The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach

by Michael R. Licona

The question of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection has been repeatedly probed, investigated and debated. And the results have varied widely. Perhaps some now regard this issue as the burned-over district of New Testament scholarship. Could there be any new and promising approach to this problem? Yes, answers Michael Licona. And he convincingly points us to a significant deficiency in approaching this our historiographical orientation and practice. So he opens this study with an extensive consideration of historiography and the particular problem of investigating claims of miracles. This alone is a valuable contribution. But then Licona carefully applies his principles and methods to the question of Jesus' resurrection. In addition to determining and working from the most reliable sources and bedrock historical evidence, Licona critically weighs other prominent hypotheses. His own argument is a challenging and closely argued case for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Any future approaches to dealing with this "prize puzzle" of New Testament study will need to be routed through The Resurrection of Jesus.

Genres: History, Theology, Christianity, Religion, Christian, Biblical Studies, Nonfiction

718 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2010

About the author

Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1961, Mike became a Christian at the age of 10 and grew up in a Christian home. He attended Liberty University where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Performance (Saxophone). During his undergraduate studies, he had a strong desire to know God, devoting himself to studying the Bible daily. He decided to learn Koine Greek in order to read the New Testament in its original language and later completed a Master’s Degree in Religious Studies.

Toward the end of his graduate work in 1985, Mike began to question the veracity of his faith and wondered if there was any evidence to support it. He decided not to go into Christian ministry at that time. Finding answers to his questions consumed him and he almost jettisoned his faith. He investigated the evidence for Christianity and a number of other major world religions. He also considered the arguments for atheism. His investigation solidified his belief that God exists and that he has actually revealed himself to mankind in Jesus Christ and that the Christian view provides the most plausible and unified theory of reality.

In July of 1997, Mike formed TruthQuest Ministries in order to give an official name to his growing ministry and to allow future donors to make tax-deductible gifts. In October 2001, the ministry was renamed “RisenJesus” in order to avoid confusion with other ministries named “TruthQuest” and more closely reflect its vision of equipping 100,000 Christians to share their faith using the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.

Mike is the author, co-author or editor of six (6) books: The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (IVP Academic, 2010), Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy and Science, with co-editor William Dembski (Baker 2010), Paul Meets Muhammad (Baker, 2006) which is a debate on the resurrection of Jesus between the apostle Paul and the prophet Muhammad, the award winning The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus with co-author Gary Habermas (Kregel, 2004) which is a comprehensive self-study course, Cross Examined, a legal novel defending the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, and Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock which lays out in a concise manner what to say to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses when they knock on your door.

He also contributed a chapter in Buried Hope or Risen Savior: The Search for the Jesus Tomb, Charles L. Quarles, ed. (2008), an entry in The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics, Ed Hindson and Ergun Caner, eds. and a chapter in The Big Argument: Twenty-Four Scholars Explore How Science, Archaelogy, and Philosophy Have Proven the Existence of God, John Ashton, Michael Westacott, eds. (Master Books, 2006). He is a featured scholar in Lee Strobel’s new book The Case for the Real Jesus (Zondervan, 2007) and his DVD The Case for Christ (2007). Mike was also one of the authors selected for the Erasing Hate2007 tour (www.erasinghate.com).

Mike has a Ph.D. in New Testament (University of Pretoria). He completed all requirements “with distinction” and the highest marks. He is a frequent speaker on university campuses, churches, Christian groups, retreats, frequently debates, and has appeared as a guest on dozens of radio and television programs. He is a member of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, the Institute for Biblical Research, and the Society of Biblical Literature. Mike is associate professor in theology at Houston Baptist University and the president of Risen Jesus, Inc.

Reviews

[Tim Chaffey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had been looking forward to reading this book since the first time I heard about it. I was sitting in Dr. Gary Habermas’ class on miracles and he told us about Mike Licona, who was currently working on his dissertation on the Resurrection. Although it was published in 2010, I finally had the opportunity to read it over the past few months.

At over 700 pages, including an extensive bibliography and over 2,000 footnotes, this book is not a light read by any stretch of the imagination. As the subtitle states, this is a book dealing with historiography. Readers looking for a deep theological treatment on the Resurrection of Christ may want to look elsewhere since Licona’s focus here is not theology, but history. Using methodological principles agreed upon by a vast number of historians from a variety of religious and philosophical backgrounds, he sets out to determine whether or not the historian “is warranted in regarding Jesus’ resurrection as an event that occurred in the past” (p. 610).

Surprisingly, the book consists of only five chapters, so each chapter averages more than 100 pages in length. Also, the second half of the book contains a significant amount of Greek, giving me a good opportunity to brush up on that. If you can’t read Greek, don’t worry, Dr. Licona provides an English translation throughout.

The first section deals with a significant number of preliminary considerations. There is an excellent critique of the skeptical postmodern view of history and a complete dismantling of the beliefs of Jesus “mythers” (those who claim Jesus never existed). There’s also a good discussion on horizons (the presuppositions we all have). While total neutrality may not be possible, Licona gives several principles historians should implement to help them transcend their horizon. Finally, he provides an honest discussion of his own biases so that readers are well aware of where he is coming from.

The second chapter focuses on whether or not miracles fall within the purview of the historian. Licona addresses the popular objections of David Hume and Bart Ehrman, as well as McCullagh, Meier, Wedderburn, and Dunn. Many skeptics simply have an a priori objection to miracles, so they aren’t willing to even consider the possibility that historical evidence for a miracle may exist. There’s an interesting discussion on the burden of proof as it relates to the historicity of miracle claims. I thought the following quote summarized the nature of evidence when it comes to miracle claims:

"It is the responsibility of the historian to consider what the evidence would look like if she were not wearing her metaphysical bias like a pair of sunglasses that shade the world. It is not the responsibility of the evidence to shine so brightly that they render such glasses ineffectual." (p. 196)

With all the preliminary matters out of the way, Dr. Licona gets down to the business of doing history. Chapter three examines the historical sources pertaining to Christ’s Resurrection. Many Christians may object to the methodology employed in this chapter since he does not automatically accept every biblical passage on the subject as evidence, but bear in mind that Licona is doing his best to transcend his own Christian horizon to be as neutral as possible. He discusses over two dozen early sources and rates them as “unlikely, possible-minus, possible, possible-plus, highly probable, indeterminate [or] not useful” (p. 201).

The fourth chapter uncovers the historical bedrock pertaining to the fate of Jesus. This approach follows on the heels of the exhaustive work of Dr. Habermas who, since 1975, has kept track of over 3,400 academic works from scholars of various stripes on the Resurrection in English, German, and French. From this research, Dr. Habermas has shown that there are 12 facts accepted by the vast majority of scholars. He has reduced this to six best attested details in what he calls the “minimal facts” approach. Each of these facts are discussed, but Dr. Licona narrows this down to three facts that nearly all scholars agree upon: 1) Jesus died by crucifixion, 2) the disciples had experiences that led them to believe and proclaim that Jesus had risen from the dead, and 3) Paul converted to Christianity after experiencing what he believed to be a post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus. There’s also a lengthy discussion on what “resurrection” meant to Jewish and Christian audiences in the first century.

The information contained in this chapter is often completely ignored by agnostics, atheists, Muslims, and others who do not want to even consider the Resurrection as a possibility. I have had many discussions with skeptics who display naivete when they claim that there is no evidence to support the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. It’s one thing to disbelieve in the event, but it’s an entirely different thing to completely ignore or to willingly remain ignorant of the historical bedrock pertaining to the fate of Jesus.

The fifth and final chapter of the book examines six different hypotheses that attempt to explain what happened to Jesus after being crucified. Along with the traditional Christian understanding of the Resurrection, the views promoted by Vermes, Goulder, Ludemann, Crossen, and Craffert are weighed in terms of their explanatory scope, explanatory power, plausibility, the amount of ad hoc elements, and illumination for solving problems associated with the subject. An appendix also examines Dale Allison’s work on the Resurrection according to the same criteria. The traditional Resurrection hypothesis is the only view that fulfills all five criteria, and it outdistances the other views by a wide margin. Critics can claim that Licona merely concluded what he hoped to prove, but they must be able to point out flaws in his methodology, since his conclusion most certainly follows from the data when historiographical principles are applied.

My biggest concern with the book is found in the fifth chapter. While discussing the strange events described in Matthew 27:51–53, Licona suggested that the passage was not describing historical events but employing apocalyptic language to show that a significant person had died. Such descriptions were not uncommon in the ancient world when describing the death of important people. This comment has set off a wave of criticism from conservative Christian scholars like Norman Geisler and Al Mohler. I disagree with Licona’s statement and share some of the same concerns as Geisler and Mohler. But when I consider the context and methodology being used in the book, I don’t find it to be quite as grievous an error as some have claimed.

Skeptics will undoubtedly continue to dismiss the Resurrection of Christ, but they must deal with the research in this book or they simply are not interacting with the latest scholarship.

Dr. Licona’s work raises the bar when it comes to the most important subject we could ever study: the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this subject who is up to the task of reading an academic work. I have studied the subject for years, but I still learned a lot and will treasure this book as an extremely valuable resource.

Even though I disagree with his take on Matt. 27:51-53, I still need to give the book five stars since I don't need to agree with the author on every point for me to give a positive review and recognize the book's worth.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think this book is weak. It’s so bad, I would recommend it to all Christians so that they could see how shaky their belief system is.

I got irritated at the pre-amble to this book, it must have gone on for 5 hours. Licona railed against the same old critters that Habermas did: post-modernist, realist, and Hume. There’s data that could convince me. Give me a real messiah prophecy from the Old Testament, or tell me how Jesus' ‘this generation should not past’ makes sense today not imaginary windmills which if slayed would not necessarily mean your fantastic beliefs would be true.

Even if the resurrection were true the story of blood sacrifice through vicarious atonement makes no sense, and don't forget the New Testament authors believed the Exodus was real, Noah’s flood happened, Adam and Eve and talking snakes and donkeys are real. The OT is rotten (slavery, genocide, child rape, animal sacrifice, etc.), and it can’t be re-interpreted with the NT unless it can be linked through prophecy. Jesus was not the messiah promised by the OT.

