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Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus
428 pages, Paperback
Published February 22, 2024
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July 31, 2025
This book was—perhaps to no one’s surprise—dry to the point of boredom. I gave it five starts for its value as a work of of ‘high’Christian scholarship, but it is not the type of book that I most enjoyed reading and is probably not one I would go back to for sake of reading again.
The volume is split into three parts: The evidence of Paul, the evidence of the Gospels, and assessing the evidence.
The concentration of the first part is the pre-Pauline formula of 1 Corinthians 15:3, the witnesses of the resurrection appearances, indications of the empty tomb and the nature of the resurrection body.
The second part features the burial narrative, the empty tomb narrative, the appearance narratives, and issues raised by the Gospel narratives.
Finally, part three deals with the evidence for the empty tomb, the evidence for the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian Way.
I more or less skim read parts 1 and 2 given how dry they were and read part three most seriously. I skipped the appendices.
This work ought to be highly valued since it is among the top 5 most academic works on the historicity of the resurrection. I think, however, that I was a bit overly ambitious in thinking that I would understand the bulk of it. Although, this was not a poor assumption to have made given that I understood this volume's companion volume on the deist controversy very well.
My recommendation to people would be that they read Craig’s ‘The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus’ which is more or less a distilled version of this volume. More about this later. . .
The volume is split into three parts: The evidence of Paul, the evidence of the Gospels, and assessing the evidence.
The concentration of the first part is the pre-Pauline formula of 1 Corinthians 15:3, the witnesses of the resurrection appearances, indications of the empty tomb and the nature of the resurrection body.
The second part features the burial narrative, the empty tomb narrative, the appearance narratives, and issues raised by the Gospel narratives.
Finally, part three deals with the evidence for the empty tomb, the evidence for the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian Way.
I more or less skim read parts 1 and 2 given how dry they were and read part three most seriously. I skipped the appendices.
This work ought to be highly valued since it is among the top 5 most academic works on the historicity of the resurrection. I think, however, that I was a bit overly ambitious in thinking that I would understand the bulk of it. Although, this was not a poor assumption to have made given that I understood this volume's companion volume on the deist controversy very well.
My recommendation to people would be that they read Craig’s ‘The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus’ which is more or less a distilled version of this volume. More about this later. . .
Displaying 1 of 1 review