“The Four Proven or Minimal Facts Argument” for the Resurrection of Jesus

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 2:57 pm By Dan Peterson

An apologetic that is sometimes used, particularly by Evangelical Protestants (such as William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and Michael Licona), to defend the idea of the resurrection of Christ is what is often called “the four proven or minimal facts argument.” I base the following notes on the summary of that argument given at Robert Hutchinson, Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth — and How They Confirm the Gospel Accounts (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,... Read more

Truly, he is risen!

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 3:02 pm By Dan Peterson

Χριστός ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη! In Greek, which is the original language of the New Testament — and in equivalent phrases in other languages influenced by Greek Orthodox usage — it is customary to greet one another on Easter Sunday with the phrase Khristos anesti! To which the traditional response is Alithos anesti! Christ is risen! Truly, he is risen! I offer, yet again, part of an Easter reflection that I wrote back in 2012... Read more

Extrabiblical References to Jesus?

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 3:00 pm By Dan Peterson

Continuing with my temporary theme of the genuine historicity of Jesus, I reproduce here a column that I published in the Deseret News on 8 January 2015: On Christmas morning, I published a column here that discussed, among other things, whether Jesus really existed. But Christmas mornings are busy, and that column seems to have gone largely unnoticed. So I’m revisiting the topic. It’s urgently important — not only because Jesus is fundamental to the New Testament... Read more

Jesus mythicism, yet again

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 2:48 pm By Dan Peterson

I published this article in the Deseret News on Christmas Day 2014. So, for obvious reasons, it’s couched as a Christmas column. Nonetheless, since it is relevant to the question of the genuine historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, which was raised by a reader earlier today, I reproduce it here: Jesus wasn’t born on Dec. 25. Pretty much everybody knows that. But the precise date of his birth scarcely matters, compared to the sheer fact that... Read more

Thoughts for Holy Saturday

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 2:42 pm By Dan Peterson

I published this column in the Deseret News on Thursday, 21 April 2011. It would have been more appropriate for me to have re-posted it two days ago, but, to coin an entirely original phrase, better late than never. In any event, it’s mostly about “Holy Saturday”: Today is Maundy Thursday. The derivation of the word “Maundy” is disputed, but this is the fifth day of Holy Week or Passion Week — the term “passion” refers not... Read more

Revisiting an agnostic’s argument for the existence of Jesus

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 2:33 pm By Dan Peterson

A reader of this blog has chosen to spend at least a portion of his Easter weekend trying to share the good news that Jesus is merely a fictional character. He reminds me of this column that I published in the Deseret News for 12 July 2012: Bart Ehrman is a respected New Testament scholar who holds a professorial chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Furthermore, in addition to his academic works, he’s... Read more

Ignorant gullibility?

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 2:31 pm By Dan Peterson

This was my 2019 Easter column for the Deseret News: Some dismiss belief in the resurrection of Jesus as reflecting merely “the faded credulity of earlier ages” (for the phrase, see John Updike’s “Seven Stanzas at Easter”; https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/04/once-more-john-updikes-seven-stanzas-at-easter.html). The idea, they say, emerges from a pre-scientific era, long before modern medicine, to say nothing of quantum physics and the theory of evolution. As such, modern people can no longer accept it. Even some purported Christians have reinterpreted the... Read more

Three who yearned for Easter

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 2:29 pm By Dan Peterson

For Easter 2017, I published this column in the Deseret News: A decade ago, in February 2007, came the dramatic announcement that Jesus’s ossuary or “bone box” (and perhaps even his bones) had been found in Jerusalem’s southern neighborhood of East Talpiot. Scholars overwhelmingly rejected the claim, and it’s largely forgotten today. Briefly, though, it enjoyed a flurry of media attention—including an interview with Larry King, then a major television celebrity. “Is this the end of the... Read more

A Great Cloud of Witnesses

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 2:25 pm By Dan Peterson

I published this Easter 2016 column in the Deseret News: Since the appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith in the spring of 1820 and its formal organization in April 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has resounded with testimonies of the risen Savior. Notable among these is the joint declaration of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon following their February 1832 vision of the three degrees of glory: “And now, after... Read more

“Cunningly devised fables”?

Last updated on: April 12, 2020 at 2:21 pm By Dan Peterson

I published this column in the Deseret News at Easter season in 2013. And, yes, the book to which the column refers remains still unfinished: Modern people commonly assume that pre-modern people were stupid, inhabiting a primitive fantasy world detached from reality, unenlightened by science, and awash in superstition. Such gullible minds, some modern “realists” claim, merely imagined the resurrection of Christ. This is a largely baseless prejudice. Pre-modern people knew death intimately, in a way that... Read more

Who was the last judge of Israel and also a prophet?