Peter raised Tabitha (Dorcas) from the dead according to Acts. Jesus’ resurrection is not sui generis. Licona relies on Acts to make his case, and that book (Luke/Acts) is full of fan-fiction. Though it’s got my favorite quote ever ‘it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks’ (Act 26:14 KJV).

Licona failed to mentioned the Tabitha miracle once in this book. Yet, he relies on Acts frequently to make his case that Jesus arose from the dead, while sanitizing Paul and Paul’s visions.

It’s not the gotcha that Licona thinks it is when he refutes the various natural explanations to explain the empty tomb, women at the tomb, multiple post-death sightings of Jesus, 500 at the same time seeing Him and so on. Licona uses the authenticity of his holy book to refute all possible non-canonical interpretations. Paul said, ‘according to scripture’ Jesus arose. That’s not scripture I know anything about.

I want to note something that bothers me in Licona’s and Habermas’ versions. They both say Paul’s visions were physical not spiritual. Thomas Aquinas tells me that’s not how he sees it. Paul is the only known first hand eye witness and it seems to me that all investigation should start there and ignore the book of Acts because it is so barbaric and fantastic.

Licona and Habermas both think miracles help prove their dogma. Mormons, Muslims, and Buddhists think so too. I’ve read Augustine and the Venerable Bede and they each had many recent miracles proving their truth. Bede had a floating monk and testimony from fellow monks. Augustine bores the reader with his numerous second-hand reporting of miracles.

There was a weirdness in this book. Licona would give the tired old proofs that Christianity must be true because early martyrs prove it, or the number of miracles prove it, talking in tongues prove it, or four different historical books prove it, or natural explanations can’t account for empty tombs, or visitations, or other just as lame assertions without substance.

Licona wins the argument if you assume his playing field is right and that the NT was a good faith attempt at recording history. The NT is a book with a lot of claims and no substance and start with the Book of Acts and you realize that Licona's basic assumption is flawed, then read the Book of John with Jesus on steroids, with a promise of darkness for all who do not believe. Enter this world of make-believe at your own risk, but at least have better arguments than what Licona brings to the table.

[Taylor Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My conclusions were both more sanguine and restricted than I had anticipated. I was surprised by the actual strength of the resurrection hypothesis.

Over my short years of reading large texts on different subjects and in different genres, I’ve begun to notice somewhat of a pattern or correlation: authors and scholars with humility tend to produce not only good books, but long books as well. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (RoJ) by Dr. Michael Licona exemplifies both of these attributes very well and goes a long way in confirming this correlation.

The humility within--and length of--this book is enough to merit it a more thorough and better quality review than what you are about to read, but this is what a layman with a stunted attention span (not to mention a limited vocabulary and IQ) can give you, so you’ll have to deal with it.

With no worries of ‘spoiling’ a work of nonfiction, it should not be a deterrent for future potential readers of RoJ to be informed here that Licona’s conclusion ends up being that there is a very good historical case to be made for the resurrection of the Jesus of Christianity. That might be what the whole book is working towards discovering and unpacking, but that is not exactly the reason why one should or should not read this book.

It is, of course--to me--of utmost importance that each individual consider the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend every skeptic or agnostic immediately purchase this book and only this book to ‘convince’ them. This is not at all due to anything the book lacks or anything related to Licona or his work. For such an audience this book is just so… MUCH.

If there were such a thing as one-word reviews (something I could never restrict myself to actually do), this book would warrant the word ‘Thorough’ and there would be no question about it. The length of RoJ (~640 pages of ‘actual’ content) isn’t necessarily due to Licona’s pen running away from him or any kind of inane babbling--there is just SO MUCH that he covers, and it’s all good and pertinent. Granted, parts of it are more relevant to the primary question of the book than others, but some of these rabbit trails have to be explored a little bit along the way--rabbits are wiley, and historical questions even more so.

Maybe it would be helpful for the few reading this to know what the primary question of the book actually is. Essentially, it’s: ‘Did Jesus rise from the dead or not?’ Licona may be a little more elegant and articulate in the way he would pose the central objective of his work, but that’s really what it comes down to.

Along the way, Licona builds an incredible foundation for the interested historian to take a legitimate crack at this goal. Everything from the philosophy of history, the methods of historical research, and the accessibility of miraculous historiography, to the potential sources of information about the historical Jesus, and the consideration of what is and is not part of our ‘historical bedrock’ for discussing his potential resurrection. I wouldn’t say every stone is turned over, as that would require a library of books, but the most useful and pertinent stones are flipped--some are flipped over a few times.

The last chapter is a culmination of all of this build-up and foundation-laying in which Licona closely and meticulously examines six prominent and representative hypotheses about the fate of Jesus and the intriguing details surrounding his death. The sixth and final one--the resurrection hypothesis--comes out on top, and seemingly by a wide margin.

Now, I do not actually give this book a perfect score (5 stars) because I agree with the author’s conclusion, although that’s true--Licona would be proud of my confessing my biases, I’m sure. Licona has earned every star on his own merits as a historian and an author. Not only does the information and research of RoJ come across as extremely in-depth and comprehensive, but it’s also presented in such a way that a largely uneducated reader of this kind of material (i.e., myself) can easily swim through it and come out on the other side with both more knowledge and better questions. The length of the book is intimidating but, other than the literal act of holding the bulk of the volume in my hands, I honestly did not balk at the length as I was actually reading it.

Every item is in its proper place. Every chapter serves its particular function very well, and every subsection and sub-subsection feels warranted and interesting. I honestly can’t recall wondering why a particular section was being inserted where it was or questioning why Licona bothered covering this or that sub-topic. Although a bad analogy--his argument/case is stronger than this--reading through RoJ feels a little like building a house of cards: all the pieces of the bottom layer should be in their proper place before attempting to lay the next level on top. Licona never seems to get ahead of himself, and yet also doesn’t seem to let himself get bogged down in the mire of all the tempting little details (and there are numerous temptations for a historian here, I’m sure).

Licona himself would readily admit that no historical argument or case is ever airtight, and that’s not what we’ve been given in RoJ. There is room for disagreement, pushback, and even correction, surely. But those spaces and cracks seem to be tiny with a work like this. Licona has explored the vast, open landscape of literature and research on the historical study of Jesus and returned to present some of his best sketches and experiences. In an area of study as broad and variegated and controversial as the historical Jesus, it’s no surprise that a book even attempting a fraction of what ‘exhaustive’ would look like would necessarily need to ‘major on the majors’ and leave the peripherals to the side. But even leaving the peripherals to side still yields over 640 pages!

In the end, Licona’s RoJ comes out as the premier book on the resurrection of Jesus that at least I’ve read. Although that may mean nothing to most people, I think I am in the company of many actual scholars and big-wigs saying the same thing, so listen to them if you won’t me.

I might not blanketly recommend this book to every skeptic who ‘dares stand against the knowledge of God’ due to its length and depth (and the consideration that there are other, more accessible and abbreviated works on the subject for the more casual reader). However, RoJ is absolutely a recommendation from me for those who are serious in studying a thorough, positive case for the resurrection of Jesus in light of real historical research. I’ll also add here, in support of my implying Licona is humble and authentic, that this is not your run-of-the-mill ‘conservative Christian scholar’ who affirms and defends every ounce of biblical doctrine in every work he ever writes. Licona is very meticulous and deliberate in his methodology: the Gospel accounts are not given any kind of special treatment as sources; not everything attributed to Pauline authorship is unqualifiedly accepted; not every miracle claim in the biblical writings is defended wholecloth. This isn’t to say Licona doesn’t personally believe some (or all) of these things, but I want to emphasize the fact that he goes to great pains to reduce his own biases and work as objectively as possible. This not only is beneficial for his own beliefs, but also adds a tremendous amount of value and credibility to his work as an academic resource. All of this goes a long way to not only making Licona out to be a terrific defender of the Christian worldview, but also an outstanding historian, without qualification.

His The Resurrection of Jesus is incredibly valuable and I’m sure will end up being one of the works he is best known for in the years to come, both among academics and the rest. Either way, it’s not a book to be taken lightly (seeing as how it weighs over 2 pounds!).

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

The resurrection of Jesus is the truth on which Christianity stands or falls. Otherwise, it offers no real hope for transformation nor for our destiny beyond the grave. The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says we might as well just eat, drink and be merry if Jesus did not rise. All that you have left is a failed Messiah who dies a shameful death and a bunch of nostrums about living a good life that you can find in a number of other places.

So it seems that it is of vital concern to determine whether there are good reasons to believe that the events of the third day actually took place. What Michael Licona does is to pursue this question through the lens of careful historiography. And I mean 641 pages of careful! Licona begins by discussing the work of historiography as practiced by historians, particularly the all-important matter of controlling for the horizon of the historian and the assumptions we make about the reliability of documents (reliable, false, or neutral). He then takes on the question of whether historians can rightly study "miracle claims", considering the objections many raise, arguing that neutrality means we cannot a priori exclude miracle claims but must study them as one would any other purported event in history. Chapter 3 takes on the matter of sources, arguing that our most reliable sources are the Pauline accounts while attributing varying degrees of reliability to other early sources. Chapter 4 seeks to establish the absolute historical bedrock on which all scholars can agree. He argues that there are three indisputable facts; 1) that Jesus died by crucifixion, 2) that very shortly after Jesus died, his disciples had experiences that led them to proclaim the resurrection and 3) that Paul converted to the way within a few years of Jesus death as a result of some form of post-resurrection appearance to him.

Chapter 5 then considers the six representative hypotheses to explain this historical bedrock assessing them by their explanatory scope, explanatory power, plausibility, use of ad hoc explanations, and for the illumination they shed on other material. His conclusion is that only the resurrection hypothesis passes on all five accounts and is the best explanation of the historical bedrock.

This book complements well the work of NT Wright, which looks far more at the cultural context behind the idea of the resurrection. These two scholarly efforts together do not PROVE the resurrection but they do give strong support to the claim that the resurrection is the best explanation that can be proffered for the existence and message of the church as well as the historical bedrock. Well worth wading through!

[Michael T Moos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantastic. Give it a read. Jesus rose from the dead btw.

[Evan Minton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best book on the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus ever written. It is extremely well researched and documented, and the topics Dr. Licona covers ranges widely. He begins with historical method and the dangers of letting worldview presuppositions misguide the historian in their examination of the evidence. He notes that no one is completely bias free when they come to this subject; since a lot is at stake (i.e if Jesus rose, Christianity is true - thus non-Christian historians might be biased against it and Christians bias towards it), and that we must do all that we can to introspect and be as neutral as possible. He then goes on to talk about philosophy of history; the pitfalls of postmodern approaches to history (i.e the view that history cannot be done, the past is unknowable, etc.), and refutes David Humes objection that "uniform experience against miracles" means you'll never have enough evidence to establish that one occurred. All of this, and more, is done within the first two chapters.

Chapter 3 looks at the source material a historical investigation into the fate of Jesus has to deal with; Paul's letters, the gospels, Josephus, Tactitus, Lucian of Samosata, etc. and addresses how helpful each one is in assertaining what happened to Jesus.

Chapter 4 employs the criteria of authenticity to establish a variety of facts that undergird an abductive reasoning approach to establishing the resurrection. Using the criteria of authenticity, Licona establishes that Jesus predicted his death and resurrection and did things that people perceived as miraculous. The reason Licona argued for these things is that if these two facts are true of Jesus (that he predicted his death and resurrection and that throughout his ministry, he was a miracle worker or at least did things that people took to be miracles) then this establishes a "Religio-Historical Backdrop" to the resurrection. This would increase the odds that Jesus being raised is an actual miracle than some anamoly, like Hume's example of the raising of Queen Elizabeth. If what happened to Jesus cannot be naturalistically explained AND there's a religio-historical background makes it likely that the event is a genuine miracle. Religo-historical context + The Minimal Facts + Failure of naturalistic theories = justified inference to the resurrection.

He then goes on to defend certain core facts that the vast majority of scholars agree upon (even skeptical non-Christian scholars) and are highly well evidenced. Those who have read Dr. Licona's popular level book on the resurrection "The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus" which he co-wrote with Dr. Gary Habermas will recall that these are called "The Minimal Facts" a fact is a minimal fact when it has a plethora of different historical arguments that can be given in favor of its truth in addition to being accepted by a wide majority of both Christian and Non-Christian scholars. The facts Licona defends are (1) Jesus' death by crucifixion, (2) the disciples of Jesus claimed and believed Jesus appeared to them alive afterward, (3) Paul went from being a persecutor of Christians to being a Christian himself because of what He perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.

These are "the historical bedrock" upon which Licona bases his case. He excludes the empty tomb of Jesus and the postmortem appearance to James not because they don't have good evidence in favor of them, but because they aren't as widely accepted by the scholarly community. I think this was a mistake on Licona's part. Gary Habermas' survey (which Licona mentions in the book) of the scholarly literature on the resurrection of Jesus is that 75% of scholars accept the historicity of the empty tomb. Habermas and Licona have said that that percentage isn't high enough for them, and that they prefer it in the 90s percentage range. But in my own writings on the resurrection of Jesus, I always include the empty tomb. 75% is a high enough majority for me, and it has a plethora of evidence in its favor. Licona doesn't even mention any of the historical arguments for the empty tomb, and only brings up the empty tomb in order to alert the reader that he won't be discussing it. Licona DOES look at the evidence for the postmortem appearance to James, but doesn't include it in his "Historical Bedrock", but says its to be kept in reserve in case The Resurrection Hypothesis and a naturalistic hypothesis need "a tie-breaker".

In chapter 5, the final chapter of the book, Licona interacts with naturalistic hypotheses put forth by a half a dozen different scholars and shows how they all fail to explain the data. Licona employs C.B Mcullagh's 6 criteria for a good historical hypothesis; which are (1) Explanatory scope, (2) explanatory power, (3) Plausibility, (4) not ad-hoc, (5) in accordance with other established facts, and (6) Ilumination. Licona argues that none of the hypotheses put forth by Ludemann or others meet these criteria. Some natural theories may meet 1 or 2 criteria AT BEST, but none of them meet all 6. The Resurrection hypothesis DOES match all 6.

This was a great book and I think anyone looking for a serious, scholarly level treatment on the resurrection of Jesus is doing themselves a disservice if they don't read it. At times I felt that Licona understated his conclusions, and was far too tentative in his arguments at times, but I suppose it's better to understate your case than to overstate it. My only complaint is that the chapters are REALLY long. The first three took a good solid three hours for me to complete, and I read chapter 4 for 5 hours straight before I said "Okay, I'm going to have to resume this tomorrow". I just hate doing that. I prefer my stopping places to be at the end of a chapter. However, this deficency is not enough to knock off any stars because of the outstanding quality of the material presented therein.

This is a book I plan on returning to several times.

[Daniel MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m very surprised by how carefully Licona treats this matter. He goes into detail for every point he makes, and is very careful with his “historical bedrock approach.” He doesn’t even uses the empty tomb to argue historicity! He only looks at naturalist arguments and explains how they cannot work.

It feels like Licona didn’t use half of the commonly accepted evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, though he demonstrates he doesn’t need to. I’m very impressed with this work.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Licona sets out to put naturalistic and supernaturalistic explanations of the resurrection accounts from (mostly) the Bible and examine them with as little prejudice as possible. I think he did as good a job as anyone in this regard. There were a few assumptions that he made that I thought were a little strange, the main one being that history can answer the question of whether Jesus was resurrected, but history cannot in any way determine the cause of the resurrection. This sounds a lot like the dodge that the Intelligent Design crowd use when they say that ID can determine if there is evidence for an intelligent designer, but can in no way determine who the intelligent designer is (yeah, right!)

In addition, Licona is far more accepting of the Bible at face value than I am. One anomaly that I caught was that he has a fine critique of a vision supposedly seen by a group of folk in the Middle Ages of St. George. Nevertheless he takes it for granted that there was a vision of Jesus by over 500 people, as reported by Paul. One of the critiques of the St. George vision was that we have only one account of it. Very true, but we also have only one account of Jesus appearing to over 500 people, and that appears to be hearsay.

So while I cannot agree with the conclusion of this book, it did challenge me to rethink my preconceptions. Even if you are an interested unbeliever, like I am, I would recommend that you read this book.

[Melody Stout · Rating 5 out of 5]

Licona’s book works to present a careful systematic historical analysis of the resurrection of Jesus. The book starts off by answering objections to the idea that historians can know facts about the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, showing that such an event is accessible to historians, Biblical scholars, and philosophers. In addition, Licona lays out his systematic approach to try to reduce any biases that he may have concerning the resurrection. Licona then debunks the idea that historians cannot investigate miraculous historical claims, concluding that historians can, and should, investigate the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. He claims that while we do not have any certified writings of Jesus or any of his original disciples, we do have writings from the canonical Gospels, Paul, and the early Church fathers, which consist of early, reliable reports. Concerning the historicity of the fate of Jesus, Licona believes that it is helpful to look at the “minimal” facts approach that is used by Gary Habermas to research the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. This approach lists twelve facts that are accepted to be historical by the majority of scholars, and then reasons that the best explanation of these facts is that Jesus bodily rose from the dead. After explaining Habermas’ approach, Licona weighs and tests many different hypotheses based on explanatory scope, explanatory power, plausibility, and illumination, about the facts around Jesus’ resurrections, and comes to the conclusion that the resurrection is the most reasonable conclusion for the facts known to scholars.
When reading through Licona’s book, one of the first things that I noticed was the amount of careful reasoning and systematic analysis that he puts into researching possible explanations of Jesus’ resurrection. Licona also worked to explain his system for reducing his bias, as a Christian, towards the subject to ensure the reader that he was truly trying to find the most reasonable truth concerning the event and was not trying to push a preconceived notion onto his research, or his audience. I believe that Licona did a good job at looking at alternative explanations for the resurrection and explaining why they do not hold up to scrutiny. One downside, and upside, to Licona’s book is that it goes into depth concerning each issue that it is addressing. This is helpful in the sense that the reader can see that Licona worked hard to fully research his topic and look at many conceivable options concerning the resurrection, so that skeptics who read the book are forced to look at the historical issues with whichever belief they hold about the resurrection. This analysis is also helpful for a Christian who is reading the book to better understand the historiography of their beliefs and is looking for ways to overcome other’s objections to the Christian faith, however, it may seem a little tedious for someone who is already convinced of the historicity of the resurrection, especially if they already know some responses to give to skeptics about the accuracy of the resurrection narrative. Overall, Licona does a wonderful job going through the tedious task of answering alternate theories concerning the resurrection and listing the facts that can be known through history about the resurrection.

[Paul Forrest · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good examination of the claims. Licona is a Christian, but he tried to take the agnostic line as far as possible, and I think he succeeded in this. Objections to the resurrection were assessed in fairness. There's a substantial beginning to the book where he considers different historiographical methodologies which might put people off, but I'd recommend perseverance.
Yes, it's faith given from God which gives that confidence in the event, but Licona shows that it accords with reason, too.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Licona, Research Professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary, tackles the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Weighing in at 640 pages, not including Bibliography, Licona does a thorough job in laying out the reasons to believe that the resurrection took place in space and time.

He spends the first 130+ pages on how historians do history, going over the philosophies of knowledge and history. He sets his criteria for his hypothesis: 1. Explanatory scope. 2. Explanatory power. 3. Plausibility. 4. Less ad hoc, meaning no need to employ extraneous arguments. 5. Illumination.

The second chapter he addresses various historian views on the claims of miracles, which includes Bart Ehrman. Most say no. The reason why is addressed in the first chapter when Licona addresses the idea of horizons or worldview prejudicing his, the historians, reading of the facts.

Chapter three he goes over the historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. He spends a lot of time with the earliest reference to the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. He also uses non canonical writings such as the Apostolic Fathers (Clement, Polycrap) and various others (Gospel of Peter, Thomas, etc). He determines whether in them there is a line back to the teachings of the Apostles. Being fascinated by Church history, I found this the most satisfying section.

