It is possible to make a case for the resurrection of Jesus even if we totally ignore the Bible, and use only historical and often non-Christian documents as evidence. To make our case we must consider four points:
1. The death of Jesus
2. The burial of Jesus
3. The empty tomb
4. The eyewitnesses
The Death of Jesus
To prove that Jesus was resurrected, a
good place to start is to prove that He died. Josephus, a first
century Roman Jewish historian wrote:
‘When Pilate, upon hearing him
accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him
to be crucified’.
Tacitus, a second century Roman
historian and senator wrote:
‘Christus... suffered the extreme
penalty [ie crucifixion] during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of
one of out procurators, Pontius Pilatus’.
These along with other sources make it
fairly clear that Jesus existed, and was condemned to crucifixion by
Pontius Pilate. In spite of this, some people claim that Jesus may
have survived crucifixion. This is a fairly weak argument. It
requires Jesus to have been beaten and whipped with a flagrum, an
ordeal so painful that many died in the process - indeed Jesus was in
so much pain afterwards that He was unable to carry His Cross up the
hill. It then requires Him to be crucified, whilst wearing a crown of
thorns, by a professional crucifixion team who, not only had they
done this countless times before, but risked being put to death
themselves if a victim survived. It requires Him to then survive a
spear in the side (most likely into the heart), again by a
professional execution team, and to have been transported to the
tomb, where He woke up and managed to unwrap Himself from heavy
cloths soaked in spices, which almost certainly would have suffocated Him had He still been alive. He then had to move a stone so heavy it
took a team of Romans to roll into place, then overpower between two
and fourteen hardened, trained and armed roman soldiers, and then run
off and appear to his disciples.
However, some may cite Josephus’
account of a man who survived crucifixion. It is important to note
that this man was one of three who were friends of Josephus. Upon
seeing their execution he asked the roman governor, Titus, to take
them down, and all three of them received the best medical attention
of the day. Only one of them survived, and that was with medical
attention and without having a spear thrust into his side.
The Burial of Jesus
Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member
of the Jewish Sanhedrin, obtained Jesus’ body from Pilate for
burial in Joseph’s own tomb. We know this from all four Gospels,
but we can be fairly sure this is true as it is unlikely that the
disciples would have invented the story that Jesus was buried by a
well known person, whom people knew and check the account with. It’s
especially unlikely it was invented seeing as he was a member of the
Sanhedrin, who sentenced Jesus to death, so would have every reason
to rebuke the disciples account if it were not true.
According to the record He was buried
in Joseph’s private tomb, and his burial was witnessed by the women
from Galilee and the two Marys. The tomb was new, so there could be
no confusion about the body. It is also highly unlikely that the
location of the tomb was lost. It was in Joseph of Arimathea’s
private garden, and with the burial being witnessed by both Joseph
and Joanna, wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household. With
such important and intelligent people involved, it is unlikely that
the location of the tomb was confused.
Finally, Jesus was wrapped in burial
cloths containing up to 25kg of spices. If Jesus were alive then He
almost certainly would have been suffocated by the cloths, and if He
hadn’t been it is highly unlikely that He would have been able to
unwrap Himself from them in His post-crucifixion state. The tomb was
secured by Joseph by a large disc shaped stone that fitted into a
groove in the side of the tomb. Fairly easy to roll into place, but
requiring several men to roll away. The Jewish leaders had the stone
officially sealed, and had a number of guards placed at the entrance
of the tomb. This seems extremely likely, for a start the Jewish
authorities circulated a story about the guards falling asleep when
Jesus’ body went missing - which if anything proves there were
guards and proves the tomb was empty. It also makes sense as
something the authorities would do, they were very nervous about any
claims that Jesus might not be dead.
The Empty Tomb
All four of the Gospels agree that the
tomb was found empty when the Christian women came early in the
morning on the first day of the week, so as to finish encasing Jesus’
body in spices. The gospels also agree that the disciples, upon
investigating the women’s claims, also found the tomb empty. From
this we gather that when early Christians talked of the resurrection
of Jesus, they meant He had been genuinely resurrected in the same
body - not a new and unconnected body. This is important as some
theologians argue that Christian reports of the resurrection may be
no more than mystical accounts of a spiritual resurrection - we know
from the Gospels and from historical evidence that this is not what
Christians claimed.
Next, what is interesting about the
empty tomb is that the first people who told the world that the tomb
was empty were the Jewish authorities - the last people who wanted it
to be the case!
Matthew 28: 11 - While the women
were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported
to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the
chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave
the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are
to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away
while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor,
we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So the
soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this
story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
Although some argue about the
authenticity of this story, saying that it may have been a myth
created later, this is unlikely to be the case. We know that it was
probably published around 60 AD, and it also has all the marks of
being created for circulation among Jews (as indeed does the entire Gospel of Matthew). It would have been circulated around Jerusalem
and beyond, so if it was a myth then people could easily check for
themselves by checking the tomb to see if it’s empty or not.
Assuming the story is true, then the only reason the Jewish
authorities would have circulated the story if it was indeed true
that the tomb was empty. If it hadn’t been, then they could simply
have produced the body and Christianity would have been crushed there
and then - Jesus was a celebrity after all.
However, what if the story is true,
what if the guards did fall asleep? Well, it’s scarcely conceivable
that the authorities would have trusted such a sensitive job to
guards who would fall asleep on the job. We know there were up to 14
guards, so the idea that they all fell asleep at once makes this even
more unlikely. And in any case, if they had fallen asleep then how
would they have known what happened, and been able to identify the
disciples as the culprits? This propaganda by the Jewish authorities
is extremely compelling evidence for the empty tomb, they simply had
absolutely no conceivable reason to lie about the tomb being empty if
it wasn’t.
As a side note, an inscription found in
the nineteenth century, dating to AD 30-40, contains the ‘Edict of
Nazareth’ which proclaimed robbery or desecration of a tomb to be
punishable by the death penalty. Historians believe that something
pretty unusual must have happened around this time for such a severe
edict to be issued - perhaps the robbery of Joseph’s tomb?
Next, we can consider the disciples
explanation of the empty tomb. It cannot be emphasised enough how
important this point is. These disciples died excruciating deaths,
and most of them were Jews of the highest moral character. Is it
really conceivable that they came up with the worlds most elaborate
conspiracy theory, and died excruciating deaths for this belief?
Well, people die for things they believe in all the time, a
disbeliever might say - look at suicide bombers. But that’s exactly
the point! People die for things they believe in, not lies
they concocted.
Finally, the people involved make it
even more unlikely that the disciples made up the story. The Gospels
describe women, the two Marys and Salome. Seeing as women couldn’t
even testify in a court at this time, it’s highly unlikely that if
the story was made up that women would have been chosen as the first
witnesses - it’s rather an embarrassing fact, which the disciples
probably only put in because it was true.
As a final note, we can consider the
physical evidence at the tomb, such as the grave cloths. Grave
robbing was common in the ancient world, however the idea that Jesus’
tomb was robbed seems incredibly unlikely. Ignoring the armed guards
outside, there is no reason for tomb robbers to have stolen Jesus’
body but to leave the grave cloths which were soaked in extremely
valuable spices. Even if for some strange reason the tomb robbers had
just wanted the body, then there’s no real reason for them to go to
all the trouble of unwrapping Jesus’ body before taking it.
It is important to remember this third
point very well. In the words of the historian, Sir Norman Anderson,
“The empty tomb, then, forms a veritable rock on which all
rationalistic theories of the resurrection dash themselves in vain.”
The Eyewitnesses
Christians did not, however, just
assert that the tomb was empty. They claimed that Jesus had risen
from the dead, and that they had seen, spoke to and even eaten with Him. Seeing as Jesus appeared to over 500 people it is almost certain
that people believed there to be resurrection appearances - when Paul
references them He encourages people to go and check with these
people. However, atheists might say that these people had
hallucinations. There are four reasons this is unlikely:
- Hallucinations usually appear to people of an imaginative temperament, but all the disciples were very different - from fishermen to tax collectors.
- Hallucinations tend to be of expected events, however the disciples did not expect to see Jesus - many of them were in hiding for example.
- Hallucinations tend to occur over a prolonged period, either increasing or decreasing. However Christ’s appearances occurred frequently over a period of 40 days then abruptly stopped. This is not consistent with normal hallucinations.
- Most importantly, many people saw Jesus at the same time on different instances. This would require a mass hallucination, which is absolutely not possible. By its nature a hallucination is in the mind, and so there is no way for someone else to share the experience. For 500 people to experience the same thing from a collective hallucination is absurd, as collective hallucinations have never been recorded. For one person, Jesus might be floating on a cloud, for another, he might be riding a donkey - however everyone saw the same thing!
“Any theory of hallucination falls
down on the fact that on three separate occasions the hallucination
was not immediately recognized as Jesus.” (Luke 24:13, John 20:15,
21:4)
Finally:
- Saul's transformation to Paul on the road to Damascus.
- Many eyewitnesses named, so they could be checked by people
- Close but not exact testimonies.
- Resurrection predicted in the Old Testament.
Credits - John Lennox (much of the research material)
