THEY BECAME WITNESSES TO THE TRUTH OF IT, HAVING SET OUT TO DISPROVE THE RESURRECTION
Here in no particular order are nine examples of respected sceptics who set out to disprove/systematically investigate Christianity, yet as a result through their research actually became Christians.
1). Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1851-1939)
He was a highly respected archaeologist (so much so that he was knighted) from Scotland. He set out to prove the historical inaccuracies of the book of Acts. Ramsay thought this book was the most ridiculous of all the New Testament. 15 years he spent researching and digging, only to end up being convinced of the incredible accuracy of the book, converted to Christianity, and called Luke (who wrote Acts) one of the greatest historians to ever live. He wrote several books on the subject, which have yet to be refuted. His work caused an outcry from atheists because they had been eagerly awaiting his results in disproving the validity of Acts.
2). Lee Strobel (1952 -)
He was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune who set out to disprove Christianity, but ended up becoming a Christian and created the famous “Case for…” series. Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, cross-examined a dozen experts with doctorates who are specialists in the areas of old manuscripts, textual criticism, and biblical studies. He challenges them with questions like How reliable is the New Testament? Does evidence for Jesus exist outside the Bible? Is there any reason to believe the resurrection was an actual event?
His book “The Case for Christ” was made into a film in 2017 directed by Jon Gunn and written by Brian Bird, based on the true story and inspired by the 1998 book of the same name by Lee Strobel. The film stars Mike Vogel, Erika Christensen, Faye Dunaway and Robert Forster, and follows an atheist journalist who looks to disprove his wife’s Christian faith.
3). Josh McDowell (1939 -)
He set out to write a paper in college to expose Christianity as a myth, but ended up being so convinced that he became a Christian evangelist himself and wrote the influential book “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” which in 2006, was ranked 13th in Christianity Today’s list of most influential evangelical books published since World War II.
4). Andre Kole (1936 – )
He was a giant in the world of magic, creating tricks for the greatest magicians in the world including making the statue of liberty disappear for David Copperfield. He was commissioned to study the miracles of the bible to expose them as magic tricks and thus disprove its legitimacy. Through this investigation, Andre Kole became a Christian and has since dedicated himself to spreading the Gospel via the art of magic, performing in more countries than any other magician in history. He is noted for using his magical knowledge to debunk frauds and hoaxes.
□ THOSE WHO CHALLENGE GOD USUALLY PAY A HIGH PRICE.
People who have set out to challenge God have usually ended up paying a high price for it or finding their opposition rebounding on themselves.
In AD 303, the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an edict to stop Christians from worshipping Jesus Christ and to destroy their Scriptures. Every official in the empire was ordered to raze the churches to the ground and burn every Bible found in their districts (Stanley Greenslade, Cambridge History of the Bible). A mere ten years later, Diocletian’s successor, Constantine, issued the Edict of Milan in AD 313, granting religious tolerance to all views. He also ordered fifty Bibles to be published at government expense (Eusebius).
In 1778 the French infidel Voltaire boasted that in 100 years Christianity would cease to exist, but within 50 years the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to publish Bibles (Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, 1986, pp. 123, 124).
Robert Ingersoll once boasted, “Within 15 years I’ll have the Bible lodged in a morgue.” But Ingersoll was the one who died, and the Bible remains alive and well and is the most printed book in all history.
In 1965 the Beatle John Lennon boasted that the “Fab Four” Beatles were now more famous than Jesus. 15 years later, at the age of 40, Lennon was assassinated on the streets of New York. While the work of the Beatles is widely recognised, its influence was transient. I suggest many more people in the world today know who Jesus is, than have ever heard of John Lennon or the Beatles.
Probably Islam’s most famous apologist, Ahmed Deedat was silenced by God in the most dramatic fashion, after he prayed to have muted whoever was the liar in his debate with Dr Anis Shorrosh in 1985. He was invoking the ‘mubahala’ challenge, supposedly instituted by Muhammad to resolve debates as enshrined in Surah 3:61 (invoking god’s curse upon the liars). Within a year of issuing the challenge, Muhammad’s game of Islamic roulette backfired upon him, and he died childless in lingering pain and shame from poison. It seems he incurred God’s judgment too.
After blaspheming God on Good Friday 1995, in 1996 Deedat suffered a rare type of stroke affecting the brain stem that left him mentally aware but totally paralyzed, unable to move, speak, or swallow on his own, requiring total care like a baby: feeding, bathing, diapers. He couldn’t scratch his own nose, yet was fully aware of his condition.