He lays out his historical bedrock for the resurrection of Jesus. The facts has to be agreed on by a, “ heterogeneous consensus of scholars”. These facts are:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. Jesus’ disciples had experiences that led them to believe that he had risen from the dead.
3. Later, Paul was converted after experiencing what he understood to be a postresurrection appearance of Jesus.

Based on these facts, and using the above mentioned criteria, he examines six hypotheses on the fate of Jesus after the crucifixion. Most are pretty crazy, which includes group hallucinations and other odd naturalistic explanations. Naturally he ends concluding that the resurrection, physical and not spiritual of Jesus, certainly happened.

I found the book quite fascinating and so well researched. The end-notes are nearly an added book itself and the best I’ve read in quite some time. Licona does an excellent job spending time addressing the various criticisms to the orthodox view of Jesus’s resurrection and alternative, naturalistic, views.

My only criticism is central to the point of the book. He often repeats that, though the resurrection is a historical fact, we can’t know WHY Jesus was raised, or who raised Him, without it being theological. From a historical aspect, this is a true statement.

In the world of biblical scholarship, the presupposition for scholars is to deny the supernatural. Though IF the resurrection happened, and I agree it did, then it happened in history. But what are you winning people to if we can’t tell them that Jesus was raised, as the New Testament says, “...for our justification.” (Romans 4:25).

We have to be careful not to fall into a trap of looking to the world for acceptance.. Or to lessen the Gospel so people will be willing to believe it. We are only called to proclaim His life, death and resurrection. If we can’t tell them that we know WHY this happened, then what’s the point?

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be brief - unlike Licona's 620 page tome:

One of the best expositions of historiography I've read in a while. Licona spends the first third of "The Resurrection of Jesus" critiquing the problems with presuppositional naturalism and developing a methodology whereby if the best answer is a supernatural one, it could be the best answer.

Licona spends the middle chapters enumerating the canonical and non-canonical sources that would have bearing on the resurrection. He narrows down the "historical bedrock" - that which is universally agreed upon as historical fact by historians to 3 facts - that Christ was crucified, that he appeared to the apostles, and that Paul converts to Christianity because of his experience of the risen Christ.

In the final chapter, Licona looks at 6 different hypotheses for the resurrection - one of them was that Jesus actually was resurrected from the dead - either bodily or spiritually. In his final assessment, the resurrection hypothesis makes the best sense of all the data, but only if one allows for the possibility of the supernatural.

On the whole, Licona is to be commended for his attempt to argue for the plausibility of the resurrection against many hypotheses that argue that resurrection is impossible. His historiography is worth reading - whether one is a Christian or not. It allows for historical realism, tries to remain neutral on the data, but also allows for that fact that all historians have their own horizon from which they argue. He does a solid job of bracketing his beliefs, but it is never a surprise that he ends up in favor of the biblical record.

Licona has taken fire from conservative Christian scholars because he is willing to allow for the possibility of contradictions within the Gospel accounts - which he then attempts to harmonize anyway. He has taken fire as well for stating that the Gospels are best understood as ancient biographies - akin to Suetonius or Plutarch. I believe that this is helpful, but at the same time is a narrow definition of the Gospel's genre. Another minor critique is that he never assumes that the biblical record asserts its own truth. I am more than willing to let that slide since Licona's audience would reject that premise out of hand.

Ultimately, from an apologetic perspective, "The Resurrection of Jesus" is one of the best cases for the probability of the biblical record as an historical account of the resurrection. I would recommend it to any who are interested in studying or has questions of the resurrection.

[Jecko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to give this 3.5 stars, but being the mathematician that I am I rounded up.

Licona's work has a few shining moments and other moments that appear on the surface to be self-contradictory (though they needn't be if one only reads his source material). This book is a general overview (granted its very large size), and such is due to the huge goal Licona set out for himself. That being said, the overview itself is not bad. The main reason I gave this four stars instead of three was because the scholarship presented is up-to-date and it does a decent job presenting the opposing views on the evidence. That being said, due to its nature, it somewhat lacks in thorough investigation in the specifics and sometimes wastes room with lines of thought that could have been replaced by more relevant discussion. Just one example that comes to mind is Licona's treatment of the Gospel of Thomas, in which he spends a few pages on Perrin's work that is known, even admittedly by Licona, to be circular reasoning and rather poor scholarship. There is far more relevant argumentation for Thomas as a later rather than earlier text that Licona barely mentions (besides in footnotes) or simply doesn't mention. There are several moments like this throughout his work that more learned readers might catch. But that sort of thing happens granted how broad this work is meant to be. So....

In conclusion I suggest this book to those who are looking for an introduction to the historicity of Jesus's resurrection (if you're looking to specific discussions regarding pieces of evidence this work is likely to not intrigue you). It is not perfect, but I'm sure Licona would be the first to admit it. Check it out simply for the display of honesty that Licona is putting on, even if you read it for no other reason. It is a good general work that serves the purpose of organizing the general argument that pro-resurrection historians should follow.

[John Leonetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mike Licona takes a “bottom’s up” approach to investigating the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This approach, rather than starting with the Gospel accounts as facts, begins to look for certain historical bedrock criteria to establish certainty. Licona uses many historians outside of the area of Christian scholars. He informs the reader that everyone who studies history approaches the subject with certain horizons (presuppositions). For those embarking on historical research, he lists multiple suggestions to help avoid the inherent horizon’s problem.
Licona spends a great deal of time wrestling with the question, “To what extent is the past knowable?” Even though historians deal with the issue of probability, Licona argues that it does not logically follow that the past is entirely unknowable. Historical certainty is impossible.
There are a few areas where I disagreed with some of his views. Licona tends to attempt to accommodate the modern skeptic almost to a fault with all these self-contrived categories ranging from improbable to possible. He acknowledges the problems of an anti-supernatural bias in modern historical scholarship, but he never really points out in an in-depth way some of their philosophical shortcomings. I sympathize to some extent with Licona in that as a Christian studying the Resurrection of Christ, it’s hard to be personally detached in the investigation. While I applaud this effort in trying to be objective, Licona has let the horizons of the anti-supernatural scholars influence how he rates sources, especially the Gospels. I found some of his rankings of the Gospels troublesome, for at the end of the day, Christians do not worship a probability. If I finished reading Licona’s book, and were about to be executed for my faith, I would only have probable confidence it was the right thing to do since certainty is evasive.

[Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my perspective, this book provided a fair, objective synopsis and analysis of the leading theories of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The author (Licona) takes a wide scope approach, including analysis of the Apostle Paul's vision of the resurrected Christ and the life change that resulted (not only Jesus' disciples and the accounts in the gospels). He places the theories side by side and judges them on their merits. Licona also spends space acknowledging the horizons of different writers (including himself) and how these horizons affect the way one reads the historical evidence for the resurrection. Highly recommended.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book certainly bears the marks of a scholarly book. It's a bit dry, and extremely repetitive (An introduction in the book which lays out the goal of each chapter, then introducing each chapter with a detailed objective, then making the argument in the chapter, and then summarizing it again in detail, and then summarizing all of the chapters once again at the end of the book).

Having said that, I don't count off points for this, since I knew the type of literature I was getting into when I picked it up. As far as scholarly works go, this was pretty readable.

Licona makes the case that the miraculous should not be out of bounds for the historian to examine. But he appears very fair in his argument. He addresses the role of cognitive biases (he calls them "Horizons") as a barrier to the historian, as well as the fact that absolute certainty is technically impossible for the historian. But he argues that miracles can and should be on the table for historians to assess. Each miracle should be treated individually, and in a case where it is clearly the best explanation, it should not be a priori excluded as a historically viable explanation.

He writes, "Historians are not obliged to utterly disprove all other hypotheses before awarding historicity to a particular one. They should instead weigh hypotheses carefully according to specific criteria for the best explanation. If a single hypothesis clearly emerges, historians are warranted in holding that it is an accurate description of the past."

He develops a criteria for examining an historical hypothesis, and explains how these criteria should be weighted and graded in order to arrive at the most likely explanation for the historical evidence we have before us.

He then appears to be incredibly even-handed with the evidence, and works hard to not overstate his case. He goes through all of the sources we have, and labels their credibility from a historical perspective. He throws out virtually all evidence that lacks a consensus. There are only three facts he works with, because of their near unanimous agreement among scholars.

1) Jesus died by crucifixion.
2) His disciples had experiences that led them to believe that Jesus has appeared to them.
3) Later, Paul converted to Christianity after having an experience that he interpreted as the resurrected Jesus.

I was particularly surprised that he did not include the evidence of the empty tomb or the testimony of an appearance to James, the brother of Jesus. He considers these events as "second-order" facts, because "a respectable minority" argue against the historicity of the empty tomb. Regarding James, very few scholars make meaningful comment about James (despite it being part of the overwhelming consensus that 1 Cor. 15 was a very early oral tradition, which included Jesus appearing to James).

In any case, given the bare bones amount of evidence, I was a bit skeptical that a strong argument would be able to made in favor of a miraculous resurrection over other naturalistic explanations. But after examining 5 arguments (in addition to the Resurrection argument) it was concluded that there were serious problems with virtually all of them. A miraculous resurrection of Jesus makes the most sense out of the data that we have available to us, by a fair distance.

I found it interesting that the 2nd best option was that of agnosticism. Saying "I don't know what happened" appears to be a much better explanation than an attempt to explain the data we have by concocting natural explanations.

For this reason, the entire book can be reasonably summarized with a quote from N.T. Wright in Surprised by Hope.

"And here indeed, as some skeptical friends have cheerfully pointed out to me, it is always possible for anyone to follow the argument so far and to say simply, “I don’t have a good explanation for what happened to cause the empty tomb and the appearances, but I choose to maintain my belief that dead people don’t rise and therefore conclude that something else must have happened, even though we can’t tell what it was.” That is fine; I respect that position; but I simply note that it is indeed then a matter of choice, not a matter of saying that something called scientific historiography forces us to take that route.”


