Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Quotes

“Wolfhart Pannenberg (1987, p. 135) concludes, The historical solidity of the Christian witness [to the resurrection] poses a considerable challenge to the conception of reality that is taken for granted by modern secular history. There are good and even superior reasons for claiming that the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event, and consequently, the Lord himself is a living reality. And yet there is the innumerable repeated experience that in the world the dead do not rise again. As long as this is the case, the Christian affirmation of Jesus’ resurrection will remain a debated issue, in spite of all sound historical argument to its historicity.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“It does not seem to me that any other religion or spiritual teaching has anything so dramatic or convincing as the resurrection from the dead—a resurrection that still seems plausible two thousand years later—to support its claims. Buddhists (and others) sometimes talk about the wonders their spiritual heroes and heroines have done and can do. But nowhere is there a case so clearly and plausibly demonstrated as the resurrection. That, it seems to me, is a fact… . Such a plausible case of resurrection from the dead by a great spiritual teacher—the only such case—when combined with the historical survival of Christianity and the palpable goodness and wisdom of many Christians, is enough for me at least to take the leap and accept Christianity.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“MacCulloch (2010, p. 112) writes, We have to remember that the vast majority of early Christian texts have perished, and despite many new archaeological finds, there is a bias among those that survived towards texts which later forms of Christianity found acceptable. One expert on the period has recently estimated that around 85 per cent of second-century Christian texts of which existing sources make mention have gone missing, and that total itself can only represent a fraction of what there once was.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“the case for the resurrection of Jesus is far stronger than claims of resurrection in other religions and that it can withstand scrutiny.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“the gospel accounts of Jesus’s translation and reappearances have the form of a historical report that mentions real places in apparently real time. If in a general way the Gospels’ authors were influenced by Greek mythography, then they were specifically imitating those who put it into historical form.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Concerning non-historical (or chiefly mythical) persons who were reportedly apotheosized or raised from the dead (e.g. Osiris [see Chapter 1], Romulus, Asclepius, Mitra, and Krishna), Habermas (1989) notes, in each of these cases we find numerous problems such as a decided lack of historical data, reports that are far too late (e.g. Ovid and Livy wrote about 700 years after Romulus was supposed to have lived) or stories about mythical personages who never lived.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Jesus is just one among many folktales claiming resurrection from the dead or people taken to heaven. Such tales abound in various ancient cultures; examples include tales concerning Osiris, Romulus, and Asclepius (Carrier 2009, pp. 87–88). In the Buddhist tradition the sixth-century monk Bodhidharma was said to have been seen carrying his sandals and walking home after he died and was buried, and when his disciples opened up his grave the body was supposed to be missing. Additionally, there are various similarities (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.) between the stories of Jesus and the deities of other religions such as Mitra, Krishna, etc., even though these religions affirm different theologies from Christianity.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“One might ask whether God could have done a miraculous act to cause someone to be crucified in Jesus’ place; this is the Islamic escape hypothesis often attributed to the Quran (Surah 4:157–8) and Gospel of Barnabas 217. Habermas and Licona (2004, pp. 184–185) object that both of them were written centuries after the time of Jesus and thus are of dubious worth as historical sources concerning Jesus.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“In his more recent writings, Ehrman (2014, p. 149) has conceded, ‘it is in theory possible even to say that Jesus was crucified, and buried, and then he was seen alive, bodily, afterward.’ However, he insists, What is not a plausible historical conclusion is that God raised Jesus into an immortal body and took him up to heaven where he sits on a throne at his right hand. That conclusion is rooted in all sorts of theological views that are not widely shared among historians, and so is a matter of faith, not historical knowledge.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Because miracles are far less probable than routine historical events (volcanic eruptions, sinking ships, assassinations), the evidence necessary to justify beliefs about them must be many times better than that which would justify our beliefs in run-of-the-mill historical events. But it isn’t. The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is simply not as good as that which historians normally require of events that happen with greater frequency.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Christians no less than their atheist friends believe that there is a way that the universe behaves when it is left to itself. In the ordinary course of events, virgins are not pregnant and dead men stay dead. The central Christian claims are not attempts to contest these generalizations; they presuppose them. That is why the Christians have been shouting from the rooftops for nearly twenty centuries that the resurrection was a miracle. The evidence for how the universe behaves when it is left to itself, be it ever so strong, must not be mistaken for evidence that it always is.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“when my son was very young I completely supported his weight by holding his hands above his head and walked along side of a swimming pool while he walked on the water. The fact that billions of people have not walked on water does not influence the probability that my son did.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“But how does the nontheist historian know this? Testimonies of God’s intervention in history occur with every claim to answered prayer. Although many claims of God’s intervention could in reality be coincidence, many claims of coincidence could in reality be God’s intervention.