He lay locked in a body like that, aware but unable to move or speak, for nine years until he finally died in 2005.
By contrast, Peter and Paul died far more quickly, executed by Romans, the enemies of God, martyred for their witness but not silenced by God. Their witness lives on in their epistles.
One has to wonder if Muslims are so sure of themselves why don’t more invoke the mubahala challenge?
answering-islam.org/Responses/Deedat/downfall.htm
Returning to the list of those who set out to disprove Christianity here are the remaining examples 5 through 9:
5). Gilbert West (1703-1756)
Gilbert West was included in Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. As a student at Oxford, West set out to debunk the Bible’s account of Christ’s resurrection. Instead, having proved to himself that Christ did rise from the dead, he was converted. West published his conclusions in the book ‘Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ’ (1747). On the fly-leaf he had the following printed: “Blame not before thou hast examined the truth.”
West concluded his book with these words:
“If Christ had not risen, and proved himself by many infallible tokens to have risen from the dead, the Apostles and Disciples could have had no inducement to believe in him, that is to acknowledge him for the Messiah, the Anointed of God; on the contrary, they must have taken him for an impostor, and under that persuasion could never have become preachers of the Gospel, without becoming euthusiasts or impostors, in either of which characters it is impossible they should have succeeded, to the degree which we are assured they did, considering their natural insufficiency, the strong opposition of all the world to the doctrines of Christianity, and their own high pretensions to miraculous powers, about which they could neither have been deceived themselves, nor have deceived others.
Supposing therefore that Christ did not rise from the Dead, it is certain, according to all human probability, there could never have been any such thing at all as Christianity, or it must have been stifled soon after its birth. This is a fact about which there is no dispute, but Christians and Infidels disagree in accounting for this fact. Christians affirm their religion to be of divine origin, and to have grown up and prevailed under the miraculous assistance and protection of God; and this they not only affirm, and offer to prove by the same kind of evidence, by which all remote facts are proved, but think it may very fairly be inferred form the wonderful circumstances of its growth and increase, and its present existence. Infidels, on the other hand, assert Christianity to be an imposture, invented and carried on by men. In the maintenance of which assertion, their great argument against the credibility of the Resurrection, and the other miraculous proofs of the divine origin of the Gospel, founded in their being miraculous, that is, out of the ordinary course of nature, will be of no service to them, since they will still find a miracle in their way, namely, the amazing birth, growth, and increase of Christianity. Which facts, though they should not be able to account for them, they cannot however deny. In order therefore to destroy the evidence drawn from them by Christians, they must prove them not to have been miraculous, by shewing how they could have been effected in the natural course of human affairs, by such weak instruments as Christ and his Apostles (taking them to be what they are pleased to call them, enthusiasts or impostors) and by such means as they were possessed of and employed.” (Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 442-445).
6). George Lyttelton (1709-1773)
George Lyttelton was an English statesman, author, and poet who was educated at Eton and Oxford. Among other things he published a History of Henry II.
As a young man he set out to prove that Paul was not converted as the Bible states. Instead, he wrote a book containing evidence that Paul was indeed converted and that his conversion is evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. The book was titled ‘Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul’ (1747). Lyttleton observed that from an earthly perspective Paul had absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by testifying that he had seen the risen Christ. Giving up his position and prestige as a Jewish religious leader, he joined the despised Christian sect and was hounded, mocked, and persecuted for the rest of his life, finally paying the ultimate price for his Christian faith, death by beheading.
Lyttlelton began his book with these words:
“In a late conversation we had together upon the subject of the Christian religion, I told you, that besides all the proofs of it which may be drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament, from the necessary connection it has with the whole system of the Jewish religion, from the miracles of Christ, and from the evidence given of his Resurrection by al the other Apostles, I thought the conversion and the apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered, was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine Revelation. As you seemed to think that so compendious a proof might be of use to convince those unbelievers that will not attend to a longer series of arguments, I have thrown together the reasons upon which I suppose that proposition” (page 4).
The famous British lexicographer Samuel Johnson said “infidelity has never been able to fabricate a specious answer” to Lyttelton’s book.
7). Albert Henry Ross (Frank Morison) (1881-1950)
Albert Ross was a lawyer, journalist, and novelist who grew up in Stratford-on-Avon, England. He was deeply affected by the skepticism of the times, particularly the attacks on the Bible by theological liberalism and Darwinism. After becoming a lawyer he set out to write a book to disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Instead, he was converted and wrote a book in defense of the resurrection entitled “Who moved the stone?” — became a classic which is still in print today. He wrote the book under the name of Frank Morison.
8). Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853)
Simon Greenleaf, Professor of Law at Harvard University, was one of the most celebrated legal minds in American history. His Treatise on the Law of Evidence “is still considered the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure.”
As a law professor, he determined to expose the “myth” of the resurrection of Christ once and for all, but his thorough examination forced him to conclude, instead, that Jesus did rise from the dead. In 1846 he published An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice.
Thus, one of the most celebrated minds in the legal profession of the past two centuries took the resurrection of Christ to trial, diligently examined the evidence, and judged it to be an established fact of history! And this was in spite of the fact that he began his investigation as a skeptic.
One of Greenleaf’s points is that nothing but the resurrection itself can explain the dramatic change in Christ’s disciples and their willingness to suffer and die for their testimony.
Consider this excerpt:
“Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teachings of His disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments, and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience, and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. … If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication.”
(Greenleaf, ‘An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence’).
9. J Warner Wallace (1961 – )
Here is a slight exception to the others forementioned, because Wallace didn’t set out to disprove Christianity as such, rather he employed his cold case detective skills to dispassionately and methodically examine the facts, in order to establish the truth.
Wallace was not just an atheist. He was a cold case homicide detective, who made a living deciphering and following evidence to its logical and best conclusions. He was thus ideally qualified to undertake the task he was to set himself. One day his wife asked him to a church service. The sermon that day challenged him. The pastor made the statement that Jesus was “the smartest man who had ever lived” and that all of western culture is grounded on the moral teaching of Jesus. The pastor said that just two sermons of Jesus effectively changed the world.
Hearing that pastor’s statement about Jesus prompted Wallace to buy a Bible and determine for himself how Jesus rated as a moral thinker.
Wallace noticed as he read the Bible that it “had the texture of eyewitness statements” to it. The fact that the Gospels don’t agreed with each other was a profound observation for him, because he knew from experience that witness statements never agree with each other. All witness statements have variations to them.
At a crime scene, the first instruction he gives to the officers who are there is to separate the witnesses. If the witnesses aren’t separated, they will talk, and their testimonies will begin to sound the same. He doesn’t want to give them time to harmonize their testimonies so the variations are preserved for him to figure out.
Wallace says the variations create “the most robust puzzle” to put back together. The fact that Gospels accounts vary from each other “had the ring of truth” to them. It intrigued him.
He examined the Gospels as he would examine eyewitness statements to a crime. The more he examined them, the more they appeared to be reliable as eyewitness testimonies. The accounts of people seeing Jesus risen from the dead “changed everything” for Wallace. From the “robust puzzle” of the varying accounts, a picture emerged that (for Wallace) rang true – true enough anyway not to dismiss it out of hand.
‘You Can Believe Because of the Evidence, Not in Spite of It’. Wallace was an angry atheist for 35 years until he walked through the doors of Saddleback Church. There his life was radically changed by Jesus. Today, he is one of the most thoughtful and winsome apologists for the Gospel, and author of best selling ‘Cold Case Christianity’.
□ CONCLUSIONS
For most people, I think (like me), believing in Christianity is not a matter of a killer knockout argument; nor is it simply being impressed by sincere testimonies. It’s a matter of weighing all of the evidence and finding it, as a whole, compelling. It is the cumulative case that combines the evidence with transformed lives, that in the end becomes irresistible.
So the fact that many people from different generations have set out to disprove Christianity only to be persuaded to its truth, does not by itself prove anything. The fact that many people have attempted to wipe out Christians, ban the Bible, challenged God and lost, also does not by itself prove anything. But, taken together with the primary source testimony evidence itself of multiple witnesses, it presents a compelling overall case that has at the very least to give us pause for thought. If the Bible is true, these signs are exactly what we would expect to find, in just the same way as historical evidence and artefactual discoveries do.
Muslims here is a challenge in the light of the above: if Christianity is so absurd, how come so many people who have set out to write books disproving the resurrection have ended up having life changing encounters with Jesus that has reversed the purpose of their books? Conversely if Islam is true why are so few willing to take the mubahala challenge?
In fact, as this short video concludes only slightly tongue in cheek, “if you’re in a hurry to meet Jesus try to write a book to disprove the resurrection” …
Thanks to David Stevenson for the link and inspiration for this post.
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