The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: did it happen?

For those of you that read my post last night, I promised to publish my article on the resurrection of Jesus, and whether any historical data points towards its validity. So here it is.

It is a fundamental part of the Christian Religion that a 1st Century Jew named Jesus, who embarked on a public career of proclaiming the arrival of the kingdom of God through miracles and parables, died and miraculously came back to life. Traditionally, people have seen this as something you just have faith in. However, recently christians such as Gary Habermas, Mike Licona and N T Wright have all been arguing that there is good historical evidence, and thus reason, for believeing that the resurrection truly happened. This article will attempt to assess one version of this new type of argument, primarily from facts which the majority of scholars, even sceptical ones, agree on, and evaluate whether any of the counters are successful. This is called the minimal facts approach.

The Argument in full:

There are four facts surrounding this event which can be historically proved without referring to the four Gospels:

1) **Jesus was crucified and died on the cross**. This is evidenced by reference to non-Christian contemporaries writing about it like Josephus (Antiquities 18:63-64 - 'When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified') and Tacitus (Annals 15.44 - 'derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate'), with current medical articles supporting the medical grounds for believing Jesus died if he was crucified (http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com/content/99/4/185.full).

2) **The tomb of Jesus was found empty**. This is justified on the basis that the Jewish authorities, who had the most reason to deny the empty tomb, admitted it by saying the disciples stole the body (Justin Martyr claims this in AD 150, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 108.)  For if the tomb was not empty, how would it make sense to say the disciples stole the body? So even the contemporaries most sceptical about the Christian claims admitted the empty tomb.

3) **The disciples had experiences within individual and group settings which they interpreted as the risen Jesus physically appearing to them, which then inspired them to found the Christian religion and subsequently die for their beliefs.** This is found in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul provides a brief summary of some of the people who had these experiences 'and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also.' This offers a large amount of eye witness testimony, even from sceptics such as James, who had earlier rebuked Jesus.

Paul received this material in about 35 AD, which he alludes to in Galatians 2, where he visited Jerusalem and met Peter and James, who gave him this tradition of the early church. They would have written it prior to this, so these sources come from right on top of the events; the documentation is just a few years at the most after the actual experiences, so claiming they were added in is false, because they are dated almost back to the actual events.

4) **A Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted and hated the Christians, converted to Christianity after having and experience which he interpreted as the risen Christ appearing to him and he subsequently became and apostle named Paul, despite no predisposition to doing so.** This can be found in Galatians 1:11-16  and Acts 9.

Now these four facts require an explanation which:

i) **Explains all the facts** **not just one or two**

ii) **Does not bend itself to fit the evidence**

iii) **Has very few assumed premises**

Now the Christian would argue that the resurrection is the only theory which achieves this. If so, they will have shown that the reusrrection can be shown to be true using non-Gospel sources. As such, let us now look at whether one: the resurrection hyptheses is cogent and two, whether there are any better explanation.

Firstly, the fact that the Jesus died on the cross is not easily provable. Whilst many historians conclude Jesus died by execution, only Josephus relates that to the cross. A common counter to this is that it was a common method of executing dissenting Jews, in particular the leaders of Messianic groups. So one can reasonably argue that this fact, whilst not conclusively proved, is valid on the basis of inference from the historical context as a whole.

Another criticism is that of 'twin theory', in that Jesus managed to escape his captors and when they tried to find him, they arrested and executed either a look a like or his twin. This is not a very serious threat: there is literally no evidence for it, and it is inconceivable how Jesus' would have escaped a group of Roman legionaries.

 One final criticism of this fact is the notion that Jesus did not really die on the cross, but was able to survive in a sort of coma state. Despite the medical evidence conclusively agreeing that Jesus could not have survived crucifixion, proponents of this theory claim that as he died earlier than most crucified people, which is a sign he was still alive. However, what the theory lacks is the ability for Jesus to roll away a stone weighing about two tonnes, fighting off the roman guard and travelling for many miles to the disciples house when he is half dead. So we can be sure this theory is highly implausible.

Secondly, the most controversial fact is by far the empty tomb. It has been argued that the disciples may have found the wrong tomb, or that grave robbers stole the body. The first theory is simply false: it was common in 1st Century Palestine that after six months a buried Jew would have their remains put in a vase of some form. Thus, even if the disciples did not know where the body was, the Jewish authorities would have, and as such they could have provided the body if it was still there. Secondly, the claim that grave robbers took it cannot account for all the other facts, so is also a weak argument.

Thirdly, the leading naturalistic theory, hallucinations, attempts to say that the sightings of Jesus were caused by grief related hallucinations. This also very weak: it can explain Jesus' death; it cannot explain the empty tomb, for hallucinations in themselves would not explain why the body had disappeared (in fact, it contradicts the theory the disciples stole the body, for if they thought their hallucination were genuinely true, why would they steal the body? Surely that would show they recognise that it is a lie); it can explain the individual experiences but cannot explain the group ones, because hallucinations are mental not group phenomena; and it cannot explain Paul's conversion, because the cause of post-death hallucinations is grief, but as a persecutor of the Church, Paul would be the last person to feel sorrow at the death of Jesus. So this theory is very poor at explaining these facts because it cannot account for them all.

Fourthly, the criticism made against Paul's experience is that he suffered from an epileptic fit, as Luke's account in Acts 9 seems consistent with that. This seems the best theory for Paul, but it never seems to happen again, nor does it correspond with the fact that Paul believed to have seen him physically.

As we can see, most of the objections can be denied by their basic flaws, but overall none of them can explain all the facts sufficiently. If you take any sceptical theory, you will struggle to explain all the facts without bending it to fit in some way. However, with the resurrection, you can explain all the facts without being in trouble.

Basically, if you deny the resurrection of Jesus happening, you must either show that the evidence is false, or explain all four facts sufficiently without bending the model to fit the facts. If you think you can do that, please post it because I want to see this truth that I have missed. Otherwise, you must either accept the rational of this argument or irrationally reject it.


I didn't have time to go into a full exegesis, but if you want me to expand on anything feel free.