The Son Rises: Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus

by William Lane Craig

Paperback

Published September 29, 2000

About the author

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He and his wife Jan have two grown children.

At the age of sixteen as a junior in high school, he first heard the message of the Christian gospel and yielded his life to Christ. Dr. Craig pursued his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College (B.A. 1971) and graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.A. 1974; M.A. 1975), the University of Birmingham (England) (Ph.D. 1977), and the University of Munich (Germany) (D.Theol. 1984). From 1980-86 he taught Philosophy of Religion at Trinity, during which time he and Jan started their family. In 1987 they moved to Brussels, Belgium, where Dr. Craig pursued research at the University of Louvain until assuming his position at Talbot in 1994.

He has authored or edited over thirty books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument; Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom; Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology; and God, Time and Eternity, as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science.

Reviews

[Jaden A · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is what I would describe as a ‘distilled’ version of Craig’s doctoral thesis. It is written for a thoughtful reader, but not an academic audience per se. Its layout is clean and organized, which also makes it easy to go back and re-read certain sections and pedagogically renders evidences of the historicity more easy to memorize.

Craig focuses on ten lines of historical evidence in support of the empty tomb, four lines of evidence in support of Jesus’s bodily appearances to witnesses, and the origin of the Christian faith itself—three great facts that cannot be adequately explained by natural explanations.

Overall, this is a great book that I would recommend to others. The resurrection was a historical event. Contra the claims of some theologians that arguments for the resurrection are impious, I think it is important for Christians to be somewhat familiar with the historical reasons for our belief in Jesus’s resurrection.

As Craig makes clear in the book’s intro, however (and I agree with him), a Christian’s faith is grounded in the event of the resurrection, not its evidences. Craig points out that there are many things that we believe historically for where there is slim to little evidence. Worst case scenario would be that the resurrection could in like manner be a true event that occurred but that we would otherwise be unable to show had taken place. Additionally, most people are warranted in their belief in the resurrection though the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, not examination of historical evidences. Thus, there is another avenue for warrant in one’s belief of the resurrection.

Thankfully, for us though, there is a plethora of evidence for the historicity of Christ’s resurrection and I am thankful for the scholarship of Craig for defending this truth so rigorously.

[Collin Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for something simpler and shorter than the books on the resurrection that I’ve read so I could potentially recommend something to lay people. This was really good, but I think I’ll continue my search. This was a relatively simple but powerful defense of the resurrection from one of its most able defenders. The books give ample reasons to believe that the tomb of Jesus was empty, that there were appearances of the risen Jesus to his followers, and that these facts and the origins of the Christian faith are best explained by the resurrection of Jesus by God from the dead. For a shorter book, there were a surprising number of things I’m not sure I’ve heard before. I like that the book started out by framing the stakes in man’s search for meaning and with a healthy note on the place of evidence and apologetics in the Christian faith. I also liked that it ended with a gospel presentation and call to repentance and faith in Jesus, even if these days I might approach that presentation a little differently than the author. The author gave so many points and sub points to support each conclusion, which was a strength, and yet this was a bit of a weakness as well since it was easy for me to get so far into the sub points that I had to look back to remember what was actually being defended. The numbering system didn’t help with this problem. An outline of the points covered at the end of each chapter may have been helpful. I still think Andrew Loke’s method of presenting the evidence for the resurrection might be my favorite, as it seemed that I was much less often wondering where we were in the argument throughout his book.

[Paul Pease · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very convincing indeed