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“No, of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, in other words, they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we know all the reports are false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle. (Lewis”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. (Hume”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Many religious believers have thought that God would only perform miracles in quite unusual circumstances. If one believed that the incarnation of Jesus was a historical event that made possible the redemption of humanity and the whole created order, one might reasonably believe that miracles might accompany that event even if they do not occur today. (Evans”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Miracles relate to laws of nature rather than laws of logic. One response therefore is to argue that the Creator of the laws of nature can violate them. Another response is to argue that miracles do not violate laws of nature, only their universality (Colwell 1983).”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“If this week I put a thousand pounds in the drawer of my desk, add two thousand next week and another thousand the week thereafter, the laws of arithmetic allow me to predict that the next time I come to my drawer, I shall find four thousand pounds. But suppose when I next open the drawer, I find only one thousand pounds, what shall I conclude? That the laws of arithmetic have been broken? Certainly not! I might more reasonably conclude that some thief has broken the laws of the State and stolen three thousand pounds out of my drawer. One thing it would be ludicrous to claim is that the laws of arithmetic make it impossible to believe in the existence of such a thief or the possibility of his intervention. On the contrary, it is the normal workings of those laws that have exposed the existence and activity of the thief. (Lewis 2001,”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“A number of philosophers and scientists have rejected miracles, claiming that they ‘contradict the order of creation’ (Reimarus) or are impossible a priori (Monod) (Morrison 2001). Following David Hume’s (Hume 1748/2000) definition of a miracle as ‘a violation of the laws of nature,’ Stephen Hawking claims that the laws of nature ‘should hold everywhere and at all times; otherwise they wouldn’t be laws. There could be no exceptions or miracles’ (Hawking and Mlodinow 2010, pp. 29, 34, 171).”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Zevi, a seventeenth-century Jewish teacher who claimed to be Messiah but who converted to Islam after he was captured by hostile Muslim forces. Instead of abandoning their beliefs, a number of Zevi’s followers rationalized how he had only ‘temporarily converted’ or was ‘destroying Islam from within.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“In not one single case do we hear the slightest mention of the disappointed followers claiming that their hero had been raised from the dead. They knew better. Resurrection was not a private event. Jewish revolutionaries whose leader had been executed by the authorities, and who managed to escape arrest themselves, had two options: give up the revolution, or find another leader. Claiming that the original leader was alive again was simply not an option. Unless, of course, he was.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“This examination of the instruction given concerning oral traditions, of the controls exercised … brings out the fact that the traditions were often transmitted from one generation to the next by a method laid down for the purpose, and that in many societies without writing particular attention was paid to careful preservation and accurate transmission of these traditions. (Vansina 1965,”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“If one person—say, a dominant personality—injects into the conversation an incorrect recollection or ‘distorted memory’ that others in the group do not remember, they tend to take the other person’s word for it. As one recent study has shown, ‘The misinformation implanted by one person comes to be shared by the group as a whole. In other words, a collective memory could become formed around misinformation. Misinformation shared by one person may be adopted by the rest.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“A habitual smoker will experience cognitive dissonance when hearing about the severe health risks of this habit … people often attempt to reduce this unpleasant tension by using or inventing stories that mask the incompatibility, by adapting their behavior, or by attempting to convince other people of their beliefs. (Philipse”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Whittenberger thinks, if the resurrection hypothesis were true and Jesus was really standing among his disciples, it is very unlikely that some would doubt. On the other hand, if one or two disciples experienced a hallucination of Jesus and the others did not, then it is very likely that some would doubt.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“our first Gospel is Mark; it records the ‘fact’ that the tomb was empty, but strikingly, no one is said to come to believe that Jesus was raised because of it… . The same view is advanced in the Gospel of John. Ehrman,”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Craig’s argument that acts like this usually brought to light, Carrier objects that there is rarely any difficulty for one or two persons to keep quiet, and it is possible that perhaps the thief died shortly after dumping the body in an unknown place. He notes that even nowadays with modern technology, detectives hot on trial must accept many crimes will never come to light.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“the Toledoth Yeshu, claims that the Jewish leaders did drag Jesus’ corpse through the streets of Jerusalem, but this account lacks historical credibility because of the late date of writing.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“The background for it is probably not an otherwise ‘unknown’ polemical Jewish story against the message of Jesus’ resurrection, but rather late Christian apologetics, perhaps stemming from the evangelist himself, to make the story and the message of Jesus’ resurrection ‘more plausible’ for Christians themselves.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach

“Craig (1989, pp. 184–185) also notes that when Gamaliel died in AD 50, his follower burned 80 pounds of spices and commented, ‘Gamaliel was better than 100 kings’ (B Ebel Rabbathi 8.6). Thus it is not implausible that Nicodemus used 75 pounds of spices for Jesus’ burial as John stated, if he thought that Jesus had been unjustly condemned and crucified as King of the Jews.”
― Andrew Loke, Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach