Winger cites Book of Moses 1:40-41 as an example of a text prophesying about itself (claiming Joseph Smith would restore corrupted scripture) when in fact Joseph Smith wrote that very text himself — making it a case of backdated, self-fulfilling prophecy rather than genuine authentication.

A majority (though not full consensus) of scholars accept that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea and that the tomb was subsequently found empty. Winger treats this majority position as significant in building the resurrection case.

The Old Testament was already understood by Jews — not just Christians — as pointing to a coming Messiah. The breadth and robustness of typological and prophetic connections to Jesus across the OT (seed of the woman, angel of the Lord, Melchizedek, prophet like Moses, bronze serpent, Joseph, High Priest, kinsman redeemer, Davidic King, last Adam) constitutes a meta-narrative that could only exist by design.

Historical evidence that Herod the Great was extremely paranoid and murderous — he killed three of his own sons and executed hundreds on suspicion alone, making the Massacre of the Innocents entirely consistent with his character

Mike builds a positive case that Herod killing children in Bethlehem is historically plausible

Refutation of 'Romans never removed crucifixion victims': Josephus explicitly records that in Jerusalem, Jews were permitted by Romans to take down crucified bodies and bury them before sunset — directly supporting the Gospel burial account

Mike counters the 'no burial possible' claim with Josephus

Zahnd claims Jesus 'edited' Isaiah 61 in Luke 4 — but Jesus stopped reading mid-sentence, he did not delete text

Winger examines Zahnd's most prominent proof-text for the 'Jesus edits the Bible' thesis: Jesus reading from Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:16–21).

Galatians 1:19 and 1 Corinthians 9:5 — Jesus had brothers, specifically James

Paul's knowledge of Jesus's family members as evidence of biographical familiarity with the historical Jesus.

Ancient historians' three-tiered hierarchy of sources: first-person, interrogated eyewitness, written account

Historical methodology framework used by ancient historians, applied to understanding Papias.

Luke does not criticize prior Gospel narratives; he adds to them with more data

Distinguishing Luke's prologue from other ancient authors who criticize predecessors.

Cleopas in Luke 24 and Clopas in John 19 — the same person as a named eyewitness source

Case study in named eyewitness sourcing: the road to Emmaus account.

Tal Ilan's Palestinian name database — confirming Gospel names match authentic first-century Palestinian onomastics

Statistical evidence from Jewish names scholarship supporting Gospel authenticity.

Women as witnesses - criterion of embarrassment in male-centered culture

Why early Christians would not invent women as the first witnesses

Women observing the burial - multiply attested detail

Additional corroboration of historical memory

Roman crucifixion burial practice rebutted by Josephus and archaeological evidence

Addressing main historical objection to empty tomb

Joseph of Arimathea - multiply attested, named, testable, criterion of embarrassment

Joseph as historical figure validating burial account

Refutation of Paulogia's claim that Romans denied honorable burial to crucifixion victims: Josephus explicitly says Romans made an exception for Jews

Mike provides a specific example of responding to a resurrection objection

Josephus, Antiquities 20: The death of James, brother of Jesus who was called Christ, under High Priest Ananus — a non-Christian, undisputed historical source

The strongest external confirmation of James's martyrdom — from a non-Christian Jewish historian

Additional sources confirming James's martyrdom: First Apocalypse of James, Second Apocalypse of James, Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (c. 280 AD)

Multiple independent streams of tradition confirming James's martyrdom

Darrell Bock on the charge against James: "breaking the law" refers to his Christological allegiances and likely a blasphemy charge, paralleling Stephen's case

Scholarly interpretation of the legal charge against James in Josephus

General reliability of the Gospels and Acts as a fourth argument

Winger and McLatchie introduce the general historical reliability of the Gospels and Acts as an additional, related argument.

Extra-biblical corroboration: Herod Archelaus and Matthew 2:22

McLatchie gives Josephus as extra-biblical corroboration explaining Matthew's otherwise puzzling reference to Herod Archelaus.

Extra-biblical corroboration: Mark 10 — why Jesus taught about divorce in that context

McLatchie uses Mark 10's divorce passage to show Josephus provides context explaining why the teaching is historically plausible.

Extra-biblical corroboration: Luke 3 — soldiers on active duty near John the Baptist

McLatchie presents a subtle corroboration between Luke 3's soldiers and the specific military situation in the region during John the Baptist's ministry.

Acts corroboration: Ananias falsely acting as high priest — Acts 23

McLatchie gives a final Acts example showing extra-biblical corroboration explaining an apparent difficulty in the text.

James the brother of Jesus — conversion from skeptic to martyr

McLatchie presents the conversion and martyrdom of James, Jesus's brother, as particularly strong evidence for the resurrection.

Acts 10: Cornelius is introduced -- the first non-proselyte Gentile to receive the gospel. He is a God-fearer but not circumcised and not under the law.

Survey of Acts chapter 10, Cornelius

Joseph Hoffmann (agnostic, Harvard/Oxford) calls mythicists the greatest threat to calm academic study of religion next to fundamentalism

Third non-Christian scholar quoted condemning mythicism

Non-Christian sources for Jesus: Josephus, Tacitus, and Lucian of Samosata all mention Jesus

Overview of non-Christian historical sources for Jesus

Josephus mentions Jesus twice: Antiquities 18.63 (disputed) and Antiquities 20.200 (virtually undisputed)

Explaining the two Josephus passages

The Testimonium Flavianum (Antiquities 18.63) was interpolated by a Christian, but most scholars think an authentic Josephus reference to Jesus underlies it

Scholarly consensus on the interpolation question in Josephus

Louis Feldman (leading Josephus scholar, Jewish, non-Christian) believed Josephus mentioned Jesus in both passages, estimated 3-to-1 or 5-to-1 ratio of scholars who agree

Expert Josephus scholarly opinion on the authenticity question

The dying and rising gods parallel argument fails because Paul and non-Christian sources still have to be explained independently of the Gospels

Initial response to the Greco-Roman dying/rising gods parallel argument

Refutation: Paul and Jesus use "brothers" for all believers, but Matthew names four brothers of Jesus including James — confirmed by Josephus

Multiple source attestation for James as biological brother of Jesus

Multiple independent attestation from Paul, Matthew, John (special L), and Josephus — the strongest form of historical evidence — confirms Jesus's brothers including James

Summary of multiple attestation for Jesus's brothers

Roman historians didn't mention Jesus more because he wasn't significant to Roman history — they didn't even mention Pontius Pilate, known only from Philo, Josephus, and NT sources

Explaining the relative silence of Roman sources about Jesus

Argument from silence illustrated: Josephus omits his own capture by Romans from his autobiography; Grant's memoirs never mention the Emancipation Proclamation

Further examples showing argument from silence is a weak form of evidence

Objection that scholars affirm historicity only because they signed faith statements is refuted by citing atheist/agnostic scholars who agree

Responding to the claim that Christian bias explains scholarly consensus on historicity

Suetonius's report of Claudius expelling Jews from Rome matches Acts 18 — illustrating how omissions in one source don't prove falsehood; Josephus doesn't mention this expulsion

Cross-referencing Suetonius and Acts; illustrating argument from silence

The Watchtower did not always believe the torture-stake doctrine; the change occurred in 1931

Historical evidence shows the Watchtower itself used cross imagery and taught that Jesus died on a cross until 1931. The shift from cross to torture-stake was a doctrinal change introduced by Rutherford.