★★★★★ 5
Brilliant, rigorous, balanced, and approachable
Format: Paperback
"The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach," by Michael R. Licona is an outstanding, thorough yet highly approachable assessment of the evidence, sources, and explanatory hypotheses for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As the subtitle suggests, it borrows significant methodological rigor and best practices from the field of historical analysis and applies them to biblical scholarship.
Licona begins his assessment with a meticulous discussion of his historical analysis methodology. Included in this section is his definition of five criteria he uses to assess a set of explanatory hypotheses. He then uses those assessments to weigh the hypotheses based on nine levels of certainty ranging from “certainly not historical” to “certainly historical.” The hypothesis representing the best explanation for the resurrection of Christ is the one rated highest in historical certainty based on the five criteria.
At the outset of the book, Licona also includes a robust discussion of historical analysis influences and issues because evaluating them openly is essential to his methodical approach and because they aren’t often discussed in biblical studies. It is in this section that he does something quite unique and insightful; Licona includes a full discussion of knowledge, experiences, worldviews, preferences and other influences, which he calls “horizons,” that tend to bias the assessment of history. Furthermore, he defines a set of six methods that he uses throughout the book to avoid his own biases as he strives to present outcomes based on methodical neutrality. It’s quite brilliant. Licona even includes a confession of his own “horizons” - his potential influences.
With all this foundation in place, Licona proceeds to identify all sources of evidence for the resurrection of Christ and rates each according to its likelihood of providing reliable independent testimony. Included in this assessment are sources from the Bible, early Christian writers, non-biblical Christian literature and early non-Christian writers. He then uses the most reliable sources as the basis for attesting to the reliability for all the available evidence for the resurrection. This produces three pieces of evidence that he calls “historical bedrock” because they are well attested within multiple reliable sources and are validated by a broad range of scholars.
In the final section of the book, Licona evaluates major assertions against the resurrection from skeptics and compares the results against a parallel evaluation of the resurrection hypothesis. Specifically, he uses his criteria and rating system to assess how well hypotheses from a range of skeptical scholars, like Gerd Ludemann and John Dominic Crossan, are able to explain the historical bedrock evidence. At the end of this extensive analysis, the biblical resurrection hypothesis is by far the most credible explanation for historical bedrock evidence associated with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
As noted above, Michael Licona’s book is an excellent assessment of the evidence, sources and competing hypotheses associated with the resurrection of Christ. The author uniquely applies the meticulousness of best practice historical analysis methodology to arguably the most important of all biblical questions. Using rigorous criteria and rating scales, Licona delivers a fair and balanced evaluation that achieves the methodical neutrality he was striving for while minimizing, as best as possible, influences from his “horizons.” It’s also worth noting that Licona assesses a broad range of possible sources, including those classified as gnostic and pseudepigraphal, and includes viewpoints from a broad range of scholars, supportive and skeptical alike. Furthermore, the author includes a very robust set of footnotes on the various topics discussed within the book. These footnotes are helpful for both scholars and non-scholars looking for a deeper understanding or pointers for additional exploration plus they include additional explanatory comments that complement Licona’s focus on delivering a fair and balanced assessment.
The one issue I found while reading the book was its treatment of the empty tomb evidence. I was disappointed the author’s discussion was brief since I was looking forward to a robust evaluation. However, in his defense, Licona was looking for historical bedrock evidence that could be used to assess the various resurrection hypotheses. A large number of scholars are skeptical of the empty tomb so it doesn’t belong in his historical bedrock category. Beside this one brief moment of disappointment, I was greatly pleased with the totality of Licona’s analysis and outcomes.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2021