The Defense of the Resurrection of Jesus
Brother John G. Gassaway
WHY WAIT EVEN 7 WEEKS? WHY USE WOMEN AS THE FIRST WITNESSES OF THE TOMB? ARE THE DISCIPLES RELIABLE WITNESSES? WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THEM OTHER THAN THE GOSPEL ACCOUNT?
As you must see now, if the disciples were going to put together a hoax, they certainly went about it in a most unusual way with this very confusing mixing of names and events steeped in Jewish custom for the events occurring during the six days from John 12:1 until Jesus’ burial in John 19:42 and the account of the women and the first visit to the tomb on resurrection morning. I have used up several months of writing in an attempt to make order of what at first glance is total confusion in the Gospels! Let us look at some of the other anomalies that you would have to accept in order to charge the disciples with the greatest hoax in history.
Why did the disciples wait seven weeks before they told the story? If it were a lie, that would not help their case to tell it so late. If they were clever enough to steal the body, then to collaborate on the Gospels, then they were clever enough to come up with a good story quicker than this. They waited for seven weeks because Jesus told them to do so [Luke 24:49]. They did not even know how long they were to wait. They were just to wait until they were given the power promised. It happened seven weeks later on the Day of Pentecost.
Perhaps one of the most perplexing questions to those who claim that this story was fabricated is that the report of the empty tomb first came from women. Whether fair or not, the testimony of a woman in first century Judea was considered worthless and unreliable. If the disciples were making up a lie, they would NEVER have admitted that the women discovered the empty tomb. Rather they would state that the disciples discovered the empty tomb. Yet, the earliest Gospels to the latest, report it that way. Mary Magdalene reported that someone had taken Jesus’ body and she knew not where they have taken him [John 20:2]. At that time, she actually thought that Jesus’ body had been stolen!
The disciples showed the Jewish mindset and their contempt for women’s testimony, Luke reporting that the disciples at first thought "their words to be idle tales" [Luke 24:11]. She went back to the tomb with John and Peter and this time she encountered the risen Jesus. [John 20:14]. The varying reports of how the stone came to be removed has already been discussed and that is the very nature of legends and oral traditions that spread before an accurate report is written as was the case of the resurrection. This oral story was spread quickly throughout the Roman Empire by the millions of visitors who were in Jerusalem that week and later until the Feast of Pentecost had come. The very nature of legends and myths that arise much later than the event tend to exaggerate and add information. Even though it hurts the story In the times and places It was first told, the Gospels carefully record this damaging information that the first witnesses were women and the varying stories about angels, the tomb and how it was opened. That "old woman hater" Paul didn’t include any of the oral stories in I Corinthians 15. (I joke about Paul).
How do you think you would react if you saw this thing? I am sure that even the high priest and his group were totally confused. They had called Him a blasphemer and now they had a report from their own guard detail that the tomb was empty. The guards may very likely have seen Jesus come through the closed entry of the tomb. (HE did not have to move the stone. He had the ability to walk through such objects as we discover later! [John 20:26]). This in part explains the confusion of the Jewish authorities and their feeble story planted claiming a "stolen body." They knew that Jesus was risen and that the tomb was empty. Yet, the religious leaders in the Temple resisted the obvious conclusion that He was who He claimed to be for that would have meant giving up their authority and admitting Jesus was the Messiah.
Let us return to the disciples and their reaction. If you followed someone as perfect in manner as Jesus Christ for three years and then he was executed in this way and three days later, he arose from the dead, and later floated off to heaven with angels around telling you that "he shall return in like manner" [Acts 1:11], how do you think you would react? They were changed men after they witnessed the resurrected Christ. Steven’s martyrdom is a witness to that question in Acts 6 and 7, when he was stoned to death, with Saul holding the coats of his executioners [Acts 22:20]. I have many times considered that this was Paul’s "thorn in the flesh", the guilt of that and other acts of persecution of Christians that followed Paul throughout his days. I am aware of various reports that Paul did have physical infirmities including poor eyesight.
John and James were nicknamed the "sons of thunder" by Jesus because of their hotheaded temper [Mark 3:17]. (Jesus had a good sense of humor which shows up at times like this and also when he quips "what things?" to the two on the Emmaus road, when they were so distraught over things that Jesus knew well [Luke 24:19]. He was just baiting them to see how THEY would describe what had happened to them!). John and James were selfish, desiring the best seat in the new kingdom to come. They even sent their mother to ask special favor. James was beheaded very early; we don’t know too much about him, but think that sometime between AD 36 and AD 44 [Acts 12:2] he went to Spain and returned to Jerusalem, where he was beheaded; it is reported at the same time forgiving his accuser and stating, "Peace be to thee, brother." His accuser was so affected by this that he confessed being a Christian on the spot and suffered execution. We do know that John became the "apostle of love" afterwards, unselfish, always teaching those of "the way" to love one another.
Jesus also nicknamed Simon, "Peter" meaning "rock", I suppose because he was a burly hard—fisted fisherman who probably looked like a "rock", physically. He was a brash, self-confident man, who "would never leave Jesus and would die with Him." He was proved to be a coward when the chips were down and ran away. When he met Jesus, in John 24, he could not even claim to love Jesus in the way (agape) that Jesus wanted and asked of Peter. Peter could only admit to "phileo", a lesser commitment than "agape." He was totally defeated. Yet he became the leader on the Day of Pentecost and later when he faced death for preaching the message on that day. He was now a courageous man, not a braggart. He may still have shown some resistance to going to Gentiles and had to be corrected by the Lord several times. But in the end when Peter wrote of Paul, in II Peter 3:15, he acknowledged the work of Paul among the Gentiles in a much different light than he had earlier at Antioch [Galatians 2:11].
II Peter 3:15 "And account (that) the longsuffering of our Lord (is) salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;"
Thomas was a doubter. He did not believe that Jesus could survive death. The Gospel record shows that in several places. Jesus and the disciples were In Bethabara, beyond the Jordan. The news of Lazarus’ death came to them and Jesus would return to Jerusalem. Jesus would face a dangerous journey near enemy territory of Samaria and into Judea where they already sought to kill Him, Thomas stated, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." [John 11:16]. That shows courage on Thomas’s part, but he did not believe In the Divine nature of Christ. He is the one who raised the question in John 14:5, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" He was the one who had to be shown the nail prints and the wounded side of Jesus. Afterwards he would take on the toughest task of them all. He would go into the heart of the Brahman religious sect in India where such a claim of a "man" being God and dying and raising from the dead would bring him instant death.
Eusebius writes, "St. Thomas arrived In Keralla, in south India in 52 AD. He succeeded In converting local Indians to Christianity. He founded seven churches still known as the Syrian churches because Syriac is their traditional liturgical language. His converts were called Syrian Christians. According to history, he sent Thaddaeus to King Abgarus, shortly after Christ’s resurrection." [Eusebius. Hilt. Eccl., lib. 1, cap. 13.].
"As Parthia, India, Ethiopia, and many other countries had been assigned him as his portion and he traveled through them; he dreaded, however, as it appears, to go to the moors and the savage nations of India. Nevertheless, God having strengthened him, he there converted many to God." [Eusebius. Hilt. Eccl., lib: 3, cad. 1.]
One story is that he was sentenced first to be tormented with red—hot plates, and then to be cast into a glowing furnace, and burned. But when the idolatrous priests, who stood before the furnace, saw that the fire did not hurt him, they pierced his side. He left behind these people who still exist today as the Syrian Church.
The Syrian Christians resisted reformation by both Roman and Eastern Orthodox Catholic missionaries as well as Protestant missionaries over the centuries and survive in small numbers in spite of Hindu and Islamic enmity. The church today is expanding out of its center in Thozhiyur. New congregations are also developing in the heartland along with congregations in Madras, Coimbatore, and Cochin. A sister church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, followed the West Syrian tradition and never accepted any of the reformed doctrines. Some of the Syrian churches are associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church and known as Mar Thoma. Perhaps more than most of the group of lesser—known apostles, Thomas left behind an enduring legacy. [FOX’S BOOK OF MARTYRS]; the website is: http://www.malankarachurch.org/
The Book of Acts reports the story of the Apostle Paul and the Damascus road. It shows a man who was totally changed in his mission and direction after he met the resurrected Christ. Mark died while being dragged to death in the streets of Alexandria. He had been the one that Paul turned down because of his timid ways, yet once in contact with Peter for a while, he became this bold to defy the Jewish authorities in Alexandria.
Simon Zealot would go into hostile, Roman controlled, northern England and would be crucified there. He easily could have gone to southern Selurian Briton (England) and would have faced no danger from the Romans. He would be replaced by Aristobulus [Romans 16:10; also known as Eubulus; II Timothy 4:21], one of Paul’s acquaintances in Rome. Aristobulus would be martyred in Britain just as Simon. There is some debate yet that Simon died in Armenia with Thaddaeus, but the weight of archaeological and historical evidence points towards England.
