A Brief Book Notice from Books At a Glance
Gary Habermas is widely recognized as a leading authority – perhaps the leading authority – on the question of the historicity of the resurrection of Christ. He has written, lectured, and debated extensively on the topic, and these three volumes are the crowning achievement of a lifetime of study. These three volumes offer what is undoubtedly the most thorough and widely-informed resource on the subject. And we understand that a fourth volume is currently in preparation.
“Must” reading for any serious investigation of this, Christianity’s foundational truth claim.
Here are the three volumes:
- On the Resurrection, vol.1: Evidences
- On the Resurrection, vol.2: Refutations
- On the Resurrection, vol.3: Scholarly Perspectives
Tables of Contents
On the Resurrection, vol.1: Evidences
Introduction: The Task Ahead
Part 1: The Nature of Historical Research
1 Philosophy of History
2 Historiography: The Tools and Rules of the Discipline
3 Historical Postmodernism
4 The Minimal Historical Facts about Jesus
5 Listing the Minimal Historical Facts
Part 2: Jesus: The Preliminaries
6 The Existence of Jesus
7 A Definition of Miracle
8 Jesus the Healer
Part 3: The Minimal Historical Facts
9 Minimal Fact 1: Jesus’s Death
Excursus 1: Jesus’s Death and Contemporary Scholarship
10 Minimal Fact 2: The Disciples’ Experiences
11 Minimal Fact 3: The Earliest Proclamation of the Gospel
Excursus 2: The Early Creedal Traditions
12 Minimal Fact 4: The Disciples’ Transformations
13 Minimal Fact 5: The Conversion of James
14 Minimal Fact 6: The Conversion of Paul
Part 4: The Other Six Known Historical Facts
15 The Empty Tomb
16 Jesus’s Burial
17 The Last Four Known Facts
Part 5: The Gospel Resurrection Data
18 The Gospels and Resurrection Testimony
19 The Gospel of Mark
20 The Gospel of Matthew
21 The Gospel of Luke
22 The Gospel of John
23 Acts 1:1–11
24 Noncanonical Christian Authors (AD 95–160)
Conclusion: From the Disciples’ Experiences to Real Appearances
Appendices
Appendix 1: Evidential Near-Death Experiences 963
Appendix 2: Outlined Data in Favor of the Minimal Facts 1009
Appendix 3: Summary Outline of the Second Six Known/Accepted Non-Minimal Facts Data
On the Resurrection, vol.2: Refutations
Introduction: Refutations
1 Second-Century Challenges to the Death and Resurrection of Jesus
2 Hume 1: The Argument against Miracles
3 Hume 2: Reformulations of Hume
4 Nineteenth-Century Liberalism and Alternative Resurrection Theories
5 Nineteenth-Century Liberals versus Liberals on Alternative Theories
6 Nineteenth-Century Conservatives versus Liberals on Alternative Theories
7 Twentieth Century: Barth, Bultmann, and Beyond
8 Discrepancies and the Resurrection
9 Fraud Type 1: The Disciples Stole the Body
10 Fraud Type 2: Someone Else Stole the Body
11 The Swoon or Apparent Death Theory
12 Legend 1: Dying-and-Rising Gods
13 Legend 2: Historical Persons Resurrected?
14 Illumination and Illusion Hypotheses
15 Hallucination
16 Objective Visions
17 Resurrection Agnosticism
18 Five Reasons for the Failure of Naturalistic Theories
19 Conclusion
On the Resurrection, vol.3: Scholarly Perspectives
Introduction
1. Historical Research and the New Testament Preliminaries
2. Jesus: The Preliminaries
3. Minimal Historical Facts
4. Other Known Historical Facts
5. Questions from the Gospels
6. Alternative Theories
7. Responses to Alternative Theories
8. Scholars Comment on Other Scholars and Trends
9. Bodily Nature of Resurrection
10. Moving from Resurrection to Theology