{"id":170,"date":"2016-03-27T19:52:57","date_gmt":"2016-03-27T23:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/?p=170"},"modified":"2017-03-22T12:21:04","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T16:21:04","slug":"the-public-proofs-for-the-resurrection-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/03\/27\/the-public-proofs-for-the-resurrection-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Public Proofs for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ – part 1 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Risen<\/a>

Risen movie sealed tomb screen shot<\/p><\/div>\n

Secular skeptics have this idea that biblical revelation comes from some guy hearing voices in his head, to the extent that it is not purposely made up to appear to be revelation.\u00a0 Revelation is purely subjective in their view, completely separate from science, the realm of objective, provable facts. \u00a0In another essay, I have addressed how the truth of Christian theism is actually necessary for the possibility of science.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Putting religion completely in the realm of the subjective is an error for the additional reason that Christianity makes numerous historical claims.\u00a0 Michael Patton points out that Christianity is unique among the world\u2019s religions in its falsifiability:<\/p>\n

They [religions of the world] are all, with the exception of Christianity, based on private encounters which cannot be falsified or subjective ideas which are beyond inquiry. The amazing thing about Christianity is that there is so much historic data to be tested. Christianity is, by far, the most falsifiable worldview there is. Yet, despite this, Christianity flourished in the first century among the very people who could test its claims. And even today, it calls on us to \u201ccome and see\u201d if the claims are true.[2]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Muhammad, the founder of Islam, admitted that he performed no miracles.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 His revelations were purely private encounters.\u00a0\u00a0 Mormonism has some testable historical claims, but they turn out to be false.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Joseph Smith performed no public miracles.\u00a0 Buddhism and Hinduism have no historical claims to test.<\/p>\n

There are philosophical provisos to the testability of Christianity. \u00a0First, all facts are interpreted facts. \u00a0Facts do not “speak for themselves,” as postmodernists have had to admit in rejecting modernism. \u00a0Second, modern scholarship is committed to the anti-Christian philosophical approach to facts that science must exclude the supernatural.\u00a0 The Christian must accept what modern scholarship generally rejects, which is that God can speak infallibly about historical events, and He knows more than any scientist ever could.\u00a0 This Christian assumption is necessarily true for the possibility of science, as I argue in the essay mentioned above.\u00a0 And, third, even apart from the atheist biases, there is a danger making absolute pronouncements about events thousands of years ago when there is so much evidence that has been destroyed by the passage of time that could put what we have discovered in a different light.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the Bible makes many historical claims that are easily falsifiable.\u00a0 Some historical claims could only have been examined by those living near the time that they happened, and others involve evidence that can be investigated in our own day.\u00a0 The Bible, in fact, dictates empirical tests for the validity of revelation.\u00a0 For example, there is the test of a prophetic prediction being fulfilled:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if you say in your heart, \u2018How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?\u2019\u2014 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him\u201d (Deuteronomy 18:21-22).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another test is the performance of miracles.\u00a0 Moses was concerned that no one would believe that God had sent him:\u00a0 \u201cThen Moses answered, \u2018But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, \u201cThe Lord did not appear to you\u201d\u2019\u201d (Exodus 4:1).\u00a0 Did God rebuke Moses for asking Him to provide empirical proof to the skeptical audience Moses would face rather than leaving it to blind faith?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 God gave Moses three miraculous signs to perform, just in case one or two signs were not enough:\u00a0 1) a staff that would turn into a snake and then back into a staff; 2) putting his hand in his coat and pulling it out as leprous, and then reversing it; and, 3) pouring water from the Nile onto dry ground where it would turn into blood (Exodus 4:2-9).\u00a0 On top of that, God sent nine more devastating plagues on Egypt (with the Nile turning to blood being the first of ten).\u00a0 These weren\u2019t miracles that could be attributed to positive thinking, like people walking with crutches leaving their crutches behind.\u00a0 Neither could such spectacular miracles be credibly dismissed as staged tricks.\u00a0 An atheist could always hold onto their faith that a miracle will someday be explainable by the laws of nature, yet even an atheist would have a hard time denying miracles like the plagues of Egypt.<\/p>\n

As with Moses, when Gideon asked for validation that the message he heard was from God, God complied (Judges 6:36-40).\u00a0 Gideon laid a fleece on the ground and asked God for dew to appear on the fleece in the morning, but for the ground to be dry.\u00a0 It happened just as Gideon had asked.\u00a0 Then Gideon asked for a second test to be sure, that the dew would be on the ground and the fleece would be dry.\u00a0 That happened too.<\/p>\n

