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This is a debate between two scholars on the subject and it will benefit the hearers because it will be both sides of the arguments. The debate will offer clarity and an unbiased opportunity to learn about the facts and history of the subject. Both are brilliant and have each come to different conclusions.

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Bart Ehrman vs Mike Licona Debate the Resurrection

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The pdf document gives an argument for the probability of the resurrection. It was done by Richard Swineburne who was a professor of Christian Religion at the University of Oxford. He is a philosopher and a scholarly source on the subject.

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This is an animated video that is short and engaging. The video explains the facts that are given for the resurrection and the explanation for them. This will be a great resource for a crash course interest in the subject.

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Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? - Part One: The Facts

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This is a lecture recording of NT Wright, one of the most well respected scholars on the subject giving a lecture on the resurrection. He does this at Baylor University and this is a great resource. He has taught much on the subject and the lecture will be scholarly yet digestible.

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Lecture - NT Wright: Resurrection and the Renewal of Creation co-sponsored Baylor’s Truett Seminary

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Josephus was an historian in the first century and has reportedly documented evidence for the resurrection. This an old source and one that will be good for students to read and learn from. It is published by world history . org and is unbiased in its report.

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Titus Flavius Josephus (36-100 CE), the Jewish historian, is the main source for understanding Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. In the last decades of the 1st century CE, he wrote The Jewish War, the Antiquities of the Jews, Against Apion, and The Life of Flavius Josephus. His histories and eyewitness testimonies remain essential to the study of the historical context that gave rise to the origins of Christianity.

Josephus

Flavius Josephus was born Yosef ben Matityahu, a member of a priestly household in Jerusalem through his father's side (the house and order of Jehoiarib), and his mother was of royal descent (Hasmonean). He was educated in Jerusalem and most likely shared ideology and sympathy with the party of the Pharisees.

Considered one of the greatest traitors by Jews, Christians were the ones who preserved Josephus' writings for posterity.

During the Great Jewish Revolt of 66 CE, Josephus was appointed the commander of Galilee. He became famous (and infamous) for changing sides during the siege at Jotapata. He successfully predicted that the Roman commander, Vespasian (r. 69-79 CE), would become the next Roman emperor. Vespasian spared his life, and Josephus spent the rest of the war as a consultant to Vespasian's son Titus (r. 79-81 CE), who ultimately destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple complex in the year 70 CE. After the war, Josephus moved to Rome where he had access to archives and wrote his histories.

The writings of Josephus are crucially important for several disciplines: Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE, background sources for early Christianity, historical details of the client kings of the Roman Empire in the East, and the line of the Julio-Claudian emperors in Rome. Considered one of the greatest traitors by Jews, Christians were the ones who preserved his writings for posterity. This is because he wrote about John the Baptist, reported the death of Jesus ' brother, James, and provided a passage on Jesus himself.

Herod Antipas

A son of Herod the Great (c. 75-4 BCE), Herod Antipas (r. 4 BCE - 39 CE) inherited the region of Galilee (as one of the tetrarchs, the sons of Herod the Great). Josephus described his reign and activities in detail in Antiquities. Antipas was married to the daughter of King Aretas of Petra (the Kingdom of Nabatea in Jordan). However, when meeting the wife of another half-brother, Herodias, he divorced the daughter of Aretas and married her. Aretas then went to war against Herod Antipas who was defeated. In a digression, Josephus added the following:

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God and was a very just punishment for what he did against John called the baptist [the dipper]. For Herod had him killed, although he was a good man and had urged the Jews to exert themselves to virtue, both as to justice toward one another and reverence towards God and having done so join together in washing. For immersion in water, it was clear to him, could not be used for the forgiveness of sins, but as a sanctification of the body, and only if the soul was already thoroughly purified by right actions. And when others massed about him, for they were very greatly moved by his words, Herod, who feared that such strong influence over the people might carry to a revolt - for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise - believed it much better to move now than later have it raise a rebellion and engage him in actions he would regret. And so John, out of Herod's suspiciousness, was sent in chains to Machaerus, the fort previously mentioned, and there put to death; but it was the opinion of the Jews that out of retribution for John God willed the destruction of the army so as to afflict Herod. ( Antiquities 18.5.2)

As a client king of Rome, Herod Antipas had a duty to keep law and order in his province. In this period, various messianic contenders riled up the mobs with anti-Roman speeches. Herod Antipas was afraid that the followers of John in their zealousness would rebel. He would be blamed by Rome for not keeping control.