As an aside, last year I read "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses" by Richard Bauckham which I found very compelling. He made various arguments for the Gospels being based on original eyewitness accounts, and makes various explanations for why they were written so late. And while I found his arguments solid, I think Licona made an interesting observation. He notes,

"Moreover, if the early church believed that Jesus' eschatological return was imminent, we might expect a lack of motivation at the time for writing more on his historical life."

I think this is a fair argument to use when skeptics ask why the Gospels weren't recorded earlier. I've read a lot of skeptics argue against authenticity of the Gospels because it doesn't make sense to wait until you are near the end of your life to record important information. However, this strikes me as an incredibly plausible counterpoint. If there was the belief that Jesus could return any moment, the reason to record history for future generations seems a bit incongruous.

Bottom line: If you enjoy scholarly level examinations of the Resurrection of Jesus, I recommend this book.

[J.M. Noble · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched, clearly presented, and very thorough project. Out of all the works I've read on the Resurrection, this is my favorite. Deeply thought-provoking.

[David Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus is a thorough, sometimes dense, examination of the evidence supporting Jesus’ resurrection. Not any old evidence will do for Licona. He painstakingly reviews historical material and considers the research of numerous Christian scholars (both conservative and liberal), as well as those outside the Christian world (atheists, agnostics, and those adhering to other religions). His goal in this process is to attempt to identify a core set of “bedrock” or “minimal” facts on which virtually a consensus of scholars agree. It may surprise some as to how much most scholars actually agree on. These bedrock facts, distilled by Licona which relate in some way to the resurrection, are as follows: Jesus’ death by crucifixion, the disciples’ beliefs that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them individually and in group settings, and the apostle Paul’s conversion based on his perception that a risen Jesus appeared to him. (page 468, Kindle.)

Licona is careful to avoid any appearance of promoting Christian dogmatism, declining to declare—for example—that the empty tomb of Jesus is a bedrock fact even though a substantial number of scholars of various theological (or non-theological) persuasions agree that this is historical. This is consistent with Licona’s method, under which he declares at the outset commitment to avoid the problem of pre-understanding or presupposition, which often causes those doing historical research to accept or, more often, to reject a proposition without any actual evaluation of the underlying evidence.

After he assesses the historical research and the bedrock facts which emerge from it, Licona then evaluates the most popular competing conclusions to be drawn from these facts supporting the resurrection. Licona provides substantial explanations of the hypotheses which do not accept a bodily resurrection, including those articulated by Geza Vermes, Michael Goulder, Gerd Ludemann, John Dominic Crossan, and Pieter F. Craffert. Following the description of each hypothesis, Licona provides his analysis and then weighs each hypothesis based on the degree to which it appears to provide the best explanation for the bedrock facts. Licona proceeds by evaluating each hypothesis based on a number of factors, including explanatory scope, explanatory power, and plausibility. Rather than being a “magic formula for discovering the past,” these criteria “define how a fair-minded critical examination of the data may be conducted.” (page 111, Kindle.) Licona’s analysis of the competing hypotheses is not breezy or light-handed. He spends considerable space evaluating them, and he also provides a critical assessment of the resurrection hypothesis, before he declares it to be the best explanation.

Although the book is written for an academic audience, any Christian seeking a fresh approach to discuss the resurrection with skeptical friends is likely to find this volume helpful. The Christian reader will not find Licona’s approach to be warm and inviting in his presentation of the resurrection or the Christian faith. It is, in some ways, quite stiff, but I found his tone to support his credibility as a sober academic. I was somewhat disappointed at times to see Licona minimize biblical propositions as mere poetic devices (for example, the raising of the holy people from the tombs in Matthew 27:51-52) when they appear to be presented in the biblical text as factual, but his doing so is consistent with his historian’s mindset, in particular his laser focus on those bedrock facts upon which most scholars agree. His argument on the raising of the holy people is that, whether this is poetic or otherwise, it does undercut the reality of the bedrock facts and the conclusions that emanate from them.

A belief in the truth of the resurrection cannot be boiled down merely to a historical investigation, at least for most of us, and this does not appear to be Licona’s ultimate aim. However, for critics willing to engage with his work, he does seem to have successfully cut through some of the fog that contributes to unbelief in some, including a failure to critically examine the evidence because of what a skeptic has said or written that the listener/reader then uncritically accepts (for example, the notion that Jesus is not even a historical figure). Based on Licona’s presentation of various propositions and his thorough analysis, his opponents will have ample opportunities to quibble with various points, but my perception is that this book will challenge some of them to state their positions more plainly and actually participate in the substantive debate over the core issues surrounding the resurrection claim. Any effort to brush off the resurrection as fictitious, in the absence of substantive engagement with the evidence, can be seen for what it often represents: an argument teetering on unstated presuppositions or previously-debunked ideas.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Licona’s book spends considerable time and space establishing the background knowledge needed to make the proper assessment of the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. The first chapter gives a thorough overview of the field of history and the various philosophical approaches and perspectives about the scope, limitations, and explanatory power of historical accounts. At the extreme is the belief that you cannot get any information from historical accounts because they are hopelessly distorted factors such as the historian’s bias, horizon, and the limited information available.
Licona then addresses the various arguments that Jesus’ resurrection is not within the scope of historical study. He addresses various arguments, such as the influential arguments of David Hume to Bart Ehrman and makes a compelling case that there is no adequate reason for precluding the resurrection from the scope of historical analysis.
In the third chapter, Licona catalogues the various source material to consider in the historical evaluation of Jesus’ resurrection. This includes not only the biblical accounts such as the gospels and Paul’s epistles, but a comprehensive catalogue of other sources such as non-Christian historians, writings of the early Apostolic Fathers, and noncanonical literature (such as the controversial Gospels of Thomas, Peter, and Judas).
After establishing all this background, Licona finally presents the facts that he considers bedrock in the fourth chapter. These are the facts that are accepted by the overwhelming majority of scholars, regardless of religious belief. This list of facts is surprisingly short, consisting of only three facts: 1) Jesus died by crucifixion 2) shortly after Jesus’ death, his disciples had experiences causing them to believe that Jesus had resurrected from the dead and appeared to them, and 3) Paul converted to Christianity after having an experience that he believed was the resurrected Christ. Licona does not even include the empty tomb of Jesus among his list of bedrock facts.
Finally, Licona summarizes and analyzes the six hypotheses that represent the scholarly explanation for these facts. He methodically analyzes each point and shows that all the hypotheses fall short of the Resurrection Hypothesis (RH) in accounting for the bedrock facts. The five non-RH hypotheses resort to much speculation and ad hoc explanations to account for the facts, and some do not even address the bedrock facts. Licona goes to show that the non-RH hypotheses fall well short of RH in terms of explanatory scope, explanatory power
Licona’s book is a very comprehensive analysis of the historical case for the resurrection. He doesn’t just start with a statement of the facts, but starts at the very basic foundations of the philosophy of history to consider the basic field of historical study and what its proper scope and limitations are. He methodically moves up layer by layer, moving on to consider whether the resurrection of Jesus is even within the scope of historical research, to establishing what he trustworthy source material is for the resurrection accounts, to finally establishing the bare facts that everyone agrees upon. Only after establishing all this foundation for more than 400 pages, does he go on to make the actual analysis of the various leading hypotheses.
While the book is challenging to read, especially for someone who does not come from a background in historical study, it provides a sweeping overview of the knowledge needed to make an adequate assessment of the historical validity of Jesus’ resurrection. He’s not giving you the short answer, but what seems like a semester-long course. He goes into great detail in each chapter, methodically addressing opposing viewpoints to each point that he sets to establish. After reading it, you feel like you’ve been given the exhaustive, full answer. However, because of the depth of his treatment, Licona’s book would not be one you could recommend to most people interested in the question of the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. I think most people interested in the topic would not be willing to read through this 600+ page book, which at times feels too technical for the average reader. I don’t think I would have finished the book if it were not required reading for the class I am taking. I think other books geared for a more general audience would be much more effective in presenting the historical case for the resurrection. However, this is a book that you could refer to again and again, and a great reference to point you to additional study if you were to go deeper in any specific area.

[Daniel Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Licona begins his magisterial work by clearly articulating his methodology and addressing foundational concerns. In the opening chapter, he provides a detailed exposition of the philosophy of history and lays out the aim of his investigation. This provides the reader with a clear understanding of the nature of history as well as the capacity of historians to confidently discern past events. Licona then establishes that each historian has, what he calls, a “horizon”, or a collection of beliefs that influence their investigations. He posits that it is the historian’s responsibility to disclose this horizon during their research and attempt to minimize the effects that it has on their study. Before Licona delves into the historical events surrounding the life and death of Jesus, he addresses the issue of miracles. Through engagement with Hume’s classic polemic, as well as contemporary scholars on both sides of the issue, Licona provides a robust analysis of the conversation. Through his explication, he establishes a satisfying, functional method to determine if an event was an anomaly or a miracle by assessing the “religious charge” of the context in which the event occurred. Together, this framework provides readers with a balanced foundation by which they can analyze different propositions throughout the text.

After guiding the reader through this carefully laid foundation, Licona embarks on a journey through the extant historical sources pertaining to the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection. Leaving no stone unturned, Licona walks through both canonical and non-canonical Christian texts. He assesses the contributions of ancient historians such as Josephus and Tacitus, sifting probable events from legendary development. From this data set, Licona establishes what he refers to as a “historical bedrock”, or data points that both biblical and non-biblical scholars can heterogeneously agree upon. Beginning with the historicity of the life and ministry of Jesus and concluding with adjudication on the events surrounding Jesus’ death and reported resurrection, Licona scrutinizes canonical and non-canonical Christian, as well as non-Christian sources. Through this exploration, Licona establishes three “minimal facts” that anchor the narrative of the resurrection in history. Upon the establishment of these facts, Licona engages with six hypotheses, including the biblically proposed “Resurrection Hypothesis”, that offer an explanation for this historical bedrock. He subjects each proposition to clearly defined criteria by which he judges their efficacy. Through this analysis, the strengths and weaknesses of the respective theories are exposed and compared, affording him the capacity to adjudicate clearly on each hypothesis.

