Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Part 1

Is there evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Or is Christianity simply a matter of blind faith?

It claims not to be. According to the Gospels, Jesus said his being “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” would be the “sign” that he came from God in fulfillment of Old Testament scriptures (Matthew 12:39-40). This is an obvious reference to his death, burial, and resurrection on the third day. Paul said that God “has given proof…to everyone” that he would judge the world by Jesus “by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). He also wrote, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

If the resurrection is supposed to prove so much, what evidence do we have today that it really happened?

Quite a bit.

The Testimony of Ancient Documents

We possess many ancient documents that tell us about the beginnings of Christianity. Scholars call these primary source documents. A primary source document is a first-hand account of a topic. Some of the primary source documents are extra-biblical (outside of the Bible).

The four Gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians are also primary source documents. They record Jesus’s death as well as eyewitness testimonies of Jesus’s subsequent resurrection.

A few skeptics object that these documents have not been accurately transmitted. That is, they claim the biblical sources must have been altered over time. But this is not true. Scholars use what’s called the bibliographical test to gauge how accurately ancient documents have been transmitted.

The bibliographical test examines the reliability of ancient manuscripts.

This test compares the number of surviving manuscripts of ancient documents and how much time elapsed between the earliest surviving copy and the date the original manuscript was handwritten.

Clay Jones explains:

The bibliographical test examines manuscript reliability, and for more than a generation Christian apologists have employed it to substantiate the transmissional reliability of the New Testament. The bibliographical test compares the closeness of the New Testament’s oldest extant manuscripts to the date of its autographs (the original handwritten documents) and the sheer number of the New Testament’s extant manuscripts with the number and earliness of extant manuscripts of other ancient documents such as Homer, Aristotle, and Herodotus.

Since the New Testament manuscripts outstrip every other ancient manuscript in sheer number and proximity to the autographs, the New Testament should be regarded as having been accurately transmitted. 

Clay Jones, “The Bibliographical Test Updated,” The Christian Research Journal

In other words, the bibliographical test shows that the biblical texts were accurately copied.

Ancient Documents Establish Key Facts

Now let’s move on to key facts that the primary source documents establish. Even skeptical and atheist scholars agree on a surprising number of basic facts.

1) Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.

That Jesus was crucified around AD 30 is a fact of history attested to in multiple primary source documents, including documents written by those who didn’t believe Jesus rose from the dead.

For example, the Roman historian Tacitus (56–120) wrote,

Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.

Tacitus, Annals

Of course, the “extreme penalty” is crucifixion.

Skeptic and co-chair of the Jesus Seminar John Dominic Crossan writes,

That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.

John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1987), 179 .

The biblical sources also record the crucifixion: Matthew 27:32-31; Mark 15:21-47; Luke 23:18-54; John 19; Acts 2:23, 36; 4:10; and 1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2; 2:8. Dr. Gary Habermas and Dr. Michael Licona write that the evidence for this and other data we’ll look at

are so strongly evidenced historically that nearly every scholar regards them as reliable facts.

Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), 48.

2) Jesus’s tomb was found empty.

The four Gospels record that Jesus’s dead body was laid in a tomb, but the tomb was found empty days later. Here’s what else they record.

A Jewish leader placed Jesus’s dead body in a tomb.

All four Gospels record that a member of the Jewish ruling council named Joseph of Arimathea removed Jesus’s dead body from the cross and laid it in his own tomb (Matthew 27:57-60; Mark 15:42-46; Luke 23:50-53; John 19:38-42). This is significant because it is highly unlikely that the Gospel authors would fabricate this detail since it would have been easily verifiable by people alive at the time. Additionally, the early Christians blamed the Jewish leaders for the crucifixion, which makes it incredulous that they would invent a story about one of them attending to Jesus’s body.

Details like these are why cofounder and president emeritus of Internet Infidels, Jeffrey Jay Lowder, writes,

The burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea has a high final probability.

Jeffrey Jay Lowder, “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig,” in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005), 265–66.

The tomb was found empty.

Next, the four Gospels report that on the third day after burial, women found the tomb empty (Matthew 28:1-15; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-10). Clay Jones explains the significance:

That the Gospels record women as being the first to discover the empty tomb makes it likely because of what is called the “criterion of embarrassment.” The criterion of embarrassment is a type of critical analysis where authors are presumed to be telling the truth if they record something that might be embarrassing to them or their cause. In short, no one in first-century Palestine would concoct a story with women taking the lead in the most vital discovery of Christianity!