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Scholars often compare Josephus' report to the one found in the gospel of Mark. Mark claimed that John the Baptist had criticized the second marriage. Herod invited his clients to a birthday party, where he asked Herodias' daughter, Salome, to dance for his guests. He promised her anything she wanted. Her mother told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist. While debating Josephus' chronology, nevertheless, the story of the Baptist is considered historical and important from an outsider's point of view.

The Death of James, the Brother of Jesus

In describing the rule of the procurator Albinus (62 CE), Josephus included the story of the stoning of James, the brother of Jesus:

And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus ... But this younger Ananus was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews ... Ananus was of this thought he had now a proper opportunity (to exercise his authority). Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned. ( Antiquities, 20. 9).

Ananus was dismissed as high priest for acting on his own before the next Roman magistrate had arrived. Josephus did not clarify the details of the accusation as "breakers of the law." However, by the 2nd century CE, the story of James was expanded to include details of his piety so that he was then known as James the Just. According to this version, he was thrown down from the pinnacle of the Temple and is considered one of the first Christian martyrs.

The Testimonium Flavianum (Testimony of Flavius Josephus)

One of the most controversial passages is presented as a digression in his description of Pontius Pilate:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. ( Antiquities 18.3.)

Scholars debate if this passage was originally written by Josephus or added by a later Christian to validate Christian beliefs. It became more famous in the Middle Ages as proof of the story of Jesus, as it demonstrated an objective, outsider's point of view. The passage is problematic because aside from the mention of Jesus as "the Christ" in the story of James, there is no other reference to the Jesus movement. What is odd is the fact that if Josephus believed that Jesus was the Christ (the messiah of Scripture), there should have been more details and references to the missions of the apostles throughout the empire. But after this passage, he went on to describe more abuses and conflicts under Roman rule. Some modern scholars attempt to recover the original by eliminating the Christological references, turning it into just one more report of a messianic contender.

Because of the above passages, Christians preserved the writings of Josephus, and they remain an important source for the study of early Christianity. In the reconstructions of towns and villages in Judea and Galilee, Josephus is essential for archaeologists as well. There were later traditions that some Christians wanted to grant him sainthood, but this did not materialize.

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Titus Flavius Josephus (36-100 CE), the Jewish historian, is the main source for understanding Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. In the last decades of the 1st century CE, he wrote The Jewish...

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Bart Ehrman is a professor and scholar in the subject of the resurrection and has come to the conclusion that it is not true that Jesus rose from the dead. In this short video he will explain his reasons for believing that Jesus did not in fact rise from the dead. This is a great introduction to arguments that are against the resurrection.

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The Case Against the Resurrection (Bart D. Ehrman)

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This is Bart Ehrman's website and it is a tool to engage in more of the arguments against the resurrection and to engage in some of the skeptical sources that are out there. This can help students learn to be critical thinkers as they engage in serious subjects. Bart Ehrman is a famous public intellectual who is highly esteemed.

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Bart D. Ehrman - New Testament Scholar, Speaker, and Consultant

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Dr. Bart D. Ehrman has written or edited thirty-three books, including six New York Times bestsellers: How Jesus Became God, Misquoting Jesus, God's Problem, Jesus Interrupted, Forged, and The Triumph of Christianity. Bart is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he has taught thousands of students and won numerous awards.

Bart's work has been featured in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Times Literary Supplement, the New Yorker, Time, and Newsweek; he has appeared on National Geographic, CNN, the BBC, NBC's Dateline, the Discovery Channel, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Sam Harris Podcast, and many other top media outlets.

Since 2000 he has recorded nine courses for The Great Courses.

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Bart D. Ehrman - New Testament Scholar, Speaker, and Consultant

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New Testament scholar, Dr. Bart Ehrman's, homepage. Bart is an author, speaker, consultant, online course creator, and professor at UNC Chapel Hill.

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Capturing Christianity is a youtube channel that is devoted to sharing information from both sides of the arguments within religion. In the clip that is given it is a video with Habermas who is a public intellectual on the subject. This a great video that can explain some of the essential arguments for the resurrection.

