Anchoring the texts of the New Testament documents to the individual author’s story and to a specific historical context is an evidence based approach, rather than just saying “the Bible says.” “The Bible says” clearly doesn’t carry a lotta weight in our post-Christian society.
And anchoring the faith of Christianity to the historicity of the resurrection is part of that evidence based approach as well. Reminding unchurched and dechurched people, as well as people who profess to be Christians, that we don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead simply “because the Bible says so” is part of that evidence based approach as well. We believe because Matthew believed. We believe because Mark believed. We believed because Luke believed. Along with Peter, James, John and Paul. You’ve got to deal with each one of these men and their accounts and testimonies separately.
Apostle Paul, who God Himself said was His chosen instrument to take the Gospel to the Gentiles ‘and’ to the Jews, declares that Christianity is false unless the resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact. He even names the living eyewitnesses of the Resurrection at the time, in effect daring his readers to fact-check him by asking those living eyewitnesses themselves about it. He didn’t say, “Believe that Jesus rose from the dead because I’m writing the Bible and the Bible says so”…!
Once one has established…via the evidence provided by science and history and logic and reason…that Jesus actually did rise from the dead, then whatever Jesus says and teaches is true. And since that evidence, once established, shows that the separate and individual accounts and testimonies contained in the New Testament documents are reliable, then what Jesus said and taught about salvation and His divinity is true.
