Other Apologetics or History

Easter-Then and Now

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Easter is a holiday to remember Jesus’ death and resurrection. But I think often Christians don’t think of it as much as they should. So, this is to explore the resurrection and its relevance to us today. The Apostles who travelled and did ministry with Jesus for about three years were often confused and had petty doubts and disagreements. They often had difficulty understanding Jesus, judging from the four gospel accounts in the New Testament. When Jesus was arrested and crucified this was not what they expected because they thought he would become King. The Jewish religious leaders, who were generally very hypocritical, wanted to kill him for blaspheme, but the Romans didn’t allow them to execute someone. So, they seemed to pressure governor Pilate into executing him as someone who claimed to be a king. Yet, Pilate understood from speaking to Jesus that this was not really the case (See John 18:28-19:6 and Luke 23:13-25). But I think Pilate was concerned that the Jewish leaders would go to Caesar and get Pilate in serious trouble. So out of this complex political situation Jesus was crucified as a non-Roman citizen criminal.

So, Jesus was crucified on a Friday according to the Jewish calendar before Passover started in the evening. Jesus was placed in the tomb prior to sunset. Since it was before sunset the portion of daylight on Friday after he died becomes counted as a day in the Jewish manner of counting days. Then that Saturday was the normal Jewish Sabbath. From Friday evening sunset to Saturday evening sunset was the Passover (the second “day” of his death). Then Sunday was considered the first day of the week. Jesus’ resurrection was shortly before sunrise that Sunday morning (John 20:1). From sunset Saturday to when Jesus rose from the dead would be considered part of a 24-hour day to the Jews because they counted days from sunset to sunset. So, it may have still been dark when Jesus appeared coming out of the tomb in blinding light which caused the Roman soldiers to faint (Matthew 28:1-7).

Then some of the women disciples went to the tomb, apparently arriving after the soldiers fainted. Then later, Peter and John went to the tomb. The New Testament doesn’t indicate whether the Romans allowed others to continue going to the tomb or not. If they did, then many could have seen the empty tomb. But word got around quickly and there continued to be sightings and appearances of Jesus for a period of 40 days (Acts 1:1-5). The appearances were in varied places and times of day, sometimes to individuals and sometimes to groups (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-10). In 1 Corinthians 15 the Apostle Paul says Jesus appeared to more than 500 believers at one time, and that at the time he wrote that many of those people were still alive. So, the people receiving Paul’s letter to the Corinthians could have spoken to those who were in the group of 500 who saw Jesus. There was also an appearance of Jesus to Saul on the road to Damascus sometime later. That was an appearance to someone of a very hostile opposing point of view, which makes it unique. Saul, the young Pharisee, became a Believer and was chosen by Jesus to be an Apostle. He changed from being a zealous opponent trying to arrest Christians to being a promoter of the faith he had tried to destroy. This is summarizing a lot of information in the New Testament.

To read some of this see the Bible passages below.
See this link for Matthew: https://www.bible.com/bible/59/MAT.28.ESV
or this for John: https://www.bible.com/bible/59/JHN.20.ESV

Of course, many have questioned or doubted the New Testament to varying degrees. But the New Testament has a very good track record in its historical reliability. If the New Testament writers are well verified on historical details, for the facts that can be verified from other sources, then why doubt them? It is usually because of the reluctance to believe in miracles or the reluctance to believe all that the New Testament says. But doubting the New Testament is not really out of evidence against it, but it is a personal issue to reject it. The Old Testament and New Testament in the Bible are truly historical. It is not that we know how to tie every detail to historical evidence, but there are many things that can be tied to historical and archeological evidence. The archeological evidence confirming the Bible gets better over time also. The Bible describes real places, real kings and political leaders, known wars, and various events of history. So, the New Testament is written in the context of history.

This is not the case with non-Christian religions. For many religions the adherents don’t really expect it to relate it to history. They may care about the history surrounding a founder, but it doesn’t hinge on being historical, such as Hinduism for example. Some religions have a false history that is believed but that cannot be verified, such as Mormonism. In recent years scholars have been challenging Islam because historical evidence argues against Muslim claims about Mohammad and the Koran. So, the New Testament accounts related to Jesus’ resurrection then become the earliest eyewitness accounts we have. They are the accounts of eyewitnesses or close associates of eyewitnesses who were there in the first century. Within a few short weeks after Jesus’ crucifixion, there was explosive growth in the number of Christian converts (Acts 2:36-41). Then Christianity started spreading around the world. The early disciples of Jesus also changed from being people who were living in hiding to being bold witnesses, some of which were doing miracles like Jesus had done.