Elijah provided proof that the God of Israel was the true God by proposing a test to the prophets of Baal, for the true God to send fire from heaven to burn a sacrifice of an ox cut up on a pile of wood (1 Kings 18:20-40).\u00a0 For nearly a day, the prophets of Baal jumped around and cut themselves according to their rituals and asked their god to answer, but they couldn\u2019t get their god to send fire to burn the sacrifice \u2013 or give any other answer.\u00a0 Elijah then poured four barrels of water over the ox and the wood until the trench around it overflowed with water.\u00a0 God immediately answered Elijah\u2019s petition, and fire came down from heaven and consumed the ox, the wood, and the water in the trench.\u00a0 No reasonable room for skepticism was left about who the true God was and who was a true prophet of that God.<\/p>\n

When Jesus was asked by the disciples of John the Baptist whether He was the Messiah they had been looking for, or if they should look for someone else,\u00a0 Jesus responded by performing several miracles in front of them and then telling them to go tell John what they had seen ( Luke 7:18-22).\u00a0 Of course, His resurrection from the dead was His greatest miracle, and He followed that with \u201cmany convincing proofs\u201d that He had come back to life over a period of forty days (Acts 1:3).\u00a0 \u00a0He showed Himself in a variety of settings to a diverse group of over people, including over 500 people at one time (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).\u00a0 Paul expected Agrippa, King of Judea, to be familiar with Christ\u2019s life, death, and resurrection for, he told the king, \u201cthis has not been done in a corner\u201d (Acts 26:26).<\/p>\n

When Thomas refused to believe until he could touch Jesus\u2019s puncture wounds, Jesus obliged Thomas\u2019 request.\u00a0 Jesus then says, \u201cHave you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed\u201d (John 20:29).\u00a0 Does this mean that Jesus rejected providing evidence for a claim?\u00a0 No, I just pointed out several other instances in which He provides evidence.\u00a0 Jesus could make that statement because Thomas had already been given sufficient evidence without actually touching Jesus\u2019 wounds.\u00a0 Also, as I\u2019ll explain in part 2, there is other evidence of His claims that Jesus provided to those who would live later in history, evidence even more publicly available than the resurrection and that indirectly supports the resurrection.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 The Evidence for the Resurrection<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The attempts to deny the historicity of Christ\u2019s resurrection fall short:[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Explaining the Empty Tomb.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If Jesus had not really been resurrected, the enemies of Christianity almost certainly would have been able to find the body and display it. \u00a0The location of the tomb was well-known, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.\u00a0 Mary Magdalene, another Mary, and Nicodemus visited it (Matt. 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42), and the Roman soldiers were dispatched to it by the chief priests, Pharisees, and Pilate to guard it, without any issue being raised about its location (Matt. 27:62-66).\u00a0 \u00a0It would be been nearly impossible for someone to steal the body because a) it was guarded by Roman soldiers who would abandon their post only on penalty of death (cf. Acts 12:19, 16:25-30), and b) the Roman soldiers \u201csealed\u201d the large stone that was over the tomb (Matt. 27:66).\u00a0 The seal was a warning that anyone breaking the seal would suffer a painful death by the power of the Roman Empire.\u00a0 And yet, the best that the Jewish leaders could do to undermine the report of the resurrection was to claim that the body had been stolen (Matt. 28:11-15), even though they themselves had put strong security measures in place to prevent that very thing.\u00a0 Their claim that the body was stolen also inadvertently testifies to two things:\u00a0 1) The empty tomb and, 2) that there had been a dead body in their to begin with that needed to be guarded. \u00a0If they could have produced the body rather than claiming it had been stolen while under Roman guard, they would have had a much stronger argument that Jesus had not been resurrected.<\/p>\n

    Some liberal scholars have claimed that it is unlikely that Jesus was buried because Rome usually left the corpses to rot and be scavenged by vultures on the cross and later be eaten by dogs.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 While that happened, especially for those convicted of high treason, Roman law recommended that \u201cThe bodies of those who are condemned to death should not be refused their relatives.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 The first century Jewish historian Josephus records that the Romans tried to accommodate the religious customs of the Jews in Israel ,[8]<\/a> specifically including the opportunity to bury the corpse of an executed person within a day as required by Deuteronomy 21:22-23.[9]<\/a> Furthermore, convincing people that Jesus had been resurrected after having been eaten by dogs and vultures would have been a much harder sell than if His body had been laid in a tomb.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Mass Hallucinations?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Some have claimed the possibility of a mass hallucination to account for the reports of Christ\u2019s resurrection, but there is no proof that mass hallucinations occur, especially ones extended in time with different groups of people in different places.\u00a0 He appeared to a crowd of 500 people at one time (1 Cor. 15:6).\u00a0 During the forty days between His resurrection and ascension, He had time to present \u201cmany proofs\u201d to many different people that He was alive from the dead (Acts 1:3).\u00a0 Not all believed, but they saw Him anyway, like Thomas (John 20:24-29; cf. Matt. 28:17).\u00a0 Individuals are known to have hallucinations of loved ones who have died, but there is no reason that Paul, when busy as an enemy of Christians, would have had a hallucination of the resurrected Christ.\u00a0 Visions of the recently-dead were well-known in the ancient world, but such visions were taken as proof that the person was dead, not alive.\u00a0 When Peter escaped from prison and knocked on the door where Christians had gathered to pray for him, those inside were could not believe that Peter was actually there and insisted that instead it must be Peter\u2019s angel at the door (Acts 12:15).\u00a0 A similar thing could have been said about appearances of Jesus if there had not been further physical proof that it was really Him, alive in the flesh.\u00a0 The hallucination theory, or any other psychological theory to discount the resurrection, does not explain the absence of a body.<\/p>\n

      Jews of the first century would not have confused a claim that someone was resurrected from the dead with a claim of a vision.\u00a0 While Jews had their beliefs about ghosts and visions, they also had strong belief in the possibility of physical resurrection from such Old Testament passages as Ezekiel 37 and Isaiah 26:19. Belief in a physical resurrection based on the Old Testament is seen in the testimony of the Jewish martyrs during the Maccabean revolt (2 Macc. 7:10-11); and the Pharisees were strong believers in a physical resurrection (Acts 23:6-9).\u00a0 Some of the Pharisees joined the Christian movement (Acts 15:5).\u00a0 Therefore, when the Jews who followed Jesus proclaimed His resurrection, the meaning of their claim was very clear to their audience; and they would have distinguished between that claim and a non-physical vision.<\/p>\n

      A comparison of the claims of recent visions of Mary and the resurrection of Christ shows that they are very different claims.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 In the Marian visions of Medjugorje eight children claimed to have a vision of Mary and even touch her robe.\u00a0 But others present when they had\u00a0 the vision could see nothing.\u00a0 The children\u2019s vision happened to be described exactly like a picture of Mary that had been hanging in their church for years, including the colors of her clothing and her blue eyes.\u00a0 There is little chance that the real Mary from the Middle East had blue eyes and wore the same clothes as the artist chose to depict her with over a thousand years later.\u00a0 These children received fame and fortune with no negative consequences.\u00a0 The apostles and many other witnesses maintained their belief in the resurrection of Jesus despite suffering severe persecution and martyrdom .\u00a0 Unlike the children at Medjugorje, the witnesses to the resurrection knew Jesus before His death; so after the crucifixion they were in a position to know that it was Him who stood before them alive again.\u00a0 Jesus was concerned to prove that He was not a ghost, even eating fish in their presence that the disciples gave Him (Luke 24:36-42).\u00a0 As mentioned above, Jesus appeared to a large number of people in a variety of settings, and even those who had been skeptics became convinced that they had seen the risen Christ.<\/p>\n

      People having visions of Jesus while His body was still lying in the tomb would not have been sufficient to produce belief in the resurrection, at least not in a significant number of people or in a significant strength of conviction.\u00a0 That would have simply been regarded as strange experiences.\u00a0 And a missing body without appearances would not have been enough to produce significant belief in the resurrection either, especially for skeptics like Thomas, James, and Saul\/Paul of Tarsus.\u00a0 But an empty tomb plus appearances were sufficient proof for many to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, even strong skeptics, with the additional factor of belief in the teachings of the Old Testament (see 6 below) providing the context to properly understand what the resurrection meant.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. The Resurrection Myth Developed Years after Christ\u2019s Death?<\/strong>\n
          \n
        1. Skeptics were convinced of the resurrection soon after Jesus\u2019 death<\/em>: Jesus\u2019 brother James was a skeptic prior to the resurrection (Mark 3:21-35; John 7:5), but because of Christ\u2019s post-resurrection appearance to James (1 Corinthians 15:7), he became a believer and even a leader in the Jerusalem church soon after the resurrection.\u00a0 Similarly, Paul was originally an enemy of the Christians (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13-14; Phil. 3:4-7), but is convinced of the resurrection by His own encounter with living Christ on the road to Damascus, plus by his research into the testimony of others who saw the resurrected Christ, including James (1 Cor. 15:3; 2:1-10).<\/li>\n
        2. A large number of eyewitnesses to the resurrection of different types of people in different types of situations: <\/em>Paul gives an account of Christ\u2019s resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 that lists various people and groups who witnessed the risen Christ, including a crowd of over 500 at one time.\u00a0 Making claims that can potentially be refuted by so many people is a big risk if the story is false.<\/li>\n
        3. 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 is a statement about Christ\u2019s resurrection that reflects a belief originating within two to five years after Christ\u2019s death<\/em>: Nearly all historians, including the liberal ones, accept that this understanding of the resurrection, possibly a formal creed, dates to within five years of the death of Jesus, possibly as early as two years later.\u00a0 Paul says that he \u201creceived\u201d the belief about Christ\u2019s post-resurrection appearances from others (1 Cor. 15:3), so it predates Paul\u2019s conversion.\u00a0 The other apostles are preaching the same doctrine as Paul (1 Cor. 15:12, 15).\u00a0 That the creed is not Paul\u2019s own creation is also supported by the fact that it contains several non-Pauline words.\u00a0 Paul had visited the major apostles in Jerusalem twice (Gal. 2:1-10) to make sure that he understood the gospel, which is likely when he would have been taught this account of the resurrection.[11]<\/a><\/li>\n
        4. The historical order is the church first believing in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, then came theories of a spiritual-only resurrection<\/em>: Liberal scholars claim that belief in the resurrection of Jesus at first amounted to a metaphorical way to express feelings of forgiveness and comfort when people thought about Jesus, and then later grew into a legend of his bodily resurrection. \u00a0\u00a0This view arose among liberal scholars at the same time that existential philosophy was also in vogue among biblical scholars, and a spiritual-only resurrection fit neatly within that philosophical commitment.[12]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 These scholars were not neutrally examining the facts but rather looking through a distorted lens of philosophical commitments to arrive at their view of how belief in the resurrection arose in the early church.The liberals\u2019 claims about Jesus\u2019 resurrection is related to the issue of the dating of the New Testament manuscripts.\u00a0 Liberals have given a second-century date for the creation of the New Testament manuscripts, which gives them historical room to claim that there were wide-spread Christian beliefs very different from the beliefs that are expressed in the New Testament when it was written nearly a century later.\u00a0 On the other hand, if the New Testament was written much earlier and reflects early Christian beliefs, then the historical trend is the opposite of that claimed by liberals.\u00a0 In that case, belief in physical resurrection preceded belief in a spiritual-only resurrection by about a century.[13]<\/a>In addition to the belief about the resurrection expressed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 originating two to five\u00a0years after Jesus\u2019 death, the four gospels and other New Testament letters depict a physical resurrection.\u00a0 A strong case can be made that all of the New Testament was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 because none of the New Testament books mention it.\u00a0 Appeal to the A.D. 70 destruction would have been likely because it would have served as a strong polemic against the Pharisaic Jews who were persecuting the Christians.\u00a0 For example, Matthew mentions the veil to the Holy of Holies in the Temple being ripped in two when Jesus died (Matthew 27:51).\u00a0 Such a sign of God\u2019s abandonment of the Temple would have been reinforced by the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70.\u00a0 Matthew mentions Jesus\u2019 prophecy that it would be destroyed (Matthew 24), but he does not mention the fulfillment of the destruction, nor does any other New Testament writer.\u00a0 If the New Testament had been written at a late date, we should also expect one or more of them to mention the execution of James, the brother of Jesus, in A.D. 62, and the executions of Peter and Paul in A.D. 65.By time that Luke writes his gospel and Acts, he says that, already, \u201cmany have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us\u201d (Luke 1:1).\u00a0 Luke is extremely accurate in his historical details, such as accurately identifying the titles for Roman officials for a particular point in history despite the fact that those titles often changed,[14]<\/a> which means that he was very close to those events; and the previous writings that he mentions would have been even closer.\u00a0 All four gospels were nearly universally regarded by Christians throughout the world as canonical (part of the Bible) by at least the mid-second century; therefore, they had to be in circulation long before that.[15]<\/a>Twentieth century liberal scholars have claimed that the New Testament must have been written in the second century because early Christians were largely illiterate and disdained written records over oral tradition.\u00a0 But while the literacy rate among the first generation of Christians was probably about the same low rate as others at that time period, about 10-15%, the Jewish culture nevertheless placed a high value on written documents because of the role that the Old Testament played in shaping their culture.\u00a0 In the Old Testament, major redemptive acts of God are accompanied by new\u00a0 The new revelation amounts to a renewal of God\u2019s covenant with His people, and like the suzerain covenants of the ancient world, the covenants were memorialized in written documents.\u00a0 The coming of the Messiah was a new redemptive act of God bar none, and is described in the Old Testament as a \u201cnew covenant\u201d with God\u2019s people (Jeremiah 31:31; cf. Luke 22:20).\u00a0 Therefore, a new written revelation of the new covenant by God\u2019s chosen prophets of that time is to be expected.\u00a0 As Moses and David authored new covenantal material for the instruction of God\u2019s people, so were the Apostles of Christ directed to record the history and terms of the New Covenant, now known as the New Testament (cf. John 14:26, 15:27, 16:13-15).[16]<\/a>\n

