In the book, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Dr. Gary R. Habermas and Dr. Michael R. Licona, present the Minimal Facts Argument for Jesus's resurrection. The "Minimal Facts Argument" only uses facts that are accepted by almost all New Testament scholars, even skeptical ones. For people who prefer lectures, Dr. Habermas also teaches an excellent course on the resurrection at Online Christian Courses. He details the minimal facts like this:
1. Jesus died by Roman crucifixion. Some of the skeptical scholars who accepted this: Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan, and Marcus Borg.
2. Jesus primarily taught about the Kingdom of God and how to get there.
3. The disciples had experiences after the crucifixion that they believed were appearances of the resurrected Jesus.
4. Saul of Tarsus, an unbeliever who persecuted the early church, had an experience on the road to Damascus that he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus.
5. James, the brother of Jesus, was a skeptic and did not believe in Jesus until after the crucifixion - when the risen Jesus appeared to him.
6. The disciples despaired immediately after the crucifixion.
7. The resurrection was proclaimed early on.
8. The resurrection of Jesus was the central proclamation of the early church and remains so to today.
Dr. Habermas breaks it down further and lists what he calls the "Top Tier" of the Minimal Facts Argument. Those facts are:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. The disciples had experiences which they believed were appearances of the risen Jesus.
3. Saul of Tarsus, a skeptic, became the Apostle Paul and wrote the majority of New Testament books. He converted to Christianity because he believed he had an experience with the risen Jesus.
4. The resurrection was proclaimed early on in the movement.
Although Dr. Habermas does not include the empty tomb in his minimal facts approach, since it is not as universally accepted by scholars, there are a large majority of scholars who do accept it, such as Dr. William Lane Craig.
In addition to the minimal facts of Dr. Habermas, we have overwhelming textual evidence for the reliability and accuracy of the Bible. No other ancient document matches the New Testament in terms of manuscript evidence, and I covered those things in my book, Gehenna Revisited: Rebutting Francis Chan.
In the video, Jesus of Testimony, Dr. Daniel Wallace, one of the foremost textual critics of today, says we have almost 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. There are over 10,000 Latin manuscripts and well over 1,000 manuscripts in the Egyptian Coptic language, plus hundreds of manuscripts in Syriac. There are manuscripts in many other languages as well—such as Arabic, Aramaic, Armenian, Georgian, and Gothic.
Dr. Wallace says when looked at in total, there are over 26,000 manuscripts of New Testament texts in various languages. The oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament is the Codex Sinaiticus, which is from the middle of the 4th Century, but there are numerous fragmentary manuscripts in existence prior to that time. Many of these fragments have quite a bit of text and date to 125 AD or perhaps earlier. It has been claimed by many textual scholars that they could reconstruct almost the entire New Testament from just the early quotations. That is easy to believe since Dr. Wallace says the church fathers quoted the New Testament over one million times.
Because there are so many manuscripts, scholars know where the textual variants are, and there are so many textual variants because there are so many manuscripts. Yet, any important variant is addressed in your Bible’s footnotes and in commentaries. Even Bart Ehrman, in the February 5, 2007 HarperOne Reprint edition of Misquoting Jesus, admits none of the textual variants affect any doctrine of scripture. He admits they have nothing to do with theology or ideology, “do not detract from the integrity of the New Testament,” page 87, and that most are “completely insignificant,” page 207.
In Greg Koukl’s CBN article, “Misquoting Jesus? Answering Bart Ehrman,” Koukl points out that the differences Ehrman points to—spelling errors, reversed words, etc.—do not affect the work of reconstructing the autographs. In the 20,000 lines of text, only forty of them are in any doubt, and none of those variants affect our core doctrines as Christians.
When other ancient manuscripts are compared to the Bible, they fall short in every way. In an article at God and Science, “Is Our Copy of the Bible a Reliable Copy of the Original?”, Rich Deem charts the manuscript evidence for ancient writings. There are ten manuscript copies of Caesar’s Gallic Wars written between 100-44 BC. The earliest copy was made in 900 AD, a time span of 1,000 years. The earliest manuscript copy of Plato’s Tetralogies, written between 427-347 BC, was in 900 AD. That is a time span of 1,200 years, and there are only seven manuscripts of Plato’s Tetralogies. Yet, how many bestsellers have you seen or read that question the authenticity or accuracy of the Gallic Wars or the Tetralogies? The New Testament, on the other hand, was written, approximately, between 40-90 AD during the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses. One of the earliest copies was made about 35 years after the autograph in 125 AD. That copy was made during the lifetimes of those who knew the eyewitnesses. Errors would have been pointed out quickly both by critics and defenders alike.
Even though there are approximately 26,000 manuscripts, many more have yet to be cataloged and more are discovered regularly. Nothing else in history compares to the New Testament. Yet, it is constantly criticized and doubted. It is not because of a lack of manuscript evidence though. The manuscript evidence is there, and the material is early.
These facts give good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and the New Testament, and the resurrection of Jesus gives Christians a good reason to believe the gospel message. The gospel message is that Jesus is God; He died on a Roman cross for the sins of the world, and He was resurrected three days later. If those things are true, and there is good evidence that they are, then Christianity is true. We have a reliable Bible with excellent manuscript evidence and careful copying procedures, and we have a set of facts—accepted by the vast majority of New Testament scholars—that give good reasons for our faith.
Christmas 2022 is less than two weeks away. As we approach this day, set aside to remember the birth of our Savior, be assured that your faith is grounded in facts. It is not a blind faith. We are told to be ready to give an answer to all who ask the reason for our faith. (1Peter 3:15.) So be prepared, and even if it is not the actual date that Jesus was born, it is the date we celebrate His birth. That is something worth celebrating.
Merry Christmas! And may we all have a safe, happy, and healthy New Year.
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