Problems With The Case for Christ: Chapter 12

This chapter opens talking about how some murder cases have remained unsolved due to the inability to find a body. Strobel immediately reveals the perspective he is going to be taking throughout this chapter by saying “[Strobel:] If we believe the gospel accounts, this isn’t a matter of a missing body…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 223). As I’ve been saying since chapter 2, we can’t take the gospels to be accurate.

In this chapter, Strobel interviews Dr. William Craig. Strobel goes to great lengths to show that Dr. Craig is a convincing speaker. Strobel also brings up a debate and fails to mention the circumstances of the debate.

The debate was moderated by Strobel himself^[1], and took place at the Willow Creek Community Church^[1] in 1994 while Strobel himself was the Pastor of the church^[2]. It is hardly surprising that a majority of the audience would have voted for the Christian side of the debate. Most of the audience would have been Christian and chose the side that didn’t present challenges to their worldview. The type of argument presented here is the fallacious argumentum ad populum, where an author argues that a majority of an audience in agreement indicates the truth of something. Without convincing evidence to back up that claim, there is no reason to believe the audience.

Based on the fact that Strobel was a Pastor for Willow Lake Community Church since 1987, this book was written at minimum a decade after Strobel’s conversion to Christianity. No wonder this book has trouble showing any objective viewpoint. By the time of writing and publishing (1998), Strobel had bought into Christianity so hard that he was a pastor at a mega church.

There are a lot of problems in this chapter. Strap yourself in for a long ride.

Was Jesus Really Buried in the Tomb?

Strobel asks of Dr. Craig “[Strobel:] …crucified criminals were left on the cross to be devoured by birds or thrown into an common grave… wouldn’t you admit this is most likely what happened?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 226). Dr. Craig says “[Dr. Craig:] …that would ignore specific evidence in this case.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 227) and immediately points to other parts in the new testament as evidence.

While I have shown that the evidence to trust the gospels themselves aren’t reliable, I haven’t checked 1 Corinthians yet. I’ll do that here. Suffice it to say that pointing to another place in the new testament, which is known to contain many contradictions and interpolations by later authors, does nothing for Dr. Craig’s case. The gospels are problematic, and as the look into 1 Corinthians shows, so too are other books in the new testament. Check the end of this post to see my look into the reliability of 1 Corinthians.

Dr. Craig also states that “[Dr. Craig:] This creed is incredibly early and therefore trustworthy material.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 227). This claim is meaningless. Just because a claim is from an early source does not mean it was true. Paul, who gives the creed here, does not ever meet Jesus. His account of everything is based off of hearsay. Far to many arguments in this book rely on the assumption that legendary development of a figure can’t happen quickly.

Amusingly, Strobel’s expert interviewee gives us more reason to doubt the gospels, saying “[Dr. Craig:] …when you get to the last week of Jesus’ life-the so-called passion story-then you do have a continuous narrative of events in sequence. This passion story was apparently taken by Mark from an even earlier source…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 228) Let’s overlook the claim that there is a Pre-Markian source and let another person do the speaking^[6] on the claim that Jesus was really buried in a tomb.

Even if we take the pre-Markian source as a fact, then we are forced to conclude that many parts of Mark are not based on eyewitness evidence. Rather than being written by an eyewitness as Dr. Blomberg would have us believe in chapter 1 and 2, the gospel of Mark would be firmly relegated to the realm of interpreting and compiling hearsay. Nothing about Dr. Craig’s claims here are remotely convincing.

Is Joseph of Arimathea Historical?

Before I even read this chapter, I must point out that Joseph of Arimathea is most likely made up. He is introduced as a literary device to move the narrative along and provide a reason for the Romans to give Jesus’s body to someone. The name “Arimathaia is probably an invented word, meaning ‘Best Doctrine Town’ (ari- being a standard Greek prefix for ‘best’, math- being the root of ‘teaching’, ‘doctrine’, and ‘disciple’ and aia- being a standard suffic of please).”^[7] (Richard, Carrier, On the historicity of Jesus, P. 439). Calling someone “Joseph of Best Doctrine Town” or “Joseph of Best Disciple Town” does not build a case for this person having existed.

Dr. Craig makes the audacious claim that “[Dr. Craig:] …the majority of New Testament scholars today agree that the burial account of Jesus is fundamentally reliable.” (Strobel, CFC, P. ). This overlooks the fact that many scholars are in complete conflict with Dr. Craig’s claim. If the only evidence Dr. Craig is referring to is the bible, then we must call into question every fact about the narrative due to how unreliable the gospels are.

Dr. Craig also argues that “[Dr. Craig:] …if this burial by Joseph were a legend that developed later, you’d expect to find other competing burial traditions about what happened to Jesus’ body.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 229). Does Dr. Craig not know that there are additional competing stories in the apocryphal gospels? Alternative theories about what happened to Jesus’ body do exist, they are simply discounted because they weren’t codified into the bible narrative when the bible was codified. I’m certain that if some book that is currently apocryphal had been included in the gospel, Dr. Craig would argue in it’s defense just as hard as he currently argues for the 4 gospels currently in the bible.