          In contrast to the mid-first century origin of the New Testament and its teaching of a bodily resurrection of Jesus, belief in Gnosticism, which denied the physical resurrection of Jesus because the physical was seen as sinful and the spiritual as good, did not arise to a significant degree until the second century.\u00a0 The Gnostic gospels, which were written in the second century and later, had to be written to support the Gnostic view because the canonical gospels did not support that view.[17]<\/a>\u00a0 The Gnostic gospels were rejected by church leaders because they knew that they did not come from the apostles, in addition to teaching views contrary to the received gospels.\u00a0 The church only accepted writings as canonical which could be traced to the apostles or their associates in ministry because eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus were the only ones who could give credible testimony to the events of His life.[18]<\/a>\u00a0 Those writings all testify to a physical resurrection of Jesus.<\/li>\n

        5. The early adoption of worship on Sunday<\/em>: The earliest records describe Christians setting aside Sunday as the day of the week for corporate worship (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2).\u00a0 Yet the Saturday Sabbath was ingrained in Jewish thinking and life.\u00a0 It was a thousand-year-plus tradition from Moses, who received it directly from God on Mt. Sinai.\u00a0 There had to be a major event to convince thousands of Jews to change their day of corporate worship to Sunday.\u00a0 The reason given in writings of the early church is that the resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week marked the first day of a new creation.[19]<\/a><\/li>\n
        6. Women as witnesses<\/em>: The gospels describe Jesus appearing to women first, which would not be expected if the story were made up since women were not competent witnesses under the laws of that time.<\/li>\n
        7. No anachronisms from later church history<\/em>: \u00a0The view of liberal theologians has been that the resurrection story was invented to address situations that the church was facing at a later time and place.\u00a0 But there is no indication of this.\u00a0 Says N.T. Wright, \u201cThose redaction-critics who have attempted to reconstruct the world, the agenda, and the aims of the different evangelists have increasingly realized that they were, by and large, careful to describe Jesus as they supposed he was in his own day, not simply as though he were a member of their own church.\u201d[20]<\/a><\/li>\n
        8. Descriptions of the resurrection that lacks interpretive embellishment<\/em>: The accounts of Jesus\u2019 resurrection are simple historical accounts without any interpretive interjections. [21]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Matthew, for instance, often interprets an event in Jesus\u2019 life as \u201cfulfilling\u201d something in the Old Testament; but he gives no interpretive commentary in his account of Jesus\u2019 resurrection.\u00a0 None of the four gospel accounts of the resurrection comment about the implications of Jesus\u2019 resurrection, such as it being the basis for the resurrection of God\u2019s people in the future as Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians 15.<\/li>\n
        9. No indication of an attempt to harmonize the details of the account<\/em>: If the resurrection had been made up years later, we would expect the authors of the gospels to try to harmonize their different accounts.\u00a0 But while not necessarily contradictory, each gospel records details about the events that have left both Christians and non-Christians puzzled about how to harmonize all the details.[22]<\/a>\u00a0 This is how real eyewitness accounts look.<\/li>\n
        10. There are no competing accounts of what happened to Jesus\u2019 body<\/em>: If the resurrection story had been made up years later by Christians, then other Christians could have been equally free to make up other stories, or even to pass along the originally-known truth that Jesus was not resurrected and how the body was really disposed of.\u00a0 But there are no other competing stories from early Christians.<\/li>\n
