The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Michael R. Licona (Author), Gary R. Habermas (Author), David Cochran Heath (Narrator),

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This is an accessible, comprehensive, and persuasive resource providing detailed evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. It also demonstrates how to share the material clearly, honestly, and definitively.

Listening Length

7 hours and 31 minutes
Author

Michael R. Licona, see all
Narrator

David Cochran Heath
Audible release date

March 30, 2021
Language

English
Publisher

Tantor Audio
ASIN

B08YS9Q68S
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	7 hours and 31 minutes
Author	Michael R. Licona, Gary R. Habermas
Narrator	David Cochran Heath
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	March 30, 2021
Publisher	Tantor Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B08YS9Q68S
Best Sellers Rank	#20,820 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #43 in Christian Apologetics (Audible Books & Originals) #183 in Christian Apologetics (Books)

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Tommy b

Sounds like people who saw something they could not un-see ( ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2017

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Because of this book, as well as Faith on Trial, I finally got the 100% feeling of certainty that the resurrection actually happened. The two key points are, 1) 11 of the 12 apostles preached for mostly 30 years the risen Jesus, and were eventually martyred for their beliefs, as in, not re-canting even though they were to be put to death. Sounds like people who saw something they could not un-see ( The apostle John died of old age on the island of Patmos in present day Greece and the book of Revelation -- as well as the Gospel of John -- is attributed to him.). 2) The apostle Paul was a high-level Pharisee, arresting and putting to death Christians, until he had his "Road to Damascus" experience where he met Christ, was blinded and then un-blinded by a Christian. He thus converted, and became the major proponent of the risen Jesus along the coast of present-day Turkey, Syria, and Greece, where Jews had small communities. Some of the Jews converted, some did not. But also some of the non-Jews converted, which led to the spread of Christianity throughout the world, eventually.

51 people found this helpful

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comments4u

One of the most eye opening and thought provoking books I've read, the authors took the critics of their position seriously

Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2016

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This is an amazing book. It goes through the historical case for Jesus' resurrection. It uses a "minimal facts" approach focusing on the evidence that Biblical critics and Bible lovers all agree on (of those who've actually seriously studied the evidence). It evaluates nine naturalistic explanations that have been used and reused over the last 2000 years against that evidence.

I used this book to reverse engineer what good ancient history looks like (yes, I am a chemical engineer) - I now have some sense of what I call "historical ways of knowing" aka epistemology. I really had to struggle with some of the evidence, and think through what counted as enough evidence. Of course that couldn't just be my preference, it had to be compared with the level of evidence available for other known people like Roman emperors of Jesus' day...

The organization and covering all the combinations and permutations and objections were great!

61 people found this helpful

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TWO PROMINENT APOLOGISTS PROVIDE AN IMPORTANT DEFENSE OF THE RESURRECTION

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2018

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Gary Habermas (born 1950) is Professor of Apologetics and Philosophy and chairman of the department of philosophy and theology at Liberty University, and has written many books such as The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ , Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The Resurrection Debate , Resurrected?: An Atheist and Theist Dialogue , Did the Resurrection Happen? ], etc. Michael R. Licona (born 1961) is Professor in Theology at Houston Baptist University; he has written/cowritten a number of other books, such as The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach , Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? , Paul Meets Muhammad: A Christian-Muslim Debate on the Resurrection , Cross Examined , etc.

They wrote in the Preface to this 2004 book, “At some point in their Christian walk, may believers ask some difficult questions: Is Christianity really true?... Could it be that God does not really exist?... The authors of this volume did not these questions as young men. We determined to find some answers. We cannot tell you that we looked at the evidence without presuppositions or biases… However, intellectual integrity requires that we set aside these biases to the point that we can recognize them for what they are… After several years, we have arrived at a strong conclusion: The evidence suggests that God exists and has actually revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ. The evidence attests that Christians have the most accurate view of reality.”

They state, “When Jesus predicted his resurrection from the dead, we are told that the disciples did not seem to have a clue what he was talking about or simply did not believe… Even when his empty tomb was discovered, it is reported that the first conclusion was that someone had stolen the body… When the women reported that they had seen him risen, the disciples thought they were telling an idle tale… Upon viewing the empty tomb, they still did not know what to think… Thomas simply refused to believe… Now it seems quite unlikely that the disciples or early Christians who highly respected them would invent sayings of Jesus that would place them in such a bad light. This is what is referred to as the ‘principle of embarrassment’… and argues strongly in favor of the authenticity of the predictions of Jesus concerning his resurrection.” (Pg. 29)

They outline, “let’s become familiar with some of the principles historians employ to determine whether a particular account of history is credible… These are the principles that will be used throughout this book… 1. Multiple independent sources support historical claims… It is important to determine whether the source is really independent… 2. Attestation by an enemy support historical claims… An enemy generally is not considered to be biased in favor of a certain person, message, or cause… 3. Embarrassing admissions support historical claims… 4. Eyewitness testimony supports historical claims… 5. Early testimony supports historical claims. The closer the time between the event and testimony about it, the more reliable the witness, since there is less time for exaggeration, and even legend, to creep into the account.” (Pg. 36-39)

They present four facts “that are so strongly evidenced historically that nearly every scholar regards them as reliable facts… A fifth fact will be added that enjoys acceptance by an impressive majority of scholars, though not by nearly all… The first fact: Jesus died by crucifixion… The second fact” Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them…. The third fact: The church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed… The fourth fact: The skeptic James, brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed…. The Fifth fact: The tomb was empty.” (Pg. 48-69)

They argue, “The skeptic may respond, ‘But this is from the Bible, and I don’t believe the Bible,’ as though you are using the Bible to prove the Bible. This blanket rejection will not do. We are not assuming inspiration of even the general reliability of the New Testament in our case for Jesus’ resurrection… we are only regarding the New Testament as an ancient volume of literature containing twenty-seven separate books and letters. Then we are entertaining only those data that are well-evidenced and accepted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones… We must remember that, although all of the writings of the New Testament were composed during the first century, it was not until later that they were compiled into a single volume that we call the New Testament.” (Pg. 51-52) Later, Habermas adds. “On the state of resurrection studies today, I recently completed an overview of more than 1,400 sources on the resurrection of Jesus published since 1975. I studied and catalogued about 650 of these texts in English, German, and French… perhaps no fact is more widely recognized than that early Christian believers had real experiences that they thought were appearances of the risen Jesus. A critic may claim that what they saw were hallucinations or visions, but he does not deny that they actually experienced something.” (Pg. 60)

About the “guilt theory” for Paul’s conversion, they state, “First, there is not a shred of evidence from Paul’s writings or Luke’s account of Paul’s actions in Acts that he experienced guilt while conducting his persecution. However, even if he did, this would more likely have led to the cessation of his terrorism toward Christians … rather than his becoming one… Second, Paul’s own testimony indicates the very opposite---that he was very content in Judaism and confident of his actions…. Third, even if guilt could account for Jesus’ appearance to Paul, it does not account for his appearances to the others. Finally, guilt does not account for the empty tomb.” (Pg. 116)

Of the seeming discrepancies in the Gospel accounts of the resurrection and appearances, they state, “It is often suggested by critics that the Gospel writers themselves cannot seem to agree on some details surrounding the resurrection of Jesus. For example, were there one… two… or three women who visited the tomb…? Did they see one … or two angels…? Did they see and angel(s) before they told the disciples that Jesus’ body was gone… or after…? Because of such tensions, some critics suggest that we cannot know what really happened if the … alleged eyewitnesses cannot even correctly report the events… There are several problems with this conclusion: First, the discrepancies in the Gospels … at most call into question the issue of complete accuracy of the Gospels, but not their general trustworthiness when recording historical events. Second, historians do not conclude that an event did not occur because the accounts contain discrepancies… Third, the discrepancies in the Gospels may indicate that they were independent accounts, since copiers would have been more unified on the facts… Fourth… coherent and plausible explanations exist that account for many if not all of the discrepancies.” (Pg. 122-123)

They also point out, “The phenomenon that has come to be called a ‘near-death experience’ also provides a substantial challenge to naturalism. It might even be said that… NDEs offer evidence that naturalism is mistaken at a key point—that of life after death… The challenge provided by NDEs is just an example of numerous indications we might cite that this is most likely not a naturalistic universe.” (Pg. 146-147)

They observe, “Regarding the identity of the ‘some’ who doubted, there is no agreement. Some scholars hold that different groups of people also were present on this occasion. Perhaps the group surrounding Jesus and the Eleven included other followers of Jesus… If [this] is correct, we must remember that this appearance was reported to have taken place in Galilee, where most people had only HEARD that Jesus had been crucified and may have doubted that he really had… it may be that a few of the Eleven had mixed thoughts that led to hesitation on their part… Why did they hesitate?... it could have been for any number of reasons. For example… Jesus’ post-resurrection body could have been different enough that he was difficult to recognize at first… We can see that several plausible explanations exist for this verse without having to resort to requiring that the disciples experienced visions, which does not appear to be plausible.” (Pg. 159)

In their conclusion, they recommend, “we may start off by saying, ‘I believe there’s some pretty good evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.’ When asked to provide that evidence, we respond by saying, ‘Because not everyone believes the Bible in its entirety, how about if I only use facts that are so strongly evidenced historically that they are granted by nearly every scholar[?]… We can then follow up by providing something like the following… *The disciples sincerely believed that Jesus rose from the dead and had appeared to them. *A number of outside evidences support the truth of their belief in his resurrection. *Since no opposing theories can adequately account for all of the historical evidence. Therefore, Jesus’ resurrection is the only plausible explanation.” (Pg. 206-207)

This book will be “must reading” for anyone seriously studying the resurrection, or Christian apologetics.