I think the thoroughness of the Romans did Christians many favors regarding the resurrection of Jesus. The Romans were very professional and skilled at crucifixion and handling criminals. They crucified many criminals and enemies of Rome. Crucifixion did not start with the Romans. I believe the ancient Assyrians practiced it in some manner. But the practice was much refined by the Romans. The Romans were experts at the process. Some non-Christian religious people like to claim Jesus did not actually die. But this is easy to answer I think because if Jesus didn’t actually die then the Romans made a mistake that they would just never make. Jesus was also flogged before being crucified and the flogging was a terrible thing that would have severely weakened Jesus. In John 19:34 it indicates a Roman soldier verified Jesus had died by piercing his side with a spear, and it says out came blood and water. Medical doctors have pointed out this is what would happen if the pericardium sac around heart was pierced. A watery fluid would come out with the blood. So, this is clear evidence of death from the Bible. But even if you don’t accept this, it’s not realistically possible for the Romans to crucify someone and not kill them. There were official Roman written records that Jesus was put to death by Pilate, but those records haven’t survived to today. The soldiers normally made sure of death by breaking the legs of the person being crucified, since this made it impossible for them to breathe. But John 19 indicates they didn’t do this with Jesus, but used the spear to verify instead, since he had already died (John 19:31-37). There had even been prophesies from the Old Testament about this (Zechariah 12:10 and Psalm 34:20). So, Jesus’ death and resurrection fulfilled Old Testament prophesies.

Then we can consider how the Romans guarded the tomb. In Matthew 27:65, the ESB Bible indicates Governor Pilate said “make it [the tomb] as secure as you can.” Some movies have depicted the resurrection so there is only two guards at the tomb. But this is contrary to what is known about the Romans. Josh McDowell’s books point out that when the Romans posted a guard they used some multiple of 4. Also it may be that since it was guarding something outside, rather than being in a prison, they may have used more guards. So the minimum possible would be four guards but even that may be contrary to Roman practices. It seems 8 or 16 would be more likely. Even 20 guards would be possible. Since Jesus had 12 of the more well-known closest followers I can’t imagine the Romans having less than 12 guards. But we don’t know the exact number. At any rate, there was special training the Roman soldiers got on how to guard something. They were supposed to be capable of defending a small area against an attacking army. They would sleep in shifts with a group of four guards in each shift. If Roman guards went to sleep when they weren’t supposed to on guard duty, they were executed. Yet, according to the New Testament these guards were not executed. The Jewish religious leaders made some special arrangement with Pilate and told the soldiers to tell people that the disciples stole the body while the guards were asleep. But the story of them sleeping is not plausible and common people would have known this. They would not all go to sleep like this, especially if there were 16 or more guards. All this leads to the conclusion I think that it is not really plausible the disciples stole the body, though this is the story that was adopted. Furthermore, why weren’t some of the disciples arrested for stealing the body, if this is what happened?

Another common “explanation” brought up is that the disciples hallucinated or just “imagined” it. But the problem with both of these ideas is that it happened too many times in too many different situations. The Bible even describes Jesus encouraging the disciples to touch him and even eating fish in one of his appearances (Luke 24:36-43). Hallucinations cannot be the same between two people. So, there is no way multiple people, both together and separately, could have had the same hallucination, or have imagined the same thing. He also appeared when they did not expect it. It’s true they would have missed him a lot, but this is not enough to make these plausible explanations. To not believe in the appearances of Jesus, you end up just having to not trust the New Testament. My own father once suggested that they hallucinated but I was a new Christian at the time and did not know what to say to this. There were a number of appearances to people individually and in groups in multiple locations over a period of 40 days (Acts 1:1-5). On one occasion Jesus spoke to some of the men on the road and they didn’t recognize him till he went home with them and broke bread to eat. The disciples were obviously wrestling with whether to believe their own eyes. Thomas is well known for having said he would not believe till he touched the wounds in Jesus hands and side. Later, he had his chance to do this, and his response was “My Lord and my God! (John 21:24-29)” Some of the disciples didn’t believe the other disciples initially. So, it took them time to deal with what had happened. The New Testament presents authentic accounts of what the disciples went through, “warts and all” as we could say. The New Testament doesn’t present the disciples as perfect people without problems.