Andrew would go into Armenia and would preach to the Scythians, the Sacae, and at Patras, a city in Achaia. He converted besides many others, Maximillia, the wife of Aegaeas, the governor, to the Christian faith. This so enraged the governor against Andrew, that he threatened him with death of the cross. But the apostle said to the governor, "Had I feared the death of the cross, I should not have preached the majesty and gloriousness of the cross of Christ." He later met crucifixion at the hands of the governor of Edessenes (Northern Iran). He faced the cross with his last words being, "0 cross, most welcome and long looked for! With a willing mind,joyfully and desirously, I come to thee, being the scholar of Him which did hang on thee."
Bartholomew (also known as Nathaniel) is reported to have gone into India (along with Thomas) and preached to those in Bombay region on the Konkan coast and left them the writings of St. Matthew in Hebrew letters (Aramaic). This indicates that they may have been a Jewish conclave and historical sources state that a group of Jews from Syria in fact came to India about the time of this encounter with Bartholomew. Bartholomew would then go with Thaddaeus (also known as Judas, the son of James) into Scythian controlled area north of the Black Sea. There they converted many in Armenia. The establishment of Armenia’s Holy Apostolic Church traditionally dates back to the time of these two apostles, St. Thaddaeus and St. Bartholomew. He moreover, as is stated by others, "delivered from idolatry and enlightened with the knowledge of Jesus Christ, twelve cities in that country in which the devil was worshiped through the idol Ashtoreth. But the priests of Ashtoreth, being very much vexed on account of this, complained to King Astyages, who caused Bartholomew (and Thaddaeus), this holy apostle of Christ, to be apprehended and brought before him."
The king had them tied to a post (some say upside down) and cut apart with whips until dead. It is said he continued to witness to Christ and the king ordered that he be beheaded to stop his preaching. But the Christian faith in Armenia did not die out, but moreover quickly spread amongst peasantry and noble classes alike. The Armenian Church competes with the British Church at Glastonbury as being the first church above ground outside of Judea and Antioch, both British and Armenian churches being formed about the same time as early as 39 to 40 AD. [from web site http://www.armenianhighland.com/; Gevork Nazaryan; FOX’S BOOK OF MARTYRS].
Matthew was run through with a spear at the orders of the king Hercanus of Egypt and Ethiopia where Matthew had converted many.
Phillip was stoned and crucified in Phyrgia (western Turkish peninsula). Simon, the half-brother of Jesus, the brother of Jude and not one of the twelve, was crucified in Egypt in the reign of Trajan.
The seven chosen as deacons at Jerusalem in Acts 6:5 were all martyred during the prolonged persecution of Nero, each In far-reaching areas of the Roman Empire, preaching the Gospel. These included Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, and Parmenas [Acts 6:5]; Luke, Onesimus [Colossians 4:9]; and Dionyslus [Acts 17:34] among many others of the seventy, met martyrdom. The earliest was Steven who was martyred in the first persecution recorded at length in Acts.
The two most noted executions of the twelve were those of Peter and Paul. Peter was crucified and it is said at his own request, placed upside down, because he felt unworthy to die as Jesus Christ had. The Apostle Paul was beheaded after his last imprisonment in Rome at the hands of Nero. [FOX’S BOOK OF MARTYRS].
Something happened to these men that catastrophically and permanently changed them after the crucifixion. They had fled on the night in the Garden of Gethsemane and afterwards hid themselves behind locked doors. After Jesus Christ’s resurrection and appearance and the empowerment of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, they were unafraid of death. John’s disciples, Ignatius and Polycarp, faced and even sought martyrdom, so convinced were they of Jesus Christ. It should also be noted that before all of the disciples were martyred they were very successful In establishing Christianity wherever they went. Paul did say that "all Asia" had left him, but then Paul was to have his success long after he was dead in the west among the Gentile nations and his writings are responsible for many converts in modern times.
What changed these men was encountering a risen Jesus Christ. They became courageous men who remained steadfast to their mission to the last. Scheming men who sought to deceive the world did not put this story together, either In 33 AD or later. It is stated well that a lie will not improve the character of any man. All of these men with the exception of Judas, the betrayer, prove to be vastly improved in character and ability after their experience.
This is more than enough defense of the Gospel record as being the individual work of four men, who had very little contact with one another by the time they wrote the story, yet the stories match in the essentials. This is the hope of any trial lawyer, that his witnesses have a generally matching story to tell, but different enough to show that there was not collaboration In a lie. What about the veracity of the witnesses themselves? What about the story? I will dispense with the incredible nature of the story first. To be continued...
REALITY; DO WE KNOW WHAT IS POSSIBLE EVEN IN OUR OWN WORLD? PAST AND MODERN DEFENDERS OF THE STORY.
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