Michael R. Licona

Featured in 15 lessons

• The Historical Jesus

  Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?

  What best explains the birth of the resurrection belief among Jesus' first followers?

• Reliability of the New Testament

  Is the New Testament Historically Reliable?

  How well do the New Testament documents preserve what early Christians originally wrote and claimed?

• Common Objections

  Did Christianity Copy Pagan Myths?

  Are the Gospels just another rehash of dying-and-rising god stories?

• The Bayesian Case

  A Bayesian Case for Jesus as God

  Given that God (of some form) exists, how probable is it that Jesus was God incarnate and rose from the dead?

• Early Christianity in Context

  Early Christianity in Its First-Century Context

  How does the Second Temple Jewish and Greco-Roman world change our reading of the New Testament?

• Resurrection Case File

  The Empty Tomb: Anatomy of an Inconvenient Fact

  How strong is the case that Jesus' tomb was genuinely found empty?

• Resurrection Case File

  The Bayesian Case for the Resurrection

  What do the probabilities actually say when you run the numbers yourself?

• Resurrection Case File

  The Minimal Facts Method

  What can we show about Jesus' resurrection using only data that the skeptics already grant?

• Resurrection Case File

  The 1 Corinthians 15 Creed: Evidence From Inside Two Years

  How early can we trace the resurrection claim?

• Resurrection Case File

  Comparing Naturalistic Hypotheses

  If not resurrection, then what? How do the major naturalistic alternatives actually score?

• Reliability of the New Testament

  Who Wrote the Gospels?

  Are the Gospels anonymous compilations or apostolic testimony?

• Common Objections

  What About Contradictions in the Bible?

  Does the presence of apparent differences in Gospel accounts undermine their reliability?

• Legend Formation: Why Jesus Was Not a Myth

  How Legends Actually Form — And Why Jesus Does Not Fit

  If we know how legends grow in real history and folklore, does the Jesus tradition look like one?

• Common Objections

  Can You Use the Bible as Evidence? (And the Secular Sources for Jesus)

  Is it circular to cite the New Testament as historical evidence — and is it really true that the Bible is our only source for Jesus?

• Common Objections

  Did the Apostles Conspire to Invent Christianity for Power and Control?

  Could a group of first-century authors have coordinated a religious story and used it historically as an instrument of oppression, power, and crowd control?