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A Historian Explains the Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Dr. Gary Habermas)

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This source goes over many of the sources for the Resurrection and is by Houston Baptist University. This is a great resource for the students to take a look at what universities have to say on the subject. It will provide information for them to look at some of the published works on the resurrection.

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By Michael R. Licona

In the study of history, primary sources are the documents and artifacts closest to the matter being investigated. They are dated very close to the events they describe. In contrast, secondary sources use primary sources when writing about a historical matter be investigated. Sometimes the primary sources have all perished. For example, the earliest accounts we have describing the origins of Rome and Greece were written hundreds of years later. In these cases, all historians have to work with are secondary and tertiary sources. Eyewitness sources are primary sources. However, if no eyewitness sources have survived, a second-hand source (not to be confused with a secondary source) writing close to the event can be a primary source. So, all eyewitness sources are primary sources, but not all primary sources are eyewitnesses.

Let us consider the question pertaining to whether Jesus' resurrection was a historical event. One of the first tasks of the historian is to gather a pool of sources reporting an event and assess them. Let's begin with those written later and work ourselves backward in time.

The Gospel of Peter was written sometime in the second century while the Gospel of Thomas and revelation dialogues (e.g., Epistle of the Apostles, Treatise on the Resurrection, Apocryphon of James) were probably written in the second half of that century. To my knowledge, no scholars regard them as having been written by Peter, Thomas, or Christians who had known the apostles. While the revelation dialogues are entirely fictitious, the Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Peter show awareness of the New Testament Gospels whose teachings they borrow and comingle with great literary embellishment ( Gospel of Peter) and gnostic teachings ( Gospel of Thomas). Therefore, none of them are primary sources. At best, the Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Peter are secondary sources.

Writing a little earlier, three leaders of the early church named Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Ignatius, mention Jesus' resurrection. Two of them, Clement and Polycarp, probably knew the apostles, Peter and John, respectively. Clement of Rome and Polycarp are probably repeating some of the information they had heard from Peter and John. Though Ignatius is fairly early and was a friend of Polycarp, there is no evidence suggesting he had met one of the apostles. Although it is possible he did , historians must primarily concern themselves with matters that are probable. Since it is probable that Clement and Polycarp heard about Jesus' resurrection from Peter and John, they are primary sources related to that event. Although they mention Jesus' resurrection on a few occasions, they do not provide any details.

Going back a little earlier, it is possible the Jewish historian, Josephus, mentions Jesus' resurrection, or more likely reports the apostles claiming that Jesus had been raised from the dead. But certainty eludes us, since a Christian in the second century altered one of the two texts in which Josephus mentions Jesus so that Josephus would appear to have spoken about Jesus in laudatory terms in one of them - the one mentioning Jesus' death and resurrection. But an early church father named Origen informs us Josephus was not a Christian. If Origen is correct, it is very unlikely that Josephus would have made such remarks as calling Jesus a "wise man, if one could even call him a man," "he was the Messiah," and that he rose from the dead "as the divine prophets foretold with ten thousand other wonderful things about him" ( Antiquities 18:63). As a result, we are unable to decipher whether Josephus mentioned Jesus' resurrection in his original text.

The earliest literature mentioning Jesus' resurrection is found in our New Testament. Although the New Testament is purchased as a single volume and often includes the Old Testament, it is actually a collection of 27 books and letters written by no less than nine authors within the first century of the Christian church. It is regarded by Christians of succeeding generations a s being of special value and usually carrying divine authority. Not all of the New Testament literature mentions Jesus' resurrection. Those books and letters that do are the four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - Acts, some of Paul's letters, 1 Peter, and Hebrews.

Hebrews 10:1-11 uses the present tense when referring to the temple priests offering sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple every day of every year. Since the temple was destroyed in A D 70, it seems likely that Hebrews was written before that event. But we do not know who wrote Hebrews and have not since at least the early third century. Moreover, no strong testimony exists pertaining to the author's identity. Hebrews 13:20 mentions Jesus' resurrection in passing . But no description of the event is provided pertaining to the nature of the e vent, such as whether it was something that involved Jesus' corpse. Thus, although Hebrews 13:20 is a primary source, it is not very helpful other than to inform us that Jesus' return from the dead, whatever the nature of the event, was being proclaimed within only a few decades of his death.

Jesus' resurrection is mentioned on three occasions in 1 Peter (1:3, 21; 3:21). Like Hebrews, 1 Peter is a primary source given its date of composition is close to the time in which Jesus would have been resurrected. Unfortunately, similar to Hebrews 13:20, none of the three references tell us much about the nature of the event.

This brings us to the Gospels. Most scholars accept the early church tradition that the Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark who received his information from the apostle Peter, and that Luke's Gospel was written by a traveling companion of Paul who received his information from Paul and other eyewitnesses who had been with Jesus. There is no scholarly agreement today on the identification of the author of John's Gospel. Almost all of the early church tradition attributed its authorship to John the son of Zebedee, who was one of Jesus' three closest disciples. Although most of today's New Testament scholars reject that tradition, they still think the Beloved Disciple mentioned in John's Gospel was the eyewitness source of much of the information contained in John. Many think him to be one of Jesus' minor disciples; others continue to maintain that the author was in fact John the son of Zebedee.

The authorship of Matthew's Gospel is a wooly matter. Few of today's scholars think Matthew wrote it. The reason is Papias from whom comes our earliest report pertaining to the authorship of Matthew and Mark likewise tells us that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew or Aramaic dialect. The problem is that even prominent evangelical New Testament scholars, such a s D. A. Carson, Doug Moo, and Dan Wallace, who have a particular expertise in the Greek language, have concluded that Matthew 's Gospel is not written in translation Greek. In other words, the Gospel of Matthew in our Ne w Testament was probably not initially written in Hebrew or Aramaic, then subsequently translated into Greek. But if Papias was mistaken on that matter, should we trust him on the matter of Matthew writing the Gospel?

A solution in which we can have great confidence eludes us. However, there are possibilities. Papias actually wrote, "So Matthew composed the oracles in the Hebrew dialect and each person interpreted them as best he could" (Fragments of Papias 3:16, Holmes numbering ). The Greek term Papias uses for "oracles" is ta logia or "the teachings." Perhaps Matthew wrote a smaller treatment than the Gospel attributed to him in which he included a number of Jesus' teachings, and this was subsequently translated into Greek and combined with other sources, such as Mark's Gospel. Perhaps all of this was done with Matthew's knowledge, review, and approval. We can only speculate. However, given the unanimous attribution of the early church of that Gospel to Matthew, it seems more likely that Matthew played some part in what has come down to us to day as the Gospel of Matthew. Even with the challenge of authorship related to John and Matthew, all four of our Ne w Testament Gospels were written very close to the events they purport to describe. Therefore, they are primary sources for Jesus' resurrection.

Finally, we come to Paul's letters. Since Paul was executed in AD 65 or before, all of his letters were written by that time. Paul may well have written before any of the Gospels. Moreover, not only does Paul claim to have been an eyewitness of the risen Jesus (1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8), he knew the leading apostles in Jerusalem - Peter, James, and John - and had run by them the Gospel message he had been preaching to ensure it was compatible with what they were preaching. And they certified that his message was in alignment with their own (Gal. 2:1-9). At least that is what Paul claimed. But should we believe him?

Historians look for sources that corroborate what is claimed in another. In this case, we have some interesting sources that strongly suggest Paul was telling the truth. Recall that Clement of Rome and Polycarp were probably acquainted with the apostles, Peter and John, respectively. It may, therefore, be fruitful to observe what Clement and Polycarp write about Paul. Clement refers to Peter and Paul as "the most righteous pillars" and "good apostles" (1 Clem. 5:2ff., Holmes numbering), while Polycarp calls him "the blessed and glorious Paul . . . [who] accurately and reliably taught the message of truth" (1 Clem . 3:2, Holmes numbering). These are not the sort of remarks we would expect from Clement and Polycarp if Paul had taught a message that was essentially different from what their mentors, Peter and John, had taught. But such remarks would not surprise us if Paul was being honest when saying he was preaching the same message as the Jerusalem apostles. So, Paul writes very early, claims to be an eyewitness of the risen Jesus, and proclaimed the same Gospel message being preached by the Jerusalem apostles who had known Jesus. Thus, when we read the Gospel message in Paul's letters, we are likewise able to hear the voice of the Jerusalem apostles on the matter. Paul's letters are, indeed, primary sources in terms of Jesus' resurrection.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a letter in which Paul described the Gospel message that he had been preaching? Then we could know what the earliest Christian leaders were teaching about Jesus' resurrection. That would be historical gold! It happens that we have precisely that. In 1 Corinthians 15:1, Paul writes, "Now I want to remind you, brothers, of the Gospel that I preached to you" (verses in this article are the author 's translation). Paul then proceeds to give an oral tradition that contains an outline of his Gospel message. He says, "I delivered to you what I also received." The terms "delivered" and "received" were of 10 employed to connote the imparting of oral tradition. Paul then proceeds,

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.

Notice the parallelism, the long-short-long-short progression that was common in oral tradition. Paul then lists six appearances of the risen Jesus: to Peter, to the Twelve, to more than 500 Christians, to James, to all of the apostles. Then Paul adds his own name to the list, "Last of all, as to one untimely born, he also appeared to me." This is remarkable. We can be certain that the apostles were proclaiming that Jesus died, was buried, was raised, and appeared on multiple occasions to individuals and to groups, to friend and foe.

Since Paul was writing letters and not a narrative, he does not go into the detail regarding Jesus' resurrection that we find in the Gospels. For example, he never mentions an empty tomb. But what Paul tells us suggests Jesus' resurrection body was physical in its nature. In 1 Cor. 15:20, Paul tells us Jesus was the first to be raised with a resurrection body. Three verses later, he tells us believers will receive their resurrection body at Jesus' second coming. Paul provides us with a short trailer for that event in 1 Thess. 4:14-17 where he says that God will bring with Jesus the dead who belong to Christ, that is, believers who have died and are already with Christ (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23-24). Then the command will be given, the trumpet will sound, and the dead in Christ will rise. But how can they rise when they are already returning with Jesus? They can because they are absent from their body. So, their spirits return with Christ and are reunited with their old bodies, which are resurrected and transformed into an immortal, powerful, glorious body that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is a body having the same nature as the one with which Jesus was raised. This is why Paul can write in Rom. 8:11, "Now if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Jesus from the dead will give life also to your mortal bodies through the dwelling of his Spirit in you." For Paul, Christ was the first to be raised from the dead with a resurrection body and his followers will receive theirs when he returns. At that time, their mortal bodies will be transformed into immortality.

The Gospels tell us even more about Jesus' resurrection. That Jesus had risen from the dead was discovered early Sunday morning when a few of his women followers came to visit his tomb, which the y discovered empty. Jesus appeared to them and his male disciples shortly thereafter. His disciples could touch him and he could eat. He could appear and disappear at will and remained with them for a while before ascending to heaven.

There is one more source we need to consider. The book of Acts was written by Luke and was a sequel to his Gospel. In the first chapter, Luke says Jesus remained with his disciples for 40 days before ascending to heaven. Also of interest are the speeches in Acts. Speeches given by principal characters in the book of Acts comprise 22 percent of the entire book. Craig Keener has recently written a magisterial commentary on Acts that appears in four volumes and is more than 4,000 pages. Keener's main concern is understanding Acts in its historical setting. He argues that Luke had been a traveling companion of Paul and, thus, was able to report first-hand many of the things he had seen. He had heard Paul preach and would have been familiar with the apostolic preaching. ¹ Therefore, Acts is the primary source. Many scholars think this apostolic preaching was the source behind the speeches of Peter and Paul in Acts 2, 10, and13. In these speeches, Jesus' death, burial, and bodily resurrection are mentioned or implied.

CONCLUSION

We have surveyed a number of sources that mention Jesus' resurrection and are able to summarize our findings. Our primary sources include some of Paul's letters, Matthew, Mark , Luke, John, and Acts, Hebrews, 1 Peter, Clement of Rome, and Polycarp. Of these Hebrews, 1 Peter, Clement of Rome, and Polycarp inform us that Jesus' resurrection was being proclaimed. However, they do not provide any details about the event itself or the nature of Jesus' resurrection. Paul's letters, the Gospels and Acts inform us that Jesus' resurrection involved his corpse, and that he had appeared to others. From Paul, we have rock-solid evidence that this is also what the Jerusalem apostles were proclaiming.

In all, we have a very nice collection of primary sources we can use in a historical investigation of Jesus' resurrection. At the very minimum, these inform us the apostles were proclaiming that Jesus had been raised bodily from the dead and had appeared to them in individual and group settings, to friend and foe alike.
About the Author
MICHAEL R. LICONA, PhD, is Associate Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University. He has written six books and numerous journal articles and essays. Licona has spoken on more than 70 university campuses.

¹ Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary. 4 vols. Vol. 1, Introduction and 1:1-2:47. Vol. 2, 3:1-14:28. Vol. 3, 15:1-23:35. Vol. 4, 24:1-28:31. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012-15). For Luke as author, see Vol. 1, 406-16.

[Editor's Note: Resurrection image from Luca Giordano's Resurrection, c. 1665, found at Wikipedia Commons.]

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What are the Primary Sources for Jesus' Resurrection? | Houston Christian University

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By Michael R. Licona In the study of history, primary sources are the documents and artifacts closest to the matter being investigated. They are dated very ...

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This source is valuable for the student to examine and engage in. It will provide clarity on the subject matter and help the student become aquatinted to some of the scholarly research that has been done on the subject. William Lane Craig is a popular Christian philosopher of our modern day and is a great resource to help learn about the subject and other ways to dive deeper.

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I spoke recently at a major Canadian university on the existence of God. After my talk, one slightly irate co-ed wrote on her comment card, "I was with you until you got to the stuff about Jesus. God is not the Christian God!"

This attitude is all too typical today. Most people are happy to agree that God exists; but in our pluralistic society it has become politically incorrect to claim that God has revealed Himself decisively in Jesus. What justification can Christians offer, in contrast to Hindus, Jews, and Muslims, for thinking that the Christian God is real?

The answer of the New Testament is: the resurrection of Jesus. "God will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17.31). The resurrection is God's vindication of Jesus' radical personal claims to divine authority.

So how do we know that Jesus is risen from the dead? The Easter hymnwriter says, "You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart!" This answer is perfectly appropriate on an individual level. But when Christians engage unbelievers in the public square-such as in "Letters to the Editor" of a local newspaper, on call-in programs on talk-radio, at PTA meetings, or even just in conversation with co-workers-, then it's crucial that we be able to present objective evidence in support of our beliefs. Otherwise our claims hold no more water than the assertions of anyone else claiming to have a private experience of God.

Fortunately, Christianity, as a religion rooted in history, makes claims that can in important measure be investigated historically. Suppose, then, that we approach the New Testament writings, not as inspired Scripture, but merely as a collection of Greek documents coming down to us out of the first century, without any assumption as to their reliability other than the way we normally regard other sources of ancient history. We may be surprised to learn that the majority of New Testament critics investigating the gospels in this way accept the central facts undergirding the resurrection of Jesus. I want to emphasize that I am not talking about evangelical or conservative scholars only, but about the broad spectrum of New Testament critics who teach at secular universities and non-evangelical seminaries. Amazing as it may seem, most of them have come to regard as historical the basic facts which support the resurrection of Jesus. These facts are as follows:

FACT #1: After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. This fact is highly significant because it means, contrary to radical critics like John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, that the location of Jesus' burial site was known to Jew and Christian alike. In that case, the disciples could never have proclaimed his resurrection in Jerusalem if the tomb had not been empty. New Testament researchers have established this first fact on the basis of evidence such as the following:

1. Jesus' burial is attested in the very old tradition quoted by Paul in I Cor. 15.3-5:

Paul not only uses the typical rabbinical terms "received" and "delivered" with regard to the information he is passing on to the Corinthians, but vv. 3-5 are a highly stylized four-line formula filled with non-Pauline characteristics. This has convinced all scholars that Paul is, as he says, quoting from an old tradition which he himself received after becoming a Christian. This tradition probably goes back at least to Paul's fact-finding visit to Jerusalem around AD 36, when he spent two weeks with Cephas and James (Gal. 1.18). It thus dates to within five years after Jesus' death. So short a time span and such personal contact make it idle to talk of legend in this case.

2. The burial story is part of very old source material used by Mark in writing his gospel. The gospels tend to consist of brief snapshots of Jesus' life which are loosely connected and not always chronologically arranged. But when we come to the passion story we do have one, smooth, continuously-running narrative. This suggests that the passion story was one of Mark's sources of information in writing his gospel. Now most scholars think Mark is already the earliest gospel, and Mark's source for Jesus' passion is, of course, even older. Comparison of the narratives of the four gospels shows that their accounts do not diverge from one another until after the burial. This implies that the burial account was part of the passion story. Again, its great age militates against its being legendary.

3. As a member of the Jewish court that condemned Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention. There was strong resentment against the Jewish leadership for their role in the condemnation of Jesus (I Thess. 2.15). It is therefore highly improbable that Christians would invent a member of the court that condemned Jesus who honors Jesus by giving him a proper burial instead of allowing him to be dispatched as a common criminal.

4. No other competing burial story exists. If the burial by Joseph were fictitious, then we would expect to find either some historical trace of what actually happened to Jesus' corpse or at least some competing legends. But all our sources are unanimous on Jesus' honorable interment by Joseph.

For these and other reasons, the majority of New Testament critics concur that Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. According to the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University, the burial of Jesus in the tomb is "one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus. [1]

FACT #2: On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus' tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers. Among the reasons which have led most scholars to this conclusion are the following:

1. The empty tomb story is also part of the old passion source used by Mark. The passion source used by Mark did not end in death and defeat, but with the empty tomb story, which is grammatically of one piece with the burial story.

2. The old tradition cited by Paul in I Cor. 15.3-5 implies the fact of the empty tomb. For any first century Jew, to say that of a dead man "that he was buried and that he was raised" is to imply that a vacant grave was left behind. Moreover, the expression "on the third day" probably derives from the women's visit to the tomb on the third day, in Jewish reckoning, after the crucifixion. The four-line tradition cited by Paul summarizes both the gospel accounts and the early apostolic preaching (Acts 13. 28-31); significantly, the third line of the tradition corresponds to the empty tomb story.

3. The story is simple and lacks signs of legendary embellishment. All one has to do to appreciate this point is to compare Mark's account with the wild legendary stories found in the second-century apocryphal gospels, in which Jesus is seen coming out of the tomb with his head reaching up above the clouds and followed by a talking cross!

4. The fact that women's testimony was discounted in first century Palestine stands in favor of the women's role in discovering the empty tomb. According to Josephus, the testimony of women was regarded as so worthless that it could not even be admitted into a Jewish court of law. Any later legendary story would certainly have made male disciples discover the empty tomb.

5. The earliest Jewish allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus' body (Matt. 28.15) shows that the body was in fact missing from the tomb. The earliest Jewish response to the disciples' proclamation, "He is risen from the dead!" was not to point to his occupied tomb and to laugh them off as fanatics, but to claim that they had taken away Jesus' body. Thus, we have evidence of the empty tomb from the very opponents of the early Christians.

One could go on, but I think that enough has been said to indicate why, in the words of Jacob Kremer, an Austrian specialist in the resurrection, "By far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb." [2]

FACT #3: On multiple occasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead.

This is a fact which is almost universally acknowledged among New Testament scholars, for the following reasons:

1. The list of eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection appearances which is quoted by Paul in I Cor. 15. 5-7 guarantees that such appearances occurred. These included appearances to Peter (Cephas), the Twelve, the 500 brethren, and James.

2. The appearance traditions in the gospels provide multiple, independent attestation of these appearances. This is one of the most important marks of historicity. The appearance to Peter is independently attested by Luke, and the appearance to the Twelve by Luke and John. We also have independent witness to Galilean appearances in Mark, Matthew, and John, as well as to the women in Matthew and John.

3. Certain appearances have earmarks of historicity. For example, we have good evidence from the gospels that neither James nor any of Jesus' younger brothers believed in him during his lifetime. There is no reason to think that the early church would generate fictitious stories concerning the unbelief of Jesus' family had they been faithful followers all along. But it is indisputable that James and his brothers did become active Christian believers following Jesus' death. James was considered an apostle and eventually rose to the position of leadership of the Jerusalem church. According to the first century Jewish historian Josephus, James was martyred for his faith in Christ in the late AD 60s. Now most of us have brothers. What would it take to convince you that your brother is the Lord, such that you would be ready to die for that belief? Can there be any doubt that this remarkable transformation in Jesus' younger brother took place because, in Paul's words, "then he appeared to James"?

Even Gert L¸demann, the leading German critic of the resurrection, himself admits, "It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ." [3]

FACT #4: The original disciples believed that Jesus was risen from the dead despite their having every predisposition to the contrary. Think of the situation the disciples faced after Jesus' crucifixion:

1. Their leader was dead. And Jews had no belief in a dying, much less rising, Messiah. The Messiah was supposed to throw off Israel's enemies (= Rome) and re-establish a Davidic reign-not suffer the ignominious death of criminal.

2. According to Jewish law, Jesus' execution as a criminal showed him out to be a heretic, a man literally under the curse of God (Deut. 21.23). The catastrophe of the crucifixion for the disciples was not simply that their Master was gone, but that the crucifixion showed, in effect, that the Pharisees had been right all along, that for three years they had been following a heretic, a man accursed by God!

3. Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone's rising from the dead to glory and immortality before the general resurrection at the end of the world. All the disciples could do was to preserve their Master's tomb as a shrine where his bones could reside until that day when all of Israel's righteous dead would be raised by God to glory.

Despite all this, the original disciples believed in and were willing to go to their deaths for the fact of Jesus' resurrection. Luke Johnson, a New Testament scholar from Emory University, muses, "some sort of powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest Christianity was . . . ." [4] N. T. Wright, an eminent British scholar, concludes, "that is why, as a historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him." [5]

In summary, there are four facts agreed upon by the majority of scholars who have written on these subjects which any adequate historical hypothesis must account for: Jesus' entombment by Joseph of Arimathea, the discovery of his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples' belief in his resurrection.

Now the question is: what is the best explanation of these four facts? Most sholars probably remain agnostic about this question. But the Christian can maintain that the hypothesis that best explains these facts is "God raised Jesus from the dead."

In his book Justifying Historical Descriptions, historian C. B. McCullagh lists six tests which historians use in determining what is the best explanation for given historical facts. [6] The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" passes all these tests:

1. It has great explanatory scope: it explains why the tomb was found empty, why the disciples saw post-mortem appearances of Jesus, and why the Christian faith came into being.

2. It has great explanatory power: it explains why the body of Jesus was gone, why people repeatedly saw Jesus alive despite his earlier public execution, and so forth.

3. It is plausible: given the historical context of Jesus' own unparalleled life and claims, the resurrection serves as divine confirmation of those radical claims.

4. It is not ad hoc or contrived: it requires only one additional hypothesis: that God exists. And even that needn't be an additional hypothesis if one already believes that God exists.

5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs. The hypothesis: "God raised Jesus from the dead" doesn't in any way conflict with the accepted belief that people don't rise naturally from the dead. The Christian accepts that belief as wholeheartedly as he accepts the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead.

6. It far outstrips any of its rival hypotheses in meeting conditions (1)-(5). Down through history various alternative explanations of the facts have been offered, for example, the conspiracy hypothesis, the apparent death hypothesis, the hallucination hypothesis, and so forth. Such hypotheses have been almost universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. None of these naturalistic hypotheses succeeds in meeting the conditions as well as the resurrection hypothesis.

Now this puts the sceptical critic in a rather desperate situation. A few years ago I participated in a debate on the resurrection of Jesus with a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He had written his doctoral dissertation on the resurrection, and he was thoroughly familiar with the evidence. He could not deny the facts of Jesus' honorable burial, empty tomb, post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples' belief in the resurrection. So his only recourse was to come up with some alternate explanation of those facts. And so he argued that Jesus of Nazareth had an unknown, identical twin brother, who was separated from him as an infant and grew up independently, but who came back to Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, stole Jesus' body out of the tomb, and presented himself to the disciples, who mistakenly inferred that Jesus was risen from the dead! Now I won't bother to go into how I went about refuting this theory. But I think the example is illustrative of the desperate lengths to which scepticism must go in order to refute the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Indeed, the evidence is so powerful that one of the world's leading Jewish theologians, the late Pinchas Lapide, who taught at Hebrew University in Israel, declared himself convinced on the basis of the evidence that the God of Israel raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead! [7]

The significance of the resurrection of Jesus lies in the fact that it is not just any old Joe Blow who has been raised from the dead, but Jesus of Nazareth, whose crucifixion was instigated by the Jewish leadership because of his blasphemous claims to divine authority. If this man has been raised from the dead, then the God whom he allegedly blasphemed has clearly vindicated his claims. Thus, in an age of religious relativism and pluralism, the resurrection of Jesus constitutes a solid rock on which Christians can take their stand for God's decisive self-revelation in Jesus.

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The Resurrection of Jesus | Reasonable Faith

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I spoke recently at a major Canadian university on the existence of God. After my talk, one slightly irate co-ed wrote on her comment card, "I was with you until you got to...