Dr. Craig also assumes that at the time, “[Dr. Craig:] …people could check out for themselves and ask about this. So Joseph is undoubtedly a historical figure.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 229). This claim is similar to any claim that the story of Jesus emerged early enough to prevent legendary development due to people being motivated to correct the story. We have no evidence for this claim or Joseph of Arimathea. Claiming he is historical because of gospels which are known to be unreliable say he existed is faulty reasoning.

Strangely, the fact that some random dude showed up who was apparently a Jew, member of the Sanhedrin, and a follower of Jesus, who took Jesus’ body to prepare it for burial, is not given any consideration for an empty tomb story by Dr. Crag and Strobel. Handing off the body to someone who is a follower of Jesus is not the best way to ensure a good chain of evidence. Even if we assume Joseph did exist, how do we know he wouldn’t have hidden Jesus’s body elsewhere and simply pretended to bury it?

Some additional one off arguments that could be presented against Joseph, if he existed, requesting the body are

A Jew would not have been able to handle the dead body without becoming unclean before the Passover.
As a member of the Sanhedrin, giving respect to a heretic would have gone badly for Joseph
The Sanhedrin unanimously condemned Jesus to death despite Joseph being on the Council
- Dr. Craig claims Joseph happened to be out of town at the time. If so, then how was it unanimous?
- If it was unanimous, the Talmud rules that a unanimous verdict by the Sanhedrin (Jewish court) must be thrown out and the defendant must be exonerated^[8]. The author of the gospel didn’t know Jewish law.

How Secure was the Tomb?/Were There any Guards Present?

Strobel and Dr. Craig talk about how likely it was that someone could have stolen Jesus’ body. Overall, this is a pretty moot point. The gospels diverge and contradict each other whether or not guards were even present. Dr. Craig admits that whether or not guards are present is “[Dr. Craig:] …too disputed by contemporary scholarship.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 230). This sounds like a clear admission that there are parts of the gospels that are unreliable and potentially completely made up, and this is from someone Strobel is presents to us as an authority. It’s interesting that Dr. Craig is willing to let something as incidental as the existence of guards be explained away as being too disputed while ignoring how disputed Joseph of Arimathea is. It appears that the reliability of the gospels only matters when he wants it to.

Whether or not guards were present, the fact that Jesus was handed off to Joseph creates the possibility that his body would have never made it to the tomb in the first place. Even if we take everything up to this point, fantastical elements and all, to be real, handing off Jesus’ body to Joseph was a terrible mistake that the Romans never would have done.

What About the Contradictions?

To paraphrase Dr. Craig in this section, a careful historian would view the contradictions as meaningless because the core of the story agrees with itself. Dr. Craig claims the core story that we can believe is “[Dr. Craig:] …Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of Jesus, puts it in a tomb, the tomb is visited by a small group of women followers of Jesus early on the Sunday morning following his crucifixion, and they find that the tomb is empty. They see a vision of angels saying that Jesus is risen.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 234). Let’s examine if a careful historian would make that claim.

We have 4 works. All of them contain references to supernatural things that have no evidence of ever having happened. One of the works appears to be the first and a direct source for 2 of the works, and the 4th work takes inspiration from the other 3. Given the shared source material, would any historian make the claim that 4 documents, 3 of which share sources, provide good evidence for someone coming back from the dead? It seems the far more likely conclusion would be that 3 of the documents share the original source rather than a reliable historical core. There are too many fantastical elements to believe the gospels are historically accurate.

For additional reading on just how much of a mess the story is when trying to reconcile all stories, check the end of this essay for The Crucifixion and Resurrection Mess^[9]. The author of the essay stops after several paragraphs of problems because he believes the point has been made well enough.

If one views the bible as the inerrant word of god, then finding even a single problem in it should change that viewpoint, not lead to rationalizations of how to explain the inconsistencies or claiming they don’t matter.

Can Discrepancies be Harmonized?

Strobel once again repeats the point that “[Strobel:] …if all four gospels were identical in all their minutiae, that would have raised the suspicion of plagiarism.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 235). This the exact same claim that came up in chapter 2. This sets up a bad logical argument of

Books that are similar in their minutia are suspect
The gospels are not similar in their details
Therefore, the gospels are not suspect

This is terrible reasoning. Having the gospels show more consistency between each other rather than being flatly contradictory at times would lend more credence to them, not less.

Dr. Craig, attempting to provide evidence for his claims that we can discount inconsistencies, says “[Dr. Craig:] We have two narratives of Hannibal crossing the Alps to attack Rome, and they’re incompatible and irreconcilable. Yet no classical historian doubts the fact that Hannibal did mount such a campaign.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 235).