Clay Jones, Immortal: How the Fear of Death Drives Us and What We Can Do About It (Oregon: Harvest House, 2020).

They record that after that, two disciples found the tomb empty (Luke 24:12; John 20:2-7).

The Jews claimed the disciples stole the body.

Matthew wrote that the Jewish leaders paid the guards who were watching the tomb to say that the disciples came at night while the guards slept and stole the body (Matthew 28:11-15). Extra-biblical documents attest to this report too. Justin Martyr (100–165) in his dialog with the Jew Trypho wrote:

You have sent chosen and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilaean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven.

Justin Martyr, “Dialog with Trypho,” in Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers, vol. 2, Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, trans. Marcus Dods, George Reith, and B.P. Pratten, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1879), 235.

Why would the Jewish leaders claim Jesus’s body was stolen unless the tomb was empty? Additionally, if the Jewish leaders weren’t saying this, why would Matthew report this embarrassing detail?

Without an empty tomb, Christianity wouldn’t have begun.

Finally, if the tomb wasn’t empty, all the Jewish and Roman leaders had to do to quell Christianity was to produce Jesus’s body. Habermas and Licona note,

In the arid climate of Jerusalem, a corpse’s hair, stature, and distinctive wounds would have been identifiable even after fifty days.

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus , 70.

Christianity’s critics nowhere claimed to have found his body. Instead, they claimed the disciples stole the body. That is why

…roughly 75 percent of scholars on the subject accept the empty tomb as a historical fact.

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus , 70.

3) Soon after the crucifixion, people said they saw Jesus alive.

The primary source documents tell us that Jesus’s followers and two former skeptics all saw Jesus alive.

Jesus’s followers claimed to see Jesus alive.

After Jesus’s crucifixion and burial, his confused and scared followers scattered and hid. But something happened that emboldened them.

Matthew recorded that he and the other ten disciples saw and spoke to the resurrected Jesus as a group (Matthew 28:16-20).

John wrote that the risen Jesus appeared to him, the other ten disciples, a woman, and others, often in groups (John 20:11-31).

Peter proclaimed to thousands that he was a witness to the fact that God had raised Jesus from the dead, as the non-Jewish historian Luke recorded (Acts 2; Acts 3:15; 4:10; etc.). Peter also wrote about the resurrection (1 Peter 1:21).

Former skeptic James saw Jesus alive.

Before the crucifixion, Jesus’s brother thought Jesus was “out of his mind” and tried to stop him from teaching publicly (Mark 3:21; John 7:5). According to an early Christian creed, the resurrected Jesus appeared to James (1 Corinthians 15:7).

Former Christian persecutor Paul claimed to see Jesus alive.

Paul (also known as Saul) was a devout Jew and a member of the strict Pharisee sect. He persecuted Jews who became Christians (Acts 8:3). Then one day he had an experience which he described as an encounter with the resurrected Jesus (Acts 9:1-9).

Jesus’s followers proclaimed the resurrection soon after the crucifixion.

I mentioned an early Christian creed. Paul quoted it here:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8

Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around AD 55 (The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 52). He wrote that he had earlier “delivered” to them what he had “received.” That means Paul received the creed before his earlier visit to Corinth.

Based on this, skeptic Gerd Lüdemann writes,

We can assume that all the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus.

Gerd Lüdemann, Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1995), 38.

Likewise, atheist Michael Goulder notes that Paul’s testimony

…goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.

Michael Goulder, “The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 48.

To Be Continued

We’ve looked at key three facts that primary source documents support. That’s all we have room for in this post. So I’ll continue with the last one and the conclusions we can make from them in my next post.

The last one’s a doozy you won’t want to miss!

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Interested in the evidence that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament promises, prophecies, & types? See my book, Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament.

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Related Posts

• Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Part 2
• My 200-Word Resurrection Witness by Clay Jones
• The Bibliographical Test Updated by Clay Jones
• Questions About the Women at the Resurrection

Books You Might Like

• Why Do You Believe That? by Mary Jo Sharp is a women’s Bible study that explains how to present evidence for Christianity
• The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona is a detailed look at how to present the evidence for the resurrection and how to answer arguments skeptics might raise
• The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus by Lee Strobel presents evidence for Christianity in an easy-to-read style
• Immortal: How the Fear of Death Drives Us And What We Can Do About It by Clay Jones (2020) has a chapter on the evidence for the resurrection