Was the tomb empty?

Sunday was Easter, which means it’s the season for debates about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. From the Unbelievable? show comes a brand new Big Conversation between a Christian apologist and a stubborn non-believer, duking it out once again about the greatest ending to the greatest story ever told. Is it more than a story? If so, how could we be reasonably sure? Bart Ehrman, an influential favorite liberal New Testament scholar, makes a repeat appearance to insist that we can't be sure. Justin Bass, a fresh face on the apologetics scene, begs to differ.

Summarizing his book, The Bedrock of Christianity, Bass presents several lines of evidence that the majority of scholars across the spectrum agree on as “bedrock” fact: Jesus was crucified, after which close followers risked harsh persecution to claim he had appeared to them alive again, after which even an avowed enemy was converted into a formidable apostle. Put all of this together with the spread of Jesus’ gospel to the ends of the earth, as predicted in Jesus’ own words, and Bass argues you have a compelling cumulative case.

Ehrman is predictably unimpressed, and a lively clash ensues, with both men vigorously guarding their time on the clock—and in Ehrman’s case, some of his opponent’s time, too. If this debate were graded on likability alone, Bass would win walking away. He should be commended for his patience and good humor as Ehrman repeatedly interrupts, condescends, and attempts to bully with a show of superior knowledge.

However, even the most obnoxious liberal debate opponent can make good points sometimes. For all his unpleasantness, Ehrman does expose a chink in Bass’s armor when it comes to the first apostles’ appearance claims. Bass presses N. T. Wright’s argument that the disciples had no framework within Judaism for Jesus’ singular bodily resurrection in the now, as opposed to a general rising on the last day. This lends the appearance claims a key distinguishing factor of unexpectedness. Yet Ehrman, for his part, is willing to grant that the disciples saw something. But then, many people have claimed to see something after a beloved relative or friend dies. It’s just that in our context, we’d call that a ghost, at most. In the disciples’ context, Ehrman argues, because they were apocalyptic Jews who lacked the belief that the soul lives on apart from the body, they would have no other language except the language of bodily resurrection. 

It’s an interesting back-and-forth, but it seems moot as soon as we consider the precise details of the disciples’ resurrection claims as we find them in the Gospels and Acts. We aren’t simply told that they “saw something.” We’re not given a vague, low-resolution risen Jesus. We’re given a solid, tangible Jesus, a Jesus who carries on long conversations and eats meals, inviting doubters to poke at his scars. We’re given a challenging Jesus, handling his followers with the same sometimes disconcerting blend of mystery and severe kindness that we find throughout his ministry. In short, we’re given a risen Jesus who leaves no room for honest mistakes. As a Christian, Bass surely affirms these “crunchy” details, but as a debater, he seems to judge that they would hamper his case. Yet without them, although that case still intrigues, it fails to compel. 

Still, Ehrman tips his hand when he regurgitates David Hume’s argument against miracles. In our universal experience, the laws of physics (or, originally, laws of nature), have never been broken, so what’s more probable? A rift in the fabric of physics, or somebody lied? Or made a mistake? Like Hume, Ehrman slips back and forth between implying no evidence could ever be enough to convince us a law of physics had been broken and implying that maybe it could, but not for Jesus’ resurrection. He may not be entirely wrong that Bass hasn’t presented quite enough “extraordinary evidence” to justify this particular extraordinary claim. But his naturalist bias is clear when he says he could really only be convinced if a group of physicists were put on the case and decided the laws “don’t apply.”

The debate ends on an unusual note as Bass presses the argument from contemporary Christic visions, based on his own personal ministry experience in the Middle East. He teases a forthcoming book that will document the intriguing phenomenon of “the man in white,” as reported through the centuries by people who sometimes didn’t even know about Jesus—until they met him. Ehrman looks weak and incurious as he carelessly dismisses all such claims out of hand, denying their evidential force for all but the pious faithful. 

I for one am looking forward to that book. In the meantime, I would encourage Bass to strengthen his resurrection argument with the full power of the Gospels, in all their detailed richness. An honest skeptic could walk away from this debate intrigued, yet wanting more. Unlock the testimony of the first Easter witnesses in their own words, and he just might walk away convinced.