        11. The change in the disciples\u2019 attitude in a short time from defeatist fear to fearless faith<\/em>: Initially the disciples were cowering in fear because their leader was dead.\u00a0 There was no reason to have an attitude of victory that their leader was really the resurrected Ruler of the Nations when the Roman Empire had just ruthlessly executed Him.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Jesus\u2019 execution looked like just another instance of a crushing Roman victory over a conquered people.\u00a0 In fact, they expected just the opposite, like other Jews at that time; they believed that their Messiah would lead a military campaign to conquer Rome and reign as a king on earth.\u00a0 Instead, Rome had publically executed their leader of the revolution.\u00a0 Even though Jesus told them about His death and resurrection on several occasions before it happened, the disciples did not really get what He had been talking about until after the resurrection (cf. Mark 9:31-32; Luke 9:44-45, 18:321-34, 24:20-27). But shortly after the execution of their leader, the disciples were boldly proclaiming the resurrection even at the risk of death.\u00a0 All of the apostles were put to death for their testimony about the resurrection, except for John, who survived being boiled in oil.\u00a0 This indicates that at least they<\/em> believed strongly in the truth of Christ\u2019s resurrection.\u00a0 Actually seeing the resurrected Christ easily explains this radical change.\u00a0 Competing explanations, such as those that have already been reviewed, do not offer such a strong explanation for the change in the disciples.\u00a0 In particular, \u201cdoubting Thomas,\u201d James the brother of Jesus, and Saul (later Paul) the persecutor of Christians were very strongly predisposed not to believe in Jesus\u2019 resurrection; but their minds were changed.James the brother of Jesus knew Jesus intimately because he grew up with Jesus.\u00a0 Who would believe that his own brother was the Son of God, deserving universal worship?\u00a0 As Jesus said, \u201cA prophet is not without \u00a0honor, except in his own town and in his own home\u201d (Matt. 13:57).\u00a0 Yet, when the Pharisees asked James to denounce the Christian faith, James told them that \u201cChrist himself sitteth in heaven, at the right hand of the Great Power, and shall come on the clouds of heaven.\u201d[23]<\/a>\u00a0 When they heard this they threw him off of the Temple Mount.\u00a0 He was still alive after the fall and was heard praying for his persecutors, until he was killed by a blow to the head.\n

        12. Jesus didn\u2019t die on the Cross?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          The claim that Christ did not really die on the cross is practically impossible given the torture that He endured on the road to Golgotha and then when His body hung by nails on a wooden cross.\u00a0 The Romans were experts at killing people through crucifixion.\u00a0 As mentioned in John 19:31-33, the Roman practice was to break the legs of the person hanging on the cross so that he could not raise himself up to breathe.\u00a0 Very soon the condemned person would die from suffocation.\u00a0 The soldier passed by Jesus without breaking His legs because he could see that he was already dead.\u00a0 Just to make sure, the soldier thrust a spear in His side.\u00a0 Water and blood poured out (John 19:34).\u00a0 Medical experts say that the watery fluid indicates that Jesus had suffered from heart failure of some sort, causing fluid to collect around the heart.[24]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0There must have been a dead body in the tomb when the Jewish authorities and Roman guards secured it against robbers.\u00a0\u00a0 Even if Jesus could have survived crucifixion, there is hardly any chance that He could have been put in a cave and left there for three days without care in His condition.\u00a0 He has suffered substantial blood loss and dehydration.\u00a0 He would have had to have rolled the stone away and beat up the Roman guards.\u00a0 Then he would have had to have walked around well enough to convince people that He had been supernaturally raised from the dead.<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Copycat Resurrection?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            We should not assume that the people of that day were so credulous as to believe just any report that someone was physically resurrected from the dead.\u00a0 People living two thousand years ago experienced death all the time, and they knew that the dead stayed dead.\u00a0 Despite the urban myth among atheists that there were numerous other religious myths about a dying and rising god that served as the basis for \u201cthe Christ myths,\u201d the adherents to those pagan myths did not really expect a real, physical person to die, and then physically come back to life several days later.\u00a0 Their ideas of death and resurrection were more metaphorical, such as a way to describe the seasons of spring and winter as a dying and rising god.\u00a0 In his comprehensive study of Christ\u2019s resurrection, N.T. Wright says on the issue of alleged pagan precursors,<\/p>\n

