The resurrection of Jesus is the most convincing evidence for the existence of God. But did Jesus really rise from the dead? Or was his resurrection a myth perpetrated by fanatical followers? This episode examines the hard historical evidence.

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VIDEO: THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

AUDIO PODCAST: THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Episode 18 of Evidence For Belief, a series which examines evidence for the existence of God. In this episode, we are going to zero in on the Bible’s claim concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Christianity rests upon the resurrection of Jesus, and if it is true, the resurrection provides us with the clearest evidence for the existence of God. But the key phrase there is, “if it is true”. So what can we say about this? Is it true? Is there any evidence at all that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead? Or do we have to blindly accept by faith what the Bible says?

So, let’s dig into this.

Firstly, let’s be clear about what the Bible claims. According to the Gospel accounts, on the third day after his crucifixion, Jesus rose back to life and appeared to his followers over a period of 40 days. He walked and talked and ate meals with his disciples. The Apostle Paul records one occasion when he appeared to a crowd of over 500 people (1 Cor 15:1-11). So, according to the Bible, thousands of people in Judea and Galilee saw Jesus alive again during those 40 days, and his closest disciples finally witnessed him departing from the Earth in what is commonly referred to as the ascension.

The Criteria of Historical Reliability

In the previous Episode, I referred to the Criteria of Historical Reliability that are commonly applied to ancient documents to determine their veracity. The most commonly employed criteria are:

The Criterion of Time Gap
The Criterion of Embarrassment
The Criterion of Multiple Attestation
The Criterion of The Absence of Protestation
The Criterion of Corroboration by Hostile Critics
The Criterion of Author Credibility

All of these have relevance to a discussion of the resurrection of Jesus, but let me just focus on a few of them, and I’ll take them in a slightly different order.

Firstly, the Criterion of Embarrassment. This refers to the inclusion of embarrassing details that you would not expect if the story was fabricated. Thus we find the biblical accounts to be remarkably candid in their depiction of the reluctance of some disciples to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

Not just doubting Thomas, but initially Peter, and John and Mary – and the whole band of disciples generally were VERY slow to believe and had to be convinced. In fact, they are made out to be blockheads who took a lot of convincing, with Jesus needing to assure them on several occasions that he was not a ghost. This is not how you would write the story if you were making it up.

The criterion of author credibility is also very strong for the NT documents. The wide consensus among historians is that the New Testament writers, particularly Luke and Paul, are reliable historical sources of the highest calibre. So their testimonies can’t be easily dismissed.

The British historian and scholar, Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, set out to disprove the reliability of Luke, the author of two books of the NT, the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostle. But after several years of historical and archaeological research he published this conclusion:

“Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy…this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians. Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness…” (Ramsay, W. M. (1907). The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament. London: Hodder & Stoughton.)

So we can’t really dismiss Luke’s accounts about Jesus, particularly his account of the resurrection, as being the fanciful writings of a religious nutbag! Luke is a widely-acknowledged historian of the highest calibre.

Then there’s THE CRITERION OF TIME GAP

I discussed this in the previous episode in regard to the miracles of Jesus, but it is equally applicable to a discussion of his resurrection.

Research by A.N. Sherwin-White shows that mythological embellishment can only successfully take root after considerable time has elapsed. Myths can’t gain traction while eye-witnesses and their contemporaries remain alive who could potentially refute the myth.

Sherwin-White’s research indicates that about 200 years must elapse before major embellishment such as a fabricated resurrection can successfully take hold and gain traction. If mythological embellishment were attempted any sooner than that, it would be strongly refuted by people who knew the truth.

But in the case of Jesus’ resurrection, the New Testament accounts were being circulated within 30 years of the event, while most of the people who were around at the time were still alive. So if it was a myth, a complete fabrication, you would expect a huge public outcry because mythical embellishment and fabrication within the lifetime of eyewitnesses would result in overwhelming protestation.

This leads us to consider the associated criterion of:

The ABSENCE OF PROTESTATION

There is resounding silence from the literary records of the first century in response to the widely-circulated New Testament documents proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection. This is very significant and lends powerful support to the veracity of the NT accounts. If Jesus had not risen from the dead and his body was still demonstrably in the tomb, we should expect a huge public outcry and we ought to be able to see evidence of this in the extant literary records from the first century.

But instead, there is nothing! In particular, there is no literary refutation from the Jewish authorities. They didn’t write a single word refuting his resurrection! And the best and simplest explanation for this is that the tomb was DEMONSTRABLY and VISIBLY empty. The Jewish authorities couldn’t publicly denounce Jesus’ resurrection because so many people had actually seen Jesus alive again (as the Bible documents claim) that his resurrection was well known and undeniable!

The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, writes, “Jesus rose from the dead on the third day … and was seen alive by more than 500 people on one occasion, most of whom are still living”. And that was just one of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. He continued to appear to his disciples and to the larger crowds for forty days.

So, as the Gospels were written and being distributed some 30 years after the event, there were literally thousands of eyewitnesses who were still alive and who could vouch for the veracity of their claims. This is why we don’t find any literary refutation in the historical record.

