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The Son Rises

William Lane Craig (Wipf & Stock: Jun 2001), 156 pages.

The meat of the book is in two chapters, on the “Empty Tomb” and the “Appearances of Jesus”. Craig offers ten points supporting the historical fact of the empty tomb, beginning with “The historical reliability of the account of Jesus’ burial supports the empty tomb” to “The fact that Jesus’ tomb was not venerated as a shrine indicates that the tomb was empty.” Most of the arguments are persuasively presented, though I wish all apologists would leave the Shroud aside. But in the end, Craig adequately explains the reasons that most scholars, from diverse backgrounds, accept the empty tomb as historical fact. The section on the Appearances of Jesus begins by demonstrating their historicity and then examines their explanations. He first shows that Peter, the Twelve, the five hundred, James, the apostles, and Paul did indeed experience appearances by Jesus. Craig then moves through the potential explanations and concludes that the best explanation for these appearances is that they were indeed real events, interactions with a living and breathing restored Jesus. Craig caps off his argument with a discussion about the resurrection’s role as the best explanation for the Origin of the Christian Faith itself.