The Case For Christ

Theological Seminary, currently is a professor at the Talbot
School of Theology, where he teaches in the master's program in
philosophy and ethics.
His articles have been published in more than thirty professional
journals, such as American Philosophical Quarterly,
Metaphilosophy; and Philosophy and Phenomeological Research. He
has written, coauthored, or edited a dozen books, including
Christianity and the Nature of Science; Does God Exist? (a debate
with Kai Nielsen); The Life and Death Debate; The Creation
Hypothesis; Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality;
Jesus under Fire; and Love Your God with All Your Mind.
Sitting down with Moreland in his small but homey office, I
already knew that circumstantial evidence is plural rather than
singular. In other words, it's built brick by brick by brick
until there's a sturdy foundation on which conclusions can be
confidently based. So I began our interview with a point-blank
challenge: "Can you give me five pieces of circumstantial
evidence that convince you Jesus rose from the dead?"
Moreland listened intently to my question. "Five examples?" he
asked. "Five things that are not in dispute by anybody?"
I nodded. With that Moreland pushed his chair back from his desk
and launched into his first piece of evidence: the changed lives
of the disciples and their willingness to die for their
conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead.
EXHIBIT 1: THE DISCIPLES DIED FOR THEIR BELIEFS
"When Jesus was crucified," Moreland began, "his followers were
discouraged and depressed. They no longer had confidence that
Jesus had been sent by God, because they believed anyone
crucified was accursed by God. They also had been taught that God
would not let his Messiah suffer death. So they dispersed. The
Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks.
Then, after a short period of time, we see them abandoning their
occupations, regathering, and committing themselves to spreading
a very specific message-that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of God
who died on a cross, returned to life, and was seen alive by
them. And they were willing to spend the rest of their lives
proclaiming this, without any payoff from a human point of view.
It's not as though there were a mansion awaiting them on the
Mediterranean. They faced a life of hardship. They often went
without food, slept exposed to the elements, were ridiculed,