All knowledge of ancient history depends on the credibility of historians and the information they report. Most if not all their information comes from reliable witness corroboration. Long before modern-day recording devices and forensic analysis, eyewitness testimony was the most valuable source of evidence.1 From an ancient-oral-culture perspective, accurately remembering facts and transmitting them verbally was standard practice, and group recollection strengthened memory, recall, and consistent reporting even more.2 During the first few decades of the Christian movement, as the reports of key persons and events circulated, eyewitnesses were still around to guard against significant variation.
Luke affirms that his historical records are based on the testimonies of “eyewitnesses,” enabling his reading audience to “know thoroughly” [ἐπιγινώσκω] with “certainty” [ἀσφάλεια] (Luke 1:2-4) in light of the “many proofs” [πολλοῖς τεκμηρίοις] (Acts 1:3).3 Jesus having raised from the dead is therefore provable (Acts 17:31) rather than something to accept with blind faith.
The Abundance of Evidence
While the prospect of false witnesses is problematic in any age,4 this would be virtually impossible to achieve with the sheer numbers of analogous reports behind the NT records from so many willing to suffer and die for their convictions. “Trusting testimony is not an irrational act of faith that leaves critical rationality aside; it is, on the contrary, the rationally appropriate way of responding to authentic testimony.”5
According to Roman law, “Where the number of witnesses is not specified by law, two are sufficient” (Code, 4.20.8; Digest, 22.5.1, 12). The Jewish law required “two or three witnesses” (Deut. 17:6; 19:15). To confirm the reality of Christ’s resurrection, the canonical Gospels provide four separate witnesses, although each is based on numerous individual eyewitness accounts.6 Twenty-three additional multi-authored documents also comprise the NT, wherein even more evidence is documented.7
While not providing an exhaustive list, Paul specifically mentions fourteen eyewitnesses, adding another 500+ (1 Cor. 15:3-8). The Gospels-Acts reveal at least nine more (unless Nathanael = Bartholomew).8 Twenty-one of these are named in the biblical record: eleven of the original apostles, James the Lord’s brother, Paul, Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, Salome, Joanna, Cleopas, Nathanael, Joseph Barsabbas Justus, and Matthias. Of all those recounted, most were still alive at the time the NT records were produced and their testimonies were thus subject to verification (1 Cor. 15:6; cf. Acts 26:26).
Testimony of Women
The first documented eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ were females (Mark 16:1-8), which is inconceivable if the story were fabricated. Women in the staunchly-entrenched patriarchal societies of the first-century Mediterranean world were typically viewed as inferior to men and less trustworthy, so their testimonies were inadmissible in a court of law.9 In this particular sociocultural environment, one would think that the foundational belief of the Jesus movement would not rely on what was perceived at the time to be precarious confirmation, unless of course it actually happened.
Chronological Proximity of the Evidence
Announcements of Jesus’ resurrection began immediately,10 and word rapidly spread across the Roman Empire and beyond (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1–28:31). The oral transmission of the message, eventually committed to writing, established Christianity in a hostile Jewish environment that spread throughout a resistant polytheistic world to become an impactful global movement that continues to this day.
Beginning in Jerusalem around spring and early summer AD 30, the bold proclamation of “the gospel” or “the good news” [τό εὐαγγέλιον] convicted and converted multiplied thousands of Jewish people, who disseminated the message far and wide (Acts 2:1–8:4). Only about three years after the reported death and resurrection of Jesus, a violently antagonistic Jew named Saul, later known as Paul, was also impacted by this reality and dedicated the rest of his life to its proclamation (Acts 9:1–28:31).
Having preached and defended “the good news” for about seventeen years from Palestine to Greece, Paul ventured to the pagan city of Corinth where he and his coworkers spent eighteen months affirming these truths.11 Approximately five years later Paul wrote to the Corinth church, reminding them of the compelling testimony of Christ’s death and resurrection they had wholeheartedly embraced (1 Cor. 15:1-5), the same as consistently taught since the inception of the Christian movement less than three decades earlier.
Skeptics tend to make a big deal out of the alleged “lateness” of the written Gospels, postulating the remotest possible dates that seem far removed from the events in question. Yet Paul’s undisputed writings and the oral transmission of the same basic message, predating the published Gospel accounts, render this criticism far less consequential than critics intend. Before any NT documents were produced, the essential teachings conveyed therein had been circulating and confirmed by living guarantors for many years.
