Category Archives: Historiography

A Real Resurrection and Why It Matters

30 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Campus Apologetics, Church, Historiography

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We should tell our kids the TRUTH.

Natasha Crain’s latest post at Christian Mom Thoughts is a good one. I’ll let her set up the issue:

We attended that church for three years before we realized something wasn’t quite right. It was Easter Sunday when the pastor informed us, “It doesn’t really matter if Jesus rose from the dead or not. What matters is that he lives on in our hearts and we can now make the world a better place.”

We didn’t know the term for it at the time, but we had been attending a “progressive” Christian church. I knew the pastor was preaching something unbiblical, but I couldn’t have begun to articulate why—even though I had grown up in a Christian home and had spent hundreds of hours in church.

It’s sad to me in retrospect that the question of why it mattered that Jesus was raised from the dead was not completely clear in my mind by that point. But I think it’s a good example of how explicitly we need to connect the dots for kids. We can’t assume they will automatically deduce why the resurrection matters just because they learn the resurrection happened.

So why does it matter?

Read the rest of her excellent post here.

There are several reasons a real, bodily resurrection matters.

1. All of Christianity rests on Jesus and his death as the sole atonement for our sin.

[1Co 15:17 CSB] 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.

[emphasis mine]

2. The MAJORITY of kids walk away from the faith. Why?

In almost every case it was because they have never been given ANY factual basis for belief.

They’re being talked out of their faith. Why? Because they’ve never been talked INTO it. – Frank Turek

More from Frank on the Youth Exodus Problem…

We can lay the blame for much of this on ourselves — that is, on the church. While there are notable exceptions, most American churches over-emphasize emotion and ignore the biblical commands to develop the mind (1 Pet 3:15, 2 Cor. 10:5). In other words, we’re doing a great job performing for our youth with skits, bands and videos, but a terrible job informing them with logic, truth, and a Christian worldview.

We’ve failed to recognize that what we win them with we win them to. If we win them with emotion, we win them to emotion.

3. There are two types of sharing what we would call good news.

One type of good news is SUBJECTIVE.

  • “Hey! This new workout plan works for me, and it might work for you.”
  • “Hey! I love this new restaurant, and I bet you would too.”
  • “Hey! I was hurting and this book really helped.”

This is sharing a SUBJECTIVE opinion about things we find helpful and important. It is based upon the opinion of the subject making the observation (YOU). You are assuming that others might receive the same benefit, so you share your opinion with them.

THIS was the type of evangelism training I received in multiple churches in multiple denominations. “Give your personal testimony”, they said. “No one can refute your personal story”, they said.

Looking back, I see that this was a deliberate effort to avoid having to know any disputable facts. It did not serve me well at all, and it wasn’t an effective evangelism strategy for people who had questions about the facts of the Christian truth claims.

The other type of good news is OBJECTIVE.

  • “Hey! Large doses of acetaminophen will damage the liver, so don’t give your infant an adult dose of Tylenol!”
  • “Hey! You have a broken leg, and you need a doctor. I’ll take you to mine.”
  • “Hey! Don’t step off the ledge because gravity at this height will KILL you.”

These three examples are warnings and OBJECTIVE observations. It is not my opinion that excessive doses of Tylenol will harm the liver. Anyone could repeat an assessment of the data to see what the FACT of the matter is.

How is it that I’m classifying warnings as good news? Well, if your leg is broken, it is good news for someone to point that out to you. It is even better news if they know of a doctor who can set it.

The quote from Paul captures the OBJECTIVE connection between the resurrection and “your sins”.

[1Co 15:17 CSB] 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.

IF you ACTUALLY have a SIN problem, then being warned about it is an example of OBJECTIVE good news.

If Jesus ACTUALLY rose from the dead, then this has HUGE implications about who HE is and who YOU are. This has huge implications for the connection of YOU to HIM. It points out that this connection may well be the most important connection in YOUR life.

It’s worth exploring. So PLEASE explore. Start with these posts, and pull the thread for you AND for your precious kids.

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Aside

Easter Fools Day

27 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Campus Apologetics, Historiography

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Many of my friends have remarked that Easter falls on April Fools day, this year. Although they don’t say much, it seems like they are bracing for a bunch of jokes and snide comments about the foolishness of Christianity in general and the foolishness of believing that Jesus rose from the dead in particular.

If it were just a bunch of Aesop’s fables, Kipling tales, and folk lore, then not only would I have left the fold long ago, but I would be excited to tease the non-thinking adherents this April Fool’s Day.

I hope that shocks you. Hopefully, you think that doesn’t sound like me. It does, however, sound like the “old me” before I took my behavior seriously. I began taking my behavior seriously because I began taking my faith seriously. I began taking my faith seriously because I began to see the Christian truth claims as TRUE, not just as cultural clothing.

