William Lane Craig's Four Crucial Facts Examined, Part One
It is impossible to discuss early Christianity without running into Dr. William Lane Craig—a philosopher, speaker, and apologist who argues for the reasonability of faith in the principles of modern Christianity (hence his textbook on apologetics, Reasonable Faith). It is so impossible to avoid discussing Dr. Craig’s arguments, that I have already written about Dr. Craig on this very page twice. First, I argued that Jesus never claimed to be God in “Theos Or Not, Jesus Did Not Claim Nor Believe Himself To Be God: A Response To William Lane Craig”. Then, I gave a review of Dr. Craig’s debate with Muslim apologist Mohammad Hijab in “Craig V Hijab: THE Trinity Debate”.
Neither of these articles discusses Dr. Craig’s most common argument for the truth of Christianity. His most common argument is claiming that there are four essential facts, the truth of which he claims is mostly agreed upon by secular scholars. He argues that when taken together, proves the resurrection of Jesus.
This article will hopefully accomplish three things. First, build a constructive evaluation of the historicity of these four facts. Second, evaluate Dr. Craig’s arguments relating to potential conclusions that can be drawn from the facts. Finally, build an alternative explanation of the existence of these four facts.
The four facts, as adapted from a lecture given by Dr. Craig in the Southampton Civic Hall1 are as follows:
FACT I: After His crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin named Joseph or Arimathea.
FACT II: On the Sunday morning following his crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.
FACT III: On multiple occasions and under a variety of circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive after his death.
FACT IV: The original disciples believed that Jesus was risen from the dead despite their having every predisposition to the contrary.
The first fact isn’t new to this blog. I have already addressed one case for this claim in “Was Jesus Buried?: A Response to Robert B. Stewart's Response to John Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman”. In this article, I reply to a different scholar making the case for Jesus’s burial. To begin, let’s look at Dr. Craig’s four supports for the claim that Jesus was buried after his crucifixion. Going out of order, let’s look at proofs 1 & 4. Proof 1 mentions a couple of verses from Paul’s letter written to the Corinthians which invoke Jesus’s death. These verses are highly stylized and poetic, a stark contrast to the rest of Paul’s letter. Thus, Dr. Craig, joined by others such as Bart Ehrman (a scholar who opposes Dr. Craig on the issue of Jesus’s burial), holds these verses to be writings from before Paul’s writing. I agree with this analysis. To emphasize the poetic styling of these verses, see 1 Cor. 15:3-5 with linebreaks added.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I, in turn, had received:
that Christ died
for our sins
in accordance with the scriptures
and that he was buried
and that he was raised
on the third day
in accordance with the scriptures
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve (1 Corinthians 15:3-5 NRSVue).Notice the mirrored sentences.
We get a key action of Jesus (that Christ died/and that he was raised). Then, the author gives a modification on that action (for our sins/on the third day). We receive the same information on the manner of these acts (in accordance with the scriptures). Finally, the result of his initial action (that he was buried/that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve).
Craig is somewhat dubious about dating this text to the early 30s. No rationale is given for this choice. The fourth proof for fact one reads as follows:
“4. No competing burial story exists.
If the burial story about Joseph were fictitious then we would expect to find either some other historical trace of what actually happened to Jesus’ corpse or at least some competing legends of what happened. But all of our sources are unanimous in ascribing to Joseph the honorable internment of Jesus in the tomb.”
However, such isn’t true. The story cited in Proof 1 does not ascribe the burial to Joseph. However, I’d take it a step further. We can prove that the creed in Corinthians does not mention Joseph of Arimathea due to a lack of knowledge of this character.
Looking at the final clause of each stanza we find that they are asymmetrical. The first includes only what Jesus did, “that he was buried”. However, the final line of this creed specifies others involved in its action (specifically, Cephas and the twelve). This balance can be solved by adding the mention of Joseph. However, the fact that the Corinthian Creed’s author does not invoke Joseph’s name is a sign that he did not have access to this character. This means that either, the Corinthian creed was part of the same burial tradition of the gospels, but Joseph of Arimathea was a later addition or the Corinthian Creed developed independently as a competing tradition2.
This addresses the third proof, that Joseph of Arimathea would be an unsensible invention.
“There was a very strong resentment in the early Christian church toward the Jewish leadership responsible for the condemnation of Jesus; they had, in effect, engineered a judicial murder of Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, it is highly improbable that Christians would invent a member of the very court that condemned Jesus to death who would give him a proper burial instead of allowing his body to be disposed like a common criminal. And therefore most scholars think we actually know the identity of the person who buried Jesus of Nazareth; namely, Joseph from Arimathea.”