I want to move on now and speak about a different category of evidence:

EVIDENCE OF HISTORICAL FACT

These are indisputable historical facts which support the resurrection accounts. And I’m going to briefly look at three historical facts:

The empty tomb
The martyrdom of Christians
The conversion of Saul

FACT 1: THE EMPTY TOMB

Firstly, the empty tomb. It’s historically undeniable that the tomb of Jesus was empty on the Sunday after his crucifixion. No serious historian doubts this.

For instance, the highly esteemed classical historian, Michael Grant, acknowledges the empty tomb as a historical fact, even though he does not necessarily accept the resurrection as a supernatural event:

“The historian cannot justifiably deny the empty tomb… if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was indeed found empty.” (Grant, M. (1986). Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.)

The inability of the Jewish authorities to produce the dead body of Jesus in response to the empty tomb is also an undisputed historical fact. You see, if Jesus’ resurrection was NOT true, if it was just a fabrication concocted by a few of his followers, then all the Jewish authorities had to do was open up the tomb and point to Jesus’ dead body and say, “There’s his dead body. He isn’t risen from the dead! Now go away you foolish Christians and stop spreading this ridiculous nonsense!”

But history shows that they never did that, because they couldn’t!

For people today who disbelieve the resurrection as an explanation for the empty tomb, they are left with only two other possible explanations – both of which end up being quite ridiculous.

The first is that Jesus only fainted on the cross and later revived in the tomb and then rolled the two-tonne stone away and burst out of the tomb. This is known as the swoon theory.

But, as evidence against this, the Gospels describe the sudden flow of blood and water that poured out of Jesus’ side when the Roman soldier thrust his spear inside Jesus’ chest as he hung on the cross. Doctors who have analysed that description assure us that this indicates the rupturing of the pericardium around Jesus’ heart and is incontrovertible proof that Jesus was well and truly dead! And bear in mind also that he was pronounced dead by a professional Roman executioner at the sight of the crucifixion. And these were guys who were experts in death – experts in causing it and in diagnosing it. They didn’t make mistakes.

It’s abundantly clear that Jesus was well and truly dead – as dead as you can get!

The only other alternative is that the disciples stole the body of Jesus in order to promote the myth of his resurrection. But this is contradicted by the historical accounts in the Bible which tell us four important things:

The disciples had no pre-existing expectation of a resurrection.
They were terrified and in hiding after the crucifixion – thinking that they were going to be next.
The tomb was guarded by a squad of hardened Roman soldiers against whom the timid disciples would have had no chance of either overpowering or circumventing.
The disciples were very slow to be convinced of the resurrection themselves after it happened. They didn’t believe it at first!

(Additionally, the idea that Jesus’ enemies stole his body is even more unbelievable, as they were the very ones who DIDN’T want to perpetuate the rumour of his resurrection!)

I find this little graphic quite amusing:

It’s a ludicrous theory isn’t it.?

The best explanation of the empty tomb, from a purely logical and historical perspective, is that Jesus really did rise from the dead. And this explanation is further strengthened by the second historical fact. The first fact is the fact of the empty tomb. The second historical fact is:

FACT 2: THE MARTYRDOM OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS

In the years immediately following the resurrection, the Christian community was so convinced of his resurrection that many of them were prepared to be martyred for that belief rather than recant.

Of the twelve Apostles appointed by Jesus, eleven were ultimately put to death for refusing to stop preaching their message about the resurrection and divinity of Jesus. They were crucified, beheaded, burned at the stake, or pierced with spears. Ultimately all but John paid with their lives for their insistence that Jesus had risen from the dead and that they had seen him alive again.

Not only them, but thousands of other first century Christians were also put to death at the hands of both the Jews and the Romans, because of their unwillingness to renounce their belief in the resurrection of Jesus. And the reason they were so adamant is that many of them had seen Jesus alive for themselves.

Nobody is willing to die for something they know to be a lie; at least no one who is sane! If the resurrection was not true, if it was just a fabrication invented by the disciples and the early church, they would not have been willing to die for it.

The fact that the Apostles and many other first century Christians went willingly to their deaths at the hands of the governing authorities, refusing to renounce their belief in Christ’s resurrection, is extremely compelling evidence for its authenticity.

FACT 3: THE CONVERSION OF SAUL

The third compelling historical fact that lends credibility to the resurrection is the conversion of Saul, who later became better known as Paul.

Saul the Pharisee was initially so sceptical about the resurrection of Jesus that he was travelling throughout the land arresting Christians and having some of them stoned to death. His remarkable turn-around to then become one of Christianity’s leading advocates is undisputed by historians. No one disputes his conversion. That is a fact of history.

A.N. Wilson, a British historian, in his book Paul: The Mind of the Apostle:

“Paul’s conversion is one of the great, mysterious moments in history. Whatever it was that happened to him on the road to Damascus, it changed the history of the world. The persecutor became the apostle, and the energy with which he had sought to crush the nascent church was now turned to its most determined propagation.” (Wilson, A.N. (1997). Paul: The Mind of the Apostle. New York: W.W. Norton & Company).

