John Lennox on the Resurrection (part 2)

Lennox is a professor of mathematics who gets cited a lot by Christians because of his academic credentials. While I assume he is knowledgeable in maths, his apologetics are pretty poor!

My last post collected some of his claims from various web sites, but there is one further I want to look at that gets more into the detail. Quotes on that web page are taken from the documentary movie “Against the tide” by Pensmore Films, in which the actor Kevin Sorbo interviews Professor John Lennox. I have not seen the movie.

https://georgesjournal.net/2021/07/29/john-lennox-against-the-tide-in-history/

In this first quote, Lennox is discussing the issue of Jesus' existence.

The interesting thing is ancient historians, whose job is to investigate the rationality of history, are agreed on it.

The apostle Peter is one of the most important eyewitnesses in reporting the facts about Jesus. There is pretty strong evidence that he was the main source of the gospel of Mark. So eyewitness testimony is the key thing here.

To be clear, I am pretty sure Jesus did exist - and was crucified. However Lennox says some curious things here. He is claiming the job of ancient historians was "to investigate the rationality of history". Where does he get that from? Was that Josephus' job?

Who are the ancient historians who agreed that Jesus existed? Jesus is mentioned in Josephus' works, though the entry has been heavily edited by later Christians. No ancient historian actually cared about Jesus. There are references to him, but in passages about other people or groups, not about Jesus.

Where are these reports from the apostle Peter? From the context, he means what is recorded in Mark, but that is not an eyewitness account. At best it is a secondhand account, because it is Mark reporting it, not Peter. And even that is suspect.

There is another issue here. If Mark is accurately recording what Peter witnessed, then the claim that Peter saw the empty tomb in the Gospel of John is not true, the claim that Jesus appeared to the disciples on Easter Sunday in Jerusalem is not true. These events are simply not compatible with what Mark reports.

Later the web page gets to the crucifixion.

They also largely agree about the fact of the crucifixion. Of course we have the evidence on the New Testament documents. We also have the evidence of the Jewish historian Josephus, the Syrian philosopher Bar-Serapion, and the Roman historian Tacitus. So we’ve got a lot of lines of converging evidence.

The reference to Bar-Serapion relates to a letter that may or may not refer to Jesus.

What else can we say, when the wise are forcibly dragged off by tyrants, their wisdom is captured by insults, and their minds are oppressed and without defense? What advantage did the Athenians gain from murdering Socrates? Famine and plague came upon them as a punishment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea and the Jews, desolate and driven from their own kingdom, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates is not dead, because of Plato; neither is Pythagoras, because of the statue of Juno; nor is the wise king, because of the "new law" he laid down.

Tacitus discusses Christ too. These sources agree Jesus was crucified, but not that he was resurrected.

So what about the resurrection?

It’s very interesting, historians are again agreed on the following things. Jesus was crucified and laid in a known tomb. And then a few days later the tomb was found to be empty. And now the question that needs to be answered is ‘Why?’

This is simply not true. Historians do not agree there was an empty tomb, and I am doubtful they agree Jesus was laid in a known tomb. Certainly Christian historians do, for the most part, but then they have to because of their faith.

Yes they do ask where is the proof. And it is a good thing to ask. But we need to remember that you can’t get a proof like in mathematics, where proof is obtained by starting with a group of axioms and a logical system. Instead we get pointers and evidences so that we can come to a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt.

This is just a dodge. Giving excuses is not a substitute for evidence.

Lennox has told us historians agree that there was an empty tomb. Why can he not tell us their reason for believing that? He claims "we get pointers and evidences so that we can come to a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt" but fails to tell us what those pointers and evidences actually are.

Lennox is asked about the hallucination hypothesis.

It is a suggestion that many people have made. But it doesn’t really stand up to the evidence. Who were these people who claimed to see Jesus? Thomas was a born skeptic. Matthew was a hard-headed tax collector. But even more importantly, people usually have hallucinations about something they are expecting. The disciples were not expecting to see Jesus again. When they saw that He was going to go through with the crucifixion, they forsook Him and fled. We don’t hallucinate about things we are not expecting.

How does he know Thomas was "a born skeptic"? Well, he must be because in the Gospel of John Thomas demands to see Jesus' wounds. But wait, in the Gospel of Mark - the one Lennox tells us what written from an eyewitness account - there is no mention of Thomas examining Jesus wounds, and instead the author tells us Jesus was seen in Galilee, not Jerusalem.