This argument relies on the idea of hatred between Jewish leadership and early Christians. However, such an understanding of the relationship is an oversimplification. Even in later texts, we see Christians relying on Jewish Rabbis for doctrine. Daniel Boyarin, for example, brings a text attributed to the apostles saying to rely on Jewish calculations of the day of Passover to determine the day of easter3.
Finally, Dr. Craig argues that the age of the Markan account proves its historicity. However, if an account coming early proves its historicity, does the Gospel of John, with late dating, have dubious historicity? Dr. Craig, a bible believing Christian, wouldn’t say so. Thus, it seems that for Dr. Craig the dating of a manuscript can only work in one direction. If an account is early, it is reliable. If an account is late, it is irrelevant. I would agree that the earliness of Mark’s account suggests some reliability. It is the entirety of the remaining data that suggests the opposite. Some data suggests certain cases allowed for crucifixion, however, these do not apply to the case of Jesus4. However, most other accounts show that crucified victims remain on the crucifix. The aforementioned Dr. Ehrman reviews some of these accounts:
“Evidence for this comes from a wide range of sources. We have an ancient inscription found on the tombstone of a man who was murdered by his slave, in the city of Caria, on which we learn that the murderer was “hung … alive for the wild beasts and birds of prey.” The Roman author Horace says in one of his letters, that a slave was claiming to have done nothing wrong, to which his master replied, “You shall not therefore feed the carrion crows on the cross” (Epistle 1.16.46-48). The Roman satirist Juvenal speaks of “The vulture [that] hurries from the dead cattle and dogs and corpses, to bring some of the carrion to her offspring” (Satires 14.77-78). The most famous interpreter of dreams from the ancient world, a Greek Sigmund Freud named Artemidorus, indicates that it is auspicious for a poor man in particular to have a dream about being crucified, since “a crucified man is raised high and his substance is sufficient to keep many birds” (Dream Book 2.53). And there is a bit of gallows humor in the Satyricon of Petronius, a one-time advisor to the emperor Nero, about a crucified victim being left for days on the cross (chs. 11-12).”5
The logic behind this came from an attempt to shame criminals so severely that others would be inspired to not replicate the crime committed. It is unlikely that a Roman official would capitulate to the colonized people on this matter, relating to the order of the state.
Fact two reads as follows
“FACT II: On the Sunday morning following his crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.”
The first proof is that this story comes in the earliest version of the Gospel of Mark, lending credibility to the idea that this early account is true. I’d accept this fact as a suggestion towards the historicity of this account. That being said, if fact one is untrue then there cannot be an empty tomb, as there would be no tomb to be empty.
The second is that this story is corroborated by Paul. Craig claims that such is implied by the mention that Jesus is buried and raised in the previous verses from Corinthians. However, nothing implies the idea that women examined a tomb that was found to be bodiless.
Proof three is another suggestion towards truth based on the lack of embellishment. Sure.
Proof four once again goes to the idea of what would be a sensible invention. Women were not trusted in Jewish courts. Thus, if an early Christian wanted to invent witnesses of the empty tomb, the male apostles would be better choices.
However, the apostles would not make sense as witnesses. The author of Mark constantly shows that the apostles fail to grasp Jesus’s message. It would not be fitting to make them the first witnesses of the empty tomb. But perhaps it would make more sense for Mark to invent random men? Still, though, this fails to understand an important point of Mark’s gospel. Mark consistently portrays Jesus as being closest to the marginalized. This is the reason for Jesus dining with the sick and poor. Thus, the marginalized women make sense as the first witness of the empty tomb.
Proof five is that Matthew seemingly responds to the claim that Jews stole Jesus’s body. The idea is that this claim would only exist if there was an empty tomb. However, this assumes that Matthew is responding to contemporaneous claims. However what is more likely is that this claim was emerging at the time of Matthew, hence why the author felt a need to respond.
Even if we assume an empty tomb, this does not mandate a resurrection. There is no reason to believe that the resurrection is more likely than someone stealing the body, than the woman having the wrong grave, or a plethora of other possibilities.
Before I can move to fact 3, a fact of my own must be introduced. The fact is that this article will be continued next week.
Craig, William Lane. “Evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection - Southampton, UK | Reasonable Faith.” Www.reasonablefaith.org, 24 Apr. 2012, www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/lectures/evidence-for-jesus-resurrection-southampton-uk.
Ehrman, Bart D. How Jesus Became God. Harper Collins, 25 Mar. 2014.
Boyarin, Daniel. Dying for God. Stanford University Press, 1999.
To learn why such cases would not apply, read “Was Jesus Buried?: A Response to Robert B. Stewart's Response to John Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman”.
Ehrman, Bart. “Did Romans Allow Decent Burials for Crucified Criminals? | the Bart Ehrman Blog.” The Bart Ehrman Blog, 25 July 2023, ehrmanblog.org/did-romans-allow-decent-burials-for-crucified-criminals/. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.