{"id":3462,"date":"2008-09-19T12:32:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-19T12:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/09\/jesus-probably-rose-from-the-dead-on-historical-study-and-christian-apologetics\/"},"modified":"2008-09-19T12:32:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-19T12:32:00","slug":"jesus-probably-rose-from-the-dead-on-historical-study-and-christian-apologetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/09\/jesus-probably-rose-from-the-dead-on-historical-study-and-christian-apologetics.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Probably Rose From The Dead: On Historical Study and Christian Apologetics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In thinking about the issues of history and faith, I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that a key challenge facing Christianity in our time can be outlined as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. First, Christianity as historically understood has a close connection with historical events. <\/li>\n
  2. Second, historical study provides the only tools available by which to answer questions such as \u201cIs this text from ancient Israel a folktale, a parable, a work of historical fiction, or a well-documented historical account of actual events?\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Third, historical study deals in probabilities. The best it could ever say about Jesus\u2019 resurrection, for instance, assuming it can deal with such an occurrence at all, is that \u201cJesus probably rose from the dead. That is the most likely of several possible explanations for the rise of this early Christian belief.\u201d [I\u2019m not saying this is the actual state of the historical evidence, just offering a \u201cbest-case scenario\u201d].<\/li>\n
  4. Fourth, it seems like an inadequate form of the Gospel to go around proclaiming \u201cIt is probable that Jesus rose from the dead.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is the conundrum Christians face. Even if we want to take historical study seriously, it can\u2019t provide what most religious believers want: certainty. So even if the likelihood<\/em> of Biblical accounts could be established (and in many instances this is clearly not<\/em> the case), what is Christianity\u2019s message?<\/p>\n

    Is Christianity faced with the choice of proclaiming a Gospel about what is probable, or of focusing on those things we can experience for ourselves in the present? Is there a third option?<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In thinking about the issues of history and faith, I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that a key challenge facing Christianity in our time can be outlined as follows: First, Christianity as historically understood has a close connection with historical events. Second, historical study provides the only tools available by which to answer questions such as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus Probably Rose From The Dead: On Historical Study and Christian Apologetics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In thinking about the issues of history and faith, I've come to the conclusion that a key challenge facing Christianity in our time can be outlined as\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/09\/jesus-probably-rose-from-the-dead-on-historical-study-and-christian-apologetics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus Probably Rose From The Dead: On Historical Study and Christian Apologetics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In thinking about the issues of history and faith, I've come to the conclusion that a key challenge facing Christianity in our time can be outlined as\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/09\/jesus-probably-rose-from-the-dead-on-historical-study-and-christian-apologetics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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