Theodore Drange's item asking, "Why Resurrect Jesus?" can't be blamed for ignorance, though perhaps Drange can be.

Allow us to first explain why indeed God resurrected Jesus:

• The world of the first century Roman Empire -- as well as 70% of cultures today, and 99% of all people who have ever lived -- have been members of honor and shame cultures.
• The crucifixion was an exceptionally shameful death.
• The purpose of the resurrection was, as de Silva puts it, that God overturned [the] evaluation of Jesus by raising him from the dead and seating him at God's own right hand as Lord. In other words, the resurrection was a restoration of honor, a validation of Jesus and his message (over and against those who had condemned him to a shameful death), and thus an impetus of and validation for the kerygmatic message of Jesus' Lordship.

Theodore Drange does not seem to have any inkling that the world of the first century was any different than apple pie America, and he would not have gotten such an inkling from his one source for getting a "why" answer, Charles Hodge. Thus we have but a few points to make in reply, since we don't of necessity agree that Drange has failed to show deficiencies in Hodge's points.

• Drange's question of "what sort of death" it is for Jesus to be brought back to life is answered by Miller's essay here.
• None of Hodge's reasons are our own. We do find some commonality with his third reason for Jesus to be resurrected, that is, that he would be head of the Body of Christ and thus "secure and illustrate" our own future resurrection. As head of the social ingroup that was the ekklesia, we would indeed find it sensible that Jesus would be resurrected, and appropriate to the collectivist orientation of the ancients, but it would be required in the way Hodge puts it.
• Drange asks what need there is for a resurrection body if we are conscious in the intermediate state. Here also we would differ with Hodge; the intermediate state is not one of clarity, but of minimal or limited consciousness, and our makeup is such in this paradigm that a body is required for full function. More on this here.
• Drange complains of there being no Scriptures connecting the resurrection and the atonement [64] which validate Paul's claim that if Christ is not raised, we are still in our sins. Had Drange known of the honor-shame dichotomy, he would have his answer: Without the resurrection, there is no validation of Jesus' mission and no reversal of the shame attached to him; hence there is nothing which stands as an authorization of his ability to atone.
• Where Drange comes closest to our reasoning is with the argument that the resurrection was for the purpose of "show[ing] something to mankind about Jesus of Nazareth". Drange feels that this is "refuted by the fact that billions of people have had no awareness of the event". Yet this objection fails on two points:
  1. Drange operates under the assumption that this "awareness" was necessary on such urgent terms that it had to be revealed at once, and that his "billions" of people lost out on some opportunity they were unfairly denied. Since it is our argument that salvation is indeed accessible to "those who haven't heard" Drange's refutation is, as far as we are concerned, ineffectual.
  2. Drange assumes that the evidence for the resurrection is indeed as insufficient as he believes it is, though that is outside the scope of his essay and would have to be argued on its own merits.

I recently discovered that the authors of Empty Tomb had created a promotional website, which included "replies" to critics. Two were directed to me; one by Parsons (which I have already answered) and one by Drange, though it is actually only part of a fuller reply to Stephen Davis.

It is clear that Drange is in over his head when it comes to issues like honor and shame, but it doesn't even get that far, as he doesn't even get what I said correctly. I noted that of the five reasons he considers, "It is necessary for showing some important truths to humanity" is where Drange "comes closest" to something I would say. Perhaps I should have made clear for his sake that this wasn't meant to say he was correct. "Comes closest" is not "correct" and our actual reasoning is not, "It is necessary for showing some important truths to humanity" but rather, "it is necessary for reversing the application of shame that would naturally result in anyone hearing the Gospel message." In short, I do not, as Drange claims, "appeal to" Drange's reason 5.

After this, however, things get Strange -- not just Drange -- as Drange pulls this out of his hat:

Holding replies that truths about Jesus and the resurrection might be revealed to people in the afterlife. So, even though those truths would not have been revealed by the resurrection itself, they would eventually get transmitted, and the resurrection would still be needed to serve as part of the subject matter of the truths. As Holding puts it, “the resurrection was a restoration of honor, a validation of Jesus and his message (over and against those who had condemned him to a shameful death).”

