In this video, Craig discusses miracles that were medically documented.
“This is My body”: the Lord’s supper — Mark 14:22-26
Verse 22: The head of the household blessing bread and wine was standard for any meal, but later sources suggest that special blessings were used for Passover. Jewish people broke bread rather than sliced it. In Aramaic, one would not distinguish “is” from “represents.” The standard Jewish interpretation of what the household head pronounced over the bread at Passover was not literal: “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate when they left Egypt.” No one assumed that the bread they were eating was 1300 years old, or had been digested by the ancestors; rather, they reenacted those events and participated in them.
23: Probably some time by the end of the first century, Jewish people used four cups at their Passover meal (like Greeks at banquets); scholars have suggested that this is the fourth cup (which followed blessing the bread) or the third. A common cup was passed, using red wine.
24: Sacrificial blood had long been used to ratify biblical covenants (for “blood of the covenant,” see Exodus 24:8). God had redeemed his people from Egypt through the paschal lamb’s blood. “On behalf of many” probably reflects Isaiah 53. Passover ritual interpreted the wine, but not as blood; the law forbade drinking blood.
25: Jewish people often made vows of abstinence (e.g., “I will not eat this or that until a particular thing happens”; similarly, “I will not use this or that …”). Jewish blessings over the wine called it “the fruit of the vine.” Early Jewish sources often view the kingdom as a banquet (cf. Isaiah 25:6-9); endless wine would then be available (Amos 9:13).
26: People usually sang the remaining part of the Hallel (Ps 113 to 118) after the Passover meal and lengthy discussion about the Passover. (Music was common fare at many ancient banquets.) Walking from a home in the Upper City to the Mount of Olives presumably took fifteen minutes or longer.
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
Testimony of Craig’s sister-in-law being raised from the dead
When Craig’s sister-in-law was a girl she was bitten by a snake, died, and was raised from the dead. In this video he shares her testimony.
Paul explains the resurrection to the Corinthians – part 3
These background notes are for 1 Corinthians 15:35-58.
Verse 35: Paul advances the case by answering an imaginary objector, raising the sort of objection often raised to the resurrection belief. For example, some asked what happened if the body was destroyed by fire. (Later rabbis implausibly declared that the body would be resurrected from an indestructible bone in the back of the neck.)
36: “Fool!” was a common response to rhetorical adversaries, including imaginary ones.
37-38: Paul argues that the present body provides the pattern for the future one, regardless of how much remains. Later rabbis also used the seed analogy.
39: Paul argues in 15:39-41 that God can create various kinds of bodies, analogies that allow for a body of glory rather than of flesh (15:43, 50). In these verses Paul lingers on the point rhetorically, developing it by the rhetorical devices of antithesis (contrasts) and various cases of anaphora (x…/x… repetition).
40-41: Most pagans considered stars divine, and Jews saw them as angels. Many believed that stars consisted of fire, as Jews often believed about angels. Many Gentiles considered the heavens pure, the place where souls released from their bodies would ascend. Even some Judeans compared resurrection bodies to angels; given the link between stars and angels in Jewish thought, Paul may compare “angelic” bodies here. He also knows of end-time glory for God’s people (e.g., Isaiah 60:1-2, 19; 61:3; 62:2).
42-43: In 15:42-44, Paul rouses emotion with the ancient rhetorical devices of antithesis and anaphora (x…/x… repetition), in four parallel contrasts. Greeks cherished immortality, but only for the soul. Some Jewish views of the resurrection involved being raised initially in precisely the form in which one died (whether maimed or anything else); Paul seems to envision it differently.
44: Paul contrasts not a “physical” body with a “spiritual” body (though Stoics believed that even “spirit” was material), but rather bodily existence dominated by human life versus the future bodily existence fitted for life by God’s Spirit .
45-47: The first Adam became “a living soul,” or person (Genesis 2:7), a quality in some respects shared with animals (Genesis 2:19). Perhaps since the Holy Spirit characterizes the end-time and resurrects bodies, Paul can associate the new Adam with the Spirit (perhaps like the very breath God breathed into Adam in Genesis 2:7). Some think that Paul is challenging an idea in Corinth (documented in the Jewish philosopher Philo) where Genesis 1:26-27 depicts a “heavenly man” and Genesis 2 a later, earthly “living soul.”
48: Paul returns to his rhetorical contrasts in 15:47-48. Ancients emphasized the principle of like begetting like; what was heavenly produced what was heavenly, and what was earthly, what was earthly. Adam was made from dust (Genesis 2:7).
49: Jewish people believed that God created Adam in his image, but also believed that God stamped his image on people or creation through his Wisdom, his perfect image.
50: “Flesh and blood” was a common figure of speech for mortal humans. In much Greek thought (and Jewish thought influenced by it), whatever was heavenly was eternal, but whatever was earthly was perishable.
51: For examples of end-time “ mysteries” see Daniel 2:28-30, 47. “Sleep” was a frequent euphemism for death.
52: Trumpets were used for gathering and for battle; Jewish prayers spoke of a trumpet gathering God’s people at the time of the end (perhaps based on Isaiah 27:13). Paul may borrow the image from Jesus (Matthew 24:31).
53: In 15:53-54 Paul returns to the rhetorical antithesis, here between mortal and immortal.
54: Paul adapts Isaiah 25:8, “He will swallow death forever,” changing “forever” to “in victory” to correspond with his next citation (it was common to link texts based on common key terms; Jewish teachers also selected textual traditions that worked best, and evidence suggests that some others had already translated “in victory” in the Greek of this verse). (The change also alludes back to 1 Corinthians 15:25-26.) The context could support resurrection (Isaiah 26:19).
55: One could construe Hosea 13:14 negatively, but Paul may reverse that reading in light of the destined positive restoration of God’s people (Hos 14:4-7). Paul changes “hades” to “death” (fitting the meaning and parallel), but more surprisingly changes “punishment” to “victory”; midrash sometimes changed words slightly to play on them. In this way he can link Isaiah 25:8 (in v. 54) with Hosea 13:14, as he builds toward a rhetorical crescendo (1 Corinthians 15:57).
57-58: Speakers and writers often closed a section by summarizing. Ancients often connected belief in the afterlife or, in Judaism, the resurrection, with moral behavior.
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
Paul explains the resurrection to the Corinthians – part 2
These background notes are for 1 Corinthians 15: 20-34.
Verse 20: “First fruits” represented the beginning of the harvest (Exodus 23:19; Leviticus 23:10; Jeremiah 2:3), a first installment (cf. Romans 8:23).
21-22: In 15:21-22, Paul introduces the concept between Adam and Christ that he will take up again in 15:45-49; Jewish people often affirmed that the end-time would parallel what God had done at the beginning (envisioning paradise as a new Eden).
23-25: Paul envisions the sequence of events based on Psalm 110:1 (as becomes explicit in 15:25): Christ must reign at God’s right hand until his enemies are subdued (for his reign, cf. also Isaiah 9:6-7; Daniel 7:14).
26: All enemies must be subdued (Psalm 110:1); no other enemy can possibly outlast death itself, so the resurrection coincides with Christ’s final victory.
27: Paul shows that the only exemption from what is subdued under him is God himself, as is clear from the verse (Psalm 8:5) immediately preceding his citation (Psalm 8:6). If the ruling “human one” in Psalm 8:4 alludes to humanity’s commission to rule in Genesis 1:26-28, Paul is preparing for his contrast with Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:45-49.
28: “All in all” was a rhetorical way to emphasize everything significant. (Although Stoic philosophers used such expressions pantheistically, Jews who used the language did not mean it this way.)
29: There is no consensus what this baptism means. Perhaps Paul alludes to the analogy of 2 Maccabees 12:43-45, where prayer for the dead is unreasonable unless the dead are raised. Perhaps he refers to baptism before they died in hope of the future resurrection; or baptism on behalf of a converted friend who failed to be baptized first. There is no evidence for vicarious baptism for others who are dead in this period, but perhaps it was a local Corinthian idea.
30-31: Danger every hour and dying every day are probably both hyperbole (for very real danger and suffering; cf. Psalm 44:22; 119:109).
32: Corinthians would readily understand the image, since Corinth had recently (A.D. 54) instituted annual imperial festivals that included wild beast “shows.” Ephesus also had gladiatorial shows. Nevertheless, the sentence of battling wild beasts in the arena was a death sentence, so those who did it did not normally live to tell about it. Paul thus undoubtedly applies the image figuratively. Philosophers spoke of the irrational as beasts, and Scripture compared human enemies with hostile beasts (e.g., Psalm 22:16; 74:19).
Paul cites the words of the wicked in Isaiah 22:13, who will face judgment (Isaiah 22:14). Similar depictions applied to those who denied an afterlife, such as Epicureans (cf. also Wisdom of Solomon 2:1-20)
33: Sages emphasized companionship with the morally edifying (e.g., Proverbs 13:20), and Paul here cites a Greek proverb (first known to us in Menander’s comedy “Thais”).
34: The educated and philosophically astute prided themselves on their knowledge (cf. 8:1), especially about eternal matters.
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
Paul explains the resurrection to the Corinthians – part 1
These background notes are for 1 Corinthians 15: 1-19.
Introduction to Paul’s argument: Resurrection by definition involved the body. Many Judeans connected belief in an end-time resurrection (Daniel 12:2) and judgment with moral behavior (Pharisees sometimes attacked the resurrection-denying Sadducees on this count). The notion, however, seemed absurd to Gentiles. Many Gentiles denied an afterlife; believed that it involved a shadowy existence in the netherworld; or, commonly in this period, that one’s soul was immortal, but the body was earthly and had to be relinquished for the soul to ascend back to the heavens from which it originated. Even many Diaspora Jews did not affirm the resurrection. Paul accommodates their language where possible (even more in 2 Corinthians 4:16 to 5:10), but maintains the goodness of God’s physical creation hence a future hope for the body.
Verses 1-2: One often softened an audience by appealing to beliefs they shared; Paul appeals to the common ground of what converted them (cf. 2:1-5; Galatians: 3:2-5).
3: Jewish teachers would “pass on” or “deliver” their teachings to their disciples, who “received” them. Students could take notes, but especially memorized the traditions and sought to pass them on to others. Some think that 15:3-5 or 15:3-7 might be even a verbatim citation; the “Scriptures” believed to involve Jesus’ death here probably include Isaiah 53:4-6, 8, 11-12.
4: By its Jewish definition, resurrection was bodily, like the burial. Scriptures for the resurrection may have included Psalm 16 and Isaiah 53:12; if Paul thinks of Scripture also for “the third day,” he might think of texts like Hosea 6:2 or Jonah 1:17 (but may simply mean that Jesus was raised soon, before he could “see corruption,” Psalm 16:10).
5: “Appeared” was used for visions, but also for real appearances (often of God or angels). Visions of ghosts were common and not controversial; Paul’s list of witnesses in 15:5-8 instead attests assurance of a resurrection, which was by definition bodily. “Cephas” is Aramaic for “Peter.”
6: Ancients liked to appeal to public knowledge; the implication here is that such witnesses remained available to consult. No precedent supports the possibility of so many people having a mass hallucination simultaneously.
7: Paul uses “Apostles” more broadly than just for the Twelve (15:5).
8: Paul compares his out-of-season experience with that of a stillbirth (an image the Septuagint employs only for comparisons; Numbers 12:12; Ecclesiastes 6:3; Job 3:16), but instead of being born prematurely Paul is postmature. There may also be irony in a stillbirth’s acceptance of resurrection.
12: They probably affirm Christ’s resurrection, while wishing to deny that of believers. But resurrection was a corporate, eschatological experience of God’s people (Daniel 12:2), of which Jesus’ resurrection was only the first installment (cf. 15:12-28). In the following verses, Paul offers a logical chain by way of reductio ad absurdum: they cannot deny the future resurrection without denying the very message that had converted them to faith.
19: Some other Jews felt that life was miserable if there was no future vindication and justice.
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
“My Lord and My God!” — Jesus appears to “doubting Thomas”
The following Bible background is for John 20: 19-28
Verse 19: Residences often had bolts and locks on outside doors. “Peace” (i.e., may God cause it to be well with you) was the standard Jewish greeting. Both the mourning period and the continuance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread could have kept the disciples in Jerusalem, even apart from other factors.
20: People could show wounds to stir sympathy, attest courage, or to stir antipathy toward those who inflicted the wounds. But here they function as evidence that he is the same Jesus. Scars could be employed to identify one. Many Jewish people also believed that one would be resurrected in the form in which one died, to prove that the person was the same (wounds could afterward be healed).
The hands refer to the forearm or wrist, not the palm (under the crucifixion victim’s weight, spikes there would have ripped open the hand rather than supported one on a cross).
21: In Jewish law, a person’s agent (sent as a representative) was backed by the sender’s full authority, to the extent that he carried out the sender’s commission.
22: The breathing may recall Ezekiel 37, but especially Genesis 2:7. One of the main functions of God’s Spirit in the Old Testament and early Jewish thinking was to inspire people to speak for God. In the Old Testament and early Judaism, God himself is the giver of the Spirit.
25: Thomas need not be accusing his friends of lying; many claimed to see ghosts in dreams. But a “resurrection,” by Jewish definition, involved no mere apparition but new bodily life; this is what Thomas wants confirmation for.
27: Soldiers could bind victims to crosses with rope, but also could nail them to crosses through their wrists.
28: Both “Lord” and “God” were often divine titles in the Septuagint (cf. e.g., Psalm 35:23; Hosea 2:25). Domitian, probably emperor when this Gospel was written, demanded worship as “Lord God.” A few decades later, a letter from a Roman governor confirms that Christians were known to worship Jesus “as a god.”
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
The empty tomb — John 20:1-18
Verse 1: The Sabbath ended at sundown on Saturday night, but because night travel was unsafe Mary (and anyone else) would have waited till morning arrived or at least was approaching.
Most Judean tombs were private family tombs, many of them around Jerusalem. In many cases this was a cave with a disk-shaped stone to roll in a groove across its entrance. A wealthy tomb could have a stone roughly a yard or meter in diameter, requiring more than one person to move it.
2: Romans saw to it that those crucified were dead; on the rare occasion where a crucifixion was stopped and a person taken down and given medical help, they usually died anyway. Apart from a resurrection, which no one expected, Mary could only imagine that the body had been stolen, that the authorities had confiscated it (to put it temporarily in a criminals’ common grave), or that owners of the site had moved it.
4: Comparison could often elevate one person without denigrating the other, especially if they were friends. Athletic prowess was one ancient basis for comparison, especially concerning young men.
5: The stooping suggests a tomb with a low entrance leading to a lower pit; the lighting or the positioning of Jesus’ body (for example, on shelves to either side) would explain why the head veil was not visible before entering.
7: The scene is not the disarray one would expect from hasty grave robbers. Nor would robbers have removed the wrappings to take the body.
12: Among the many associations of white, angels were normally thought to be arrayed in white.
14: Jewish people believed that angels could appear in various forms and sometimes disguises, and sometimes that God could disguise individual humans.
15: A “gardener” fits the garden (19:41); these often were very poor.
16: “Rabboni” (my teacher) is more personal than “Rabbi.”
17: People applied sibling language figuratively to members of one’s people, fellow disciples, friends, and others. It may be relevant (depending on one’s interpretation of 20:17) that ancient texts sometimes included predictions of events fulfilled only after the close of the narrative. On ascensions, see comment on Acts 1:9-11.
18: Ancient Mediterranean culture esteemed the testimony of women far less than that of men (and in some circles did not normally accept it).
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
The crucifixion of Jesus — Luke 23:33-49
Verse 33: Crucifixion was meant to be death by slow torture; although a victim could die faster from shock due to blood loss, they could spend a few days dying of dehydration or perhaps asphyxiation. Hanging naked before crowds, unable to hold back one’s bodily waste or swat flies from wounds, was also meant to humiliate the victim.
34: Although there was biblical precedent to pray for vengeance (e.g., 2 Chron 24:22; Ps 139:7-9; Jer 15:15; 17:18; 18:23; 20:12), Jesus prays for his persecutors’ forgiveness (cf. Lk 6:28). Later rabbis said that those being executed were to confess their sins and pray, “May my death atone for all my sins.” Jesus instead refers to the sin of those who unjustly convicted him; false witnesses were biblically liable to the penalty they sought to inflict (Deut 19:18-19). Ancient biographers liked to parallel comparable figures; cf. Acts 7:60 in Luke’s second volume.
By custom, the soldiers could keep whatever possessions the executed person still had. For lots, see comment on Acts 1:26.
35: One of a naked crucifixion victim’s sufferings was normally public ridicule. Irony is common in ancient literature (here, Jesus does in fact save others, and his enemies sound like the devil in Luke 4:3, 6-7, 9).
36: Cheap, low-quality “sour wine” or “wine vinegar” could be offered to someone to dull their pain, but here is simply part of the mockery.
37: Their ridicule may reflect the anti-Judaism of the Syrian auxiliaries who comprised much of the Roman garrison in Jerusalem.
38: The condemned person sometimes carried the “titulus,” or statement of the charge, to the site of the execution. Posting it above Jesus contributes to the mockery.
42: This request offers another example of Luke’s theme of Jesus’ extraordinary practice of welcoming sinners.
43: Jewish sources often speak of “paradise” or “the garden of Eden” as the future dwelling of the righteous, in contrast with Gehenna, the destiny of the wicked. They proposed various locations for Paradise, such as in the third heaven or on the edge of the world (where some Greeks placed the Elysian Fields). They could use it for the abode of the righteous after death (as here) or after the resurrection.
44: In April, the “sixth hour” might begin shortly before noon. A person could spend days dying on the cross, but Jesus’ beating may have been particularly savage. The ninth hour, beginning shortly before 3 p.m., was also close to the time for the “evening” sacrifice in the temple. Darkness was one judgment on Egypt and recurs as a judgment in the prophets, sometimes for the end-time (due to locusts, smoke, etc.; e.g., Is 13:10; Ezek 30:3, 18; 32:7-8; Joel 2:2, 10, 31; 3:15; Amos 5:18; Zech 14:6). For darkness at noon as a judgment, cf. Deut 28:29; esp. Amos 8:9.
45: The temple curtain here probably is the one separating the holy of holies (the place of God’s presence) and the priestly sanctuary (Ex 26:33). Its rending might indicate that God now provides access for everyone to his presence (cf. Heb 6:19), but the context of judgment suggests that it likelier emphasizes God’s withdrawal from the temple (as in Ezek 10 to 11).
46: Later tradition suggests that Psalm 31:5 (the wording of which Jesus evokes here) was often recited at the time of the evening offering – roughly the time of Jesus’ death here.
47: “Innocent” is a natural corollary of Mark’s “Son of God.”
48: Beating one’s chest was a sign of extreme mourning (cf. 18:13). No public mourning (such as a funeral) was allowed after criminals died, so pious Jewish women may have offered this as the only consolation they could give the deceased.
49: Family and friends could attend an execution; the male disciples, however, could risk danger because they could be regarded as followers of the one convicted of treason. Most crosses were fairly close to the ground (in contrast to most modern pictures of the event), so no one was permitted too near lest they obstruct others’ view. That these women had often accompanied Jesus’ disciples could appear scandalous to some.
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
The Via Dolorosa: Jesus walks to the cross — Luke 23:26-32
Verse 26: Condemned persons normally carried their own crosses (technically, just the horizontal beam of the cross) out to the site of their execution. Here, however, someone else is drafted; Roman soldiers could draft bystanders to carry things for them (see comment on Matt 5:41).
Cyrene in North Africa had a massive Jewish community (as well as Greek and indigenous residents); many Jewish people used the name “Simon” (which resembled the patriarchal name “Simeon”). Jewish pilgrims (and presumably a few God-fearers) came from throughout the Empire for Passover. (Given the Passover context, when work would be forbidden, Simon cannot be “coming from the field” because he was working there; Jerusalem was so full of pilgrims that many had to seek lodging in surrounding villages.)
27: Authorities derived propaganda value from public executions, and crowds normally turned up to view them. Although official public mourning (as at a funeral service) was forbidden for a condemned person, no one would stop women from mourning in the streets. Women were expected to express lamentation more freely and dramatically than men, and they were less subject to public punishment. (Later rabbinic tradition claims that Jerusalem’s pious women offered a narcotic drink to dull the pain of the person being executed.)
28: “Daughters of Jerusalem” naturally enough refers to Jerusalem’s women, but might also recall some OT judgment oracles (for example, Isaiah 3:16). “Mourn for yourselves” also recalls judgment oracles (e.g., Isaiah 32:9-14; Joel 1:5).
29: Other Jewish sources use similar language for the lament a mother would utter when her children died. During the siege of Jerusalem a generation later, Josephus reports that some women became so hungry that they ate their children (cf. Deut 28:53).
30: Jesus recalls here OT judgment oracles (Hoseah 10:8; Isaiah 2:10, 19-21).
31: Dry wood would catch fire much more easily than green wood. This could mean that if Rome reacted thus to Jesus, how much more would they punish genuine revolutionaries? Or that if Jerusalem’s leaders treated Jesus this way, how much greater would be the violence against genuine threats (Jewish people fought each other as well as Romans in 66-70)? Or it could simply indicate that Jerusalem is becoming more ripe for judgment (cf. Luke 21:24, 29-30).
32: Authorities preferred to execute people on festivals, when the executions would warn the greatest number of people against rebellion. Executing several prisoners at once also simplified the soldiers’ duties.
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)