The fact that Dr. Craig overlooks here is that the accounts of how Hannibal crossed the alps do not dive into supernatural explanations such as flying elephants, chariots of fire, the divine hand of god lifting him over the mountains, that Hannibal died and returned to lead his army to victory, or any other such rubbish. Additionally, we have other sources that provide corroborating evidence that such an event took place, unlike Strobel’s attempts at providing corroborating evidence for the bible. Crossing the alps as Hannibal did is a highly remarkable claim, but not an impossible claim. The resurrection of Jesus, however, is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence that it is lacking.

Dr. Craig also claims “[Dr. Craig:] …with these multiple and independent accounts, no historian would disregard this evidence just because of secondary discrepancies.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 235). No historian, that is, except for someone who is unconvinced of the possibility of someone returning to life. I think I speak for many people when I say that I have never seen any evidence for a claim like that to be true. The extraordinary claims speak of mythologizing more than an attempt to accurately record a history.

Can the Witnesses be Trusted?

Dr. Craig makes a long and eloquent argument for why women were not viewed well in Jewish society at the time, finishing with “[Dr. Craig:] The fact that women are the first witnesses to the empty tomb is most plausibly explained by the reality that-like it or not-they were the discoverers of the empty tomb! This shows that the gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 237). This claim could be rewritten as

Women were considered unreliable at the time
Women were recorded finding no body
Therefore, the gospels are reliable because they mentioned women finding no body.

First, despite the women being mentioned there, we don’t actually have any record of what they saw because they offer no testimony nor did they release any writings. Second, it’s entirely possible that the gospels have women there precisely because their testimony would be considered suspect at the time. That is to say, the gospel writers wanted to hide behind the fact that it was all based on a woman’s testimony if they were challenged on it.

Why did the Women Visit the Tomb?

Dr. Craig offers no real explanation here, instead claiming people who make this claim have “[Dr. Craig:] …not known the love and devotion that these women felt for Jesus [and] have no right to pronounce cool judgments upon the feasibility of what they wanted to do.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 237). Rather than accusing others of being unfeeling, why not offer some better reasons for why they were there? Even better yet, why not just admit that you don’t know? I’m quite willing to admit that myself.

Why Didn’t Christians Cite the Empty Tomb?

Strobel asks an excellent question in this section saying “[Strobel:] We would expect the early Christian preachers to have said: ‘You don’t believe us? Go look in the tomb yourselves! It’s at the corner of Fifth and Main, third sepulcher on the right.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 238). This is exactly what should have happened, but it did not.

Rather than answer this question, Dr. Craig evades by answering with some bible verses that support the idea of Jesus being resurrected. Just because Dr. Craig says Christians believed he was resurrected doesn’t mean the question, as stated, was answered. Dr. Craig should have answered with an honest “I don’t know” rather than a dishonest evasion.

What’s the affirmative evidence?

Dr. Craig offers 6 points in affirmation of the Tomb being empty.

“[Dr. Craig:] …the empty tomb is definitely implicit in the early tradition that is passed along by Paul in I Corinthians 15” (Strobel, CFC, P. 239)
“[Dr. Craig:] …the site of Jesus’ tomb was known to Christian and Jew alike” (Strobel, CFC, P. 239)
“[Dr. Craig:] …we can tell from the language, grammar, and style that Mark got his empty tomb story- actually, his whole passion narrative-from an earlier source…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 239)
“[Dr. Craig:] …there’s the simplicity of the empty tomb story in Mark.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 239)
“[Dr. Craig:] …the unanimous testimony that the empty tomb was discovered by women argues for the authenticity of the story…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 240)
“[Dr. Craig:] …the earliest Jewish polemic presupposes the historicity of the empty tomb.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 240)

Rebuttals to these points follow.

This assumes that legendary material can’t build up quickly. It certainly can.
Then where is it? Why was it’s location never recorded? Why didn’t Dr. Craig answer the question in the previous section?
Debatable. Early sources of Mark have less material than we have in our current gospel of Mark, a clear sign of interpolations
Everything from Mark 16:9-20 is an interpolation, which means it really ends with Mary leaving and telling no one. If that’s the case, how did the post-resurrection story come to be?
Alternatively, the writers wanted a scapegoat to throw blame on for that part of the story if they were challenged later on it’s reliability.
They would have been reporting off of hearsay. Do they ever mention where the tomb is?

What About Alternative Theories?

Dr. Craig and Strobel dispense with a couple of alternative theories and then zero in on “disproving” one that Strobel must have felt was conclusive: “[Strobel:] …that the empty tomb was a later legend.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 241). In response, Dr. Craig states “[Dr. Craig:] …we’ve focused so much on this legendary hypothesis by showing that the empty tomb story goes back to within a few years of the events themselves. This renders the legend theory worthless.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 241).