            . . . [I]t can be shown on good historical grounds that these suggested parallels and derivation are figments of the (modern) imagination. . . .\u00a0 When the early Christian spoke of Jesus being raised from the dead, the natural meaning of that statement, throughout the ancient world, was a claim that something had happened to Jesus which had happened to nobody else.\u00a0 A great many things supposedly happened to the dead, but resurrection did not.\u00a0 The pagan world assumed that it was impossible. . . .\u201c[25]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

            It is important to realize that the pagan myths involved a very different view of reality from the biblical worldview.\u00a0 Taking note of the similarities (which happen to be quite superficial), and not the dissimilarities, between Christianity and other religions is an extremely shallow approach to comparative religion studies.\u00a0 The pagan myths of dying and rising gods involved a cyclical view of time, and the gods were part of nature.\u00a0 In contrast, the biblical context of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a linear view of time with a God who remains ontologically distinct from His creation.[26]<\/a>\u00a0 Jesus Christ is not resurrected every spring as part of nature coming to life.\u00a0 His one, historically unique redemptive death was sufficient:\u00a0 \u201cNor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself\u201d (Hebrews 9:25-26).<\/p>\n

              \n
            1. The Cultural Context of First Century Israel.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              It\u2019s possible that a person could believe that the historical facts prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus was resurrected from dead, yet not accept the Biblical view that He was the God\/man Messiah whose death paid for humanity\u2019s sins.\u00a0 Both the credibility and the meaning of the resurrection are tied to its cultural context. \u00a0The resurrection is not meant to be understood bracketed from issues of worldview presuppositions, as if that were even possible.\u00a0 As postmodernists have realized in their rejection of modernism, facts do not speak for themselves; all facts are interpreted facts.\u00a0 \u00a0The Old Testament provides the interpretive context in which Jesus\u2019 resurrection is meant to be understood.\u00a0 Ever since the Fall (Gen. 3:15), God had been giving predictions of a Messiah in order to prepare His people for His appearance, giving them a context for believing and better understanding the resurrection of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

              As a general rule, if someone at any arbitrary point in history had been badly injured and left for dead, and then unexpectedly recovered, we would look hard for some natural explanation, even if we also talked about God\u2019s hand being involved in the sense of Him setting up the natural circumstances that were at work in the person\u2019s recovery. \u00a0\u00a0Few, if any, would claim that the person was a god, even if the natural explanation were never discovered.\u00a0 The Bible records a few people other than Jesus who are raised from the dead, like Lazarus (John 11:1-44; cf. Matt. 27:52-53); but even the Bible does not attribute to them the status of being a divine savior of humanity.\u00a0 \u00a0There were many self-proclaimed messianic prophets in the first century, and none of their followers believed that they had been physically raised from the dead after the Roman Empire had executed them.[27]<\/a><\/p>\n

              Jesus was in a different position from just any random person in history.\u00a0 The Jews of that time were expecting a divine Messiah to arrive in their lifetime based on the teaching of the Old Testament going back thousands of years.\u00a0 The most specific prophetic prediction of when the Messiah would appear is given in Daniel 9.\u00a0 The Messiah is predicted to be active in His ministry 490 years from \u201cthe word to restore and build Jerusalem\u201d (Dan. 9:25).[28]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Then the Messiah had to meet other criteria.\u00a0 He had to perform miracles, and no prophet in all of Israel\u2019s history had performed as many miracles as Christ had (John 7:31).\u00a0 He had to be born in the city of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) and be born into the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10; Isa. 11:1-2), to name a few.\u00a0 All the various criteria that Jesus fulfilled contribute to the conclusion that Jesus was the God\/man who came to save Israel and the whole world from its sins by His death and resurrection.\u00a0 The weight of claims such as mass hallucination or a stolen body are diminished to near the vanishing point given the fact that His resurrection and divine status are predicted by the divinely inspired Old Testament. \u00a0Given Old Testament prophecy, the Messiah had to be someone around that time of history, and who better meets the criteria than Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Israel?<\/p>\n

              An appeal to Old Testament prophecy requires a belief in the possibility of divine revelation and miracles, but that is a proposition that is perfectly rational given the existence of a personal God who necessarily exists in order for human rationality to be possible. \u00a0\u00a0David Hume\u2019s claim that the weight of probability is always in favor of a natural explanation for an alleged miracle falters on several counts.\u00a0 First, he is unable to prove that his strict empiricist theory of knowledge can account for any knowledge, including cause-and-effect relationships.\u00a0 His view of knowledge leaves us with disconnected sense impressions, not unbreakable laws of nature.\u00a0\u00a0 As I argue in the essay mentioned above, a God who can intervene into His creation as an intelligent agent to alter the laws of nature that He established is necessary for knowledge and cause-and-effect relationships to be possible.\u00a0 Second, Hume\u2019s claim about the uniformity of testimony in favor of natural causes is circular, given that it requires discounting testimony of all miracles, the very issue in question.[29]<\/a>\u00a0 Third, what is probable depends on the circumstances.\u00a0 The Old Testament prophecies put the first century in a special circumstance as the time of when the miracle-working Messiah should appear. \u00a0Jesus was born in the \u201cfullness of time\u201d (Gal. 4:4, Eph. 1:10) and announcing that \u201cThe time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel\u201d (Mark 1:15).\u00a0 Jews who knew their Scriptures were \u201cwaiting for the consolation of Israel\u201d (Luke 2:25) and \u201cwaiting for the redemption of Jerusalem\u201d (Luke 2:38) at that time.\u00a0 We can easily narrow that Messianic person down to Jesus based on His life fulfilling all sorts of prophecies.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For those who witnessed the events of Jesus\u2019 life, it all came together when the Scriptures were explained to them (Luke 24:25-27). \u00a0Regarding the resurrection in particular, we must consider the improbability of a natural explanation for Jesus\u2019 resurrection, given our knowledge of the human body and what kills it.\u00a0 (Note that determining that an event is miraculous is based on our knowledge, not on our ignorance.)\u00a0 Given the existence of God, we certainly have a cause that is sufficient to bring about the effect of a resurrection from the dead.\u00a0 Therefore, given the theistic worldview, other Old Testament teachings, and our knowledge of human physiology, the only reasonable explanation for a large number of people in different circumstances seeing Jesus walking around as if He had been physically resurrected after all that He suffered is that God actually did physically resurrect Jesus because He was the Messiah that had been predicted.<\/p>\n

                \n
              1. Did Jesus Really Fulfill Old Testament Prophecy?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                Skeptics have questioned whether the Old Testament prophecies that are claimed by the New Testament to be fulfilled by Jesus really are predicting what is claimed.\u00a0 Getting into the details of that are beyond the scope of this article, but a large part of the resolution is to recognize the difference between direct predictions and typological predictions.\u00a0 That the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem is a direct prophecy (Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:6).\u00a0 In contrast, the statement in Hosea that \u201cout of Egypt I called my son\u201d (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15) applied to the nation of Israel directly, but it applied to Jesus typologically because the Messiah was the fulfillment of all that Israel was supposed to be.\u00a0 The life of Jesus recapitulated the history of Israel in many ways, with Jesus being faithful to God in situations where Israel rebelled against God, such as Jesus\u2019 time in the wilderness for 40 days compared with the Israelite time in the desert for 40 years.[30]<\/a>\u00a0 A modern reader who thinks that a New Testament author is claiming a direct fulfillment and who goes back to the Old Testament to read the cited passage can come to the mistaken conclusion that the New Testament author twisted the meaning of the Old Testament passage in order to claim that Jesus fulfilled that passage of Scripture, if the reader does not recognize the category of typological fulfillment.<\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. Jesus did not Exist?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  Some atheists confidently trumpet the claim that Jesus was not a real person in history, but that claim is as silly as claiming to having been visited by green space aliens from Mars.\u00a0 There is no doubt about Jesus being a historical figure, even among the more liberal scholars.\u00a0 The celebrity\/skeptic\/New Testament manuscript scholar Bart Ehrman writes:<\/p>\n

                  With respect to Jesus, we have numerous, independent accounts of his life in the sources lying behind the Gospels (and the writings of Paul) \u2014 sources that originated in Jesus\u2019 native tongue Aramaic and that can be dated to within just a year or two of his life (before the religion moved to convert pagans in droves). Historical sources like that are pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind. . . . \u00a0[T]he claim that Jesus was simply made up falters on every ground.[31]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

                  \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

                  Conclusion on the Resurrection<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

                  Both Christian and non-Christian scholars with expertise in the relevant fields largely agree on the following facts:[32]<\/a><\/p>\n