrated a hoax.  The first thing the defense would point out is that they had no motive.  Clearly, they gained nothing from their claims that they were witnesses of the resurrection.  On the contrary, they lost everything, including their own lives.   Many of the witnesses died torturous deaths.  Any one of them could have escaped their fate if they just admitted they were lying.  But none of them cracked. 

As I pointed out earlier, men will die willingly for what they believe to be the truth, but no one will willingly die for what he knows to be a lie.  That the disciples were willing to die maintaining their testimony is a powerful argument, if not for the truth of their message then certainly for the sincerity of the messengers. No, when one examines the subsequent life and testimony of the apostles it seems obvious that whether or not Jesus actually arose from the dead they thought He did.

Another factor that adds weight to the apostle’s testimony is their subsequent moral writings and teaching.  The New Testament contains some of the most profound moral teaching ever penned.  Is it really credible that the men who produced such high moral teaching were really just a bunch of grave robbers?

Some have tried to get around the obvious credibility of the apostles by arguing that perhaps someone else stole the body.  Fair enough.  Who?  If the disciples didn’t do it, then who moved the stone, what happened to the body, and how do we account for the apostles’ confident assertion that they had seen the risen Christ?   One might posit hallucinations.  But what about the nagging question of the empty tomb and the missing body.  Hallucinations don’t move stone or remove bodies from tombs.  Remember, these things are stipulated in all of the ancient sources.  .

Some modern critics have suggested that perhaps the Romans or the Jews are responsible.  But once again, there is the problem of motive.   Christianity was a thorn in the side of both groups.   All they would have had to do to remove the thorn was to say, “Hey, we moved the body.”  Or they could have produced the body, and Christianity would have been finished.  But they didn’t do this, because they couldn’t do it.  Surely they would have if they could have.  Also, neither group had any reason to perpetrate a hoax that caused them nothing but trouble.   One recent suggestion is that Jesus’ body was thrown in a shallow and the dogs ate him.  But, once again, that could not be said at the time – and it wasn’t said at the time – because the resurrection was being proclaimed right there in the city where everything had gone down.  No, the only explanation the ancient enemies of Christianity were ever able to come up with was that the disciples stole the body and, frankly, that explanation just doesn’t wash.

Now some have attempted to refute the claims of the New Testament authors by pointing out the differences in the gospel accounts of resurrection appearances, etc.  Actually, in a legal or historical inquiry such discrepancies help establish an event rather than preclude it.

Every law student has learned that every eye witness will see and then remember different things about an event.   The only way you will get the same story from every single witness is if they have met together and rehearsed the testimony.  In other words, if witnesses to an event agree in every detail, they have conspired together to tell a story and such unanimity is evidence on the face of it that they are probably lying.

One the other hand, widely disparate accounts of the same event are the sorts of thing we ought to expect from honest witnesses describing what they have really seen.  And it tells us they didn’t meet first to get their story right. The important thing is that they agree on the big issues.   Further, it is usually possible to put the diverse accounts together so that the different perspectives make sense.  This is called, harmonization.

One of my favorite Easter sermons is when I take all of the divergent accounts and reconstruct the events of the first Easter.  It’s really quite fun.  For example, it seems that there were three groups of women who headed to the tomb that morning.  They probably spent the night in three separate locations and agreed to meet at the tomb at dawn the next morning.  It seems that two groups set out from Jerusalem and one came from nearby Bethany.

Let me give you a real example of how two, apparently contradictory versions of the same event can both turn out to be true.  The following is from an article by a man named Kenneth Kantzer:

“Some time ago the mother of a dear friend of ours was killed.  We first learned of her death through a trusted mutual friend who reported that our friend’s mother had been standing on the street corner waiting for a bus, had been hit by another bus passing by, was fatally injured, and died a few minutes later.  Shortly thereafter, we learned from the grandson of the dead woman that she had been involved in a collision, was thrown from the car in which she was riding, and was killed instantly.  The boy was quite certain of his facts, relayed them clearly, and state than he had secured his information directly from his mother – the daughter of the woman who had been killed.