What was it that prompted Paul’s conversion? Paul actually tells us. On six separate occasions in his subsequent letters to churches he speaks of his transformation from being a persecutor of the church to become an Apostle of Jesus, and he consistently puts this down to Jesus actually appearing to him.

For example he writes these statements:

“I have seen Jesus our Lord” (1 Cor 9:1)

“I received a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:12)

“God was pleased to reveal his Son to me” (Gal 1:15)

These and other statements reference Paul’s dramatic encounter with the risen Jesus, recorded for us in Acts 9, while Paul was travelling to Damascus to arrest more Christians.

While Saul’s conversion doesn’t constitute incontrovertible PROOF of Jesus’ resurrection, it is certainly strong evidence. From a purely historical perspective, something extraordinary happened to him on the road to Damascus to have caused such a dramatic backflip. And Saul the Pharisee does NOT give any indication of being the kind of person who is subject to hallucinations or delusional flights of fancy. He was a hard-nosed hater and persecutor of Christians.

And, in the end Paul was executed Rome for his belief in the resurrection of Jesus.

Paul’s conversion from a rabid opponent of Jesus to someone willing to die for his belief in the resurrected Jesus is very powerful historical evidence and it’s difficult to explain in any other way!

N.T. Wright, an eminent historian and New Testament scholar, wrote in his recent study of the resurrection:

“That is why, as a historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him. The empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus have a historical probability so high as to be virtually certain, like the death of Augustus in AD 14 and the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.” [1]

This prompts the obvious question: How do YOU explain all this evidence? How do you respond to it?

Sceptics Convinced and Converted by The Resurrection

Over the years, many academics and historians have set out to disprove the resurrection story. Their philosophy was simple; disprove the resurrection and you remove the strongest argument for the existence of God. Not only have these attempts been unsuccessful, they’ve regularly led to the complete capitulation and conversion of those undertaking the research:

Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1851-1939) was a highly respected historian and archaeologist from Scotland. He set out to disprove the historical reliability of the New Testament, particularly the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. He spent 15 years researching,

But in the end, he was so convinced by the historicity of these documents that he became a Christian himself. only to end up being convinced of the incredible accuracy of the New Testament. He converted to Christianity, and called Luke one of the greatest historians to ever live. He wrote several books on the subject, which have stood the test of time. His work caused an outcry from atheists because they had been funding his research and were eagerly awaiting his results in disproving the validity of the New Testament![i]

Albert Henry Ross (1881-1950) was an English journalist and author who set out to disprove the “myth” of the resurrection. He was planning on writing a paper called “Jesus – The Last Phase”, but he became converted during the course of his investigations. He ended up writing the classic book “Who Moved The Stone?”[ii]under the pseudonym Frank Morrison.

Lee Strobel (born 1952) was an investigative journalist for the Chicago Tribune. His wife converted to Christianity and Lee became very concerned. In order to “rescue” his wife from the church, he set out to disprove Christianity, focussing on the resurrection story. He spent 18 months, utilising his skills as a researcher and investigative reporter, interviewing experts from around the world, and studying the 1^st century documents for himself. The overwhelming evidence for the resurrection of Christ eventually led to his own conversion, and he went on to write the now famous book, “The Case For Christ”[iii] (recently made into a movie), along with several other books in the series, which have led many people to faith in Christ.

C. S. Lewis, (1898 – 1963) was a distinguished professor of English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge universities (at different times), and is widely regarded as one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. He was originally an ardent atheist who fought long and hard to maintain his disbelief. In his book, “Surprised by Joy”, he wrote of his eventual conversion, stating:

“In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”[iv]

Lewis’s inability to refute the solid historical evidence for the life and resurrection of Jesus led to his reluctant conversion – a conversion that would eventually result in the publication of, arguably, the most profound Christian philosophical writings of the modern era.

It is the reluctance of these scholars to be converted, that makes their eventual conversions all the more significant. Indeed, history is replete with respected scholars who set out to disprove the resurrection of Jesus and were eventually convinced by the overwhelming weight of historical evidence.

The miraculous life and ultimately, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the strongest possible evidence for the existence of God, who once made a personal appearance on our planet over 2,000 years ago. While we may wish God to be as obvious to us today as he was in the life of Jesus, we simply can’t ignore the fact that, at one point in history, God revealed himself to humanity in the clearest possible manner. The life and resurrection of Jesus is extremely compelling evidence for the existence of God.

For more information, you can check out my books, available from my website, smartfaith.net, where you can also subscribe to my weekly blog.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] N. T Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2003, p. 71

[i] Josh McDowell, “Evidence That Demands A Verdict”, Thomas Nelson Inc, 1979

[ii] Frank Morrison, “Who Moved The Stone”, Zondervan Press. 1930 (latest edition 2002)

[iii] Lee Strobel, “The Case For Christ”, Zondervan Press, 1998

[iv] C. S. Lewis, “Surprised By Joy”, Harper Collins, New York, 1955, Ch. 14, p. 266

Evidence For Belief, Episode 18: The Resurrection of Jesus