Evidence for the Resurrection
With Easter upon us, I think it is the perfect time to explore some of the amazing evidence we have for Christ’s resurrection. However, there is so much to cover that I am only going to include in this article historical facts; that is, historical data that is accepted by a minimum of 90% of scholars in the ancient historical field, both Christian, and non-Christian alike. I will also include one additional piece of data that has around 70% acceptance by scholars, because I believe it deserves wider reception based on the evidence in favor of its authenticity. This article will be a little longer than my typical works, so let’s get right to it!
The Facts
1. Jesus Died by Crucifixion
“One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate.” -Bart Ehrman, agnostic New Testament scholar.
You may be wondering what the crucifixion does to help prove that Jesus was raised, but we’ll get to that after we lay out all of the facts. For now, just know that in order to be raised from the dead, one must first be dead. We have nine major sources for the crucifixion: Josephus, Tacitus, Mara Bar Serapion, Lucian of Samosata (the greek satirist), the Talmud, and of course, the four gospels. If you are a skeptic and it bothers you that I counted books in the New Testament of the Bible as sources for a historical event, it may shock you to learn that critics use the New Testament to do history. In the words of historian and philosopher Gary Habermas, “[Critics] will use it if you don’t.” Before we move on, let’s look at a couple of these sources for the crucifixion of Jesus:
Josephus: “When Pilate, upon hearing Him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned Him to be crucified...” Antiquities 18:64
Tacitus: “Nero fastened the guilt [of the burning of Rome] and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called ‘Christians’ by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.” Annals 15. 44. 26-28
2. The Disciples Believed that Jesus Rose and Appeared to them.
This shouldn’t be a controversial claim. Amongst scholars it certainly isn’t. Perhaps the best source we have (though there are plenty) is Paul; more specifically, the creed he writes in 1 Corinthians 15 which says, “For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received - that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” As I mentioned in a different article, scholars have identified this as a creed by looking carefully at the structure of the passage in Greek. Creeds were used to quickly pass on important information in a concise and easily memorizable fashion. This particular creed has also been identified as the earliest passage in the New Testament, dating it to within 3-5 years of the crucifixion! We also have accounts of the disciples and Paul preaching that Jesus was resurrected in the works of Clement of Rome hand Polycarp. Tertullian and Irenaeus record that these two knew and fellowshipped personally with at least some of the disciples and/or Paul.
So clearly they claimed that Jesus rose, but did they really believe it? Did they lie about Jesus’ resurrection? (This will be important later). To answer these questions, we must look no further than their behavior before and after their experiences of what they believed to be the risen Jesus.
First, at the crucifixion, the disciples ran away and hid out of fear that they would be arrested and suffer a similar fate. However, after their experiences of Jesus alive and well after His gruesome death, they were willing to put themselves in harm’s way and risk death repeatedly for simply claiming that Jesus rose from the dead. Why this sudden boldness? You would expect this from someone who was no longer afraid of death due to, oh I don’t know, their Lord rising and telling them that they will be raised too. As a general rule, liars make terrible martyrs.
Now, I’m not arguing that because they simply believed it, it is therefore true. The terrorists on the planes on 9/11 certainly believed that Islam was true, but the key difference here is that the disciples of Jesus were eye witnesses to the event. They didn’t merely believe the resurrection to be true or false, they knew it to be true or false, and they claimed unto death that it was true. Not a single one of the disciples recanted their beliefs, unlike the “witnesses” of Joseph Smith’s golden plates who later admitted that they saw no such thing.
3. The Church Persecutor Paul Suddenly Changed
Skeptics typically say that the best historical source we have in the New Testament is Paul. Paul, who wrote a huge chunk of the New Testament was not just a doubter or skeptic prior to his conversion to Christianity, but a violent persecutor of Christians, going town to town imprisoning, and even killing people for believing in the resurrection of Jesus. So what changed Paul from a violent enemy of Jesus to one of the most influential and outspoken proponents of His death, burial, and resurrection? Paul didn’t simply change his mind, he claimed that the risen Jesus appeared to him personally. This belief was held so strongly by Paul that he, like all of the other disciples, was willing to suffer continuously, be imprisoned, and even die for it, never recanting his belief.
4. James, the Brother of Jesus, Changed His Belief in the Resurrection
The gospels record that the brothers of Jesus were unbelievers during His ministry. The ancient creedal material in 1 Corinthians which we mentioned earlier mentions an appearance of the risen Jesus to James. James is later recorded as being one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem such as in Acts chapter 15 with the whole Mosaic Law controversy. This gives rise to the age-old question: what would it take to convince you that your brother is God incarnate? James heard the things Jesus went around preaching. He and his family are recorded as believing that Jesus was out of His mind. But after James was appeared to by his brother after His death, he became one of the leaders of his brother’s church. James, consistent with the others, was persecuted and eventually killed for his belief in the resurrection of Christ. His martyrdom is recorded by Josephus, Hegesippus, and Clement of Alexandria (not to be confused with Clement of Rome).
