[Questioner] I thank you for coming out. I'd like to take issue with your fourth point, mainly
in terms of the fact that there does seem to be an impetus for the disciples
to say that Jesus was resurrected and they saw him.
You said it yourself that if Jesus is not resurrected he's a failed messianic
pretender, so would it also be an equally plausible explanation to say creating a
resurrection after the very well-supported fact of his crucifixion,
would that not be a very reasonable thing for them to do? To create the
resurrection? [Craig] It wouldn't be a Jewish thing to do. As I said, the idea of
Messiah being killed, executed by his enemies, is completely un-Jewish. There's
no expectation at all that Messiah, rather than establishing the throne of
David and commanding the respect of Gentiles and Jews alike would be
shamefully executed as a common criminal. So this puts a question mark behind any
hopes that they had entertained that Jesus was Messiah. Also I indicated that
according to Old Testament law Jesus hanging on a tree, or execution by
hanging on a tree showed him to be under God's curse, and a Jew wouldn't come up
with the idea of reversing that by resurrection from the dead because, as I
say, for a first century Jew the resurrection never occurs of an isolated
individual apart from all of the righteous dead of Israel, and it never
occurs within history prior to the end of the world. The resurrection occurs
only on Judgment Day when God is going to raise all the dead and judge them, and
so what typically happened with these failed messianic movements is that the
followers just disbanded and these movements fell apart. NT Wright has said
when you look at these messianic movements from the first century before Jesus
through the first century after Jesus, he said it always
was the same pattern. The Romans crucified these messianic pretenders and
the movements fell apart. In no case did they ever say well he is risen from
the dead and he is the Messiah after all. This is just a completely un-Jewish
thing to do. What Wright says is the disciples faced with the crucifixion
of Jesus would basically have two choices; either you go home, or you find
yourself a new Messiah, but it would be completely un-Jewish to think that
contrary to Jewish beliefs that he was risen from the dead and was the
Messiah after all. Even if they had wanted to say that Jesus was say a
Jewish martyr who had been martyred for his faith, like the Maccabean martyrs
that still wouldn't lead to belief in his resurrection. Even if they had said
well God has translated him to heaven; he's been taken up to heaven and is in glory
and we will meet him again someday, that still wouldn't lead to
belief in his resurrection. So there needs to be some kind of an adequate
explanation for this radical mutation in Jewish categories that would lead them
to think that this man was risen from the dead as an isolated individual in
advance of the eschatological resurrection at the end of the world and
was therefore Messiah, and I see no reason to think that it wasn't the
explanation that they themselves gave, namely that God raised him from the dead,
and that's why they came to believe this very un-Jewish and radical idea.