Licona’s work was a masterful exploration of the resurrection. His methodology, and employment of clearly defined criteria to assess the historicity of evidence, the possibility of miracles, and different hypotheses guided my analysis of his conclusions throughout the text. Not only did my knowledge about the resurrection grow through this study, but I also learned how to assess the methodology employed by historians on the subject. This engendered a deeper understanding of the subject and the field more generally. I also appreciated the breadth and depth of his research as he established the historical bedrock. It provided me with a wealth of new and reliable information. Licona’s minimal facts approach deepened my faith as I wrestled with the historicity of the evidence and the event.

I would, however, offer two critiques of Licona’s book. The text would have benefited from a more expansive analysis of the individual contributions of the Gospels’ resurrection narratives. They were lumped together and rated based on their combined value, but this seemed to be too general, especially in light of the independence of their syntactical structure as emphasized by N.T. Wright. The second is that the empty tomb was treated too concisely. (Spoiler) Despite it being considered a second-order fact, the importance of the tomb’s occupancy or vacancy cannot be understated, and thus, it would have been beneficial to explore it with more depth. However, considering the length of the book, it is no surprise that Licona opted for brevity in these areas.

I thoroughly enjoyed this investigation. It will serve as a companion to my study of the resurrection of Jesus for years to come. If you are looking for a clear, readable analysis of the historical viability of the resurrection, this book is for you!

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Licona's book delves into the question of whether Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, employing an approach distinct from conventional resurrection studies. In contrast to assuming the reliability of biblical texts and eyewitness accounts, Licona undertakes a rigorous historical analysis to establish their validity. This deviation sets his work apart, presenting an unbiased and broadly accessible historical inquiry into a central Christian doctrine—Jesus' resurrection. In the first chapter, Licona explores various historical approaches outside the biblical community, addressing topics such as the nature of historical knowledge, managing personal biases, and historical methods. Embracing a realist approach to history, he argues for methodical neutrality, where historians neither presume reliability nor falsehood in a text. In the second chapter, Licona confronts objections to historians' investigation of miracle claims, critiquing scholars like David Hume, C. B. McCullagh, John Meier, Bart Ehrman, A. J. M. Wedderburn, and James D. G. Dunn. Licona dismisses these objections under critical scrutiny, though acknowledging potential pitfalls in investigating miracle claims. Moving to chapter three, Licona identifies and evaluates primary sources within a two-hundred-year timeframe of Jesus' death, including canonical and non-canonical Christian literature, as well as non-Christian sources. He prioritizes sources with the highest likelihood of containing relevant data about Jesus' death and resurrection. In the fourth chapter he establishes three historical bedrock facts supported by a unanimous consensus of scholars: Jesus' crucifixion, the disciples' post-death experiences leading to belief in resurrection, and Paul's conversion after a post-resurrection appearance. These facts serve as an unassailable foundation for constructing hypotheses. The fifth, and final chapter, consolidates the historical method, assessing six hypotheses—including those by Geza Vermes, Michael Goulders, Gerd Ludemann, John Dominic Crossan, Pieter Craffart, and the Resurrection Hypothesis. Licona systematically evaluates their ability to account for the established historical bedrock, guiding readers towards a conclusion regarding the resurrection of Jesus.

Having immersed myself in the intricate pages of Michael Licona's thought-provoking work, I am unequivocally convinced that "The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach" stands as an invaluable addition to my library. Licona's thorough departure from conventional approaches to the resurrection question, opting for a historical lens, elevates this book into a league of its own. The seamless blend of academic rigor and accessible language makes it a captivating read, guiding readers through the complexities of historical methodology without losing the essence of the subject matter. By challenging assumptions and addressing objections with a critical eye, Licona sets the stage for a compelling exploration of Jesus' resurrection. The book's structure, from delving into historical approaches to evaluating competing hypotheses, ensures a comprehensive understanding. Whether you're a seasoned scholar or someone seeking to navigate the depths of this pivotal Christian doctrine, "The Resurrection of Jesus" offers a unique and enlightening perspective. It's not just a book; it's a scholarly journey that beckons anyone intrigued by the intersection of history and faith. I wholeheartedly recommend it to fellow seekers of knowledge and truth, confident that its impact will resonate far beyond the confines of my personal library. One critique however, is that while Licona offers a compelling exploration of the resurrection, he seems to rely heavily on a consensus-driven minimal facts approach. The omission of the empty tomb, for instance, from the historical bedrock, seemingly to garner agreement from skeptics, raises questions about the extent to which he allows skepticism to shape the narrative. This strategic exclusion may, in some readers' eyes, compromise the quest for unbiased historical inquiry. It prompts reflection on whether the pursuit of consensus inadvertently sways the narrative and dilutes the robustness of the historical exploration. Despite this concern, the book remains a significant contribution to the discourse on the historicity of Jesus' resurrection, inviting readers to critically engage with the methodology employed.

[Gerry Diaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Resurrection of Jesus is a staple for an appropriate legitimate view of the resurrection of Jesus. It is one thing to read a work from an author and give their viewpoint and another to get a well formulated position from a method. Licona is indeed a historian and the content in his book is just that, the work of a respected historian. He writes and also interacts with opposing viewpoints as well as others who hold his view, with then adding his own conclusions regarding the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. He provides a platform for his opponents like Bart Ehrman and gives their positions respectable presence, which speaks to not only his writing style but also his caliber as a historian himself. As a testament to his craft, one thing that Licona does early in the book is layout the historical evidences for the resurrection that he will interact and propose and then grades them on their value as being historical sources. What is so great about that is you get to see a glimpse into not only Licona’s thought process but immediately aids the reader in understanding the explanatory power of the historical sources and provides a level of interaction as one continues to read the book moving forward.

Licona presents the evidences for the resurrection of Jesus as something he desires the reader to come to terms with evidences that have been put forth. But more than that he stops himself from falling into overreaching assumptions. An example is when Licona presents his minimal facts, the facts that require the minimal amount of defense, he leaves the empty tomb of Christ out of the list. It is not too difficult to push forth the idea that because the tomb of Jesus was empty, there is a foundation to conclude that a resurrection was a potential outcome. But because that fact is contended in the scholarly arena he leaves it out. It doesn’t mean he never utilizes that point, but instead he is attentive to his own biases and presents a case that is sound as a result. Which makes this book a gem for anyone that is interested in a serious look at the resurrection of Jesus.

I enjoyed the interaction the book brought about regarding the naturalistic reasoning for the resurrection of Jesus. He invites the reader to consider the opposing views and guides us through the difficulties and challenges of accepting them. You can see through the arguments and positions that are presented that truth is the ultimate goal. Did Jesus rise again being dead and entombed for 3 days? That is the answer that Licona does an excellent job unfolding for us.

One thing I enjoyed in interacting with Licona’s work on the resurrection of Jesus was a renewed appreciation, but also refined view of miracles and things were would quickly label as extraordinary. I found to notice that most people quickly place the resurrection account in the realm of fiction or fables because it isn’t something we experience often and likely ever. While that is true the questions we need to ask ourselves and Licona’s work help us through is that it doesn’t make it impossible, nor that it never happened. So, how do we look back into the historical record and determine if there is a credible defense and position that can be made that it did occur?

Licona is a true scholar and teacher and it can be experienced in his work. He is attentive to his discipline but also writes in a manner that is instructive and encouraging with the reader without him actually being there. There are parts that are a little more dense for the lay person, because they are more geared to the scholar, but he quickly is able to soften the weight for the layperson with his interaction of the content that still maintains its integrity as a scholar.

For both lay person and especially the scholar and student Licona’s work is a must for those who desire to have a legitimate study of the resurrection of Jesus. He presents the historical evidence as it is, and highlights the flaws in erroneous positions and shares the lack of explanatory power in his own. But taking it all as a whole it is a challenge to deny or at least seriously consider that the resurrection of Jesus occurred and is recorded in our historical record.

[Nick Clinkinbeard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, by Michael R. Licona, is a thorough academic treatment of the much-disputed topic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his book, Licona methodically guides his readers through the available historical evidence in support of the resurrection event.

To set the stage for his approach (and educate his readers in the process), Licona begins by introducing his audience to concepts in the philosophy of historical research, with a special focus on addressing the worldview bias—or “horizons”—that each of us has. During this process Licona is astute to point out that one never knows a historical fact with complete certainty, rather it lives on a probability scale.

Licona next moves on to the controversial topic of miracles, and whether or not they are possible. Having noted several academic positions, he ultimately concludes that their exclusion from study is really a byproduct of naturalistic bias, and therefore includes them as potentially valid.
In Chapter 3, Dr. Licona introduces us to available historical resurrection sources, both Christian and non-Christian. While including some New Testament cannon—such as 1 Corinthians—he also covers many extra-biblical manuscripts, like the Gospel of Thomas. This review lays the foundation for Chapter 4, where Licona methodically progresses through the texts to select what he believes is the historical bedrock regarding Jesus’ death and purported resurrection. Although done critically, as part of the analysis Licona does place weight on what is accepted by the academic community, and leaves behind much that is not.

Prior to tying the evidence together into his “Resurrection Hypothesis,” Licona spends much of Chapter 5 discussing the merits of alternative theories by experts such as Ehrman and Crossan. Once more, he very methodically demonstrates that these hypotheses fall short of providing a tenable explanation of the resurrection event. We are therefore compelled to conclude that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead.

The Resurrection of Jesus is a technical book that takes a systematic approach to establishing what the author concludes to be the truth about the subject material. Although he confesses Christianity early on in the text, Licona does not stray from his methodology to bolster his position. In fact, when necessary, quite the opposite is true: the author is very quick to dismiss the impact of canonical New Testament writings as notable supporting material when their historicity is not easily established. This is not to discount the material altogether; rather, it is a necessary strategy in a sincere attempt to minimize personal bias by judging texts on their historical merit rather than acceptance as Christian acceptance.

