William Craig's Case for the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 35: Craig's Other Points in Support of (HC3)

THIS POST IS STILL IN WORK - please return in a few days for the completed post.

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.

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 clear understanding of what this claim means.  In Part 32 of this series, I clarified the phrase "The first disciples". In Part 33 of this series, I clarified this claim further by determining the meaning of the phrase "to believe in Jesus' resurrection". Here is the fully clarified version of (HC3):

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. 

In Part 34 of this series, I argued that in order to show that (HC3) is a historical fact, Craig would need to provide strong historical evidence showing that each of the following eleven historical claims was a historical fact:

(HC3-1) Simon (to whom Jesus gave the name Peter) came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-2) James (son of Zebedee) came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead.

(HC3-3) John (the brother of James) came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-4) Andrew came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-5) Philip came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-6) Bartholomew came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-7) Matthew came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-8) Thomas came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-9) James (son of Alphaeus) came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-10) Thaddeaus came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

(HC3-11) Simon (the Cananaean) came sincerely to believe that God raised Jesus physically and bodily from the dead. 

However, in the very meager two pages that Craig devotes to showing that (HC3) is a historical fact, he does not even attempt to show that ten of these claims are historical facts, which explains why Craig only devotes two pages to supporting his view that (HC3) is a historical fact. So, it is clear that Craig has failed completely to show that (HC3) is a historical fact.  This gave us a very good reason to believe that premise (2) is false, and thus that premise (C) is false, and this further confirmed that William Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus fails.

Craig did make a few points in his extremely brief attempt to support his view that (HC3) is a historical fact. His first point was this: