Licona vs. Shapiro: Is Belief in the Resurrection Justified?

In this episode, Dr. Mike Licona and Dr. Lawrence Shapiro debate the justifiability of believing Jesus was raised from the dead. Dr. Shapiro appeals to Bayes' Theorem and the unverifiability of the alternative hypotheses for the post-death appearances to argue against justifiability. Dr. Licona retorts that Bayes’ Theorem, which states that the less likely something is to happen, the stronger the evidence for it must be to convince us of its truth, is primarily inapplicable in historical studies since it requires that the probabilities for an event’s prior occurrence to be known. He also disputes Shapiro’s claims that the alternative hypotheses are as adequate as the resurrection hypothesis.