Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion you should be able to:

• Define the terms history, historiography, and historical knowledge, and discuss some of the challenges of knowing the past

• Articulate how one’s worldview, or horizon, influences one’s view of history, and explain how best to overcome these biases when doing historical investigation

• Discuss and defend the historian’s right to investigate miracle claims

• Evaluate the relevance of historical sources pertaining to the resurrection of Jesus according to the criteria for authenticity

• Identify the historical bedrock pertaining to the resurrection of Jesus

• Apply arguments to the best explanation—explanatory scope, explanatory power, plausibility, and less ad hoc—to identify the most probable historical hypothesis pertaining to Jesus’ fate

• Defend the probability of Jesus’ bodily resurrection from a historical perspective

• Discuss some of the implications that Jesus’ resurrection has for people today

Course Outline

Introduction

• Introducing the Speaker and the Course

Unit 1: Theory of History

• Second-Guessing and the Challenge of History

• Defining Terms and Challenges to Knowing the Past: Part 1

• Challenges to Knowing the Past: Part 2

• Transcending Horizons

• The Role of a Consensus

• The Uncertainty of Historical Knowledge

• Postmodernist History

• Problems with Postmodernist History

• Three Views of History, Historical Facts, and Burden of Proof

• Theory and Historians

• What Historians Do

Unit 2: Method to History

• Arguments to the Best Explanation

• Arguments from Statistical Inferences

• Criteria of Authenticity

• Application of the Criteria of Authenticity to the Historical Jesus

Unit 3: Miracles and the Historian

• Defining Miracles

• David Hume and the Impossibility of Miracles

• The Principle of Analogy and Philosophical Assumptions

• Bart Ehrman and the Reliability of the Gospels

• Contradictions

• Most Probable Explanation

• James D. G. Dunn, the Interpretation of Data, and Burden of Proof

• Preponderance of Evidence and a Turning Point for Historians

Unit 4: Historical Sources and the Resurrection of Jesus

• Relevant Sources

• Canonical Gospels

• Matthew’s and Luke’s Use of Mark

• Reliability of the Gospels and the Letters of Paul

• Q and Speeches in Antiquity

• Speeches in Acts and Oral Formulas in Paul

• Origin and Reliability of the Oral Tradition in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7

• Josephus

• Tacitus, Mara bar Serapion, and Thallus

• Lucian, Celsus, Babylonian Talmud, and the Apostolic Fathers

• Gospel of Thomas

• Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Judas, Revelation Dialogues, and Pseudo Mark

Unit 5: Historical Bedrock Pertaining to Jesus’ Fate

• Jesus’ Life and Death

• Jesus’ Death by Crucifixion

• Appearances to the Disciples

• Three-Day Motif and the Nature of the Appearances: Part 1

• Legitimization of Authority and Nature of the Appearances: Part 2

• Gospel of Mark and Resurrection Appearances

• Appearances to Women, the Emmaus Disciples, and the Doubters

• The Apostles’ Testimony and Appearance to Paul: Part 1

• The Fate of Paul and Appearance to Paul: Part 2

• Paul’s View of the Resurrection: Part 1

• Paul’s View of the Resurrection: Part 2

• Paul’s View of the Resurrection: Part 3

• Appearance to James

• The Empty Tomb and Historical Bedrock

• B-Grade Facts

Unit 6: Weighing Hypotheses

• Michael Goulder’s Hallucination Hypothesis

• Analysis and Concerns of Goulder’s Hypothesis

• Marian Apparitions and Weighing Goulder’s Hypothesis

• Resurrection Hypothesis

• Evidence for a Supernatural Element in Reality

• Concluding Thoughts

Conclusion

• Summary of the Course

Details

• Title: CS151 Philosophy of History

• Instructor: Mike R. Licona

• Publisher: Lexham Press

• Publication Date: 2016

• Product Type: Logos Mobile Education

• Resource Type: Courseware, including transcripts, audio, and video resources

• Courses: 1

• Video Hours: 8