The disciples became very bold after Jesus had risen and then ascended into heaven. The resurrection confirmed all that Jesus said would happen to him and proved he was both fully God and fully human. The resurrection was something that dramatically changed the disciples lives. But what about us today? Pastor John MacArthur once said something about the resurrection that I’ve never forgotten. He said “The resurrection is not just something that happened to Jesus. If you’re a Christian, it’s something that happens to you!” This means that it empowers us now, to live new lives. It gives us power to change and be better than we could be on our own. We don’t have to be “stuck” in bad habits! Christians who die are promised to be resurrected like Jesus one day, but the power to change is something we have now, today! Jesus did not promise life would be easy. But I would say God makes life more good. This is not theoretical to me, because He did it for me.

Bible Related

Blindness and Sight

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The following looks at spiritual blindness and physical blindness. God can heal both kinds of blindness. But, in these accounts from the New Testament, God’s purpose seems to be to expose the spiritual blindness of hypocritical religious leaders in first century Israel. But God can use physical maladies or handicaps for His own good purpose as well. So God always wants to heal spiritual blindness. But He may not always want to heal a physical ailment. It all depends on His purpose.

Blindness to Sight

In John 9:1-41 Jesus heals a man who was born blind. It is worth noting that this man was not asking for Jesus to heal him. Rather, it was Jesus’ disciples who saw the man and asked Jesus about him. This is a fascinating miracle from Jesus because of how he used it to confront hypocrasy. Another interesting thing about this case is that Jesus put mud in the blind man’s eyes and then told him to go to the pool of Siloam to wash. This seems like an odd thing to do, and it was not something Jesus did in other healings of blind people. It is also an interesting account because this man was questioned afterwards by the Pharisees. The account in John addresses a misconception the Jews seemed to have about someone born with a birth defect. It says as they went along and encountered this man born blind, the disciples asked Jesus (John 9:1), “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus said “neither.” Jesus said it was so the work of God could be displayed in his life. Jesus went on to say (John 9:5), “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Then Jesus spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. Then he told the man to go “wash in the Pool of Siloam.” So the man went (presumably people led him there). The man washed and it says he came home seeing (John 9:7). An important thing to notice is that even after the man went to the Pool of Siloam, he had not yet seen Jesus. In this case, Jesus seemed to make the man’s reaction to seeing more visible to others. It seems that Jesus wanted to delay the man’s initial reaction to seeing for the first time in his life. So, this was handled to deliberately make some “public exposure” of a man who had been born blind being healed. The man’s first experience seeing in his entire life happened in a very public place where people gathered.

In verses 8-12 it tells about the reactions of neighbors and other people who had seen him begging before. Some people said he was the same man and was healed but others didn’t believe he was the same man, even though the man himself told them he was the man! The blind man knew that the one who had put mud in his eyes was called Jesus, but he didn’t seem to know much about Jesus. Also, when people asked him where this Jesus was, he didn’t know. Then people who knew of this took the man who had been healed to the Pharisees. It was something unheard of for a man born blind to be healed (John 9:32-33).

John 9:14 says that it was on a Sabbath that Jesus put mud on this man’s eyes and healed him. So Jesus used this to confront the Pharisees and help people to realize their corruption and unbelief. So, the Pharisees questioned the man. It says “the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. ‘He put mud on my eyes,’ the man replied, ‘and I washed, and now I see’.” The corrupt misguided reaction of the Pharisees is evident in that when they heard the man’s testimony, their reaction was not to acknowledge the healing, or to praise God, but it was to accuse Jesus. Verse 16 says, “Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’ “ So the man realized this was contradictory. If he was a sinner, how could he do a miraculous sign? So the man told the Pharisees he was a prophet. This reflects an Old Testament kind of understanding, that if God sends a prophet, some prophets could do miracles. Now in verses 16-18 the passage switches from referring to the Pharisees to referring to “the Jews” not believing the man had been healed. So they sent for his parents. The parents were afraid of acknowledging Jesus to the Jewish leaders, because the leaders had decided that whoever believed in Jesus would be put out of the synagogue. Thus, the parents said that he was their son and that he was born blind. But they essentially “played dumb” about Jesus. It is not clear if the man’s parents believed in Jesus or not. The parents also said that he was of age, so their son could speak for himself. This suggests the man was a young man, but an adult.