The avowed naturalist will not easily accept Liconas analysis of things like miracles. Indeed, to accept his conclusions about the resurrection, one must be open to having his or her horizon challenged. Even so, those disinclined to admit the resurrection as fact will find his strategy for analyzing the artifacts to be sound. Of (possibly foundation-shaking) interest to the nonbeliever will be the knowledge that various alternative non-Christian theories of subtopics like the empty tomb, appearances to the Apostles, and the spread of Christianity are actually debunked equally by non-Christian and Christian historians alike.

For those seeking a popular, top-down treatment of the material, The Resurrection of Jesus is not for you. The painstaking care Licona takes to establish each source and refute implausible alternatives requires much patience and analysis in order to fully comprehend the material. Although written in an easy-to-read manner, this book is a pared-down version of Licona’s PhD dissertation, the fact of which becomes quickly apparent shortly after embarking on the journey with him. However, for those desiring a thorough and systematic scholarly treatment of one of the most foundational beliefs in Christianity, The Resurrection of Jesus will be a book that you will look forward to reading each day.

[Anthony Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Licona’s systematic examination of the historiography and evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus Christ is both rich in scope and depth, but also easy to pick up and follow for the public audience, despite its more academic nature. The book is broken up into five successive chapters that build upon each other to establish the necessary framework to systematically analyze and rank several prominent theories explaining the evidence behind Jesus’ resurrection appearances.

Licona begins by introducing the reader to the philosophy of history, historical methodology and epistemology, and the difficulties that historians encounter in determining what had occurred in the past. For example, Licona acknowledges that each historian views data through what he labels “horizons”, the presuppositions and worldviews from which one interprets data, and which will inevitably bias one’s conclusions if left unchecked, and he proposes a list of guidelines on how to account for such horizons.

In his methodology, Licona lists five key criteria by which historical theories can be assessed: explanatory scope; explanatory power; plausibility; presence of ad hoc statements; and illumination. In the following chapter, Licona explores the concept of miracles, and whether historians are equipped to adjudicate the veracity of such claims. He then considers objections against the study of non-naturalistic phenomena and the proper methodology required to reach to an objective conclusion. Licona then lists the various historical sources which document the resurrection of Jesus, including the Gospels, New Testament epistles, as well as extra biblical sources, and considers the weight of such texts.

Licona then establishes what he deems the historical bedrock for what is referred to as the minimal facts approach: identifying a list of facts that are both strongly evidenced and unanimously regarded as a historical fact on which to build a historical case for any given event (in this case the resurrection of Jesus). In the final section, Licona examines six hypotheses that purport to explain the apparent post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, with Licona weighing each hypotheses’ capacity to explain the historical bedrock in light of the aforementioned five key criteria.

As someone who had not studied history or even stopped to consider the underlying framework and philosophies required to critically examine claims of the past, much of this book was fascinating to me. I had always taken for granted that history would be biased by the historian’s prejudices and worldview and I found Licona’s exploration of the concept of horizons and the means by which to dampen their effects enlightening.

As a former lawyer, the idea that we would apply differing burdens of proof for different claims (e.g., civil vs criminal claims) was a given for me, but I had never considered by what metrics we analyze or judge historical evidence. Licona adopts of position of methodical neutrality throughout and I was of the opinion that he gave a rather fair treatment to evidence (e.g., heavily discounting the narratives in the gospels) as well as to the alternatives to the resurrection hypothesis, notwithstanding his Christian bias.

Overall, I would highly recommend the book regardless of one’s worldview as even if you do not agree with the author’s conclusions, the book provides the reader with a strong framework for assessing historical claims and data. My only criticism would be that, I felt that Licona was too quick to discount the claim of mass hallucinations. Upon reading the book, I was surprised to learn of events such as the appearance of St George to the crusaders that was reported by multiple first and secondhand witnesses, or as I later discovered, the Miracle of the Sun in 1917. I would have preferred it if Licona spent slightly more time on how he would differentiate these apparent mass hallucinations from the reported sightings of Jesus post his crucifixion by more than 500.

[Jeff Duff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, by Michael R. Licona, lays the groundwork for one of the most open enquiries into the available historical evidence concerning the resurrection of Jesus. Licona takes the reader on a journey, in the spirit of seeking the truth, through the available evidence surrounding Jesus' resurrection - a real library treasure. Historical research reads can be daunting, but this 700 plus page navigation through five chapters is designed to build towards a cumulative conclusion for the best explanation of the evidence about Jesus. Licona’s point is to carefully considering the available evidence, and ask if the “…historian is warranted in regarding Jesus’ resurrection as an event that occurred in the past.” (p. 610) Licona's approach is humbly comprehensive, considering the canonical, non-canonical and extra-biblical biblical text, and the application of established hermeneutical and exegetic methods to sift through what the evidence is best and transmits. Setting aside his hopeful desire for a personal conclusion, Licona’s historiographical analysis of the resurrection leads to its apologetic value, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation.

The newness of Licona’s approach is twofold; first to confront the worldview bias that he, and all readers of history, bring to the historical analysis of the available evidence surrounding the death of Jesus and second consider the skeptical arguments put forth by major scholars in order to text their hypothesis against the same set of evidence. Licona does this by framing each skeptics hypothesis in order to later test the evidence against his identified set of universally facts, he calls the historical bedrock. With an understanding of the philosophy, historical methods, miraculous historiography and an exhaustive list of potential sources of textual evidence surrounding the historical Jesus, Licona begins to overturn the stones of evidence.
The basis in which Licona assesses historical evidence is developed over chapter 3 and established in the first part of chapter 4, which is where we could find a critique. Although adhering to a rigorous assessment of historical evidence, Licona filters this evidence if it is strong and nearly universally accepted, evidence call “historical bedrock” Evidence that is clearly valuable to Licona, the empty tomb, and the appearance of the five hundred, does not make the cut. Although he rigorous establishes his methodology, he quickly relies other minimal facts work for the historical bedrock, pushing past key elements that are easily identified withing the universal creed recounted in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. The praiseworthy approach, of setting his horizon in check, leaves the empty tomb and the mass appearance of Jesus quickly glanced over. While not detracting from his comprehensive analysis, the inclusion of these two additional pieces could round out his analysis, and further the books unintended apologetic value.

With the foundation laid, Licona embarks on chapter four to examine the evidence connected with Jesus' resurrection and fate. Considering the resurrection evidence in chapter three, the reader is prompted to consider how it is possible that the resurrection took place. Through a systematic comparison of each skeptical hypothesis, the evidence is weighed and measured, in a conclusion that presents itself in an objective fashion compared to the approaches each of the skeptics have tested their individual hypothesis. Licona’s does not provide a “magical formula for discovering the past.” Rather, his book aims at taking a “fair-minded critical examination of the data.”

highly recommend this book.

[Nate Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

SUMMARY:
The first section of Licona's book covers theory such as transcending horizons, the nature of truth and historical fact, postmodernist history, and the science of history. Next, Licona transitions from theory to method and mentions various arguments, such as arguments to the best explanation and statistical inference, as well as the spectrum of historical certainty. Next, Licona writes about miracle claims and how they relate to the historian, as well as who the burden of proof for miracle claims falls on. He spends time in the various peoples’ works: David Hume, C. Behan McCullagh, John P. Meier, Bart D. Ehrman, A. J. M. Wedderburn, and James D.G. Dunn. The next section examines the many historical sources pertaining to the resurrection of Jesus. It reviews the New Testament literature of the canonical gospels and letters of Paul. It reviews the pre-Markan tradition and many sources that might antedate the New Testament literature, including speeches in Acts and the oral formulas in Romans 1:3b-4a, Luke 24:33-34, and 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. It then examines the following non-Christian sources: Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Mara bar Serapion, Thallus, Lucian, Celsus, and Rabbinic sources, and ends the section with examining the Apostolic Fathers and other Non-Canonical Christian literature. In the fourth section, Licona writes about the historical bedrock pertaining to the fate of Jesus, which sort of seems to revisit the themes from the first section. This wonderful section highlights the historical bedrock–the most necessary historical truths–of Jesus’ life, Jesus’ death, the empty tomb, and the conversions of Paul the Church Persecutor and James the Skeptical. In the final section, Licona weighs the hypotheses of many people who try to explain this historical bedrock with other arguments such as mass hallucination. He concludes with the resurrection hypothesis which is the most historically accurate.

ANALYSIS:
This is the best book I have read on the resurrection of Jesus. The way that Licona approaches the topic is very helpful from a historian’s point of view. This is not a book only for Christians to read who are already convinced of Jesus’ resurrection. Rather, this book is also a fantastic read for atheists and honest historians who want to examine the historicity of the most important event in the most popular world religion. Licona’s decision to begin his book with theory, history, and method, paved the way for the rest of the book to examine the resurrection of Jesus very honestly and nicely. When I picked up this book, I did not expect to begin by reading 100 pages about these things before looking to Jesus or the tomb. My only suggestion to Licona revolves around the book’s treatment of the canonical Gospels. In the third section, Licona rates the canonical Gospels as possible sources of value for historically investigating the resurrection. I believe that Licona was very tactful in rating them this way because it helps reveal that his case for the resurrection in The Resurrection of Jesus is in no way dependent or reliant upon the historical reliability of the canonical Gospels. This could be very helpful for those who do not believe that the canonical gospels are reliable. However, I wish that Licona had spent more time building a strong case for the historical reliability of the canonical Gospels in this section. Licona personally believes that the Gospels are reliable and has been working on making that case over the past few years (according to my professor, Dr. Sean McDowell). Therefore, something more than them being possible sources of value would be helpful, even if he made it clear that he does not rely on that value for his case of the resurrection.