What led to this? Well, I found a surprising amount of historical and archeological data supporting the central claim of Christianity – that a dead guy (Jesus) came back to life.

Really?

Really.

Read my friend Ken Samples post for this evidence.

via A Dozen Evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus

Welcome SHSU SSA Members

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in Campus Apologetics, Grief, Death, and Dying, Historiography, Philosophy, Ratio Christi, Reality Blog

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ssa-logo

I was pleased to accept an invitation to address the SHSU Secular Student Alliance at their Nov 16th meeting.

For the students who I met there, I created this landing page for you in the event that you come to my blog seeking more information about my remarks.

Since I am a full-time Chemistry professor and not a full-time blogger, my posts are few and far between. And they are not a comprehensive treatment of the Christian religion. Still, I think they are useful and encouraging or I would not have written them.

I welcome your questions about anything I have written, preferably personally. Let’s have lunch at the South Paw. I’ll buy the first one. OK?

My main remarks were on What I believe and why I believe it.

I talked about Christianity being the best description of reality – the way things REALLY are. No doubt this is a curious claim.

I discussed evidence outside of Christianity that corroborates the main points in the life of Jesus.

You may have incorrect thoughts about what the word ‘faith’ means within a Biblical framework. This series of posts at the Ratio Christi at SHSU blog should help you understand that there is No Such Thing as Blind Faith.

If I had to predict what tomorrow’s questions will be, I’d choose the following:

  1. The Problem of Evil and Suffering. (Video 1 and Video 2)
  2. Moral Issues
  3. Science Issues (The Big Bang and Fine Tuning)
  4. Philosophical Questions (Contingency and Ontology)
  5. Biblical Questions (What is the Bible? The Story in the Bible. Literary Styles in the Bible. The Bible as Meditation Literature. and The Use of Narrative Passages in the Bible.)
  6. Specific Questions about Biblical Passages (Go to the Bible Project to see an OVERVIEW OF EVERY BOOK OF THE BIBLE. Their work is masterful!)

None of this will matter if you are unable to entertain the idea that you might be wrong in your assumptions. Yes, that cuts both ways. I’m okay with that.

Are you?

God bless you for making it this far.

-DW

Bedrock Facts About the Resurrection

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campus Apologetics, Historiography, Ratio Christi, Reality Blog

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The Resurrection of Jesus is discussed in Chapters 22-23 of Greg Koukl’s book (The Story of Reality). (If you are new to this series, check out the first post and the intervening posts to put this in context.)

Bedrock Facts of the Resurrection

If you consider only those facts that are granted by virtually 100% of all scholars who have studied the subject, a very strong historical case for Jesus’ resurrection can be made’. Those kind of facts are called ‘bedrock’ because any responsible reconstruction [hypothesis] of the historical Jesus must use these facts as the foundation upon which that reconstruction is built. Otherwise, it’s almost certainly mistaken.

These bedrock facts are:

  1. Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross, died, and was buried in a tomb.
  2. The tomb was empty on the third day afterwards.
  3. Numerous witnesses testified that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead.
  4. James (Jesus’ skeptical brother) and Saul of Tarsus (a mortal enemy of these early witnesses) both claimed to see Jesus, converted, and were martyred.

Challenges

There are many alternate hypotheses that avoid the supernatural resurrection of Jesus.

  1. Stolen body / Conspiracy
  2. Hallucination
  3. Apparent Death
  4. Wrong Tomb

Inference to the Best Explanation

The supernatural resurrection of Jesus from the dead satisfies all the bedrock facts (explanatory scope) and the bedrock facts are exactly what we would expect to follow from this event (explanatory power). Although resurrections are not plausible by natural means, the additional reputation that Jesus worked miracles of healing, his frequent references to his impending death on the cross, and his prediction that his body (the temple) would be destroyed and raised in three days stand in tension without the resurrection and are confirmed and expected with his resurrection. Jesus’ prediction of his resurrection removes the ad hoc-ness from the use of a resurrection to explain the bedrock facts. In fact, the Jews worried about the resurrection (or a claim of resurrection) so they asked Pilate to post guards at the tomb. Finally, the resurrection offers great illumination to many of the sayings of Jesus as outlined in the following section.

It is very clear (to me) that the resurrection of Jesus has great support as the inference to the best explanation of the bedrock facts.