The Jewish Pharisees again questioned the man. Again, they said that Jesus was a sinner. The man said he didn’t know if Jesus was a sinner, but he knew he had been healed. Then they claimed to be disciples of Moses, not of Jesus. They also said they didn’t know where Jesus comes from. The man’s answer is powerful in showing the contradictions of the Jewish leaders thinking. Verses 30-33 have the man’s reply, “The man answered, ‘Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ “ The Jewish leaders reacted to this wrongly again, saying “ ’You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!’ And they threw him out.” So the Jewish leaders were stuck in a wrong way of thinking that said that the reason someone was born blind was because of the sin of their parents. Thus, this man was put out of the synagogue; it’s also possible his parents were put out also because they would have been blamed for his blindness. The Pharisees thinking that the man was blind because of the sin of his parents was wrong and this is not a concept from the Old Testament at all. The Pharisees added rules to the Old Testament law that were not necessary, in order to make themselves seem superior to others.

Only after all this happened did Jesus speak to the man about being “the Son of Man.” The man apparently had some time to deal with the whole thing and probably heard from others about Jesus. So in verse 38 he tells Jesus, “Lord, I believe.” Then Jesus’ response (verse 39) is profound. “Jesus said, ’For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.’ ” Jesus’ exposed the real spiritual blindness of the Jewish leaders who claimed to be spiritual guides to the allegedly spiritually blind common people. But the average Jew knew the truth better than the Pharisees. So the person that the Pharisees and Jewish leaders threw out of the synagogue as being “steeped in sin” was actually the one who was in the light from God’s perspective. The blind man didn’t know much in the beginning. But over the course of these events, you can see how his understanding of who Jesus is grew. By the end of the account (John 9:38) the formerly blind man said he believed to Jesus and he worshiped Jesus. Jesus judged very differently than the phony spiritual leaders of the Jews of the time. Some Pharisees heard about this statement Jesus said, and he told them their guilt remained. What a good lesson on spiritual blindness! Jesus was very effective at exposing the corruption and unbelief of the Jewish religious leaders. Also, Jesus exposed the Pharisee’s hypocrasy to the common Jewish people, without even being present for most of it. The people were able to see for themselves the unreasonable reaction of the Jewish leaders. They clearly hated Jesus and they worked to suppress faith in Jesus. This helped the people understand better who to follow and who to believe.

Sight to Blindness

Jesus said the blind would see and those who see would become blind. This is literally what happened in the life of Saul of Tarsus who became Paul the Apostle. But as it says in the Pilgrim’s Progress story, the bitter comes before the sweet. Saul was a Pharisee, so he likely would have thought that a blind man was blind due to sin as the Pharisees in John 9 thought. He thought that he had to oppose the early Christians spreading the gospel about Christ. He was working to get Christians arrested. But, Saul’s thinking was totally unraveled and rewoven by his encounter with the risen Jesus.
Saul’s case is very different from the man born blind. Saul was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians (see Acts 9:1-19). Then Jesus appears to Saul on the road. Saul must have had some guards with him, likely temple guards I suspect. But the experience of speaking with Jesus left him blind. So in this case Jesus made a seeing man blind. It says in Acts 9:8 that when Saul got up from the ground, he could see nothing. So he was totally blind for 3 days. He must have depended on the guards to lead him into Damascus. The guards did not see or hear Jesus as Saul did. But Jesus told him to go into the city (Damascus). There, a man name Ananias found him and helped him. In this case, Jesus had a believer heal Saul of his blindness. Paul was likely in turmoil and was undoubtedly fasting and praying for some time. But Ananias healed Saul, placing his hands on him (Acts 9:17-18).

Thus, Paul’s sight was restored but most Bible scholars think it was not restored completely. Galatians 6:11 may support this because in this verse Paul mentions that he writes with large letters when he writes with his own hand. In 2 Corinthians 12 he writes that he was given a “thorn in the flesh” to torment him. Bible scholars have long suspected the “thorn in the flesh” was an eye problem that remained for the rest of his life. From 2 Corinthians 12 it seems it was to humble Paul, a permanent reminder of how the Lord humbled him. God has a purpose for both the abilities and the disabilities that we have. You could say we all have “disabilities” but some disabilities are more visible and more difficult than others. Saul went through a process so he could experience the changes from physical sight to physical blindness, physical blindness to physical sight, and spiritual blindness to spiritual sight. God was sovereign through it all and He gives us every ability we have.

Christianity and Reasons for Faith – by Wayne R. Spencer