No. Once again, D. Craig makes the unfounded assumption that legendary material can’t build up within a few years of an event. We have no reason to believe that legendary development wouldn’t happen, and we have clear evidence that legendary development did happen. If Jesus was truly around and did some amazing things, I we should expect to see legendary development show up rather quickly from his worshippers.

Dr. Craig finishes this section by arguing for the existence of miracles claiming “[Dr. Craig:] …that God raised Jesus from the dead is not at all improbable. In fact, based on the evidence, it’s the best explanation for what happened. What is improbable is the hypothesis that Jesus rose naturally from the dead… …Any hypothesis would be more probable than saying the corpse of Jesus spontaneously came back to life. But the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead doesn’t contradict science or any known facts of experience.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 242).

To this, I once again say no. If, as Dr. Craig states, “[Dr. Craig:] Any hypothesis would be more probable than saying the corpse of Jesus spontaneously came back to life” (Strobel, CFC, P. 241), then why not assume that Jesus did not come back to life? That contradicts no science or facts of experience whereas assuming god exists and does stuff like this does.

To show how bad the logic of Dr. Craigs argument, we could make any claim we wanted, no matter how fanciful and still be just as accurate as him. For example, we could even claim that aliens came down and yoinked Jesus from the tomb, gave him a makeover, performed some cellular rejuvenation, modified his genetics to make him taller, and then resuscitated him from a state of near death and healed him. This doesn’t contradict science or any known facts of experience either.

Conclusion: The Tomb was [Not] Vacant

This section title irks me so much that I had to insert the Not into it. There is no evidence put forth for the claim the Strobel makes about the tomb, and Dr. Craig was unable to back up any of his positions with well thought out reasons or provide evidence. The only reason Strobel would title the section this is because he has obviously bought the story of Christianity hook line and sinker. The only reason I presume he presses on is to try quell any objections to his narrative.

Strobel goes on to say of those who debate Craig that “[Strobel:] They flounder, they struggle, they snatch at straws, they contradict themselves, they pursue desperate and extraordinary theories to try to account for the evidence.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 242).

Desperate and extraordinary theories you say? As desperate and extraordinary as claiming that someone was literally the son of (the Christian) god, walked on earth, performed miracles, died, was resurrected, and literally ascended into heaven in front of a crowd? Each time the case for christ tries to make a point, it merely points out how much of a fantasy Christianity seems to be.

Checking the Reliability of 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians is held to have been written in 57-58 CE^[3], predating all gospels. 1 Corinthians is regarded as one of the genuine Pauline letters^[3] and holds few interpolations^[4]. Therefore, the accuracy of modern translations to the original seems to be higher than the gospels. The author was writing with the specific intent to call for unity in the church and provide a reason for unity, as shown in 1 Corinthians 1:1-11. I’ll stick with the scholarly consensus here and assume the writer is indeed Paul or and author writing with a pseudonym of Paul.

Paul appears to be writing with a particular theological bent to put one’s faith in god and uses the creed mentioned in the Case for Christ as a way to provide a doctrine to follow. There are multiple calls to continue believing even when facts do not line up with what they have seen (1 Corinthians 2:4-5 as one example).

Interestingly, there are some verses, such as 1 Corinthians 2:8, that contradict the gospels. Often times they read as though Paul hasn’t read the gospels (not a big surprise if 1 Corinthians predates them) by contradicting the reasons given in the gospels. For example, in 1 Corinthians 2:8, Paul asserts that there was no reason for those outside his followers to believe that Jesus was a god. In the gospels, Jesus is singled out specifically for doing god-like miracles, such as healing, raising the dead, etc. There would be reason to believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be if he was observed doing these things.

Reading through the assertions in 1 Corinthians and the constant calls to ignore reason and just believe is very reminiscent of a cult where calls to believe in everything the cult teaches, especially contradictory claims, is forced upon the members. Based on the obvious leanings towards propaganda, and the fact that Paul never actually met Jesus due to being converted after Jesus’s death (Acts 9:3-9), it seems likely that anything written in his letters are hearsay and his interpretations of that hearsay.

Ultimately, there is little reason to believe that anything within the chapter is authoritative, as Paul did not meet Jesus, was not a disciple, was not present for the crucifixion, and is basing his narrative off of a vision, interpreting that vision, and hearsay. In fact, the only evidence we have that a guy named Saul became Paul is the bible itself. No records of Paul exist outside the old testament^[5]. The Pauline letters were clearly written by the same person, but evidence for a person named Paul is scant.

Based on this, I would conclude that, much like the gospels, the letters of Paul (or at least, 1 Corinthians so far) are most likely written with a similar intent to the gospels. That is to say, the writer would have been fine adding elaborations providing it served the propaganda and drove people to believe in Jesus.