24 people found this helpful

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Ellen Hartsik

Be ready to give an answer: 1 Peter 3:15.

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2022

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This book is very concise, covering many theories about the resurrection of our Lord and debunking them with logic.

I would 💯% suggest this, as well as “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel.

We are told to be ready to give an answer for our faith in the Bible. This certainly helps dot the i’s and cross the t’s for me!!

Not everyone is convinced the same way. Some come to Jesus from a prophetic word or a healing. Others rule such things out and require a more natural or science-based reasoning. This book will prepare you for those who require logic to come to faith, and give you an arsenal of knowledge to help them seek and find Jesus for their salvation!!

Remember to always speak gracefully ❤️ Don’t *argue* with them, Give them room to speak.

3 people found this helpful

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Sajad Torkamani

Not convinced but good read nevertheless

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 16, 2021

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Habermas and Licona present the Minimal Facts argument to make a case for the resurrection of Jesus. This argument claims to draw on historical facts that are well-evidenced and accepted by the vast majority of scholars (including sceptics).

The facts are (1) Jesus died by crucifixion, (2) Jesus's disciples believed he rose and appeared to them, (3) The Church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed, (4) The sceptic James, brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed, (5) The tomb was empty (The authors concede that this last point lacks the widespread support amongst scholars that the other facts have).

The book is well written and is accessible to the layman like me. The authors present each fact and provide evidence for each in turn. Having made a case for the historicity of these facts, it is argued that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation for the facts. Next comes the refutation of alternative, naturalistic explanations that are typically suggested by critics (e.g., hallucination theories).

In the end, I am still not convinced that a supernatural event is the best explanation for the rather mundane facts (assuming we do not grant the empty tomb). That a few people genuinely believed they saw a dead man rise again can be explained by hallucinations. The group appearances lack strong historical evidence but even if we were to grant that some groups of people believed they had an experience, I think they can be sufficiently accounted for without resorting to the supernatural.

Nevertheless, I appreciated the well-organized structure and clarity of the writing and learnt a lot. I would highly recommend the book to anyone interested in what two leading Christian apologists have to say about a topic that is central to the world's most popular religion.

2 people found this helpful

John Thorpe

This is easy enough to follow

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2018

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This book contains a wealth of information about the resurrection of Jesus, and is extremely informative, provided that one has the determination to work through it in a very systematic way.

The book is really in three sections. There is the main narrative, which contains many interesting comments but in which it is difficult to follow the main run of the argument. This is followed by an appendix which outlines the arguments without the detail. This is easy enough to follow, but you have to keep going back to the main section for the full flavour of the argument. Finally there are extensive footnotes which contain the data on which the arguments are built. I needed three bookmarks and a pencil to follow the arguments through these three sections; no one of them was fully comprehensible on its own.

The book also seems to assume that the reader is someone who is already convinced that Jesus rose from the dead and who is attempting to memorise a set of arguments that can be used to convince more sceptical interlocutors rather than providing a full investigation into the issue.

However, if you have the dedication to work through the rather difficult organisation of the book there is much information there and it is very useful.

9 people found this helpful

albert simpson

That this book can change your life

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 9, 2020

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The Truth about Jesus and God

3 people found this helpful

Pawel Wieczorek

Best on the subject. Lifesaver.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 5, 2019

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The best book on the subject. Well documented, well thought, well compiled and greatly inspiring. A trully livesaver for those seeking truth. Providing that you have an open mind it will leave you with no doubt thar this was indeed a historical event. If, on the other hand, you still doubt after having read it you will notice that your doubt is only based on your feelings and instinct as opposed to evidence. What do you trust more? The evidence or feelings?

3 people found this helpful

Narwhal85

The only book needed for your library on the Resurrection!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2009

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I've had this book for a year or two now and the more I go back to it the more I realise what a truly excellent volume this is. The authors set out a Minimal facts approach to defending the resurrection, what this means is that they are appealing to 5 historical points that even the most liberal of scholars would agree with. This is used as the basis for their argument that the resurrection was a historical event.

Each chapter is well written and will be a super resource for either the christian looking for clarity on this subject or for the seeker and skeptic. The appendix is excellent and provides a summary of the evidence provided and draws on writings from historians and other church writings around the 1st/2nd centuries.

Well worth the money and you also get a free CD resource which is excellent aswell.

27 people found this helpful

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