Now, who would you believe?  We trusted both friends, but we certainly couldn’t get the data together.  Much later, we were able to seat the mother and grandson in our living room.  There we probed for a harmonization.  We learned that the grandmother had been waiting for a bus, was hit by another bus and was critically injured.  She had been picked up by a passing car and dashed to the hospital, but in the haste, the car in which she was being transported to the hospital collided with another care.  She was thrown from the care and died instantly.  This story from my own experience presents no greater difficulty than that of any recorded in the gospels “

So, given no other cogent explanation other than the one offered by the apostles,  the best explanation for the moved stone, the empty tomb, and the subsequent life, witness and death of the apostles is that Jesus really did raise from the dead.  And we haven’t even challenged the credibility of the accusers.  Suffice it to say, any good attorney would love the opportunity to cross examine the Roman guards and Annas and Caiaphas.

When asked the question; why are you a Christian? I immediately think on two different levels. I could cite certain subjective things, such as the experiences I’ve had, but I think what you want to present here are the logical and rational reasons I am a Christian. So here it goes: in a word, I am convinced that the resurrection of Jesus is an historical fact.

There are many arguments that have and can be made to supporting the proposition that Jesus rose from the grave. I am not even going into the extensive argument made by N.T. Wright. But I am going to be present my own argument from the resurrection, though it is informed and has been made in different ways by many others. — Mark

The scientific method, which involves experiment and observation, is not generally helpful in determining whether or not an event has occurred, since an historical event is a one time event that does not generally lend itself to repetition and scientific observation.

Because of this, historians use what is known as the Legal/Historic method. The reason this method is know as the Legal/Historical method is that it is the same method used in courts of law to determine whether or not an event has occurred. This method involves testimony – both verbal and written – and exhibits (scientific observations are sometimes helpful in this respect).

As our local high school’s mock trial coach for the last 16 years, I’ve had an opportunity to learn a lot about this method. I’ve learned, for example, that based on a given set of facts and the available evidence in a particular case, a number of different arguments can be constructed.

In the case of the resurrection, different apologists may use the available evidence in a number of different ways. For example, N.T. Wright uses some evidence that I have never considered before, and on the basis of this evidence he constructed what former atheist, Atony Flew, referred to an approach “which is absolutely fresh….absolutely wonderful, absolutely radical, and very powerful.” I will no doubt use Wright’s arguments in the future, but based on my mock trial experience I will being using different evidence and come at the matter from a different angle. But I will reach the same conclusion Wright reached; Jesus rose from the dead on that first Easter Sunday morning.

In establishing the historicity of an event alleged to have occurred almost two thousand years ago the evidence is either going to have to be ancient written sources or physical evidence that has somehow survived the test of time. But this leads to the question; “How do we determine whether or not a particular document should be considered evidence of an event?”

In the rules of evidence that govern legal proceedings there is something called, “The Ancient Document Rule.” This rule exists because from time to time settling a lawsuit may require the admission of an old or ancient document. But here’s the problem; any written, out of court statement is hearsay if it is being offered to “prove the truth of the matter asserted.” So if someone is trying to use an old document to prove the truth of something, there needs to be a rule that allows for it to be admitted as evidence. When it comes to the resurrection of Jesus there are three categories of ancient documentation, each of which would need to meet the criteria set forth in the Ancient Document Rule in order to be admitted into evidence in a court of law.

The first set of ancient documents would be the gospels and other books in the New Testament, such as I Corinthians, which speak to the event. One of the most outstanding jurists in American history, Simon Greenleaf, submitted a paper to the New York bar around the turn of the century demonstrating that the gospels could be admitted as evidence in a court of law on the basis of the Ancient Document Rule. His work was put into book form and is still in print; “The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence.” Greenleaf made a powerful legal case, but since he wrote new manuscript discoveries have made his case even stronger.

When Greenleaf wrote liberal critics of the Bible theorized that the New Testament record was produced 100 or more years after the events the purport to describe. We now know, and no one really disputes it much these days (even the Bible’s most vicious critics) that all of the New Testament, with the possible exception of II Peter, was produced before 95 A.D., and that all of the gospels except for John’s were probably produced before 70 A.D. In fact, there is a fragment of Matthew’s gospel that has been independently dated around 57 A.D. This dating is highly controversial, not because the dating can be refuted, but because it would mess up the currently accepted date for the composition of Matthew, pushing its date to within 10 to 20 years of the facts it purports to describe. There are also some who argue that Mark may have been written as early as 6 years after the fact. The consensus on Paul’s reference to the resurrection in I Corinthians 15 is that it was written about 15 years after the fact.