If Lennox is right about Mark being recorded from an eyewitness, the story about Doubting Thomas was made up! And yet, here he is using the Doubting Thomas story as a fact to support his claims. The gospels must be true if only we assume the gospels are true.

He says "people usually have hallucinations about something they are expecting", which is tacitly admitting that sometimes they have hallucinations about something they are not expecting. Which is more probable? They had an unusual hallucination? Or the Christian God eraised someone from the dead? I would suggest the latter is far, far more unusual.

Now Lennox considers the disciple stealing the body.

That has no explanatory power. Why would they do that? They would then go on to preach in public that Jesus was raised knowing that it was a complete lie. Resurrection possesses unrivalled explanatory power of what went on 2,000 years ago in this area in Jerusalem.

But what if just a couple of disciples stole the body without telling anyone, and they did so to give Jesus a proper burial. A perfectly reasonable thing for Jesus' followers to do. The tomb was then found empty, and suddenly everyone else is talking about Jesus being resurrected... You think the two grave-robbing disciple are going to say anything? Again, perfectly reasonable for them to say nothing, rather than dash the hopes of their friends.

Or perhaps Joseph of Arimathea came back Saturday evening, once the sabbath was over, and removed the corpse of a blasphemer (as he saw Jesus) from his nice tomb. Again, perfectly reasonable - the gospels say Jesus was put there temporarily because of the Sabbath, so we would expect Joseph to finish the job as soon as he could.

Personally, I think the empty tomb was made up, but these are perfectly reasonable explanations for the empty tomb. They have explanatory power, and are far more likely tat God raising someone from the dead.

Why has Lennox not considered these scenarios? He is a bright guy - a professor at one of the best universities in the world. He is someone regarded as an authority, he writes books on the subject, gives talks. Presumably makes a lot of money from this. Does it not behove him to dig a little deeper?

The position of the grave clothes is one piece of evidence that is very special to me. Peter and John came to the tomb. Obviously John went in first and it says he saw the grave clothes that had been on Jesus (wrapped up like a mummy). And he saw them lying there exactly as they had been on the body. ...

Remember, earlier Lennox said; “The apostle Peter is one of the most important eyewitnesses in reporting the facts about Jesus. There is pretty strong evidence that he was the main source of the gospel of Mark. So eyewitness testimony is the key thing here." And in Mark we read:

Mark 16:4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’

8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Nothing about the clothes there, or of Peter and John even seeing the empty tomb. The supposed eyewitness account has the women find the tomb empty, and the man (or angel?) tell them the disciples will see Jesus in Galilee.

Lennox has to ignore what he says is an eyewitness account to be able to claim that "one piece of evidence that is very special to me".

... And it says that John saw and believed. It was enough to convince him. The only explanation that made sense was that Jesus’ body had somehow come out through the grave clothes. And that He was alive. And therefore John just left the tomb. There was nothing more to be seen. This is the heart of my faith. If you take this away, there is nothing in Christianity at all. I’m convinced of it not just as a Christian, but as a believing scientist.

Another explanation that makes sense is that it was made up. Peter and John never saw the empty tomb. That is what the supposed eyewitness account from Peter tells us. But Lennox assumes the gospel accounts are all true.

Lennox the addresses discrepancies between gospel accounts.

Well I‘d like to challenge the assumption underlying the question. If you have reporting, even today, by four witnesses of the same events, there will be variations. But what any jury would be asked to decide is whether, despite the differences, there is unanimous agreement about the central fact. As there is. The fact that we have four accounts actually enhances the veracity of the story rather than taking away from it. We mustn’t miss that most important fact here, that they all agree that Jesus rose from the dead.

The problem Lennox wants to skip over is just how much these accounts vary.

In Mark the women told no one about the empty tomb, in Matthew they ran to tell the disciples, in John it is Peter and another who find the tomb is empty.

In Mark Jesus went ahead to meet the disciples in Galilee, in later gospels he sees them that day in Jerusalem, and in Luke he even tells the disciple not to leave Jerusalem. These are big difference. It is not believable that Peter would tell Mark the women found the tomb, but told no one, when actually he found the tomb empty himself. It is not believable that the disciples would be confused whether they first saw the risen Jesus in Jerusalem that day, or some days later in Galilee.

You do not misremember stuff like that. This is a story that changed over time, getting modified and distorted.

The big take away here is that Lennox's evidence for the resurrection is that that is what it says in the gospel. He says "we get pointers and evidences so that we can come to a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt" but all his evidence is based on assuming the Bible is true.

He assumes the Bible is true, and works from there.