William Craig's Case for the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 34: Craig's Third Key Historical Claim

 WHERE WE ARE

William Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus is based primarily on three key historical claims.  An important premise of Craig's case is premise (2):

2. Craig's three key historical claims can be established as being historical facts.

In previous posts in this series, I showed that Craig's attempts to show that his second key historical claim (HC2) was a historical fact failed completely, giving us a very good reason to believe that premise (2) is false, which means that we have a very good reason to believe that premise (C) in the core argument of Craig's case is false, which means that William Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus fails.

We are now critically examining Craig's third key historical claim:

HC3: The first disciples came sincerely to believe in Jesus' resurrection.

If Craig's attempt to show that this key historical claim is a historical fact fails, then we will have another very good reason to believe that premise (2) is false, and another very good reason to believe that premise (C) is false, which will further confirm that William Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus fails.

In order to rationally evaluate (HC3), we need to first have a understanding of what this claim means.  In Part 32 of this series, we clarified the phrase "The first disciples":

HC3a: The twelve disciples of Jesus (minus Judas Iscariot), who were chosen by Jesus to be part of an inner circle of his followers, came sincerely to believe in Jesus' resurrection. 

In this Part 33 of this series, I clarified this claim further by determining the meaning of the phrase "to believe in Jesus' resurrection":

HC3b: The twelve disciples of Jesus (minus Judas Iscariot), who were chosen by Jesus to be part of an inner circle of his followers, came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

THE IMPLICATIONS OF (HC3b)

Craig's third key historical claim is a claim about the twelve disciples of Jesus (minus Judas Iscariot), so this claim is about eleven disciples of Jesus.  Thus, if Craig is only able to show that it is a historical fact that six of Jesus' twelve disciples "came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead", then Craig will have failed to show that (HC3b) is a historical fact, and thus he will have failed to show that his third key historical claim (HC3) is a historical fact. 

Furthermore, if Craig is only able to show that nine or ten of Jesus' twelve disciples (minus Judas Iscariot) "came to sincerely believe that God raised Jesus physically from the dead", then Craig will have failed to show that (HC3b) is a historical fact, and thus he will have failed to show that his third key historical claim (HC3) is a historical fact. 

So, in order for Craig to show that (HC3) is a historical fact, he needs to show that eleven of Jesus' twelve disciples (not counting Judas) "came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead."  If Craig is not able to do this, then he will have failed to show that (HC3) is a historical fact, and that would give us a very good reason to believe that premise (2) of his case is false, which means we would have a very good reason to believe that premise (C) of his core argument is false, which would give us further confirmation that William Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus fails.