[Casey Sudduth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary
In this work, Mike Licona digs deep into a wide variety of relevant questions for studying Jesus’ resurrection. He starts by examining the various approaches to history, noting how historians are often influenced by their “horizons,” or their biases (and how they might overcome them), and pointing out the hurdles one must overcome in conducting historical research. He then examines objections from various historians on the investigation and evaluation of miracle claims as history, and he argues that ultimately none of these objections are persuasive. Next, Licona takes a thorough look at all of the historical sources that could potentially be valuable in a historical investigation of the resurrection, and he offers ratings for each source on the likelihood that it would provide valuable, reliably-sourced material about Jesus’ death and resurrection. In chapter four, Licona probes these sources to establish the “historical bedrock” of facts that are accepted nearly unanimously by all scholars surrounding the death of Jesus. These facts include (1) Jesus’ death by crucifixion, (2) that after Jesus’ death, his disciples had experiences that caused them to believe that Jesus had appeared to them, risen from the dead, and (3) that Paul, a few years after Jesus’ death, converted to Christianity after experiencing what he understood to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. In the final chapter, Licona evaluates six hypotheses, representative of the theories in contemporary scholarship, on the question of how well they can explain the historical bedrock of facts. Licona concludes that the resurrection is by far the best explanation of the historical bedrock, and he therefore rates it as “very certain” on his scale of historical likelihood.
Analysis
I thought Licona’s material on method, sources, and evidence for the historical bedrock were incredibly thorough and helpful in pursuit of a serious investigation of the resurrection. He addresses head-on the tough questions of conducting history, and he does not shy away from the pitfalls to make his case sound better than it really is. His strategies for overcoming horizons would be useful to anyone attempting to conduct fair historical research. His evaluation of the relevant sources to the resurrection was almost completely comprehensive - he did not offer as much depth on the material in the Gospels as I would have liked, although he may have had good reasons for not spending too much time on them (they are hotly debated, and therefore would require more space than he could afford to give them), and I think his rating for them was a bit too moderate. Otherwise, the discussion of the sources was quite thorough and helpful. His use of these sources to establish the historical bedrock was also very well done. While I understand his high-bar for what counts as historical bedrock, I do wish he had given more consideration to the way the empty tomb would impact the evaluation of the theories, considering that most scholars do accept the empty tomb. I was most underwhelmed by the final chapter on the evaluation of competing theories. I agree with Licona’s conclusions, but given how comprehensive the rest of this book was in covering all of the relevant information, I was surprised that Licona didn’t cover more of the alternative theories that have been used to explain away the resurrection throughout history. But he did do a good job of systematically evaluating the theories that he did bring up. I think this incredibly well-researched work would be highly valuable for anyone seeking to conduct historical research, especially on the first half of the case for the resurrection of Jesus.

[Ken Ireland · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (2010) by Michael Licona.
Ideal book for the critical reader of history. This citation rich, dense book is a valuable read for anyone wanting to understand the historical basis for the resurrection of Jesus. Licona’s nearly 700 page work is rich with citations and footnotes, along with an extensive bibliography. Licona carefully and fully describes his methodology first, then provides an explanation of how historians describe miracles, including scholars who are skeptics of the resurrection story, such as Bart Ehrmann and C. Behan McCullagh. He then analyzes the biblical gospels, the letters of the Apostle Paul, many prominent non-Christian writers of the first 300 years after Christ, as well as most of the prominent non-canonical sources (letters or books attributed to various Apostles but not included in the Bible). With this groundwork laid, Licona then uses the historical methodology he described to evaluate the historicity of the documents and accounts which describe the resurrection of Jesus. This process is accomplished over 200 pages of careful assessment. Licona summarizes with what he calls three pieces of historical bedrock which scholars by an overwhelming consensus believe are historically accurate. With this groundwork established Licona then provides a summary of analysis of five naturalistic hypotheses from prominent scholars assessing the validity of Licona’s historical bedrock. The author concludes with his perspective on the value of naturalistic hypothesis.
Why should a reader dig into nearly 700 pages of methodology, ancient documents, critical review and rating of the historical validity of the many accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus? Licona does a good job of explaining his complicated methodology, making it simple enough for a reader who isn’t versed in the academic side of historical studies to understand. Given that Jesus resurrection and reappearance is Christianity’s most important event and from a historical perspective has had a significant influence on the last 2,000 years of world history, gaining an understanding of the historical accuracy of the accounts of Jesus resurrection is a valuable endeavor for Christian’s and skeptics alike. Licona’s presentation, his extensive explanation of ancient writings with footnotes and other annotated information and inclusion of counter-arguments provides a balance that isn’t often found in theological books. Licona’s use of only three points of historical bedrock is commendable. His bedrock elements are: 1) the crucifixion of Jesus, 2) the experiences of his disciples which led them to believe Jesus had been resurrected and appeared to them and 3) the conversion of Saul, who was a devout Jewish leader and persecutor of Christians, who became the Apostle Paul and was one of the most devoted of Jesus apostles, ultimately paying for his devotion to the risen Christ by being martyred. Licona is humble in his conclusions, admitting that his work in assessing and defending the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection is “provisional” but that he hopes this work “has contributed toward making the puzzle solution a little clearer.” For Christian Apologists, Licona’s "The Resurrection of Jesus” provides an excellent analysis for the probability of the biblical record as an historical account of the resurrection. I recommend it to any persons or groups who have an interest in a thoughtful, scholarly study of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[Alex Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a helpful book. Licona spells out a minimal case for the Resurrection. He begins by explaining the study of history and how historians choose the best hypothesis given the evidence they are presented, and how they can be confident that belief corresponds to what most likely happened. He asserts that extraordinary refers primarily to events outside one's horizon of experience, and thus additional evidence must be used to overcome this belief. However, if the claim is made in earnest and the source is generally credible, it is rational to believe the source.
He then assesses the quality of the writings we have as evidence, assigning high probability to the kerygma of 1 Corinthians 15 and the letters of Paul more generally. Interestingly, Licona rates the resurrection accounts in the Synoptic gospels as “possible,” due to variations in accounts and (I suspect) modern skepticism about their veracity and a desire to avoid ‘using the Bible to prove the Bible.’
Licona then puts forth three facts accepted by a majority of scholars as probable: the death of Jesus by crucifixion, the testimony of the disciples, and the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Licona establishes that Jesus died by crucifixion to a high degree of probability. This is due to the continuous testimony of the crucifixion within the New Testament, hostile records such as Josephus, and church tradition. He then records that the disciples’ firm belief in the Resurrection, most strongly attested by the kerygma and more generally by hostile authors. Third, Paul’s conversion is clear from Acts and Paul’s letters. and Licona uses word studies to show that Paul likely believed he saw a physical appearance of the resurrected Christ. Here Licona chooses to forgo the empty tomb as part of the set of “minimal facts” necessary for his case, as he sees it as implied given the disciples’ firm belief, too contentious, and not necessary for his case to hold water.
He then assesses different theories for their adherence to the facts, along the criteria of explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, ad hoc, and illumination for unanswered questions. He then assesses several theories other historians have posited to explain the data accurately, including the bereavement theory, swoon theory, apparition theory, theft theory, and others. Each theory is assessed relative to each other but has serious flaws that makes it incomplete. The Resurrection Hypothesis is then shown to be the most satisfactory explanation given the established criteria.
Overall, I found Licona’s argument very satisfying. He cogently describes the scope and terms of the discussion, fairly assess terms and evidence, and gives each theory a fair hearing and relative classification. I found his two critical choices of assigning the gospels a “possible” probability and withholding the empty tomb from the set of minimal facts to be effective. He avoided as much controversy on the matter as possible while keeping his case strong, which is a difficult thing to do.
As a believer and a student, I’m grateful for Licona’s work. I feel even more confident that the linchpin of our faith is rock-solid, even under the most careful skeptical scrutiny. Licona looks at the arguments from the perspective of an unbiased historian (at least one doing his best to recognize his biases and work against them), and the Resurrection comes out shining. I’m more confident than ever that Jesus is the truth once again.

[Todd Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Licona does a very thorough job of addressing the question of whether the resurrection event was historical or not. His overarching aim is to approach the evidence even handed, which necessitates he looks at it as more of a historian rather than a theologian. Although we all bring biases to evidence through our world views (which Licona calls “horizons”), Licona does his best to keep his analysis as objective as possible. This is accomplished by first tackling what the goal is in the first place.

The first 100 pages or so of the book is dedicated to addressing how we put aside our biases and take an honest look at what the evidence says regarding historical events, or what history even is for that matter. To avoid doing an injustice to the data, the following part of the book is regarding the methodology that will be applied in order to maintain a neutral stance as much as possible. Here, Licona suggests that although history can’t be known with absolute certainty, that we can still get a satisfying answer by acknowledging our own biases and doing our best to let the evidence speak for itself through careful investigation.

Throughout the rest of the book, Licona takes the time to go through much of the evidence we have today regarding the resurrection of Jesus and asking what the data suggests is the best explanation for what actually historically happened. A couple examples of what Licona covers in the next few hundred pages includes sources from within the Bible, like the Gospels and Paul’s writings, as well as sources outside of the Bible. These are analyzed in depth to decipher whether the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation based off the evidence we have today. In addition to analysis of the evidence, different viewpoints and hypothesis of critics of the resurrection are also taken head on to make sure all possible explanations are carefully considered.

This book was my first deep dive into the resurrection of Jesus. Overall, I really enjoyed what Licona had to say and the length he went to try to be as objective as possible. I would say it is worth the time to go through the book and at a minimum gain a better understanding of what the evidence suggests regarding the resurrection. It definitely has an academic feel to it and would be a tough book to skim, but most readers would get a lot out of it given a sufficient amount of time (the book is over 600 pages).

Although I really enjoyed the book, my main critique would be Licona sometimes going into unnecessary detail regarding the evidence he is analyzing. Occasionally it feels like it can get a little redundant or points he is making don’t have a lot of value add regarding the overall goal of the book. An example of this is when Licona dives into 1st Corinthian’s 15, it is brought up so many times it feels like you hear the argument over and over again. Even though it was probably my favorite takeaways from the book, it became a little redundant as I saw it continually coming up. My suggestion would be that Licona could probably have made just as effective of an argument with 400 pages as opposed to 600.

With all that said, it is worth taking the time to understand the leading arguments revolving around the resurrection of Jesus. Licona does a great job being as objective as possible and has certainly helped me personally take a deep look at my own horizons and how they are impacting my view points on life.