Read more about the other theories here…

Purpose found in the Scriptures

The resurrection was not just a magic trick. It has a purpose, just as Jesus’ death had a purpose. Jesus referred to resurrection often, and the disciples and Paul explained the meaning of the resurrection in their writings. Here are several examples:

13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” [Luke 14:13-14 ESV]

26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. [John 5:26-29 ESV]

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” [John 11:23-26 ESV]

14 But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets, 15 having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. [Paul in Acts 24:14-15 ESV]

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, … 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. … 12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. [1 Corinthians 15:3, 5-8, 12-15 ESV]

8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith– 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [Philippians 3:8-11 ESV]

The above verses imply that we will also experience a resurrection, either to life or to judgement. The implications are that we are everlasting beings who will either spend eternity with or without God.

The next several verses discuss that the resurrection was an ACTUAL EVENT, not merely a spiritual experience or enlightenment. Paul and the others actually believed Jesus bodily rose from the dead, and they were persecuted for their stubborn insistence.

21 So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us–one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” 23 And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. [Acts 1:21-23 ESV]

31 [David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. [Acts 2:31 ESV]

1 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, 2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3 And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. [Acts 4:1-4 ESV]

33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. [Acts 4:33 ESV]

18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”–because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” [Acts 17:18-20 ESV]

31 [The Father] has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” 32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” [Acts 17:31-32 ESV]

6 Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” 7 And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8 For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. 9 Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” 10 And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks. 11 The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.” 12 When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. 13 There were more than forty who made this conspiracy. [Acts 23:6-13 ESV]

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, [Romans 1:1-4 ESV]

Now we finish with an interesting connection of the death and resurrection of Christ to the practice of baptism in the church. This sheds new light on Christ’s teaching that we should take up our cross daily and follow him. We follow him into death in baptism, and we rise to newness of life.

3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [Romans 6:3-5 ESV]

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. [1 Peter 1:3-5 ESV]

21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. [1 Peter 3:21-22 ESV]

Lastly, as this next verse reveals, the teaching of the resurrection was seen as an elementary doctrine from the earliest history of the Church. It was not something new invented years later.

1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. [Hebrews 6:1-2 ESV]

So let us rejoice with Paul that “as we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” [Romans 6:3-5 ESV]

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Historiography

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Campus Apologetics, Historiography, Podcasts, Reality Blog

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The very title of Greg Koukl’s book (The Story of Reality) makes the claim that we are not talking about a ‘fairy tale’. We are talking about Reality. (If you are new to this series, check out the first post and the intervening posts to put this in context.)

“Here is the question I want you to consider. Do you want the right answers – that is, do you want to get clear on what actually happened that weekend in ancient Palestine – or do you merely want the right kind of answers, answers that fit your own agenda, regardless of evidence to the contrary? I think you can see the problem.

I recommend an open-minded approach. Shall we not let the facts speak for themselves? Remember, our task is uncovering reality. There are plenty of genuine obstacles to address already. Reality is challenging enough. Let us not stumble over obstacles of our own making that we arbitrarily place in our path.” Greg Koukl, The Story of Reality, p 147.

Greg is encouraging us to avoid looking back in history with a premise that supernatural events are off limits. Be open minded and look at the data.

How do we know the past? What method do we use to compile the most reasonable version of past events? Can we even agree that the past is knowable? If not, then arguing for a particular version of history is a waste of time.

Without taking a course in Historiography, it is difficult to get a concise treatment of the topic. I FOUND ONE FOR YOU, however. It was in a podcast interview with Dr. Mike Licona on www.apologetics315.com. I have included excerpts from the interview (with some paraphrasing for brevity) so you can become comfortable with the foundation of our treatment of past events.

Brian Auten (BA) is interviewing Mike Licona (ML) about ML’s book The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. In this interview, ML expands upon his historical method. My comments will be identified by DW.

BA: Well, let me ask you then a question about history. People will say, how can we really know what happened historically? Can we have, actually have, any historical certainty?

ML: Professional historians divide themselves pretty much into two camps. They’re either realists, who believe that there is a past that is knowable to some extent, or they’re postmodernists that say all of the past, any reconstruction of the past, is a narrative and its fiction. Towards the end of the 20th Century, like around 1997, you find some of the leading lights of the postmodernist historians, like Keith Jenkins, saying that pretty much, the postmodernists have lost! Now, that doesn’t mean that they’ve become realists, it just means that they concede that the overwhelming majority of professional historians today are realists. Again, this means that they believe that there is a past that can be knowable to some extent.

DW: This is where I stand. The past is knowable. This is where the Biblical authors stood as well. Otherwise, why would they argue for the actual occurrences of past prophecies, miracles, and the resurrection?

“13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is without foundation, and so is your faith.” [1 Corinthians 15:13-14 HCSB]

Paul is arguing for a FACT of history. Christ either rose from the dead or he did not.

