The Minimal Facts Approach in Defending the Resurrection

Filed under: Apologetics — Barry Carey at 5:44 pm on Thursday, August 10, 2006

Yesterday, I blogged on the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus to the Christian faith. This was prompted by my reading of Gary Habermas’ The Risen Jesus & Future Hope. Habermas takes what I believe is a fruitful approach in dealing with skeptics of the resurrection. One could defend the historicity of the resurrection on the basis that the Bible is God’s inspired word and is therefore true. However, obviously not many will grant this premise in approaching this subject. So, we cannot argue from innerrancy, how about reliability? Again, Habermas argues that one need not be granted the reliability of the New Testament to effectively argue for the resurrection. Instead, the defender of the resurrection only needs that which the vast majority of scholars will grant as being authentically historical. He, quite successfully in my opinion, begins with only those facts yeilded by even the most liberal scholars. This is what we mean by the “minimal facts” approach.

And what are these minimal facts accepted as historical by virtually all scholars? You might be surprised.

Minimal Facts:
1. Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.
2. He was buried, most likely in a private tomb.
3. Soon afterward, the disciples were discouraged, bereaved, and despondent, having lost hope.
4. Jesus’s tomb was found empty very soon after his interment.
5. The disciples had experiences that they believed were actual appearances of the risen Jesus.
6. Due to these experiences, the disciples’ lives were thoroughly transformed, even being willing to die for this belief.
7. The proclamation of the resurrection took place very early, at the beginning of church history.
8. The disciples’ public testimony and preaching of the resurrection took place in the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus had been crucified and buried shortly before.
9. The Gospel message centered on the death and resurrection of Jesus.
10. Sunday was the primary day for gathering and worshipping.
11. James, the brother of Jesus and a former skeptic, was converted when, he believed, he saw the risen Jesus.
12. Just a few years later, Saul of Tarsus (Paul) became a Christian believer due to an experience that he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus.

- from The Risen Jesus & Future Hope - (pp 9-10)

After being granted the preceding minimal facts, the most likely explanation is the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth!

7 Comments »

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Comment by Steven Carr

August 11, 2006 @ 1:18 am

Don’t fotget that many people converted to Jesus-worship and still believed that the dead were lost and scoffed at the idea of a corpse rising from the grave.

See Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and Thessalonians.

How can the existence be explained of such large churches of early converts to Jesus-worship, but who still denied that a dead corpse could, or would, rise from the grave?

Paul, of course, doesn’t bother even wuth these ‘minimum’ facts when defending the idea that Jesus became a ‘life-giving spirit’.

Perhaps he just wasn’t aware of them.

It would be intriguing to see you try to defend these ‘facts’ without the assumption that the Bible is true.

It is rather like hearing Muslims claim that it is an accepted fact that th Angel Gabriel visited Muhammad, because the Koran says so.

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Comment by Steven Carr

August 11, 2006 @ 1:22 am

‘6. Due to these experiences, the disciples’ lives were thoroughly transformed, even being willing to die for this belief.’

Please quote the names of these ‘liberal scholars’ who claim that the disciples were willing to die for the belief that Jesus flesh and blood rose from the grave.

Don’t include Paul, who claims in Galatians 6:12 that early Christians were persecuted on the issue of circumcision, and that leaders of the church were quite willing to compromise their beliefs to avoid persuection.

But how can we expect Paul to know as much about early church history as Habermas and these unnamed ‘liberal scholars’?

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Comment by Barry Carey

August 11, 2006 @ 8:26 am

Some “Liberal Scholars” who claim the disciples were willing transformed by the resurrection to the point of willing to die: Both Bart Ehrman and John Dominic Crossan grant that the disciples were transformed by what they perceived to be the risen Christ and were willing to die for this belief. It is almost universally accepted among all scholars that this is true. I don’t know of any legitimate scholars who reject this point. Do you?

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Pingback by withallyourmind.net » Even Less Minimal Facts for the Resurrection

August 11, 2006 @ 9:03 am

[...] Yesterday, I blogged on the minimal facts approach to defending the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus as delineated by Gary Habermas. This list of 12 minimal facts can be halved and one can still argue convincingly that Christ did rise from the dead. Here is the reduced list: 1. Jesus died by crucifixion. 2. The disciples had experiences that they thought were actual appearances of the risen Jesus. 3. The disciples were thoroughly transformed, even being willing to die for this belief. 4. The apostolic proclamation of the resurrection began very early, when the church was in its infancy. 5. James, the brother of Jesus and a fomer skeptic, became a Christian due to an experience that he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus. 6. Saul (Paul), the church persecutor, became a Christian due to an experience that he beleved was an appearance of the risen Jesus. [...]

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Comment by Steven Carr

August 11, 2006 @ 6:12 pm

Where does Ehrman say that 12 (or 11) disciples were transformed and willing to die for a belief that Jesus corpse had risen bodily from the grave?

And why did early Christian converts scoff at the idea that a corpse could rise from the dead?

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Pingback by withallyourmind.net » Summary of the Minimal Facts Argument for the Resurrection

August 23, 2006 @ 1:09 pm

[...] Over 9 previous posts, I have presented Gary Habermas’ Minimal Facts Argument for the resurrection (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9). I first presented 12 facts which are accepted as historical by virtually all scholars who research in this area. Those 12 facts were then pared to 6 minimal facts which are sufficient to establish the resurrection as an historical event. This argument does not depend upon being granted the inerrancy of scripture, divine inspiration of scripture, nor even the general reliability of the Old Testament. Obviously, I do hold to all of the above, but I do not need to depend on those assumptions nor be granted them to establish firm grounds for believing that the resurrection actually occurred. [...]

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Comment by thom waters

September 9, 2008 @ 2:28 am

This notion of proving the resurrection by the “minimal facts” approach appears to assume facts not in evidence. An example (to be brief) : There appears to be no evidence whatsoever connecting the appearance of the risen Jesus to his brother James and James’ belief in Jesus as the Messiah. It is one thing to assert as Paul does that the risen Jesus appeared to James, and another thing to equate this appearance with James’ belief in Jesus as the Messiah. There is absolutely no mention anywhere in scripture or elsewhere that connects these two things. John 7:5 mentions that his brothers did not believe in him at that point. Any conversion or so-called conversion to belief could have happened at any point after that. We simply do not have any information. Apologists want the license to equate things because it is convenient to their argument. However, this is less than honest. I could make additional comments about your “minimal facts” approach, but I will stop here. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but you cannot create “facts” to support your argument. Nice try.

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