Now let me say this in case you are not familiar with the concept of legal evidence (if you are, please forgive me for insulting your intelligence). The fact that Greenleaf demonstrated that the Gospels could be admitted as evidence in a legal proceeding does not mean that the gospels are true. That’s for the jury (in this case, you), to decide. Evidence is not proof. It may help to prove or disprove something, but it is the trier of fact – a judge or jury – that must examine the evidence presented by both sides, determine the weight to be assigned to the testimony presented, and render a verdict.

In the case of the resurrection, the gospels are not the only testimony that we must consider. There are also ancient pagan and Jewish sources that tell a different story. There is also one piece of archaeological evidence I will be presenting as a supporting argument (as opposed to a main argument).

These other written sources also need to meet the standard of the ancient document rule before they could be admitted as evidence in a court of law. None of these pagan or Jewish sources are as old as the New Testament. However, they do meet the standard and it is generally conceded that they were produced long after the New Testament was concluded, they represent traditions far older than the actual dates of the documents in question. Certainly, as a Christian, I would have no objection to the testimony of these documents coming in, even though they are hostile, since I think their testimony ultimately helps me to prove my case.

So, where do we begin in evaluating this conflicting evidence? In an actual law suit the two sides in the action would get together before the start of the trial to see if there is any common ground — any areas of agreement. Doing this saves time since if there are almost always some points to which all sides can agree. These areas of agreement are known as “the stipulations” and they are read into the record at the beginning of the trial.

As we look at the ancient sources, and note what they have to say about the resurrection, we note that they contain significant areas of disagreement. These are the things that will need to be litigated at trial. However, in spite of these sharp areas of disagreement, we also find that there are certain points that they all agree on. In other words, there are some stipulations. For example, all of the ancient sources agree that there was a Jesus of Nazareth, that he was crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, that he was buried, and that three days later the tomb he was buried in was found empty.

As you may know, later critics have denied some or all of these things. But in an actual trial these modern theories would not be allowed in since they have no actual evidence to support them. They would be objected to as speculation and they would not come in due to a lack of foundation.

There are additional stipulations. Let me mention a few; we know that the claims of the resurrection where being made from the very beginning by Christians (N.T. Wright does a wonderful job demonstrating this), and that the claims were first made in Jerusalem — the very city where the alleged event occurred — within easy walking distance of the empty tomb. It would also stipulated that the Christian church began and thrived in this same city, Jerusalem, until the Christian community (in obedience to Jesus warnings in the Olivet Discourse) relocated in Pella on the east side of the Jordan River shortly before the Romans destroyed the city.

In addition, it is also beyond serious question that the disciples of Jesus proclaimed their story that they were eyewitnesses of the resurrection even though it resulted in severe persecution and finally the loss of their lives. Many of them died the most torturous of deaths. And yet none of them changed their story. This makes their witness particularly compelling.

The reason I mention this latter stipulation is that we know that a person will die for what they believe to be the true. Suicide bombers, for example, really believe they’re going to get 70+ virgins. However, no one will willingly die for what they know to be a lie. This is why many skeptics will concede that whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead his disciples must have thought he did, because there is no other rational explanation for their subsequent life and witness (But more of this later). So these are the stipulations:

• Somewhere around the year 30 A.D. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate
• He was buried in a nearby tomb
• Three days later the stone that had sealed the tomb was discovered rolled away and the tomb was empty.
• The body was never recovered
• Shortly after the empty tomb was discovered the disciples of Jesus were proclaiming – both in Jerusalem, and ultimately throughout the Greco/Roman world — that Jesus had risen from the dead and that they were witnesses of the resurrection.
• Subsequently many of the disciples died torturous deaths for making these claims.
• None of them ever changed their story.

So, what do the two sides in the law suit claim? The disciples, of course, claim that Jesus rose from the grave, validating his claim that He was the Son of God and the Savior of the World.

The other sources, both pagan and Jewish, claim that the disciples stole the body and perpetrated a hoax. Please note: In ancient times this was the only explanation offered for the missing body.

In my next post I will present and examine the ancient evidence from both sides.