Still, this was 2000 years ago. How certain can we be that it ACTUALLY happened? ML continues.

ML: So I like to think, Brian, of a spectrum of historical certainty represented by a staircase with steps labeled:

  • Certain
  • Very Probable
  • >>Quite Probable <<
  • More Probable than Not
  • Indeterminate
  • Somewhat Doubtful
  • Quite Doubtful
  • Very Doubtful
  • Certainly Not

Historians aren’t in complete agreement as to where in the steps a hypothesis has to stand before they will award historicity to that hypothesis. But many agree that it is somewhere around the “quite probable” step. A hypothesis is on that step, when it fulfils most of the criteria for the best explanation and it significantly outdistances competing hypotheses. To that extent, we can achieve a degree of historical certainty.

Bedrock Facts of the Resurrection

If you consider only those facts that are granted by virtually 100% of all scholars who have studied the subject, a very strong historical case for Jesus’ resurrection can be made’. Those kind of facts are called ‘bedrock’ because any responsible reconstruction [hypothesis] of the historical Jesus must use these facts as the foundation upon which that reconstruction is built.  Otherwise, it’s almost certainly mistaken.

In Chapter One of the book, I [ML] discuss criteria employed by professional historians for weighing the varying hypotheses. These criteria are:

  1. explanatory scope
  2. explanatory power
  3. plausibility
  4. less ad hoc
  5. illumination

A medical example.

Suppose there is a 15-year-old young man who is not feeling well. He goes to see his family physician. He describes his symptoms:

  • he is vomiting,
  • he has a fever,
  • he’s got pain in his lower abdomen.

So the physician asks three medical students what diagnosis they would give.

The first student suggests the flu since a fever is the most common symptom of the flu, but the experienced physician points out that the flu isn’t normally accompanied by vomiting and abdominal pain. So the flu diagnosis in that case would lackexplanatory scope because it can’t account for all of his symptoms.

The second student chimes in and says, ‘Hey, OK, so vomiting and abdominal pain aren’t common symptoms for the flu but it’s still possible, though rare, that they resulted from the flu, couldn’t it be?’ And the physician agrees but, he adds that if another diagnosis is available that more easily accommodates the symptoms, then the flu diagnosis would lack explanatory power because you’d be forcing the symptoms to fit the diagnosis. And then he adds that in all of his years practicing medicine that he has never run into a case of the flu in the professional literature that included the three symptoms possessed by the boy. So the attempt by the second student to salvage the flu diagnosis would also lack plausibility because it’s not in accordance with…in accord with other knowledge that is widely accepted.

So now the third student decides to use her imagination and suggests that the boy has the flu, as indicated by the fever, and since it is the middle of the flu season the plausibility factor would be increased. And then she says that there may be reasons for the other symptoms that are unrelated to the flu. Perhaps the boy is a martial artist and he decided to push through his fever and work out, go to his martial arts work out the prior evening and during a sparring session he got kicked in the lower right side of his abdomen and then after practice he went out with a few other students who were his friends for a bite to eat and he got food poisoning and that would explain the vomiting.

So the physician at that point, the experienced one, says I agree with you – these conditions do a good job of explaining the three symptoms without forcing any of them to fit, or without any ambiguity, but it doesn’t do so without a price. And that price is that it requires a lot of improvisation involving two non-evident assumptions. One, that the boy is a martial artist and that, you know, that he got kicked in the abdomen that bruised him during a sparring session. This is a non-evidenced assumption without that knowledge. Secondly that he got food poisoning from going out – also an non-evidenced assumption. This diagnosis has a lot of improvisation and is therefore ad hoc, based on non-evidenced assumptions.

So the experienced physician then goes on to inform his three students that the symptoms that the boy has described are a classic case of appendicitis and an inflamed appendix would explain all three symptoms without any strain or ambiguity, in fact because it’s a textbook case of appendicitis, it possesses plausibility, and because it doesn’t require any non-evidenced assumptions it avoids any hint of being ad hoc, so appendicitis is clearly the best explanation of the symptoms since it fulfils the criteria far better than any other diagnosis. So based on this the physician will strongly recommend that the boy have his appendix removed.

Now, I’d want to add that it’s very worth noting that none of these other diagnoses can be ruled out as impossible. They’re all possible! But the physician is going to treat the symptoms according to the diagnosis that is most likely correct and that is determined by which diagnosis fits, or fulfills, the important criteria best.

DW: To quote J. Warner Wallace, “Anything is POSSIBLE, but not everything is REASONABLE.”

In the next post, you will find that a historical approach to the minimal facts surrounding Jesus life, death, and subsequent behavior of the apostles makes the miraculous resurrection a most REASONABLE conclusion.

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