Even if the most extreme estimates are considered, the published accounts of the NT were still within living memory of Jesus’ life on earth. If consistency demands that all other records of antiquity be treated with the same degree of scrutiny, how can anyone discounting the NT be confident about anything that occurred in the distant past?
[T]he Gospels were produced well within the lifetimes of some who were eyewitnesses of Jesus’s ministry. By ancient standards this was a short period of time between the life of a famous individual and the appearance of biographies about him…. No other examples from antiquity have been preserved of this abundance of information from multiple authors in writings so close to the people and events being described.12
Concluding Observations
If the bodily resurrection of Jesus could so easily be discredited, how did it become the central doctrine of the Christian faith and how did it spawn a worldwide movement? The early believers did not choose their religion because it was familiar and popular. They embraced the Christian faith as true, irrespective of cultural conditioning and without violent coercion (just the opposite!). Christianity began and flourished among real people in the first-century world who could readily test its claims.
--Kevin L. Moore
Endnotes:
1 Among ancient historians, from Herodotus (ca. 484-425 BC) to Tacitus (ca. AD 56-120) to Ammianus Marcellinus (ca. AD 330-395), the reports of eyewitnesses were the preferred source of information. Note also Papias of Hierapolis, “Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord” (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3.39.3-4). See D. E. Aune, The NT in Its Literary Environment 81; S. Byrskog, Story as History—History as Story 48-65.
2 See J. D. G. Dunn, “Eyewitnesses and the Oral Jesus Tradition,” JSHJ 6 (2008): 85-105; B. Gerhardsson, “The Secret of the Transmission of the Unwritten Jesus Tradition,” NTS 51 (2005): 1-18; K. E. Bailey, “Middle Eastern Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels,” ExpTim 106 (1995): 363-67.
3 ASV, ESV; also rendered “many infallible proofs” (N/KJV), “many convincing proofs” (CSB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). The noun τεκμήριον is a technical term from logic, referring to that which causes something “to be known in a convincing and decisive manner, proof” (BDAG 994).
4 Deut. 19:15-16; 1 Kings 21:7-14; Psa. 27:12; Prov. 14:5; Matt. 26:59-60; 27:12-13; Acts 6:13.
5 R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses 5.
6 Matt. 28:1-20; Mark 16:1-19; Luke 1:2; 24:1-51; John 20:1–25:25.
7 As a continuation of Luke’s record, Acts 1:3, 22; 2:23-32; 3:15, 26; 4:2, 10; 5:30-32; 10:39-40; 13:28-37; 17:3, 18, 31-32; 24:21; 25:19; 26:8, 23. Further, Rom. 1:4; 4:24-25; 6:4-9; 7:4; 8:11, 34; 10:9; 1 Cor. 6:14; 9:1; 15:1-8, 12-21; 2 Cor. 4:14; 5:14-15; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:20; Phil. 3:10; Col. 2:12; 1 Thess. 1:10; 4:14; 2 Tim. 2:8; Heb. 13:20-21; 1 Pet. 1:3; 3:21; 2 Pet. 1:16; 1 John 1:1-3.
8 Matt. 28:9-10, 16-20; Mark 16:9-19; Luke 24:13-49; John 20:11-29; 21:1-14; Acts 1:2-9, 21-23; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:4-8. See K. L. Moore, “The 12 Apostles (Part 7): Bartholomew,” Moore Perspective (5 April 2014), <Link>.
9 Josephus, Ant. 4.8.15; cf. Aristotle, Pol. 1.1259b; Cicero, Pro Murena 12.27; Epictetus, Disc. 2.4. A woman’s position in law was essentially determined by her position in the legal family unit. The husband and father had supreme authority, as Roman law accepted the supremacy of the male (Patria Potestas). Thus “the public law of Rome did not recognize women at all …. So we find that women were ineligible as witnesses in court” (J. A. Couch, “Women in Early Roman Law,” Harvard Law Review 8:1 [25 April 1894]: 42-43).
10 Matt. 28:7-10; Mark 16:6-10; Luke 24:9; John 20:2-18.
11 Acts 18:1-18; 1 Cor. 3:2, 5-11; 4:14-17; 11:2; 15:1-3a; 2 Cor. 1:19; 6:1-11.
12 C. L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the NT 17-19.
Related Posts: Resurrection of Jesus Part 1, Part 3
Image credit: https://credomag.com/2020/12/the-resurrection-as-a-landmark-in-acts/
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