5. The Empty Tomb
This is the last historical fact I will offer. As I said at the beginning of this article, the empty tomb does not have a consensus of scholarly consensus, yet still boasts an impressive 70% acceptance amongst scholars. We have accounts of the empty tomb in the gospels, of course, but also in the works of Justin Martyr and Tertullian. It is also supported by the account given of women reporting the tomb empty tomb. I don’t think I have to explain how the testimony of women was considered to be unreliable in that culture. It would have hurt the credibility of the movement for women to have been the primary witnesses of the empty tomb. If the authors of the gospels made the story up, it would have made their story less believable! The only reason they would have recorded the women discovering the empty tomb is to accurately report what really happened. This falls under a category called the “criterion of embarrassment.” It would’ve hurt their case at the time, but it helps us today!
Furthermore, we have enemy attestation from the Jewish leaders of the day. They didn’t believe Jesus rose, but they certainly admitted that the tomb was found empty. They claimed that the disciples stole Jesus’ body. Now, if I tell my teacher that my dog ate my homework, I would have to have some pretty good proof to get her to believe it, but even if I lied and the dog did not in fact eat my homework, I am indirectly admitting that my homework is missing. Similarly, the Jewish leaders weren’t able to prove that the disciples stole the body, but they indirectly admitted that the tomb was empty. This historical criterion is called “enemy attestation,” and, like the criterion of embarrassment, it serves to authenticate certain historical details.
The last thing I will say about the empty tomb is that, if you were to claim that someone was raised from the dead in the same city they were buried in, someone could simply exhume the body to shut you up. If this had occurred, there would be no Christianity.
Now that we have covered the facts, we have a solid case for the resurrection of Christ using only facts that are accepted by the majority of Christian and skeptical scholars alike. When these facts are put together, they demand an explanation that can account for them all. So let’s look at a few theories that have been put forth in an attempt to explain all of the facts of the matter without appealing to the resurrection.
The Swoon Theory
This theory was popular over a hundred years ago, but is not taken seriously in light of modern studies of roman crucifixion. The theory claims that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, but rather “swooned” and was thought to be dead, but came to later in the tomb and somehow got out and appeared to the disciples. You can already see at least 4 problems with this theory, but the fact that only one person has been known to have survived crucifixion (a friend of Josephus) and soon after died from his injuries is enough to discredit this theory. Romans were experts in execution. They were also thorough enough to stab Jesus in the side to make sure He was dead.
The Wrong Tomb Theory
This theory still gets thrown around a bit, but suffers from common sense problems. The theory suggests that on the Sunday after the crucifixion, the women visited the wrong tomb by mistake and jumped to the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead. However, we know whose tomb Jesus was laid in. Joseph of Arimathea donated his own tomb to have Jesus properly buried. Also, Roman guards were stationed at the tomb at special request from the Jewish leaders. You would think that if the rumor was being spread that Jesus was raised from the dead, that someone would go check the tomb to make sure. It is highly unlikely that everyone who went to see for themself accidentally visited the wrong tomb. The Roman guards posted outside the tomb would also surely have been consulted. “No, He’s still in there. The rock is still shut,” they would’ve said, and the rumor would be thwarted.
Now, if men were the ones who discovered the empty tomb, this theory would be more believable. The women would have stopped to ask for directions!
The Group Hallucination Theory
This is the most popular theory today. The theory claims that the disciples and the 500 some witnesses that Jesus appeared to simply hallucinated. Now, let’s see if this accounts for all of the facts. It fails to account for the empty tomb, and it can be argued that it fails to account for
Paul’s experience since the kind of hallucination described is typically grief hallucination. Paul was glad Jesus was dead. He may have had 99 problems, but grief was not one of them. Furthermore, in all of our psychological studies on hallucination, there is not a single case of multiple people seeing and hearing the same thing at the same time. If 10 people take LSD, they don’t all see the same Magic butterfly! So this theory doesn’t account for the group appearances of Christ. Remember that this is the most popular theory out there currently. It just goes to show how strong a case can be made for the resurrection. And these are only five facts out of dozens! A much stronger case can be made from the rest of the evidence we have, but the cumulative case is far too long for a mere article, and countless books have been written to include all of the data; I will include some of those books below.
He is risen!
Recommended Resources:
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona