Dear Mr. Chaffey, it was not "multiple" eyewitnesses, it was THREE

Chaffey in "In Defense of Easter" at 25:

"Multiple reliable eyewitnesses testified that Jesus was alive after being dead and buried,.  Some of those eyewitness accounts have been preserved for us in the bible, and because this is the inspired inerrant word of God, Scripture is actually another infallible proof of Christ's resurrection."

 First, the only testimonies to the resurrection of Jesus in the NT that come down to us today in first-hand or "eyewitness" form are Matthew, John and Paul, and that requires generously granting traditional apostolic authorship for those two gospels, despite an avalanche of scholarship, including many Christian scholars, saying Matthew and John are anonymous.  Some would argue that apologists do not mean "three" when they say "multiple", especially if the apologist says "multiple" after reciting at least 6 different sources (Chaffey at 22-24).  Chaffey is simplistically smooshing NT hearsay and first-hand testimony together as if the distinction between the two weren't sufficiently serious to take into account.  On the contrary, no historian or Court of law will support the premise that hearsay and first-hand reports deserve equal treatment. Courts have not generally made hearsay inadmissible over the course of 200 years of jurisprudence merely because they work for the devil.  If you were on trial for murder and knew you were innocent, and the only witness against you on the stand was a person who admitted they didn't see you pull the trigger, they only know this because their best friend, a really honest person, told them so...you'd be screaming at the top of your lungs that this is hearsay and inadmissible. 

Second, Chaffey's appeal to biblical inerrancy to justify saying the bible is another infallible proof of Christ's resurrection, makes clear that despite his claimed purpose to equip Christians to answer skeptical challenges, what he is really doing is providing Christians with reasons to believe their faith rests on reliable historical sources.  How is this any different than the Mormon Sunday School teacher who assures her class that skeptics of Mormonism are wrong, because the Book of Mormon is the word of God?  That preaches nice, but does that really give Mormons anything to shoot back at skeptics?

Third, Chaffey's need to premise his argument on the Christian reader's existing faith is confirmed by his next argument, that skeptics deny these infallible proofs because the bible says they have hardened their hearts to the truth (Chaffey at 25-26).  That is hardly a rebuttal to a skeptical argument, that is nothing but preaching to the choir. 

Fourth, Chaffey at 25-26 cites to Abraham's statement in Luke 16:31 to support his belief that it is sinful hardening of the heart that explains unbelievers' disbelief in the resurrection of Jesus. Chaffey uses a poor excuse given by atheist Michael Martin as a proof that Abe was correct:  thsoe who disbelieve Moses and the prophets will say and do anything, no matter how empty of intellectual merit, to avoid admitting Jesus rose from the dead.

This is a deductive fallacy, as Michael Martin does not represent other skeptics, and certainly not myself.  I deny Martin's absurd premise that a person could rise from the dead apart from any natural or supernatural cause. Under atheism, this universe is governed by nothing but natural causes.  If Martin was implicitly relying on the notion that quantum physics tells us virtual particles can be created from nothing (i.e., it is possible for events to happen without cause), then he is still wrong.  There are multiple schools of quantum theory, and it is only the Copenhagen school that asserts this magical nonsense.  The only reason somebody thinks quantum physics opens the door to supernatural possibilities is because they are not aware of the other competing schools of quantum physics that preach a deterministic universe.

  Sheldon Goldstein, a professor of mathematics, physics and philosophy at Rutgers University and a supporter of pilot-wave theory, blames the “preposterous” neglect of the theory on “decades of indoctrination.” At this stage, Goldstein and several others noted, researchers risk their careers by questioning quantum orthodoxy.

All Chaffey has done is prove, at best, that Michael Martin's unbelief arises from a hardened heart.  I might even agree since causeless events violate common sense and empiricism no less than resurrection does.

Skeptics could, equally uselessly, boast that the only reason Christians cling to their faith is because they are weak-minded and need a crutch to avoid feeling lost and purposeless in a naturalistic universe.

I suggest greater good could be done if we avoid trying to read each other's mind and simply stick to academic argument.

The final confirmation that I've gotten Chaffey right saying he is preaching to the choir is page 27, which indicates the prior sections of the chapter were written so that Christians could have utmost confidence in the resurrection of Jesus.   In this last section, he is simply quoting the bible and blindly assuming the truth of whatever it says.