Drange goes on further in this vein, but it is all indeed in vain. Where he gets the idea that I say anything about Jesus and the resurrection being "revealed to people in the afterlife" I can only guess. I say no such thing anywhere and it cannot be found either of my two points above:

1. Drange operates under the assumption that this "awareness" was necessary on such urgent terms that it had to be revealed at once, and that his "billions" of people lost out on some opportunity they were unfairly denied. Since it is our argument that salvation is indeed accessible to "those who haven't heard" Drange's refutation is, as far as we are concerned, ineffectual.
2. Drange assumes that the evidence for the resurrection is indeed as insufficient as he believes it is, though that is outside the scope of his essay and would have to be argued on its own merits.

Where does Drange see "afterlife" here? Does he have a special edition of my essay with his own personal edits?

Since Drange is addressing some sort of personal hallucination he is having, and not my actual argument, there's really not much more to say, and his evaluation of my defense as a "failure" is thoroughly comedic.

Snooze Wheel, Part 2: After boringly repeating what happened for those of us who have already read it all, Drange claims he has no clue where I got his idea of people "losing out on some opportunity." Since this is a guy who read "afterlife" into my prior response when it was not there, it's not a surprise he can't even figure out what he himself once said. Let's spell it out in steps for the college prof, shall we?

He said there was a problem because "billions of people have had no awareness of the event" of the resurrection.

So they did not hear of it. They got no message about it. Never got the newsletter.

So this means that Drange thinks they lost out on hearing the message of the resurrection, which he has claimed is a big problem. And he continues to say that the "trouble is that most people live their entire lives unaware of the resurrection," which means he is STILL making the same argument that people are losing out on some opportunity because they never hear about the resurrection.

As far as misreading what I said about "afterlife," Drange makes this contorted comment:

Holding suggests that the awareness [of the resurrection] need not "be revealed at once." What does that mean, so far as the billions of unenlightened people are concerned? I inferred that what Holding must be suggesting is that most people are indeed made aware of the resurrection, but not "at once," meaning not in this earthly life. I took him to be suggesting there that the billions of unenlightened people are made aware of the resurrection in the afterlife.

How in the world you get from "at once" to "therefore only in the afterlife" is just one of those things that will remain a mystery of the English Language According to Drange. But to his credit, he admits to misunderstanding, so we'll kindly give him another step program to help him with his final query:

But then what is his reply to my objection about most people being unaware of the resurrection? How could God change people's view of Jesus (from dishonorable to honorable) by means of the resurrection if most people are unaware of the resurrection? For all that Holding writes there in that piece, he apparently has no answer to that question. It is as though the question never occurred to him.

It did, and I make as much clear above, but perhaps not to someone like Drange who has literary hallucinations. So let's repeat something clearly above:

Drange operates under the assumption that this "awareness" was necessary on such urgent terms that it had to be revealed at once, and that his "billions" of people lost out on some opportunity they were unfairly denied. Since it is our argument that salvation is indeed accessible to "those who haven't heard" Drange's refutation is, as far as we are concerned, ineffectual.

If Drange is any kind of competent critic of Christianity, he would know that "what about those who never hear the Gospel" is a critical question. Indeed, he must know this, since he makes some sort of problem out of people who do never hear of its most essential component: The resurrection.

As my above quoted paragraph makes clear, I am of the persuasion that those who never hear the Gospel in this life -- such as the proverbial Amazon native -- are nevertheless given enough information to make a decision that will enable salvation. How this happens is something I cover in other essays, and it is not necessary to discuss it here. The point is that this is what is going on:

1. Drange's argument requires the (mistaken) assumption that unless someone hears about the resurrection specifically as a historical event, there's some big bad problem with the system that causes people to lose out on something they'd be able to get otherwise.
2. Since this is NOT the case, Drange's argument is a pointless carp. No one loses out on anything for lack of hearing this specific message about the resurrection.
3. Even so, persons who DO hear the message will hear first about the crucifixion, and THEN about the resurrection. Those that hear of the first, will NEED to hear of the second in order for a case to be made that the crucifixion was not (as Jews of the first century will have argued) a judgment of shame by God upon Jesus, or to put it in a more modern way, that he actually deserved what he got, or at least, wasn't rescued from this indignity by God. The resurrection is for people who hear the message, professor -- not people who haven't heard it yet!

If Drange doesn't "get it" this time, he'll be better off coaching the Mountaineer volleyball team.